[Croesus, after having shown Solon his treasures, asked him whom he held to be the most fortunate of men, hoping to hear his own name.  The sage first named Tellus, a famous citizen of Athens, and then the brothers Kleobis and Biton.  These were two handsome youths, who had gained the prize for wrestling, and one day, when the draught- animals had not returned from the field, dragged their mother themselves to the distant temple, in presence of the people.  The men of Argos praised the strength of the sons,—­the women praised the mother who possessed these sons.  She, transported with delight at her sons’ deed and the people’s praise, went to the statue of the goddess and besought her to give them the best that could fall to the lot of men.  When her prayer was over and the sacrifice offered, the youths fell asleep, and never woke again.  They were dead.  Herod.  I, 31.  Cicero.  Tuscul.  I. 47.]

“If I have ever been dear to you, Cambyses—­if my counsels have been of any use, permit me as a last favor to say a few more words.  Psamtik knows the causes that rendered us foes to each other.  Ye all, whose esteem is worth so much to me, shall know them too.  This man’s father placed me in his son’s stead at the head of the troops which had been sent to Cyprus.  Where Psamtik had earned humiliation, I won success and glory.  I also became unintentionally acquainted with a secret, which seriously endangered his chances of obtaining the crown; and lastly, I prevented his carrying off a virtuous maiden from the house of her grandmother, an aged woman, beloved and respected by all the Greeks.  These are the sins which he has never been able to forgive; these are the grounds which led him to carry on war to the death with me directly I had quitted his father’s service.  The struggle is decided now.  My innocent children have been murdered at thy command, and I have been pursued like a wild beast.  That has been thy revenge.  But mine!—­I have deprived thee of thy throne and reduced thy people to bondage.  Thy daughter I have called my slave, thy son’s death-warrant was pronounced by my lips, and my eyes have seen the maiden whom thou persecutedst become the happy wife of a brave man.  Undone, sinking ever lower and lower, thou hast watched me rise to be the richest and most powerful of my nation.  In the lowest depth of thine own misery—­and this has been the most delicious morsel of my vengeance—­thou wast forced to see me—­me, Phanes shedding tears that could not be kept back, at the sight of thy misery.  The man, who is allowed to draw even one breath of life, after beholding his enemy so low, I hold to be happy as the gods themselves I have spoken.”

He ceased, and pressed his hand on his wound.  Cambyses gazed at him in astonishment, stepped forward, and was just going to touch his girdle—­ an action which would have been equivalent to the signing of a death-warrant when his eye caught sight of the chain, which he himself had hung round the Athenian’s neck as a reward for the clever way in which he had proved the innocence of Nitetis.