MELPOMENE. 137

whilst the Scythians were a second time engaged in
a long and fruitless pursuit. From this period the
Scythians considered the Ionians as the basest and
most contemptible of mankind, speaking of them as
men attached to servitude, and incapable of free­
dom ; and always using towards them the most re­
proachful terms.

CXLIII. Darius proceeding through Thrace, ar­
rived at Sestos of the Chersonese, from whence he
passed over into Asia : he left, however, some troops
in Europe, under the command of Megabyzus, a Per­
sian, of whom it is reported, that one day in conver­
sation the king spoke in terms of the highest honour.
He was about to eat some pomegranates, and having
opened one, he was asked by his brother Artabanus,
what thing there was which he would desire to pos­
sess in as great a quantity as there were seeds in the
pomegranate? "I would rather," he replied, "have
so many Megabyzi, than see Greece under my pow­
er." This compliment he paid him publicly, and at
this time he left him at the head of eighty thousand
men.

CXLIV. This same person also, for a saying which
I shall relate, left behind him in the Hellespont a
name never to be forgotten. Being at Byzantium, he
learned Upon inquiry that the Chalcedonians had
built their city seventeen years before the Byzantians
had founded theirs: he observed, that the Chalcedo­
nians must then have been blind,—or otherwise, hav­
ing the choice of a situation in all respects better, they
would never have preferred one so very inferior. Me­
gabyzus, being thus left to the command of the Hel­
lespont, reduced all those who were in opposition to
the Medes.

t CXLV. About the same time another great expe­
dition was set on foot in Lybia, the occasion of which
I shall relate: it will be first necessary to premise this:
—the posterity of the Argonauts being expelled from
Lemnos, by the Pelasgians, who had carried off from
Brauron, some Athenian women, sailed to Lacedae-
mon; they disembarked at Taygetus, where they made
a great fire. The Laeedesmonian» perceiving thi«,