said, I
command you to marry a good man, and bring him good children. After he
was enclosed by the enemy at Thermopylae, desiring to save two that were
related to him, he gave one of them a letter and sent him away; but
he rejected it, saying angrily, I followed you as a soldier, not as a
postman. The other he commanded to go on a message to the magistrates
of Sparta; but he, answering, that is a messenger's business, took his
shield, and stood up in his rank. Who would not have blamed another that
should have omitted these things? But he who has collected and recorded
the fart of Amasis, the coming of the thief's asses, and the giving of
bottles, and many such like things, cannot seem to have omitted these
gallant acts and these remarkable sayings by negligence and oversight,
but as bearing ill-will and being unjust to some.

He says that the Thebans, being at the first with the Greeks, fought
compelled by necessity. (Ibid, vii. 233.) For belike not only Xerxes,
but Leonidas also, had whipsters following his camp, by whom the Thebans
were scourged and forced against their wills to fight. And what more
ruthless libeller could there be than Herodotus, when he says that they
fought upon necessity, who might have gone away and fled, and that they
inclined to the Persians, whereas not one came in to help them. After
this, he writes that, the rest making to the hill, the Thebans separated
themselves from them, lifted up their hands to the barbarian, and coming
near, cried with a most true voice, that they had favored the Persians,
had given earth and water to the King, that now being forced by
necessity they were come to Thermopylae, and that they were innocent of
the King's wound. Having said these things, they obtained quarter; for
they had the Thessalians for witnesses of all they said. Behold, how
amidst the barbarians, exclamations, tumults of all sorts, flights
and pursuits, their apology was heard, the witnesses examined; and the
Thessalians, in the midst of those that were slain and trodden under
foot, all being done in a very narrow passage, patronized the Thebans,
to wit, because the Thebans had but a little before driven away them,
who were possessed of all Greece as far as, Thespiae, having conquered
them in a battle, and slain their leader Lattamyas! For thus at that
time stood matters between the Boeotians and the Thessalians, without
any friendship or good-will. But yet how did the Thebans escape, the
Thessal