Artaxerxes

Moreover, believing, and wishing all men to think, and say, that he had killed Cyrus with his own hand, he sent gifts to Mithridates, the one who first hit Cyrus, and ordered the bearers of the gifts to say: This is thy reward from the king because thou didst find and bring to him the trappings of the horse of Cyrus. Again, when the Carian, from whom Cyrus received the blow in the ham which brought him down, asked that he also should receive a gift, the king ordered its bearers to say: The king gives thee these things as a second prize for good tidings; for Artasyras came first, and after him thou didst come, with tidings of the death of Cyrus.

Now, Mithridates went away without a word, although he was vexed; but the wretched Carian, in his folly, gave way to a common feeling. That is, he was corrupted, it would seem, by the good things which he had, and led by them to aspire at once to things beyond his reach, so that he would not deign to take the gifts as a reward for good tidings, but was indignant, calling men to witness and crying in loud tones that it was he himself, and no one else, who had killed Cyrus, and that he was unjustly robbed of his glory. When the king heard of this, he was vehemently angry and gave orders that the man should be beheaded.

Whereupon the king’s mother, who was present, said to him: O King, do not let this accursed Carian off so easily, but leave him to me, and he shall receive the fitting reward for his daring words. So the king consigned the man to Parysatis, who ordered the executioners to take him and rack him on the wheel for ten days, then to gouge out his eyes, and finally to drop molten brass into his ears until he died.

Mithridates also came to a miserable end a little while after, owing to the same folly. For being invited to a banquet at which eunuchs of the king and of the queen-mother were present, he came decked out with raiment and gold which he had received from the king.

And when the company were at their cups, the chief eunuch of Parysatis said to him: Mithridates, how beautiful this raiment is which the king gave thee, and how beautiful the collars and bracelets! Costly, too, is thy scimitar. Verily the king has made thee happy in the admiring eyes of all men. Then Mithridates, now flushed with wine, replied: Sparamizes, what do these things amount to? Surely my services to the king on that day were worthy of greater and more beautiful gifts.

Here Sparamizes smiled at him and said: There’s no grudging them to thee, Mithridates; but since, according to the Greek maxim, there is truth in wine, what great or brilliant exploit was it, my good fellow, to find a horse’s trappings that had slipped off and bring them to the king? In saying this, Sparamizes was not ignorant of the truth, but he wished to unveil Mithridates to the company, and therefore slyly stirred up his vanity when wine had made him talkative and robbed him of self-control.