Greece -- History -- To 146 B.C.; History, Ancient
187. This same queen also contrived a snare of the following kind:—Over
that gate of the city through which the greatest number of people passed
she set up for herself a tomb above the very gate itself. And on the
tomb she engraved writing which said thus: "If any of the kings of
Babylon who come after me shall be in want of wealth, let him open my
tomb and take as much as he desires; but let him not open it for any
other cause, if he be not in want; for that will not be well." 191 This
tomb was undisturbed until the kingdom came to Dareios; but to Dareios
it seemed that it was a monstrous thing not to make any use of this
gate, and also, when there was money lying there, not to take it,
considering that the money itself invited him to do so. Now the reason
why he would not make any use of this gate was because the corpse would
have been above his head as he drove through. He then, I say, opened the
tomb and found not indeed money but the corpse, with writing which said
thus: "If thou hadst not been insatiable of wealth and basely covetous,
thou wouldest not have opened the resting-places of the dead."
188. This queen then is reported to have been such as I have described:
and it was the son of this woman, bearing the same name as his father,
Labynetos, and being ruler over the Assyrians, against whom Cyrus was
marching. Now the great king makes his marches not only well furnished
192 from home with provisions for his table and with cattle, but also
taking with him water from the river Choaspes, which flows by Susa, of
which alone and of no other river the king drinks: and of this water of
the Choaspes boiled, a very great number of waggons, four-wheeled
and drawn by mules, carry a supply in silver vessels, and go with him
wherever he may march at any time.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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