Remembering this, I have been making a diligent search for cats during my late journey; in Cyprus, where there are splendid specimens, in Samos and in Crete.  All I could get I ordered to be caught, and now propose that they be distributed among those troops who will be opposed to the native Egyptian soldiers.  Every man must be told to fasten one firmly to his shield and hold it out as he advances towards the enemy.  I will wager that there’s not one real Egyptian, who would not rather fly from the battle-field than take aim at one of these sacred animals.”

This speech was met by a loud burst of laughter; on being discussed, however, it was approved of, and ordered to be carried out at once.  The ingenious Greek was honored by receiving the king’s hand to kiss, his expenses were reimbursed by a magnificent present, and he was urged to take a daughter of some noble Persian family in marriage.

   [Themistocles too, on coming to the Persian court, received a high-
   born Persian wife in marriage.  Diod.  XI. 57.]

The king concluded by inviting him to supper, but this the Athenian declined, on the plea that he must review the Ionian troops, with whom he was as yet but little acquainted, and withdrew.

At the door of his tent he found his slaves disputing with a ragged, dirty and unshaven old man, who insisted on speaking with their master.  Fancying he must be a beggar, Phanes threw him a piece of gold; the old man did not even stoop to pick it up, but, holding the Athenian fast by his cloak, cried, “I am Aristomachus the Spartan!”

Cruelly as he was altered, Phanes recognized his old friend at once, ordered his feet to be washed and his head anointed, gave him wine and meat to revive his strength, took his rags off and laid a new chiton over his emaciated, but still sinewy, frame.

Aristomachus received all in silence; and when the food and wine had given him strength to speak, began the following answer to Phanes’ eager questions.

On the murder of Phanes’ son by Psamtik, he had declared his intention of leaving Egypt and inducing the troops under his command to do the same, unless his friend’s little daughter were at once set free, and a satisfactory explanation given for the sudden disappearance of the boy.  Psamtik promised to consider the matter.  Two days later, as Aristomachus was going up the Nile by night to Memphis, he was seized by Egyptian soldiers, bound and thrown into the dark hold of a boat, which, after a voyage of many days and nights, cast anchor on a totally unknown shore.  The prisoners were taken out of their dungeon and led across a desert under the burning sun, and past rocks of strange forms, until they reached a range of mountains with a colony of huts at its base.  These huts were inhabited by human beings, who, with chains on their feet, were driven every morning into the shaft of a mine and there compelled to hew grains of gold out of the stony rock.  Many of these miserable men had passed forty years in this place, but most died soon, overcome by the hard work and the fearful extremes of heat and cold to which they were exposed on entering and leaving the mine.