with my cavalry, I added to your empire the whole of Ionia,[1] the whole of Aeolis, both Phrygias[2] and Lydia, and I took Miletus by siege. All the other places I gained by voluntary surrender, and I granted you the privilege of appropriating the wealth found in them. The riches of Egypt and Cyrene, which I acquired without fighting a battle, have come to you. Coele-Syria, Palestine, and Mesopotamia are your property. Babylon, Bactra, and Susa are yours. The wealth of the Lydians, the treasures of the Persians, and the riches of the Indians are yours; and so is the External Sea. You are viceroys, you are generals, you are captains. What then have I reserved to myself after all these labours, except this purple robe and this diadem?[3] I have appropriated nothing myself, nor can any one point out my treasures, except these possessions of yours or the things which I am guarding on your behalf.[4] Individually, however, I have no motive to guard them, since I feed on the same fare as you do, and I take only the same amount of sleep. Nay, I do not think that my fare is as good as that of those among you who live luxuriously; and I know that I often sit up at night to watch for you, that you may be able to sleep.
- ↑ Ion is the Hebrew Javan without the vowel points. In the Persian name for the Greeks Iaones, one of these vowels appear. See Aeschylus Persae, 178, 562).
- ↑ Larger Phrygia formed the western part of the great central table-land of Asia Minor. Smaller Phrygia was also called Hellespontine Phrygia, because it lay near the Hellespont. See Strabo, xii. 8.
- ↑ A blue band worked with white, which went round the tiara of the Persian kings.
- ↑ Cf. Ammianus, xxv. 4, 15: "(Julianus) id aliquoties praedicans, Alexandrum Magnum, ubi haberet thesauros interrogatum, apud amicos benevole respondisse."
