Artaxerxes   

to supply him with whatever he could desire out of her own means.
But the great number of soldiers who were hired from all quarters
and maintained, as Xenophon informs us, for his service, by his friends
and connections, is in itself a sufficient proof of his riches. He
did not assemble them together in a body, desiring as yet to conceal
his enterprise; but he had agents everywhere, enlisting foreign soldiers
upon various pretences; and, in the meantime, Parysatis, who was with
the king, did her best to put aside all suspicions, and Cyrus himself
always wrote in a humble and dutiful manner to him, sometimes soliciting
favour, and sometimes making countercharges against Tisaphernes, as
if his jealousy and contest had been wholly with him. Moreover, there
was a certain natural dilatoriness in the king, which was taken by
many for clemency. And, indeed, in the beginning of his reign, he
did seem really to emulate the gentleness of the first Artaxerxes,
being very accessible in his person, and liberal to a fault in the
distribution of honours and favours. Even in his punishments, no contumely
or vindictive pleasure could be seen; and those who offered him presents
were as much pleased with his manner of accepting, as were those who
received gifts from him with his graciousness and amiability in giving
them. Nor truly was there anything, however inconsiderable, given
him, which he did not deign kindly to accept of; insomuch that when
one Omises had presented him with a very large pomegranate, "By city
Mithras," said he, "this man, were he intrusted with it, would turn
a small city into a great one."
Once when some were offering him one thing, some another, as he was
on a progress, a certain poor labourer, having got nothing at hand
to bring him, ran to the river side, and, taking up water in his hands,
offered it to him; with which Artaxerxes was so well pleased that
he sent him a goblet of gold and a thousand darics. To Euclidas, the
Lacedaemonian, who had made a number of bold and arrogant speeches
to him, he sent word by one of his officers. "You have leave to say
what you please to me, and I, you should remember, may both say and
do what I please to you." Teribazus once, when they were hunting,
came up and pointed out to the king that his royal robe was torn;
the king asked him what he wished him to do; and when Teribazus replied,
"May it please you to put on another and give me that," the king did
so, saying withal, "I give it you, Teribazus, but I charge you not
to wear it." He, little regarding the injunction, being not a bad,
but a lightheaded, thoughtless man, immediately the king took it off,
put it on, and bedecked himself further with royal golden necklaces
and women's ornaments, to the great scandal of everybody, the thing
being quite unlawful. But the king laughed and told him, "You have
my leave to wear the trinkets as a woman, and the robe of state as
a fool." And whereas none usually sat down to eat with the king besides
his mother and his wedded wife, the former being placed above, the
other below him, Artaxerxes invited also to his table his two younger
brothers, Ostanes and Oxathres. But what was the most popular thing
of all among the Persians was the sight of his wife Statira's chariot,
which always appeared with its curtains down, allowing her country-women
to salute and approach her, which made the queen a great favourite
with the people.
Yet busy, factious men, that delighted in change, professed it to
be their opinion that the times needed Cyrus, a man of great spirit,
an excellent warrior, and a lover of his friends, and that the largeness
of their empire absolutely required a bold and enterprising prince.
Cyrus, then, not only relying upon those of his own province near
the sea, but upon many of those in the upper countries near the king,
commenced the war against him. He wrote to the Lacedaemonians, bidding
them come to his assistance and supply him with men, assuring them
that to those who came to him on foot he would give horses, and to
the horsemen chariots; that upon those who had farms he would bestow
villages, and those who were lords of villages he would make so of
cities; and that those who would be his soldiers should receive their
pay, not by count, but by weight. And among many other high praises