ches are the highest
good, can never possibly attain to the perfect manhood, which we beseech
the gods to grant our boys. And if this unfortunate being happens to
have been born with an impetuous disposition, ungovernable and eager
passions, these will be only nourished and increased by bodily exercise
unaccompanied by the softening influence of music, so that at last
a child, who possibly came into the world with good qualities,
will, merely through the defects in his education, degenerate into a
destructive animal, a sensual self-destroyer, and a mad and furious
tyrant."

Rhodopis had become animated with her subject. She ceased, saw tears
in the eyes of the queen, and felt that she had gone too far and had
wounded a mother's heart,--a heart full of noble feeling. She touched
her robe, kissed its border, and said softly: "Forgive me."

Kassandane looked her forgiveness, courteously saluted Rhodopis and
prepared to leave the room. On the threshold, however, she stopped
and said: "I am not angry. Your reproaches are just; but you too must
endeavor to forgive, for I can assure you that he who has murdered the
happiness of your child and of mine, though the most powerful, is of all
mortals the most to be pitied. Farewell! Should you ever stand in need
of ought, remember Cyrus' widow, and how she wished to teach you, that
the virtues the Persians desire most in their children are magnanimity
and liberality."

After saying this she left the apartment.

On the same day Rhodopis heard that Phanes was dead. He had retired to
Crotona in the neighborhood of Pythagoras and there passed his time in
reflection, dying with the tranquillity of a philosopher.

She was deeply affected at this news and said to Croesus: "Greece has
lost one of her ablest men, but there are many, who will grow up to be
his equals. The increasing power of Persia causes me no fear; indeed, I
believe that when the barbarous lust of conquest stretches out its hand
towards us, our many-headed Greece will rise as a giant with one head of
divine power, before which mere barbaric strength must bow as surely as
body before spirit."

Three days after this, Sappho said farewell for the last time to her
grandmother, and followed the queens to Persia. Notwithstanding the
events which afterwards took place, she continued to believe that Bartja
would return, and full of love, fidelity and tender remembrance, devoted
herself entirely to the education of her child