"In truth, my renown and my power are greater than those ever
possessed by Demaratus," said the Spartan musingly.

"Yet," pursued Gongylus, "it is not so much the mere extent of the
territories which the grateful Xerxes could proffer to the brave
Pausanias--it is not their extent so much that might tempt desire,
neither is it their stately forests, nor the fertile meadows, nor the
ocean-like rivers, which the gods of the East have given to the race
of Cyrus. There, free from the strange constraints which our austere
customs and solemn Deities impose upon the Greeks, the beneficent
Ormuzd scatters ever-varying delights upon the paths of men. All that
art can invent, all that the marts of the universe can afford of the
rare and voluptuous, are lavished upon abodes the splendour of which
even our idle dreams of Olympus never shadowed forth. There, instead
of the harsh and imperious helpmate to whom the joyless Spartan
confines his reluctant love, all the beauties of every clime contend
for the smile of their lord. And wherever are turned the change-loving
eyes of Passion, the Aphrodite of our poets, such as the Cytherean and
the Cyprian fable her, seems to recline on the lotus leaf or to rise
from the unruffled ocean of delight. Instead of the gloomy brows and
the harsh tones of rivals envious of your fame, hosts of friends
aspiring only to be followers will catch gladness from your smile or
sorrow from your frown. There, no jarring contests with little men,
who deem themselves the equals of the great, no jealous Ephor is
found, to load the commonest acts of life with fetters of iron custom.
Talk of liberty! Liberty in Sparta is but one eternal servitude; you
cannot move, or eat, or sleep, save as the law directs. Your very
children are wrested from you just in the age when their voices sound
most sweet. Ye are not men; ye are machines. Call you this liberty,
Pausanias? I, a Greek, have known both Grecian liberty and Persian