East. There were two of them; one of tall stature and noble presence,
in the prime of life; the other more advanced in years, of a coarser
make, a yet darker complexion, and of a sullen and gloomy countenance.
They were not dressed alike; the taller, a Persian of pure blood, wore
a short tunic that reached only to the knees: and the dress fitted to
his shape without a single fold. On his round cap or bonnet glittered
a string of those rare pearls, especially and immemorially prized in
the East, which formed the favourite and characteristic ornament of
the illustrious tribe of the Pasargadae. The other, who was a Mede,
differed scarcely in his dress from Pausanias himself, except that he
was profusely covered with ornaments; his arms were decorated with
bracelets, he wore earrings, and a broad collar of unpolished stones
in a kind of filagree was suspended from his throat. Behind the
Orientals stood Gongylus, leaning both hands on his staff, and
watching the approach of Pausanias with the same icy smile and
glittering eye with which he listened to the passionate invectives
or flattered the dark ambition of the Spartan. The Orientals saluted
Pausanias with a lofty gravity, and Gongylus drawing near, said: "Son
of Cleombrotus, the illustrious Ariamanes, kinsman to Xerxes, and of
the House of the Achaemenids, is so far versed in the Grecian tongue
that I need not proffer my offices as interpreter. In Datis, the Mede,
brother to the most renowned of the Magi, you behold a warrior worthy
to assist the arms even of Pausanias."

"I greet ye in our Spartan phrase, 'The beautiful to the good,'" said
Pausanias, regarding the Barbarians with an earnest gaze. "And I
requested Gongylus to lead ye hither in order that I might confer with
ye more at ease, than in the confinement to which I regret ye are
still sentenced. Not in prisons should be held the conversations of
brave men."