[401] Herodot. ix, 104, 105. Diodorus (xi, 36) seems to follow different authorities from Herodotus: his statement varies in many particulars, but is less probable. Herodotus does not specify the loss on either side, nor Diodorus that of the Greeks; but the latter says that forty thousand Persians and allies were slain. [402] Herodot. ix, 105. The dispersed Persian army, so much of it at least as had at first found protection on the heights of Mykalê, was withdrawn from the coast forthwith to Sardis under the command of Artayntês, whom Masistês, the brother of Xerxes, bitterly reproached on the score of cowardice in the recent defeat: the general was at length so maddened by a repetition of these insults, that he drew his cimeter and would have slain Masistês, had he not been prevented by a Greek of Halikarnassus named Xenagoras,[403] who was rewarded by Xerxes with the government of Kilikia. Xerxes was still at Sardis, where he had remained ever since his return, and where he conceived a passion for the wife of his brother Masistês; the consequences of his passion entailed upon that unfortunate woman sufferings too tragical to be described, by the orders of his own queen, the jealous and savage Amêstris.[404] But he had no fresh army ready to send down to the coast, so that the Greek cities, even on the continent, were for the time practically liberated from Persian supremacy, while the insular Greeks were in a position of still greater safety. [403] Herodot. ix, 107. I do not know whether we may suppose Herodotus to have heard this from his fellow-citizen Xenagoras. [404] Herodot. ix, 108-113. He gives the story at considerable length: it illustrates forcibly and painfully the interior of the Persian regal palace.