Page:Herodotus (Swayne).djvu/91

Rh —"each sheep having a truck of his own." The mention of remarkable countries and productions leads Herodotus to observe that, while the Greeks have the finest climate, as inhabiting the middle of the earth, yet the farthest inhabited regions have the finest productions—tin, amber, and gold coming, for instance, from the ends of the earth; but in respect of horses he gives the palm to the Nisæan breed of Media. Palgrave, in his Travels in Arabia, speaks of the horses of Nedjid as the "cream of the cream" of equine aristocracy.

Soon after the accession of Darius, one of his seven fellow-conspirators, Intaphernes, got into trouble. He insisted on seeing the king during his hours of privacy, and being denied, cut off the noses and ears of two of the palace officials, and hung them round their necks. This displeased the king so much that he condemned Intaphernes and all the males of his family to death. But Darius was touched with pity by the lamentations of the wife of Intaphernes, and allowed her to choose which of her family she would save. She chose her brother—explaining, when the king showed some astonishment at her selection, that such a loss could not possibly be replaced, her father and mother being dead. Pleased with her wit, Darius gave her the life of her eldest son into the bargain. Sophocles adopts the same curious sentiment in his tragedy of Antigone. The general justice of Darius would lead to the suspicion that the crime of Intaphernes was of the nature of high treason, otherwise his family would hardly have been involved in his punishment.

The story of Democedes, a famous surgeon of Crotona, who was brought to Persia as a slave, is intro-