Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/305

 SPARTANS REFUSE THEIR ASSISTANCE. 287 abundance (gold, silver, brass, vestments, cattle, and slaves), together with the ineffective weapons and warfare of the Asiatics. The latter, he said, could be at once put down, and the former appropriated, by military training such as that of the Spartans, whose long spear, brazen helmet and breastplate, and ample shield, enabled them to despise the bow, the short javelin, the light wicker target, the turban and trowsers, of a Persian. 1 He then traced out on his brazen plan the road from Ephesus to Susa, indicating the intervening nations, all of them affording a booty more or less rich ; but he magnified especially the vast treasures at Susa: "Instead of fighting your neighbors, he con- cluded, Argeians, Arcadians, and Messenians, from whom you get hard blows and small reward, why do you not make yourself ruler of all Asia, 2 a prize not less easy than lucrative ? " Kleom- enes replied to these seductive instigations by desiring him to come for an answer on the third day. When that day arrived, he put to him the simple question, how far it was from Susa to the sea? To which Aristagoras answered, with more frankness than dexterity, that it was a three months' journey ; and he was proceeding to enlarge upon the facilities of the road when Kleom- ones interrupted him : " Quit Sparta before sunset, Milesian stranger ; you are no friend to the Lacedaemonians, if you want to carry them a three months' journey from the sea." In spite of this peremptory mandate, Aristagoras tried a last resource. he took in his hand the bough of supplication, and again went to the house of Kleomenes, who was sitting with his daughter Gorgo, a girl of eight years old. He requested Kleomenes tc send away the child, but this; was refused, and he was desired to proceed ; upon which he began to offer to the Spartan king a bribe for compliance, bidding continually higher and higher from ten talents up to fifty. At length, the little girl suddenly ex- m the public archives, and of which copies were made for private use, though the original was referred to in case of legal dispute ( Siculus Flaccus ap. Rei Agrariae Scriptores, p. 16, ed. Goes: compare Giraud, Recherches sur le Droit de Propriete, p. 116, Aix, 1838). 1 Herodot. v, 49. 6eiKvi> 6e ravra iTieye ff TJ)V rj?f yyc irtpiotiov, TTJV i$e pero kv rw irivaKi EVTeTfirj/j.h>ijv.
 * Herodot. v, 49 napexov 61 rvc'Aai^f ruoyff upxei:> evneredtf, d^Ao t