Βραγχίδαι

Those living in Milesian Didyma↗,¹ who, in seeking favor with Xerxes, betrayed the temple of the indigenous Apollo to the barbarians: the temple offerings, of which there were a great number, were plundered. The traitors, fearing vengeance from both the laws and the inhabitants of the city, asked Xerxes to pay them for this wretched betrayal and settle them in some Asian land. He agreed, and in exchange for what was evil and unholy, allowed them to live where they would never again set foot upon Greece and both they and future generations would be removed from the fear besetting them.² Then, having obtained the land with birds of ill-omen, they established a city and gave it the name Branchidai, thinking they had not only escaped the Milesians, but also justice itself. But the watchfulness of the god was not asleep. For Alexander, when he obtained mastery of the Persian empire upon conquering Darius, heard of their daring and conceived a hatred for them and their successive generations; so he killed them all, judging that the offspring of evil is evil. He overthrew their pseudonymous city and razed it to the ground.³