But the leading men appeased the anger of the multitude, and Biton being thus freed from his imminent danger, contrary to what he had anticipated, soon afterwards conspired against the very man to whom he owed his safety. But when his treachery came to their knowledge they seized both Biton himself and Boxus. The latter they ordered to be at once put to death, but Biton not till after he had undergone torture. The instruments for this purpose were already being applied to his limbs when the soldiers, it is not known why, ran to their arms like so many madmen. On hearing the uproar they made, the men who had orders to torture Biton desisted from their office, thinking that the object of the rioters, whom they had heard shouting, was to prevent them going on with their work. Biton, stripped as he was, ran for protection to the Greeks, and the sight of the wretched man sentenced to death caused such a revulsion of their feelings that they ordered him to be set at liberty. Having twice escaped punishment, he returned to his native country with the rest of those who left the colonies which the king had assigned to them.[304] These things were done about Bactra and the borders of Scythia. In the meantime a hundred ambassadors came to the king from the two nations we have before mentioned.[305] They all rode in chariots and were men of uncommon stature and of a very dignified bearing. Their robes were of linen and embroidered with inwrought gold and purple. They informed him that they surrendered into his hands themselves, their cities, and their territories, and that he was the first to whose authority and protection they had intrusted their liberty which for so many ages they had preserved inviolate. The gods, they said, were the authors of their submission and not fear, seeing that they had submitted to his yoke while their strength was quite unbroken. The king at a meeting of his council accepted their proffer of submission and allegiance, and imposed on them the tribute which the two nations paid in instalments to the Arachosians.[306] He further ordered them to furnish him with 2500 horsemen, all which commands were faithfully carried out by the barbarians. After this he gave orders for the preparation of a splendid banquet to which he invited the ambassadors and the petty kings of the neighbouring tribes. Here a hundred couches of gold had been placed at a small distance from each other, and these were hung round with tapestry curtains which glittered with gold and purple. In a word he displayed at this entertainment all that was corrupt in the ancient luxury of the Persians as well as in the new-fangled fashions which had been adopted by the Macedonians, thus intermixing the vices of both nations.