n up and read to the
ambassadors, when Leon, in the hearing of the king, exclaimed: "Upon my
word! Athenians, it strikes me it is high time you looked for some other
friend than the great king." The secretary reported the comment of the
Athenian envoy, and produced presently an altered copy of the document,
with a clause inserted: "If the Athenians have any better and juster
views to propound, let them come to the Persian court and explain them."
(40)

(40) See Grote, "H. G." x. 402; and "Ages." viii. 3.

Thus the ambassadors returned each to his own home and were variously
received. Timagoras, on the indictment of Leon, who proved that his
fellow-commissioner not only refused to lodge with him at the king's
court, but in every way played into the hands of Pelopidas, was put to
death. Of the other joint commissioners, the Eleian, Archidamus, was
loud in his praises of the king and his policy, because he had shown
a preference to Elis over the Arcadians; while for a converse reason,
because the Arcadian league was slighted, Antiochus not only refused to
accept any gift, but brought back as his report to the general assembly
of the Ten Thousand, (41) that the king appeared to have a large army of
confectioners and pastry-cooks, butlers and doorkeepers; but as for
men capable of doing battle with Hellenes, he had looked carefully, and
could not discover any. Besides all which, even the report of his wealth
seemed to him, he said, bombastic nonsense. "Why, the golden plane-tree
that is so belauded is not big enough to furnish shade to a single
grasshopper." (42)

(41) See above, VI. v. 6; Freeman, "Hist. Fed. Gov." 202; Demosth. "F.
L." 220, etc.

(42) Or, "the golden plane-tree they romance about would not suffice
to," etc.

At Thebes a conference of the states had been convened to listen to the
great king's letter. The Persian who bore the missive merely pointed
to the royal seal, and read the document; whereupon the Thebans invited
all, who wished to be their friends, to take an oath to what they had
just heard, as binding on the king and on themselves. To which the
ambassadors from the states replied that they had been sent to listen to
a report, not to take oaths; if oaths were wanted, they recommended
the Thebans to send ambassadors to the several states. The Arcadian
Lycomedes, moreover, added that the congress ought not to be held at
Thebes at all, but at the seat of war, wherever that might be. Thi