This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
Click on a word to bring up parses, dictionary entries, and frequency statistics
ἡ μὲν οὖν ἐπιβουλὴ τοιοῦτον ἔσχε τέλος, ὁ
δὲ Ὦχος ἤδη μὲν ἦν ταῖς ἐλπίσι λαμπρός ὑπὸ τῆς Ἀτόσσης
ἐπαιρόμενος, ἔτι δὲ ἐφοβεῖτο τῶν μὲν γνησίων τὸν ὑπόλοιπον Ἀριάσπην,
τῶν δὲ νόθων Ἀρσάμην. ὁ μὲν γὰρ Ἀριάσπης οὐ διὰ τὸ πρεσβύτερος
εἶναι τοῦ Ὤχου, πρᾶος δὲ καὶ ἁπλοῦς καὶ φιλάνθρωπος, ἠξιοῦτο
βασιλεύειν ὑπὸ τῶν Περσῶν ὁ δὲ Ἀρσάμης καὶ νοῦν ἔχειν ἐδόκει καὶ
μάλιστα τῷ πατρὶ προσφιλὴς ὢν οὐκ ἐλάνθανε τὸν Ὦχον.
[2]
ἐπιβουλεύων οὖν ἀμφοτέροις καὶ δολερὸς ὢν ὁμοῦ
καὶ φονικός ἐχρήσατο τῇ μὲν ὠμότητι τῆς φύσεως πρὸς τὸν Ἀρσάμην, τῇ
δὲ κακουργίᾳ καὶ δεινότητι πρὸς τὸν Ἀριάσπην. ὑπέπεμψε γὰρ πρὸς αὐτὸν
εὐνούχους καὶ φίλους βασιλέως ἀπειλάς τινας ἀεὶ καὶ λόγους φοβεροὺς
ἀπαγγέλλοντας, ὡς τοῦ πατρὸς ἐγνωκότος ἀποκτιννύειν αὐτὸν ὠμῶς καὶ
ἐφυβρίστως.
[3]
οἱ δὲ ταῦτα καθ᾽ ἡμέραν
ἐκφέρειν δοκοῦντες ὡς ἀπόρρητα, καὶ τὰ μὲν μέλλειν, τὰ δὲ ὅσον οὔπω
πράσσειν βασιλέα λέγοντες, οὕτως ἐξέπληξαν τὸν
ἄνθρωπον καὶ τοσαύτην ἐνέβαλον πτοίαν αὐτῷ καὶ ταραχὴν καὶ δυσθυμίαν
εἰς τοὺς λογισμούς, ὥστε φάρμακον σκευάσαντα τῶν θανασίμων καὶ πιόντα τοῦ
ζῆν ἀπαλλαγῆναι.
[4]
πυθόμενος δὲ ὁ βασιλεὺς
τὸν τρόπον τῆς τελευτῆς, ἐκεῖνον μὲν ἀπέκλαυσε, τὴν δ᾽ αἰτίαν
ὑπώπτευεν. ἐλέγχειν δὲ καὶ ζητεῖν ἐξαδυνατῶν διὰ γῆρας ἔτι [p. 202] μᾶλλον ἠσπάζετο τὸν Ἀρσάμην, καὶ δῆλος ἦν μάλιστα
πιστεύων ἐκείνῳ καὶ παρρησιαζόμενος. ὅθεν οἱ περὶ τὸν Ὦχον οὐκ
ἀνεβάλοντο τὴν πρᾶξιν, ἀλλ᾽ Ἀρπάτην υἱὸν Τηριβάζου παρασκευάσαντες
ἀπέκτειναν δι᾽ ἐκείνου τὸν ἄνθρωπον.
[5]
ἦν
μὲν οὖν ἐπὶ ῥοπῆς μικρᾶς ὁ Ἀρτοξέρξης διὰ τὸ γῆρας ἤδη τότε:
προσπεσόντος δὲ αὐτῷ τοῦ περὶ τὸν Ἀρσάμην πάθους οὐδὲ ὀλίγον
ἀντέσχεν, ἀλλ᾽ εὐθὺς ὑπὸ λύπης καὶ δυσθυμίας ἀπεσβέσθη, βιώσας μὲν
ἐνενήκοντα καὶ τέσσαρα ἔτη, βασιλεύσας δὲ δύο καὶ ἑξήκοντα, δόξας δὲ
πρᾶος εἶναι καὶ φιλυπήκοος οὐχ ἥκιστα διὰ τὸν υἱὸν Ὦχον ὠμότητι καὶ
μιαιφονίᾳ πάντας ὑπερβαλόμενον.
Plutarch. Plutarch's Lives. with an English Translation by. Bernadotte Perrin. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1926. 11.
The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for entering this text.
This text was converted to electronic form by optical character recognition and has been proofread to a high level of accuracy.
Purchase a copy of this text (not necessarily the same edition) from Amazon.com
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.