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Bulis and Sperchis of Sparta went as volunteers to Xerxes king of the Persians, to render satisfaction which Sparta owed according to an oracle, because the people had killed the heralds sent to them by the Persian. These men came before Xerxes and bade him make away with them in any manner he desired, as representing the Spartans. But when he, filled with admiration, let them go free, and was insistent that they remain with him, they said, ‘And how should we be able to live here, abandoning our country and laws and those men in whose behalf we made such a long journey to die ?’ And when Indarnes 1 the general besought them at greater length, and said that they would receive equal honour with the friends of the king who stood highest in [p. 419] advancement, they said, ‘You seem to us not to know what is the meed of liberty, which no man of sense would exchange for the kingdom of the Persians.’ 2
Plutarch. Moralia. with an English Translation by. Frank Cole Babbitt. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1931. 3.
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