Page:Key to Easy Latin Stories for beginners.djvu/44

  119.On the tenth day, the army of the Babylonians having been led out, he surrounded and slew (lit., slew, surrounded) those thousand men wbom Darius placed in tbe place agreed on. Then he led out his forces again, and slew those two thousand soldiers of Darius whom I have mentioned above. After doing these things the chief command and the guardianship of the wall was entrusted to the same man. Then Zopyrus, having opened the gate, received the Persians within the walls. So in this way the city of Babylon was taken.   120.Among the Persians, when they wish to announce anything, they do as follows. Of as many days as is the whole journey, so many horses and men stand ready at each day stage; whom neither rain, nor night, nor heat, nor snow prevents from finishing each one his own ride as quickly as possible. For he who runs first hands over his orders to the second, the second to the third; and so the orders handed (first) to one and (then) to another, pass through one man at a time.   121.A certain Spartan had a wife, by far the most beautiful of all the women who were at Speirta; and she indeed had become most beautiful from being most hideous. For since she was hideous to look at, her nurse, seeing the girl (to be) so ugly, who was the daughter of a rich father, because he used to grieve greatly on account of his daughter’s ugly face, formed the following plan. She used to carry her daily to the temple of Helena; moreover, as often as she had carried her thither, she used to place her before the image of the goddess, and, as a suppliant, used to address the goddess thus: ‘Goddess, free the girl from her ugliness. Do not endure so ugly a face.’ Now, one day when the nurse was leaving the temple, a woman is said to have appeared to her, asking of her, ‘What art thou carrying on your arm?’ And when she had 