was Bartja.

[This Bartja is better known under the name of Smerdis, but on what
account the Greeks gave him this name is not clear. In the
cuneiform inscriptions of Bisitun or Behistun, he is called Bartja,
or, according to Spiegel, Bardiya. We have chosen, for the sake of
the easy pronunciation, the former, which is Rawlinson's simplified
reading of the name.]

He was the son of the late, and brother of the reigning king of Persia,
and had been endowed by nature with every gift that a youth of twenty
years could desire for himself.

Around his tiara was wound a blue and white turban, beneath which hung
fair, golden curls of beautiful, abundant hair; his blue eyes sparkled
with life and joy, kindness and high spirits, almost with sauciness;
his noble features, around which the down of a manly beard was already
visible, were worthy of a Grecian sculptor's chisel, and his slender
but muscular figure told of strength and activity. The splendor of his
apparel was proportioned to his personal beauty. A brilliant star of
diamonds and turquoises glittered in the front of his tiara. An upper
garment of rich white and gold brocade reaching just below the knees,
was fastened round the waist with a girdle of blue and white, the royal
colors of Persia. In this girdle gleamed a short, golden sword, its hilt
and scabbard thickly studded with opals and sky-blue turquoises. The
trousers were of the same rich material as the robe, fitting closely
at the ankle, and ending within a pair of short boots of light-blue
leather.

The long, wide sleeves of his robe displayed a pair of vigorous arms,
adorned with many costly bracelets of gold and jewels; round his slender
neck and on his broad chest lay a golden chain.

Such was the youth who first sprang on shore. He was followed by Darius,
the son of Hystaspes, a young Persian of the blood royal, similar in
person to Bartja, and scarcely less gorgeously apparelled than he. The
third to disembark was an aged man with snow-white hair, in whose
face the gentle and kind expression of childhood was united, with the
intellect of a man, and the experience of old age. His dress consisted
of a long purple robe with sleeves, and the yellow boots worn by the
Lydians;--his whole appearance produced an impression of the greatest
modesty and a total absence of pretension.

[On account of these boots, which are constantly mentioned, Croesus
was named by the oracle "soft-foote