60 THALIA.

continued this conduct, her frequent appearance at
length excited the compassion of Darius; who thus
addressed her by a messenger: " Woman, king Darius :
offers you the liberty of any individual of your fam­
ily, whom you may most desire to preserve." After .
some deliberation with herself, she made this reply:
"If the king will grant me the life of any one of my
family, I choose my brother in preference to the rest"
Her determination greatly astonished the king; he
sent to her therefore a second message to this effect:
" The king desires to know why you have thought
proper to pass over your children and your husband,
and to preserve your brother; who is certainly a more
remote connexion than your children, and cannot be
so dear to you as your husband?" She answered
thus: "O king! if it please the deity, I may have an­
other husband; and if I be deprived of these, may
have other children; but as my parents are both of
them dead, it is certain that I can have no other
brother." The answer appeared to Darius very judi­
cious ; indeed he was so well pleased with it, that he
not only gave the woman the life of her brother, but
also pardoned her eldest son: the rest were all of them
put to death. Thus, at no great interval of time,
perished one of the seven conspirators.

CXX. About the time of the last illness of Camby-
ses, the following accident happened. The governor
of Sardis was a Persian, named Oroetes, who had
been promoted by Cyrus. This man conceived the
atrocious design of accomplishing the death of Poly-
crates of Samos, by whom he had never in word or
deed been injured, and whose person he never had
beheld. His assigned motive was commonly reported
to be this: Oroetes one day sitting at the gates of the
palace with another Persian, whose name was Mitro-
bates, governor of Dascylium, entered into a conver­
sation with him, which at length terminated in dis­
pute. The subject about which they contended was
military virtue: "Can you," says Mitrobates to
Oroetes, "have any pretensions to valour, who have
never added Samos to the dominions of your master,
contiguous as it is to your province; and which indeed