United States or Solomon Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Open Homer anywhere, and the casual grandeur of his untranslatable language appears; such lines as: amphi de naees smerdaleon konabaesan ausanton hup' Achaion. That, you might say, is Homer at his ease; when he exerts himself you get a miracle like: su den strophalingi koniaes keiso megas megalosti, lelasmenos hipposunaon.
Then indeed Megas entreated Chosroes in behalf of all the inhabitants of the East, and would not cease his entreaty, until Chosroes promised him that he would accept ten centenaria of gold and depart from the whole Roman empire. Thus, then, on that day Megas departed thence and went on the way to Antioch, while Chosroes after receiving the ransom was moving toward Beroea.
So spoke Chosroes, and Megas replied as follows: "If one should consider that as king thou art making these charges against men who are in pitiable and most dishonoured plight, he would be compelled without a word of protest to agree with what thou hast said; for authority which is unlimited is bound by its very nature to carry with it also supremacy in argument; but if one be permitted to shake off all else and to espouse the truth of the matter, thou wouldst have, O King, nothing with which justly to reproach us; but mayst thou hear all mildly.
Accordingly they sent Megas, the bishop of Beroea, a man of discretion who at that time happened to be tarrying among them, to beg for mercy from Chosroes; and departing from there he came upon the Median army not far from Hierapolis.
For since there was only one spring there and the horses and mules and other animals drank from it when they should not have done so, it came about that the water was exhausted. Such, then, was the situation of the Beroeans. Megas, upon reaching Antioch and announcing the terms arranged by him with Chosroes, failed utterly to persuade them to carry out this agreement.
Megas then came in haste to Beroea, and in vexation at what had taken place, he charged Chosroes with having treated the Beroeans outrageously; for while, as it seemed, he had sent him to Antioch to arrange the treaty, he had both plundered the property of the citizens, though they had committed no wrong at all, and had compelled them to shut themselves up in that fortress, and had then set fire to the city and razed it to the ground in defiance of right.
This city lies between Antioch and Hierapolis, at a distance from both of two-days' journey for an unencumbered traveller. Now while Megas, who travelled with a small company, advanced very quickly, the Persian army was accomplishing only one half of the distance which he travelled each day. And so on the fourth day he reached Antioch, while the Persians came to the suburb of Beroea.
There whom first, whom last didst thou slay, Patroklos, when the gods called thee deathward? Adrestos first, and Autonoos, and Echeklos, and Perimos, son of Megas, and Epistor, and Melanippos, and thereafter Elasos, and Moulios, and Pylartes; these he slew, but the others were each man of them fain of flight.
His baldness so much annoyed him, that he considered it an affront to himself, if any other person was reproached with it, either in jest or in earnest; though in a small tract he published, addressed to a friend, "concerning the preservation of the hair," he uses for their mutual consolation the words following: Ouch oraas oios kago kalos te megas te; Seest thou my graceful mien, my stately form?
The terms, therefore, which Chosroes offered by the mouth of Megas, bishop of Berhcea, were rejected; the Antiochenes were exhorted to remain firm; Ephraim, the bishop, was denounced to the authorities for counselling submission; and it was determined to make no pacific arrangement, but to allow Chosroes to do his worst. The Persian, on his side, was not slack or remiss.
Word Of The Day