The reason alleged for his command was this: had the spies been put to death, the Greeks would not so soon have learned the unspeakable greatness of his power, and the Persians would have done their enemy no great harm by putting three men to death. Xerxes said that if they should return to Hellas, the Greeks would hear of his power and would surrender their peculiar freedom before the expedition with the result that there would be no need to march against them. This was like that other saying of Xerxes when he was at Abydos and saw ships laden with corn sailing out of the Pontus through the Hellespont on their way to Aegina and the Peloponnese. His counsellors, perceiving that they were enemy ships, were for taking them, and looked to the king for orders to do so. Xerxes, however, asked them where the ships were sailing, and they answered: “To your enemies, Sire, carrying corn.” Xerxes then answered, “And are not we too sailing to the same places as they, with corn among all our other provisions? What wrong are they doing us in carrying food there?”