The aged Pythius, as “alarmed by the sign from the heavens”59 as anyone, even went so far as to beg the Great King for his eldest son to be spared from going to Greece. A terrible, a fatal mistake. At a time when Xerxes himself was preparing to ride into danger with all his “sons, and brothers, and relatives, and friends,”60 no more scandalous a request could possibly have been imagined.
