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The special position of the house of Otanes seems to be a fact, but it was probably of earlier date; he may have been of Achaemenid blood (68. 1 n.); at any rate his daughter Phaedymia had married Cambyses; Xerxes married his grand-daughter, Amestris.

With the gifts appointed for him (84. 1) cf. what is ‘done to the man (Mordecai) whom the king delighteth to honour’ (Esther vi. 8-9), though the Jewish writer has made the honours more distinctly royal. For less romantic parallels cf. vii. 88. 1 and 106. 1.

The most honourable gifts were (Xen. An. i. 2. 27) a horse with a golden bridle, and a golden necklace, bracelet, and scimitar. Ctesias (Pers. 22, p. 69) adds ‘a golden mill’ (μύλη).

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