The Lydian King Croesus had had Miltiades much in this thoughts so when he learned of his capture, he sent a command to the people of Lampsacus to set him at liberty; if they refused, he was determined, he added, to “cut them down like a pine-tree.” The people of the town were baffled by Croesus’ threat, and at a loss to understand what being cut down like a pine-tree might mean, until at last the true significance of the phrase dawned upon a certain elderly man: the pine, he explained, was the only kind of tree which sent up no new shoots after being felled—cut down a pine and it will die off
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