Many an Egyptian girl’s mouth uttered a lengthened “Ah” at this glorious sight, and even the grave faces of some of the dignitaries brightened into a friendly smile.

The name of this much-admired youth was Bartja.

[This Bartja is better known under the name of Smerdis, but on what account the Greeks gave him this name is not clear.  In the cuneiform inscriptions of Bisitun or Behistun, he is called Bartja, or, according to Spiegel, Bardiya.  We have chosen, for the sake of the easy pronunciation, the former, which is Rawlinson’s simplified reading of the name.]

He was the son of the late, and brother of the reigning king of Persia, and had been endowed by nature with every gift that a youth of twenty years could desire for himself.

Around his tiara was wound a blue and white turban, beneath which hung fair, golden curls of beautiful, abundant hair; his blue eyes sparkled with life and joy, kindness and high spirits, almost with sauciness; his noble features, around which the down of a manly beard was already visible, were worthy of a Grecian sculptor’s chisel, and his slender but muscular figure told of strength and activity.  The splendor of his apparel was proportioned to his personal beauty.  A brilliant star of diamonds and turquoises glittered in the front of his tiara.  An upper garment of rich white and gold brocade reaching just below the knees, was fastened round the waist with a girdle of blue and white, the royal colors of Persia.  In this girdle gleamed a short, golden sword, its hilt and scabbard thickly studded with opals and sky-blue turquoises.  The trousers were of the same rich material as the robe, fitting closely at the ankle, and ending within a pair of short boots of light-blue leather.

The long, wide sleeves of his robe displayed a pair of vigorous arms, adorned with many costly bracelets of gold and jewels; round his slender neck and on his broad chest lay a golden chain.

Such was the youth who first sprang on shore.  He was followed by Darius, the son of Hystaspes, a young Persian of the blood royal, similar in person to Bartja, and scarcely less gorgeously apparelled than he.  The third to disembark was an aged man with snow-white hair, in whose face the gentle and kind expression of childhood was united, with the intellect of a man, and the experience of old age.  His dress consisted of a long purple robe with sleeves, and the yellow boots worn by the Lydians;—­his whole appearance produced an impression of the greatest modesty and a total absence of pretension.

   [On account of these boots, which are constantly mentioned, Croesus
   was named by the oracle “soft-footed.”]

Yet this simple old man had been, but a few years before, the most envied of his race and age; and even in our day at two thousand years’ interval, his name is used as a synonyme for the highest point of worldly riches attainable by mankind.  The old man to whom we are now introduced is no other than Croesus, the dethroned king of Lydia, who was then living at the court of Cambyses, as his friend and counsellor, and had accompanied the young Bartja to Egypt, in the capacity of Mentor.