and the Persian kings were exceedingly cautious: they would never send an envoy until they had first tried and examined him.

Maxim: It is related that whenever those Persian monarchs dispatched an envoy to another king, they would send a spy along with him to record everything he said and everything he heard. When the envoy returned, they compared his report with the spy’s transcript. If the two matched, they knew him to be truthful, and thereafter they would even entrust him with missions to their enemies.

Story: Alexander once sent an envoy to King Darius. When the envoy came back with Darius’s reply, Alexander doubted a single word of his report and pressed him about it. The envoy protested, “My lord, I heard that very word from him with these two ears of mine!” Alexander therefore ordered that the disputed word be written exactly as the envoy had reported and dispatched a second messenger with it to Darius, son of Darius. On receiving the letter, Darius read it, called for a knife, cut that particular word out of the document, and sent it back to Alexander with this message: “The stability of kingship rests on the sovereign’s good intent and sound character, and the foundation of sound rule is the accuracy of ambassadors’ wording and the honesty of trustworthy messengers. An envoy speaks with the king’s tongue and hears the reply with the king’s ears. I have removed that word from the letter because it was not part of my speech, though I could find no means of cutting out your envoy’s tongue.”

When the second messenger returned with this reply, Alexander summoned the first envoy, shouted at him, and said, “Woe to you! Who put you in this post? He says you have failed in my service and provoked his anger!” Then Alexander exclaimed, “Glory be to God! Did you imagine we sent you to advance your own affairs, or to stir people’s claims against us?” He thereupon ordered that the envoy’s tongue be torn out from the back of his neck.