Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.4, 1865).djvu/205

 ALEXANDER. 197 tives the sum of a thousand talents, and offering him in exchange for his amity and alliance, all the countries on this side the river Euphrates, together with one of his daughters in marriage. These propositions he communi- cated to his friends, and when Parmenio told him, that for his part, if he were Alexander, he should readily em- brace them, "So would I," said Alexander, "if I were Parmenio." Accordingly, his answer to Darius was, that if he would come and yield himself up into his power, he would treat him with all possible kindness ; if not, he was resolved immediately to go himself and seek him. But the death of Darius's wife in childbirth made him soon after regret one part of this answer, and he showed evident marks of grief, at being thus deprived of a fur- ther opportunity of exercising his clemency and good nature, which he manifested, however, as far as he could, b}' giving her a most sumptuous funeral. Among the eunuchs who waited. in the queen's cham- ber, and were taken prisoners with the women, there was one Tireus, who getting out of the camp, fled away on horseback to Darius, to inform him of his wife's death. He, when he heard it, beating his head, and bursting into tears and lamentations, said, " Alas ! how great is the ca- lamity of the Persians ! Was it not enough that their king's consort and sister was a prisoner in her lifetime, but she must, now she is dead also, be but meanly and ob- scurely buried ? " " Oh king," replied the eunuch, " as to her funeral rites, or any respect or honor that shoidd have been shown in them, you have not the least reason to accuse the ill-fortune of your country ; for to my knowledge neither your queen Statira when alive, nor your mother, nor children, wanted any thing of their former happy condition, unless it were the light of your countenance, which I doubt not but the lord Oromasdes will yet restore to its former glory. And after her de-