Page:History of Greece Vol IX.djvu/94

 72 HISTORY OF GKEECE. Sokrates were beheaded after a short imprisonment. Queen Pa- rysatis, indeed, from affection to Cyrus, not only furnished many comforts to Klearchus in the prison, by the hands of her surgeon, Ktesias, but used all her influence with her son Artaxerxes to save his life ; though her efforts were counteracted, on this occasion, by the superior influence of queen Stateira, his wife. The rivalry between these two royal women, doubtless arising out of many other circumstances besides the death of Klearchus, became soon afterwards so furious, that Parysatis caused Stateira to be poi- soned. 1 Menon was not put to death along with Ihe other generals. He appears to have taken credit at the Persian court for the treason of entrapping his colleagues into the hands of Tissaphernes. But his life was only prolonged to perish a year afterwards in disgrace and torture, probably by the requisition of Parysatis, who thus avenged the death of Klearchus. The queen-mother had always power enough to perpetrate cruelties, though not al- ways to avert them.' 3 She had already brought to a miserable end every one, even faithful defenders of Artaxerxes, concerned in the death of her son Cyrus. Though Menon thought it convenient, when brought up to Babylon, to boast of having been the instrument through whom the generals were entrapped into the fatal tent, this boast is not to be treated as matter of fact. For not only does Xenophon ex- plain the catastrophe differently, but in the delineation which he gives of Menon, dark and odious as it is in the extreme, he does not advance any such imputation ; indirectly, indeed, he sets it 1 Xen. Anab. ii, 6, 1. Ktesiae Frag. Pcrsica, c. 60, ed. Bahr ; Plutarch, Artaxerx. c, 19, 20 ; Diodor. xiv, 27. scejiis ; jubere jam poterat. Ita, simulatione irse, vinciri jussum (Marium Celsum) et majores poenas daturum, affirmans, praesenti exitio subtraxit." Ktesias (Persica, c, 60 ; compare Plutarch and Diodorus as referred to in the preceding note) attests the treason of Menon, which he probably derived from the story of Menon himself. Xenophon mentions the ignominious death of Menon, and he probably derived his information from Ktesias (see Anabasis, ii, 6, 29). The supposition that it was Parysatis who procured the death of Menon, in itself highly probable, renders all the different statements consistent and harmonious
 * Tacit. Histor. i, 45. " Othoni nondum auctoritas incrat ad prohibendum