“Are never traitors.”
“Beloved Democrates,” sneered the Spartan, “in one year the most patriotic Hellene will be he who has made the Persian yoke the most endurable. Don’t blink at destiny.”
“Don’t be overcertain.”
“Don’t grow deaf and blind. Xerxes has been collecting troops these four years. Every wind across the Ægean tells how the Great King assembles millions of soldiers, thousands of ships: Median cavalry, Assyrian archers, Egyptian battle-axemen—the best troops in the world. All the East will be marching on our poor Hellas. And when has Persia failed to conquer?”
“At Marathon.”
“A drop of rain before the tempest! If Datis, the Persian general, had only been more prudent!”
“Clearly, noblest Lycon,” said Democrates, with a satirical smile, “for a taciturn Laconian to become thus eloquent for tyranny must have taken a bribe of ten thousand gold darics.”
“But answer my arguments.”
“Well—the old oracle is proved: ‘Base love of gain and naught else shall bear sore destruction to Sparta.’ ”
“That doesn’t halt Xerxes’s advance.”