7.151.1
This is borne out, some of the Greeks say, by the tale of a thing which happened many years afterwards. It happened that while Athenian envoys, Callias son of Hipponicus, and the rest who had come up with him, were at Susa, called the Memnonian, note about some other business, note the Argives also had at this same time sent envoys to Susa, asking of Xerxes' son Artoxerxes whether the friendship which they had forged with Xerxes still held good, as they desired, or whether he considered them as his enemies. Artoxerxes responded to this that it did indeed hold good and that he believed no city to be a better friend to him than Argos.”
ch. 152
7.152.1
Now, whether it is true that Xerxes sent a herald with such a message to Argos, and that the Argive envoys came up to Susa and questioned Artoxerxes about their friendship, I cannot say with exactness, nor do I now declare that I consider anything true except what the Argives themselves say.
7.152.2
This, however, I know full well, namely if all men should carry their own private troubles to market for barter with their neighbors, there would not be a single one who, when he had looked into the troubles of other men, would not be glad to carry home again what he had brought. note
7.152.3
The conduct of the Argives was accordingly not utterly shameful. As for myself, although it is my business to set down that which is told me, to believe it is none at all of my business. This I ask the reader to hold true for the whole of my history, for there is another tale current, according to which it would seem that it was the Argives who invited the Persian into Hellas, because the war with the Lacedaemonians was going badly, and they would prefer anything to their present distresses.
ch. 153
7.153.1
Such is the end of the story of the Argives. As for Sicily, envoys were sent there by the allies to hold converse with Gelon, Syagrus from Lacedaemon among them. The ancestor of this Gelon, who settled at Gela, was from the island of Telos which lies off Triopium. When the founding of Gela by Antiphemus and the Lindians of Rhodes was happening, he would not be left behind.
7.153.2
His descendants in time became and continue to be priests of the goddesses of the underworld; note this office had been won, as I will show, by Telines, one of their forefathers. There were certain Geloans who had been worsted in party strife and had been banished to the town of Mactorium, inland of Gela.
7.153.3
These men Telines brought to Gela with no force of men but only the holy instruments of the goddesses worship to aid him. From where he got these, and whether or not they were his own invention, I cannot say; however that may be, it was in reliance upon them that he restored the exiles, on the condition that his descendants should be ministering priests of the goddesses.
7.153.4
Now it makes me marvel that Telines should have achieved such a feat, for I have always supposed that such feats cannot be performed by any man but only by such as have a stout heart and manly strength. Telines, however, is reported by the dwellers in Sicily to have had a soft and effeminate disposition.
