But if the form and features of Pausanias were eminently those of
the purest race of Greece, the dress which he assumed was no less
characteristic of the Barbarian. He wore, not the garb of the noble
Persian race, which, close and simple, was but a little less manly
than that of the Greeks, but the flowing and gorgeous garments of the
Mede. His long gown, which swept the earth, was covered with flowers
wrought in golden tissue. Instead of the Spartan hat, the high Median
cap or tiara crowned his perfumed and lustrous hair, while (what
of all was most hateful to Grecian eyes) he wore, though otherwise
unarmed, the curved scimitar and short dirk that were the national
weapons of the Barbarian. And as it was not customary, nor indeed
legitimate, for the Greeks to wear weapons on peaceful occasions
and with their ordinary costume, so this departure from the common
practice had not only in itself something offensive to the jealous
eyes of his comrades, but was rendered yet more obnoxious by the
adoption of the very arms of the East.

By the side of Pausanias was a man whose dark beard was already sown
with grey. This man, named Gongylus, though a Greek--a native of
Eretria, in Euboea--was in high command under the great Persian king.
At the time of the barbarian invasion under Datis and Artaphernes,
he had deserted the cause of Greece and had been rewarded with the
lordship of four towns in Aeolis. Few among the apostate Greeks were
more deeply instructed in the language and manners of the Persians;
and the intimate and sudden friendship that had grown up between him
and the Spartan was regarded by the Greeks with the most bitter and
angry suspicion. As if to show his contempt for the natural jealousy
of his countrymen, Pausanias, however, had just given to the Eretrian
the government of Byzantium itself, and with the command of the
citadel had entrusted to him the custody of the Persian prisoners