When in the mouldering urn the monarch lies, His fame in lively characters remains, Or graved in monumental histories, Or deck’d and painted in Aonian strains. Thus fresh and fragrant and immortal blooms The virtue, Crœsus, of thy gentle mind; While fate to infamy and hatred dooms Sicilia’s tyrant[207], scorn of human kind; Whose ruthless bosom swelled with cruel pride, When in his brazen bull the broiling wretches died. Him, therefore, not in sweet society, The generous youth, conversing, ever name; Nor with the harp’s delightful melody Mingle his odious, inharmonious fame. The first, the greatest, bliss on man conferred, Is in the acts of virtue to excel; The second to obtain their high reward, The soul-exalting praise of doing well. Who both these lots attains is bless’d indeed; Since fortune here below can give no higher meed. PINDAR. _Pyth._ i.—WEST. On the division of the Persian monarchy into satrapies, Sardis became the residence of the satrap who had the government of the sea-coast. In the third year of the war arising from the revolt of the Ionians against the Persian authority, the Ionians having collected all their forces together, set sail for Ephesus, whence, leaving their ships, they marched by land to Sardis. Finding that city in a defenceless state, they made themselves masters of it; but the citadel, into which the Persian governor Artaphernes had retired, they were not able to force. Most of the houses were roofed with reeds. An Ionian soldier therefore having, whether with intention or by accident was never ascertained, set fire to a house, the flames flew from roof to roof, and the whole city was entirely destroyed, almost in a moment. In this destruction the Persians implicated the Athenians; for there were many Athenians among the Ionians. When Darius, therefore, heard of the conflagration, he immediately determined on making war upon Greece; and that he might never forget the resolution, he appointed an officer to the duty of crying out to him every night at supper,—“Sir, remember the Athenians.” It is here, also, to be remembered, that the cause why the Persians afterwards destroyed all the temples they came near in Greece, was in consequence of the temple of Cybele, the tutelary deity of Sardis, having been, at that period, reduced to ashes. Xerxes, on his celebrated expedition, having arrived at Sardis, sent heralds into Greece, demanding earth and water. He did not, however, send either to Athens or Lacedæmon. His motive for enforcing his demand to the other cities, was the expectation that they, who had before refused earth and water to Darius, would, from the alarm at his approach, send it now. In this, however, he was for the most part mistaken. Xerxes wintered at this city.