1But the king, because he had conceived an implacable hatred for Datames, after he realised that he could not be crushed in war, sought to kill him by treachery: most of these plots he escaped. 2For instance, when it had been reported to him that certain men who were among his friends were plotting against him (concerning whom, because his enemies had laid the information, he thought the report should be neither believed nor ignored), he wished to test whether what had been told him was true or false. 3And so he set out on the road on which they had said the ambush would be. 3But he chose a man very like himself in body and stature, gave him his own clothing and ordered him to go in the place where he himself was accustomed to go; 3he himself, however, in a soldier's equipment and dress, began to march among the bodyguards.
4But the ambushers, when the column reached the place where they had lain in wait, deceived by the position and the dress, make an attack on the man who had been substituted. 4Datames, however, had told those with whom he was marching beforehand to be ready to do whatever they saw him do. 5He himself, when he noticed the ambushers rushing in, hurled his weapons at them. 5When all had done the same, the ambushers fell pierced through before they could reach the man they meant to attack.