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 GRECIAN AFFAIRS AFTER THE PERSIAN INVASION. 271 not by the prudence of her authorities, but bj a mere accident, or rather by the fact that Pausanias was not only a traitor to his countr}', but also base and cruel iu his private relations. The messenger to whom these last letters were intrusted was a native of Argilus in Thrace, a favorite and faithful slave of Pau- sanias ; once connected with him by that intimate relation which Grecian manners tolerated, and admitted even to the full confi- dence of his treasonable projects. It was by no means the in- tention of this Argilian to betray his master ; but, on receiving the letter to carry, he recollected, with some uneasiness, that none of the previous messengers had ever come back. Accordingly, he broke the seal and read it, with the full view of carrying it for- ward to its destination, if he found nothing inconsistent with his own personal safety: he had farther taken the precaution to counterfeit his master's seal, so that he could easily reclose the letter. On reading it, he found his suspicions confirmed by an ex- press injunction that the bearer was to be put to death, — a dis- covery which left him no alternative except to deliver it to the ephors. But those magistrates, who had before disbelieved the Helot informers, still refused to believe even the confidential slave with his master's autograph and seal, and with the full ac- count besides, which doubtless he would communicate at the same time, of all that had previously passed in the Persian cor- respondence, not omitting copies of those letters between Pausa- nias and Xerxes, which I have already cited from Thucydides • for in no other way can they have become public. Partly from the suspicion which, in antiquity, always attached to the tes- timony of slaves, except when it was obtained under the pre- tended guarantee of torture, partly from the peril of dealing with so exalted a criminal, — the ephors would not be satisfied with any evidence less than his own speech and their own ears. They directed the ArgiUan slave to plant himself as a suppliant in the sacred precinct of Poseidon, near Cape Taenarus, under the shelter of a double tent, or hut, behind which two of them concealed themselves. Apprized of this unexpected mark of alarm, Pausanias hastened to the temple, and demanded the rea- son : upon which the slave disclosed his knowledge of the con- tents of the letter, and complained bitterly that, after long and ^thful service, — with a secrecy never once betrayed, through-