ic square of the town, walled in and ornamented like an artificial
fountain in a modern city. The name of this town was Celaenae.

When the army reached Celaenae and encamped there, Pythius made a great
entertainment for the officers, which, as the number was very large, was
of course attended with an enormous expense. Not satisfied with this,
Pythius sent word to the king that if he was, in any respect, in want of
funds for his approaching campaign, he, Pythius, would take great
pleasure in supplying him.

Xerxes was surprised at such proofs of wealth and munificence from a
man in comparatively a private station. He inquired of his attendants
who Pythius was. They replied that, next to Xerxes himself, he was the
richest man in the world. They said, moreover, that he was as generous
as he was rich. He had made Darius a present of a beautiful model of a
fruit-tree and of a vine, of solid gold. He was by birth, they added, a
Lydian.

Lydia was west of Phrygia, and was famous for its wealth. The River
Pactolus, which was so celebrated for its golden sands, flowed through
the country, and as the princes and nobles contrived to monopolize the
treasures which were found, both in the river itself and in the
mountains from which it flowed, some of them became immensely wealthy.

Xerxes was astonished at the accounts which he heard of Pythius's
fortune. He sent for him, and asked him what was the amount of his
treasures. This was rather an ominous question; for, under such despotic
governments as those of the Persian kings, the only real safeguard of
wealth was, often, the concealment of it. Inquiry on the part of a
government, in respect to treasures accumulated by a subject, was,
often, only a preliminary to the seizure and confiscation of them.

Pythius, however, in reply to the king's question, said that he had no
hesitation in giving his majesty full information in respect to his
fortune. He had been making, he said, a careful calculation of the
amount of it, with a view of determining how much he could offer to
contribute in aid of the Persian campaign. He found, he said, that he
had two thousand talents of silver, and four millions, wanting seven
thousand, of _staters_ of gold.

The stater was a Persian coin. Even if we knew, at the present day, its
exact value, we could not determine the precise amount denoted by the
sum which Pythius named, the value of money being subject to such vast
fluctuations in different ag