him, to fall back upon, and when this resource was in its turn
exhausted, he would coin the gold and silver throne on which he sat,
into money for their benefit.[2]

[1] About 120,000 pounds. One Euboic or Attic talent = sixty minae =
six thousand drachmae = 243 pounds 15 shillings of our money.

[2] Cf. the language of Tissaphernes, Thuc. viii. 81.

His audience thanked him for what he said, and further begged him to
fix the rate of payment for the seamen at one Attic drachma per
man,[3] explaining that should this rate of payment be adopted, the
sailors of the Athenians would desert, and in the end there would be a
saving of expenditure. Cyrus complimented them on the soundness of
their arguments, but said that it was not in his power to exceed the
injunctions of the king. The terms of agreement were precise, thirty
minae[4] a month per vessel to be given, whatever number of vessels
the Lacedaemonians might choose to maintain.

[3] About 9 3/4 pence; a drachma (= six obols) would be very high pay
for a sailor--indeed, just double the usual amount. See Thuc. vi.
8 and viii. 29, and Prof. Jowett ad loc. Tissaphernes had, in the
winter of 412 B.C., distributed one month's pay among the
Peloponnesian ships at this high rate of a drachma a day, "as his
envoy had promised at Lacedaemon;" but this he proposed to reduce
to half a drachma, "until he had asked the king's leave, promising
that if he obtained it, he would pay the entire drachma. On the
remonstrance, however, of Hermocrates, the Syracusan general, he
promised to each man a payment of somewhat more than three obols."