Persia

But the story says that Psammenitus, king of Egypt, having been defeated and taken prisoner by Cambyses, king of Persia, and seeing his daughter dressed as a servant and sent to fetch water, managed to remain silent and not look at her while his friends around him were crying and lamenting.

To this day, knowledgeable people condemn the way kings of Persia kept their agents and lieutenants on such a short leash that they sought their king’s guidance in the smallest matters.

And thus Agesilaus, in front of whom someone had called the king of Persia happy for becoming the ruler of so powerful a state at a young age, said:

” for the kings of Persia were at that time preparing to invade his country.

The kings of Persia were wont to invite their wives to the beginning of their festivals;

he hears talk of his master once a year, as of a king of Persia, without taking any further recognition of him, than by some remote kindred his secretary keeps in some register.

There was never any famous orator known to come out of Persia or Macedon.

Artaxerxes, in almost a like case, moderated the severity of the ancient laws of Persia, ordaining that the nobility who had committed a fault, instead of being whipped, as they were used to be, should be stripped only and their clothes whipped for them;

Amestris, the mother of Xerxes, being grown old, caused at once fourteen young men, of the best families of Persia, to be buried alive, according to the religion of the country, to gratify some infernal deity.

for, being closely grappled in combat with a lord of Persia, Darius coming in sword in hand, and fearing to strike lest he should kill Gobrias, he called out to him boldly to fall on, though he should run them both through at once.

He had a vision like that of Marcus Brutus, that first threatened him in Gaul, and afterward appeared to him in Persia just before his death.

Cambyses, from having dreamt that his brother should be one day king of Persia, put him to death:

Otanes, one of the seven who had right to pretend to the kingdom of Persia, did as I should willingly have done, which was, that he gave up to his competitors his right of being promoted to it, either by election or by lot, provided that he and his might live in the empire out of all authority and subjection, those of the ancient laws excepted, and might enjoy all liberty that was not prejudicial to these, being as impatient of commanding as of being commanded.

we imprison ourselves in certain straits, like the kings of Persia, who obliged themselves to drink no other water but that of the river Choaspes, foolishly quitted claim to their right in all other streams, and, so far as concerned themselves, dried up all the other rivers of the world.