XXVII. THE WIFE OF PYTHES1
It is said the wife of Pythes, contemporary with
Xerxes, was wise and good. Pythes himself, as
it appears, came by chance upon some gold mines,
2
and, delighting in the wealth from them not with
moderation, but insatiably and beyond measure,
he himself spent all his time over them, and put the
citizens down there also, and compelled all alike
to dig or carry or wash out the gold, performing no
[p. 579]
other work and carrying on no other activity. Many
perished and all were completely exhausted, when
the women, coming to the door of the wife of Pythes,
made supplication. She bade them depart and not
lose heart; then she summoned the goldsmiths
whom she trusted most, secluded them, and ordered
them to make golden loaves of bread, cakes of all
sorts, fruit, and whatever else in the way of dainties
and food she knew Pythes liked best. When these
had all been made, Pythes arrived home from
abroad; for he had been travelling. And when he
called for dinner, his wife caused a golden table to be
set before him which contained nothing edible, but
everything of gold. At first Pythes was delighted
with the mimic food, but when he had gazed his fill,
he called for something to eat; and she served to him
a golden replica of whatever he chanced to express
a desire for. By this time he was in a high dudgeon
and shouted out that he was hungry, whereupon she
said, ‘But it is you who have created for us a plentiful supply of these things, and of nothing else;
for all skill in the trades has disappeared from among
us; no one tills the soil, but we have forsaken the
sowing and planting of crops in the soil and the sustaining food that comes from it, and we dig and delve
for useless things, wasting our own strength and that
of our people.’
These things moved Pythes, and he did away with
much of his activities at the mines, but not all,
ordering a fifth of the citizens to work the mines in
turn, and the remainder he transferred to agriculture
and the trades.
When Xerxes
3 was on his way to invade Greece,
Pythes, who had been most splendid in his entertainments
[p. 581]
and gifts, asked as a favour from the king
that, as he had several sons, the king should exempt
one from military duty, and leave him at home to be
a comfort to Pythes in his old age. Xerxes, in his
rage,
4 ordered that this one son for whom the father
made his request should be killed and cut in two,
and that the army should march between the two
halves; the others he took with him, and all perished
in the battles.
Because of this Pythes lost all spirit, and went
through an experience similar to that of many bad
and foolish men; for he was afraid of death and
burdened with life. He wished not to live, and yet
could not let go of life. As there was a great mound
in the city, and also a river flowing through it, which
they called the Pythopolites, he made ready a
mausoleum in the mound, and then turned the course
of the stream so that the river was carried through
the mound with its waters touching the tomb.
Upon the completion of all this he went down into
the mausoleum, committing the government and care
of the whole city to his wife, and ordered her not to
come near him, but to send his dinner for him every
day, by placing it in a boat, until the time when the
boat should pass by the tomb with the dinner untouched; then she should cease sending, taking it
for granted that he was dead. He passed the remainder of his life in this way, and his wife administered the government excellently, and gave the
citizens relief from their miseries.
