the torture of the boats...

from the life of Artasxerxes...

" Mithridates also came to a miserable end a little while after, of that same folly. For being invited to a banquet at which eunuchs of the king and of the queen-mother were present, he came decked out with raiment and gold which he had received from the king. 2 And when the company were at their cups, the chief eunuch of Parysatis said to him: "Mithridates, how beautiful this raiment is which the king gave thee, and how beautiful the collars and bracelets! Costly, too, is thy scimitar. Verily the king has made thee happy in the admiring eyes of all men." Then Mithridates, now flushed with wine, replied: "Sparamizes, what do these things amount to? Surely my services to the king on that day were worthy of greater and more beautiful gifts." 3 Here Sparamizes smiled at him and said: "There's no grudging them to thee, Mithridates; but since, according to the Greek maxim, there is truth in wine, what great or brilliant exploit was it, my good fellow, to find a horse's trappings that had slipped off, and bring them to the king?" In saying this, Sparamizes was not ignorant of the truth, but he wished to unveil Mithridates to the company, and therefore slyly stirred up his vanity when wine had made him talkative and robbed him of self-control. 4 Accordingly, Mithridates threw away constraint and said: "Ye may talk as ye please about horse-trappings and such nonsense; but I declare to you explicitly that Cyrus was slain by this hand of mine; for I did not, like Artagerses, make a futile and an idle cast of spear, but I p163narrowly missed his eye, struck him in the temple, pierced it, and brought the man down; and it was of that wound that he died." 5 The rest of the company, who already saw the end of Mithridates and his hapless fate, bowed their faces towards the ground; and their host said: "My good Mithridates, let us eat and drink now, revering the good genius of the king, and let us waive discourse that is too weighty for us."

16 Afterwards the eunuch told the matter to Parysatis, and she to the king; and the king was incensed, as being openly convicted of falsehood, and likely to forfeit the fairest and most pleasing feature of his victory. For he wished that all Barbarians and all Greeks should be fully persuaded that when he and his brother had charged and grappled with each other, he had given and received a blow, being only wounded himself, but killing his brother. He therefore gave orders that Mithridates should be put to death by the torture of the boats.

2 Now, this torture of the boats is as follows. Two boats are taken, which are so made as to fit over one another closely; in one of these the victim is laid, flat upon his back; then the other is laid over the first and carefully adjusted, so that the victim's head, hands, and feet are left projecting, while the rest of his body is completely covered up. Then they give him food to eat, and if he refuse it, they force him to take it by pricking his eyes. After he has eaten, they give him a mixture of milk and honey to drink, pouring it into his mouth, and also deluge his face with it. 3 Then they keep his eyes always turned towards the sun, and a swarm of flies settles down p165upon his face and hides it completely. And since inside the boats he does what must needs be done when men eat and drink, worms and maggots seethe up from the corruption and rottenness of the excrement, devouring his body, and eating their way into his vitals. 4 For when at last the man is clearly dead and the upper boat has been removed, his flesh is seen to have been consumed away, while about his entrails swarms of such animals as I have mentioned are clinging fast and eating. In this way Mithridates was slowly consumed for seventeen days, and at last died."