at the first so freely spake his mind to the king, and advised
him not to lead his army against Greece), when he heard that
Xerxes was in tears, went to him, and said:

"'How different, sire, is what thou art now doing from what thou
didst a little while ago! Then thou didst congratulate thyself,
and now, behold! thou weepest.'

"'There came upon me,' replied he, 'a sudden pity when I thought
of the shortness of man's life, and considered that of all this
host, so numerous as it is, not one will be alive when a hundred
years are gone by.'

"'And yet there are sadder things in life than that,' returned
the other. 'Short. as our time is, there is no man, whether it
be here among this multitude or elsewhere, who is so happy as
not to have felt the wish--I will not say once, but full many
a time--that he were dead rather than alive. Calamities fall
upon us, sicknesses vex and harass us, and make life, short though
it be, to appear long. So death, through the wretchedness of
our life, is a most sweet refuge to our race; and God, who gives
us the tastes we enjoy of pleasant times, is seen, in his very
gift, to be envious.'"
--Trans. by RAWLINSON.

Much that is told about Xerxes--how he cut off Mount Athos from
the main-land by a canal; how he made a bridge of boats across
the Hellespont, where it is three miles wide, and ordered the
waters to be scourged because they destroyed the bridge; how he
constructed new bridges, over which his vast army crossed the