ity nine months in vain, and was about to raise the siege, when one day
Zopyrus appeared before him bleeding, and deprived of his ears and nose,
and explained that he had mutilated himself thus in order to cheat the
Babylonians, who knew him well, as he had formerly been on intimate
terms with their daughters. He said he wished to tell the haughty
citizens, that Darius had thus disfigured him, and that he had come to
them for help in revenging himself. He thought they would then place
troops at his disposal, with which he intended to impose upon them by
making a few successful sallies at first. His ultimate intention was to
get possession of the keys, and open the Semiramis gate to his friends.

These words, which were spoken in a joking tone, contrasted so sadly
with the mutilated features of his once handsome friend, that Darius
wept, and when at last the almost impregnable fortress was really won by
Zopyrus' stratagem, he exclaimed: "I would give a hundred Babylons, if
my Zopyrus had not thus mutilated himself."

He then appointed his friend lord of the giant city, gave him its entire
revenues, and honored him every year with the rarest presents. In later
days he used to say that, with the exception of Cyrus, who had no equal,
no man had ever performed so generous a deed as Zopyrus.

[Herod. III. 160. Among other presents Zopyrus received a gold
hand-mill weighing six talents, the most honorable and distinguished
gift a Persian monarch could bestow upon a subject. According to
Ktesias, Megabaezus received this gift from Xerxes.]

Few rulers possessed so many self-sacrificing friends as Darius, because
few understood so well how to be grateful.

When Syloson, the brother of the murdered Polykrates, came to Susa
and reminded the king of his former services, Darius received him as
a friend, placed ships and troops at his service, and helped him to
recover Samos.

The Samians made a desperate resistance, and said, when at last they
were obliged to yield: "Through Syloson we have much room in our land."

Rhodopis lived to hear of the murder of Hipparchus, the tyrant of
Athens, by Harmodius and Aristogiton, and died at last in the arms of
her best friends, Theopompus the Milesian and Kallias the Athenian, firm
in her belief of the high calling of her countrymen.

All Naukratis mourned for her, and Kallias sent a messenger to Susa, to
inform the king and Sappho of her death.

A few months later the satr