they carried Egyptian and Assyrian merchandise

However, the Pythian priestess declared that the Heraclidae would have vengeance on Gyges' posterity in the fifth generation; an utterance to which the Lydians and their kings paid no regard until it was fulfilled

killed Candaules as he slept. Thus he made himself master of the king's wife and sovereignty

since among the Lydians and most of the foreign peoples it is felt as a great shame that even a man be seen naked

When a woman's clothes come off, she dispenses with her modesty, too

fell in love with his own wife, so much so that he believed her to be by far the most beautiful woman in the worl

For my part, I shall not say that this or that story is true, but I shall identify the one who I myself know did the Greeks unjust deeds, and thus proceed with my history, and speak of small and great cities of men alike.

Such is the Persian account; in their opinion, it was the taking of Troy which began their hatred of the Greeks

the Persians claim Asia for their own, and the foreign peoples that inhabit it; Europe and the Greek people they consider to be separate from them.

“We think,” they say, “that it is unjust to carry women off. But to be anxious to avenge rape is foolish: wise men take no notice of such things. For plainly the women would never have been carried away, had they not wanted it themselves.

after this (the Persians say), the Greeks were very much to blame; for they invaded Asia before the Persians attacked Europe.

In this way, the Persians say (and not as the Greeks ), was how Io came to Egypt, and this, according to them, was the first wrong that was done

Persian learned men say that the Phoenicians were the cause of the dispute

so that things done by man not be forgotten in time, and that great and marvelous deeds, some displayed by the Hellenes, some by the barbarians, not lose their glory