Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/457

 ARTAXERXES. 449 ner in the kingdom after the death of Artaxerxes. And truly it was rumored that abeady Ochus maintained a too intimate correspondence with her. This, however, was quite unknown to the king ; who, being wiUing to put down in good time his son Ochus's hopes, lest, by his attempting the same things his uncle Cyrus did, wars and contentions might again afflict his kingdom, proclaimed Darius, then twenty-five * years old, his successor, and gave him leave to wear the upright hat, as they call it It was a rule and usage of Persia, that the heir apparent to the crown should beg a boon, and that he that declared him so should give whatever he asked, provided it were within the sphere of his power. Darius therefore re- quested Aspasia, in former time the most prized of the concubines of Cyrus, and now belonging to the king. She was by birth a Phoctean, of Ionia, born of free parents, and well educated. Once when Cyrus was at supper, she was led in to him with other women, who, when they were sat down by him, and he began to sport and dally and talk jestingly with them, gave way freely to his advances. But she stood by in silence, refusing to come when Cyrus called her, and when his chamber- lains were going to force her towards him, said, " Whoso- ever lays hands on me shall rue it ; " so that she seemed to the company a sullen and rude-mannered person. However, Cyrus was well pleased, and laughed, saying to the man that brought the women, " Do you not see of a certainty that this woman alone of all that came with pentecoston, corrected on conjee- sixt)'-two years, is quite out of tare to pempton kai eiloston. Fifty keeping with this youthfulness of seems inconsistent with the Ian- the son and declared successor ; guage of Plutarch a little further and scarcely compatible at all with on, where he speaks of him as a the story of his passion for Aspa- young man. But the length of sia. the reign of Aitaxeries, if it re- VOL. V. 29
 * The manuscripts read " fifty," ally lasted, as Plutarch says, for