conquer, fresh favors will be shown to you and
your descendants; I shall call you the supporters of my throne. Ye
are fighting to-day, not for me alone, but for the freedom of your own
distant homes. It is easy to perceive that Cambyses, once lord of Egypt,
will stretch out his rapacious hand over your beautiful Hellas and its
islands. I need only remind you, that they be between Egypt and your
Asiatic brethren who are already groaning under the Persian yoke. Your
acclamations prove that ye agree with me already, but I must ask for a
still longer hearing. It is my duty to tell you who has sold, not only
Egypt, but his own country to the King of Persia, in return for immense
treasures. The man's name is Phanes! You are angry and inclined to
doubt? I swear to you, that this very Phanes has accepted Cambyses' gold
and promised not only to be his guide to Egypt, but to open the gates of
your own Greek cities to him. He knows the country and the people, and
can be bribed to every perfidy. Look at him! there he is, walking by
the side of the king. See how he bows before him! I thought I had heard
once, that the Greeks only prostrated themselves before their gods. But
of course, when a man sells his country, he ceases to be its citizen.
Am I not right? Ye scorn to call so base a creature by the name of
countryman? Yes? then I will deliver the wretch's daughter into your
hands. Do what ye will with the child of such a villain. Crown her with
wreaths of roses, fall down before her, if it please you, but do not
forget that she belongs to a man who has disgraced the name of Hellene,
and has betrayed his countrymen and country!"

As he finished speaking the men raised a wild cry of rage and took
possession of the trembling child. A soldier held her up, so that her
father--the troops not being more than a bow-shot apart--could see all
that happened. At the same moment an Egyptian, who afterwards earned
celebrity through the loudness of his voice, cried: "Look here,
Athenian! see how treachery and corruption are rewarded in this
country!" A bowl of wine stood near, provided by the king, from which
the soldiers had just been drinking themselves into intoxication. A
Karian seized it, plunged his sword into the innocent child's breast,
and let the blood flow into the bowl; filled a goblet with the awful
mixture, and drained it, as if drinking to the health of the wretched
father. Phanes stood watching the scene, as if struck into a stat