the alternative either of exile or of utter destitution.[67] A stream called Lissus, which seems to have been of no great importance, is said to have been drunk up by the army, together with a lake of some magnitude near Pistyrus.[68] [65] Herodot. vii, 109, 111, 118. [66] This sum of four hundred talents was equivalent to the entire annual tribute charged in the Persian king’s rent-roll, upon the satrapy comprising the western and southern coast of Asia Minor, wherein were included all the Ionic and Æolic Greeks, besides Lykians, Pamphylians, etc. (Herodot. iii, 90.) [67] Herodot. vii, 118-120. He gives (vii, 187) the computation of the quantity of corn which would have been required for daily consumption, assuming the immense numbers as he conjectures them, and reckoning one chœnix of wheat for each man’s daily consumption, equal to one eighth of a medimnus. It is unnecessary to examine a computation founded on such inadmissible data. [68] Herodot. vii, 108, 109. Through the territory of the Edonian Thracians and the Pierians, between Pangæus and the sea, Xerxes and his army reached the river Strymon at the important station called Ennea Hodoi, or Nine-Roads, afterwards memorable by the foundation of Amphipolis. Bridges had been already thrown over the river, to which the Magian priests rendered solemn honors by sacrificing white horses and throwing them into the stream. Nor were his religious feelings satisfied without the more precious sacrifices often resorted to by the Persians: he here buried alive nine native youths and nine maidens, in compliment to Nine-Roads, the name of the Spot:[69] moreover, he also left, under the care of the Pæonians of Siris, the sacred chariot of Zeus, which had been brought from the seat of empire, but which doubtless was found inconvenient on the line of march. From the Strymon he marched forward along the Strymonic gulf, passing through the territory of the Bisaltæ, near the Greek colonies of Argilus and Stageirus, until he came to the Greek town of Akanthus, hard by the isthmus of Athos, which had been recently cut through. The fierce king of the Bisaltæ[70] refused submission to Xerxes, fled to Rhodopê for safety, and forbade his six sons to join the Persian host. Unhappily for themselves, they nevertheless did so, and when they came back he caused all of them to be blinded. [69] Herodot. vii, 114. He pronounces this savage practice to be specially Persian. The old and cruel Persian queen Amestris, wife of Xerxes, sought to prolong her own life by burying alive fourteen victims, children of illustrious men, as offerings to the subterranean god. [70] Herodot. viii, 116.