man may, namely that in sailing round Libya they had the sun on their
right hand.

43. Thus was this country first known to be what it is, and after this
it is the Carthaginians who make report of it; for as to Sataspes the
son of Teaspis the Achaimenid, he did not sail round Libya, though he
was sent for this very purpose, but was struck with fear by the length
of the voyage and the desolate nature of the land, and so returned back
and did not accomplish the task which his mother laid upon him. For this
man had outraged a daughter of Zopyros the son of Megabyzos, a virgin;
and then when he was about to be impaled by order of king Xerxes for
this offence, the mother of Sataspes, who was a sister of Dareios,
entreated for his life, saying that she would herself lay upon him a
greater penalty than Xerxes; for he should be compelled (she said) to
sail round Libya, until in sailing round it he came to the Arabian gulf.
So then Xerxes having agreed upon these terms, Sataspes went to Egypt,
and obtaining a ship and sailors from the Egyptians, he sailed to the
Pillars of Heracles; and having sailed through them and turned the point
of Libya which is called the promontory of Soloeis, he sailed on towards
the South. Then after he had passed over much sea in many months, as
there was needed ever more and more voyaging, he turned about and sailed
back again to Egypt: and having come from thence into the presence of
king Xerxes, he reported saying that at the furthest point which he
reached he was sailing by dwarfish people, who used clothing made from
the palm-tree, and who, whenever they came to land with their ship, left
their towns and fled away to the mountains: and they, he said, did no
injury when they entered into the towns, but took food 4301 from them
only. And the cause, he said, why he had not completely sailed round
Libya was that the ship could not advance any further but stuck fast.
Xerxes however did not believe that he was speaking the truth, and since
he had not performed the appointed task, he impaled him, inflicting upon
him the penalty pronounced before. A eunuch belonging to this Sataspes
ran away to Samos as soon as he heard that his master was dead,
carrying with him large sums of money; and of this a man of Samos took
possession, whose name I know, but I purposely pass it over without
mention.

44. Of Asia the greater part was explored by Dareios, who desiring to
know of the river Indus, which is a secon