ou have a safe
return home."

38. Then Xerxes was exceedingly angry and made answer with these words:
"Thou wretched man, dost thou dare, when I am going on a march myself
against Hellas, and am taking my sons and my brothers and my relations
and friends, dost thou dare to make any mention of a son of thine,
seeing that thou art my slave, who ought to have been accompanying me
thyself with thy whole household and thy wife as well? Now therefore
be assured of this, that the passionate spirit of man dwells within the
ears; and when it has heard good things, it fills the body with delight,
but when it has heard the opposite things to this, it swells up with
anger. As then thou canst not boast of having surpassed the king in
conferring benefits formerly, when thou didst to us good deeds and
madest offer to do more of the same kind, so now that thou hast turned
to shamelessness, thou shalt receive not thy desert but less than thou
deservest: for thy gifts of hospitality shall rescue from death thyself
and the four others of thy sons, but thou shalt pay the penalty with the
life of the one to whom thou dost cling most." Having answered thus, he
forthwith commanded those to whom it was appointed to do these things,
to find out the eldest of the sons of Pythios and to cut him in two in
the middle; and having cut him in two, to dispose the halves, one on
the right hand of the road and the other on the left, and that the army
should pass between them by this way.

40. When these had so done, the army proceeded to pass between; and
first the baggage-bearers led the way together with their horses, and
after these the host composed of all kinds of nations mingled together
without distinction: and when more than the half had gone by, an
interval was left and these were separated from the king. For before
him went first a thousand horsemen, chosen out of all the Persians; and
after them a thousand spearmen chosen also from all the Persians, having
the points of their spears turned down to the ground; and then ten
sacred horses, called "Nesaian," 41 with the fairest possible trappings.
Now the horses are called Nesaian for this reason:--there is a wide
plain in the land of Media which is called the Nesaian plain, and this
plain produces the great horses of which I speak. Behind these ten
horses the sacred chariot of Zeus was appointed to go, which was drawn
by eight white horses; and behind the horses again followed on foot a
chariot