The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [132]
17. They, on their part, kept crying out, ‘Men of Crotona, beware what you do. It is the king’s runaway slave that you are rescuing.
18. ‘Do you think Darius will tamely submit to such insults? Do you think that if you carry off the man from us, it will go well with you hereafter?
19. ‘Will you not rather be the first persons we will attack? Your city will be the first we burn, and you inhabitants will be led into slavery.’
20. The Crotoniats did not listen to these warnings. Instead they rescued Democedes and seized the trading ship which the Persians had brought from Phoenicia.
21. Thus robbed, and having lost their guide, the Persians abandoned hope of exploring the rest of Greece, and set sail for Asia.
22. They were delayed by shipwreck on their way, along the coast of Iapygia, but eventually reached Susa and told Darius what had happened.
23. These were the first Persians ever to come to Greece from Asia, sent to spy out the land, and to prepare the way for the invasion of Greece by Persia.
Chapter 36
1. Darius was not slow to respond to the defection of Democedes and the insults of the Crotoniats. First he besieged Samos, and his reason for attacking it first was this.
2. At the time when Cambyses, son of Cyrus, marched against Egypt, vast numbers of Greeks flocked to follow his conquests;
3. Some, as might have been expected, to push their trade; others, to serve in his army; others again, merely to see the land.
4. Among these last was Syloson, son of Aeaces, and brother of Polycrates, at that time an exile from Samos but later its ruler.
5. This Syloson, during his stay in Egypt, met with a singular piece of good fortune.
6. He happened one day to put on a scarlet cloak, and thus attired went into the marketplace at Memphis,
7. When no less a person than Darius, who was then one of Cambyses’ bodyguards, and therefore not at that time a man of great account,
8. Saw him, and taking a strong liking to the cloak, went up and offered to purchase it.
9. Syloson perceived how anxious he was, and by a lucky inspiration answered: ‘There is no price at which I would sell my cloak;
10. ‘But I will give it to you for nothing, seeing that you like it so much.’ Darius thanked him warmly, and accepted the garment.
11. Poor Syloson felt at the time that he had fooled away his cloak in a very simple manner; but afterwards, when Darius became king,
12. Syloson learnt that the person to whom the crown had come was the very man who had coveted his cloak in Egypt, and to whom he had freely given it.
13. So he made his way to Susa, and seating himself at the portal of the royal palace, gave out that he was a benefactor of the king.
14. Then the doorkeeper went and told Darius. Amazed at what he heard, the king said to himself, ‘What Greek can have been my benefactor, or to which of them do I owe anything, so lately as I have got the kingdom?
15. ‘Scarcely more than one or two have been here since I came to the throne. Nor do I remember that I am in the debt of any Greek.
16. ‘However, bring him in, and let me hear what he means by his boast.’
17. So the doorkeeper ushered Syloson into the presence, and the interpreters asked him who he was, and what he had done that he should call himself a benefactor of the king.
18. Then Syloson told the story of the cloak, and said that it was he who had made Darius the present.
19. Hereupon Darius exclaimed, ‘O! you most generous of men, are you indeed he who, when I had no power at all, gave me something, albeit little?
20. ‘Truly the favour is as great as a very grand present would be nowadays.
21. ‘I will therefore give you in return gold and silver without stint, that you may never repent of having rendered a service to Darius, son of Hystaspes.’
22. ‘Do not give me silver and gold, O king,’ replied Syloson, ‘but restore to me Samos, my native land, and let that be your gift to me.
23. ‘It belongs now to a slave of my family, who, when Oroetes put my brother Polycrates to death, became its master.
24. ‘Give me Samos, I beg; but give it unharmed, with