Pythius

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For the plant genus Pythius, see its current synonym Euphorbia.

Pythius is a Lydian who’s mentioned in book VII of Herodotus' Histories, 27-29 and 38-39.

Xerxes, king of Persia, son of Darius, encounters Pythius on his way to invade Greece in c.481BC. Pythius entertains him and offers to provide money for the expenses of war. Due to the immense size of Xerxes' army this is an act of extreme generosity, which Xerxes rewards by giving him 7000 gold Darics in order to make his fortune up to 4,000,000 Darics (29).

Later, however, Pythius emboldened by the presents of Xerxes and alarmed at an eclipse, asks Xerxes to release his eldest son from the army because he is old and needs his son to look after him. He is content for Xerxes to retain the other four. Xerxes gets extremely angry and instead takes the son, cuts him in half and marches his army away between the two halves.

This story shows Xerxes' two sides; he’s capable of extreme generosity or extreme anger and cruelty.

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