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33. And defended themselves stoutly for a time, but were at last either killed or taken prisoner.

34. The prisoners were bound with chains and brought back to Sestos, Artayctes and his son among them.

35. Artayctes offered the Greeks wealth if they would release him and his son, but he failed to persuade Xanthippus,

36. And in any case the men of Elaeus wished to avenge Protesilaus, entreating Xanthippus that Artayctes might be put to death;

37. And Xanthippus himself was of the same mind. So they took Artayctes to the tongue of land where the bridges of Xerxes had been fixed, and there crucified him.

38. As for Artayctes’ son, they stoned him to death before his father’s eyes as he hung nailed to the cross.

39. This done, the Athenians sailed back to Greece, carrying with them, besides other treasures and mementoes, the shore cables from the bridges of Xerxes.

Chapter 114

1. So Greece expelled the Persians; so the cradle of the West repelled the East, then more powerful and more ambitious;

2. And which, if it had prevailed, would have commenced a far different history for the world.

3. Therefore do the Greeks of that time merit gratitude, for they saved the brightest hopes of the human race, which then stood in jeopardy of dying in their infancy.

4. In the former days of Cyrus an ancestor of Artayctes, one Artembares, had urged the king to conquer the greener and more fertile lands of Europe, saying,

5. ‘When shall we have a fairer opportunity to do this, now that we are lords of so many nations, and rule all Asia?’

6. But Cyrus had disdainfully replied, ‘You can do so if you like, but do not expect to remain rulers if you do, and prepare to be ruled by others;

7. ‘For soft countries give rise to soft men; no country produces delightful fruits, and at the same time warlike men.’

8. Now the Persians of that day thought Cyrus wise, and they chose to stay in their harsh and churlish land and exercise lordship, rather than to cultivate plains and be the slaves of others.

9. But in the days of Xerxes it was proved that there were men who did not choose to be slaves of others, yet at the same time cultivated their olives and vines,

10. And speculated on all things under the sun: on the origin and nature of the universe, on the right and the good, and on the mind of man.

11. These were the fathers of the civilisation that sprang from them, which, though the East never ceased to try conquering them either in body or mind or both,

12. And sometimes succeeded for long periods, yet the ideal survived, and through the centuries found continual rebirth,

13. So that as one travels towards the setting sun one finds successors to Athens, none of them perfect, as Athens was never perfect,

14. Yet inspired in the hearts of their better citizens by the hope of becoming more so.

15. For they remember what the inheritors of those who defeated Xerxes’ host heard, which were such words as these:

16. ‘Let us take pride in what we are and what we might become, if we value our freedom and the good opinion of those who will come after us.

17. ‘We are free people, or capable of being so, in mind no less than in our institutions.

18. ‘This freedom was hard won, and might easily be lost; but not if we are vigilant.

19. ‘And for the sake of that vigilance, let us remind ourselves what we are.

20. ‘Our affairs are in the hands of the many, not the few.

21. ‘There exists equal justice to all in their private disputes, but the claim of excellence is also recognised;

22. ‘And when a citizen is in any way distinguished, he is appointed to the public service not as a matter of privilege, but as the reward of merit.

23. ‘Neither is poverty an obstacle, but a man may benefit his country whatever the obscurity of his condition.

24. ‘There is no exclusiveness in our public life, and in our private business we are not suspicious of one another, nor angry with our neighbour if he does what he likes;

25. ‘We do not turn