After using these enchantments and many others besides on the river, they passed over it at the Nine Ways in Edonian country, by the bridges which they found thrown across the Strymon. When they learned that Nine Ways was the name of the place, they buried alive that number of boys and maidens, children of the local people. To bury people alive is a Persian custom; I have learned by inquiry that when Xerxes' wife Amestris reached old age, she buried twice seven sons of notable Persians as an offering on her own behalf to the fabled god beneath the earth.