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And afterwards, when they were come to Susa into the king's
presence, and the guards ordered them to fall down and do obeisance,
and went so far as to use force to compel them, they refused, and said
they would never do any such thing, even were their heads thrust down
to the ground; for it was not their custom to worship men, and they
had not come to Persia for that purpose. So they fought off the
ceremony; and having done so, addressed the king in words much like
the following:
"O king of the Medes! the Lacedaemonians have sent us hither, in
the place of those heralds of thine who were slain in Sparta, to make
atonement to thee on their account."
Then Xerxes answered with true greatness of soul "that he would not
act like the Lacedaemonians, who, by killing the heralds, had broken
the laws which all men hold in common. As he had blamed such conduct
in them, he would never be guilty of it himself. And besides, he did
not wish, by putting the two men to death, to free the Lacedaemonians
from the stain of their former outrage."
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