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Athens; but Miltiades, son of Cypselus, had considerable influence; he was of a family that maintained horses for the chariot races, and was originally descended from Eacus and Ægina, but in later times was an Athenian, Philæus, son of Ajax, having been the first Athenian of that family. This Miltiades, being seated in his own portico, and seeing the Dolonci passing by, wearing a dress not belonging to the country, and carrying javelins, called out to them; and upon their coming to him he offered them shelter and hospitality. They having accepted his invitation, and having been entertained by him, made known to him the whole oracle, and entreated him to obey the deity. Their words persuaded Miltiades as soon as he heard them, for he was troubled with the government of Pisistratus, and desired to get out of his way, He therefore immediately set out to Delphi to consult the oracle whether he should do that which the Dolonci requested of him. The Pythian having bade him do so, thereupon Miltiades, son of Cypselus, who had formerly won the Olympic prize in the chariot race, taking with him all such Athenians as were willing to join in the expedition, set sail with the Dolonci, and took possession of the country; and they who introduced him appointed him tyrant. He, first of all, built a wall on the isthmus of the Chersonese, from the city of Cardia to Pactya, in order that the Apsynthians might not be able to injure them by making incursions into their country. The width of this isthmus is thirty-six stades; and from this isthmus the whole Chersonese inward is four hundred and twenty stades in length. Miltiades, then, having built a wall across the neck of the Chersonese, and by that means repelled the Apsynthians, next made war upon the Lampsacenians; and the Lampsacenians, having laid an ambush, took him prisoner. But Miltiades was well known to Croesus; Croesus, therefore, having heard of this event, sent and commanded the Lampsacenians to release Miltiades; if not, he threatened that he would destroy them like a pine tree. The Lampsacenians being in uncertainty in their interpretations as to what was the meaning of the saying with which Croesus threatened them, that he would destroy them like a pine tree, at length, with some difficulty, one of the elders having discovered it, told the real truth, that the pine alone of all trees, when cut down, does not send forth any more shoots, but perishes entirely; whereupon the Lampsacenians, dreading the power of Croesus, set Miltiades at liberty. He accordingly escaped by means of Croesus, and afterward died childless, having bequeathed the government and

his property to Stesagoras, son of Cimon, his brother by the same mother. And when he was dead the Chersonesians sacrificed to him, as is usual to a founder, and instituted equestrian and gymnastic exercises, in which no Lampsacenian is permitted to contend. The war with the Lampsacenians still continuing, it also befell Stesagoras to die childless; being stricken on the head with an axe in the Prytaneum, by a man who in pretence was a deserter, but was in fact an enemy, and that a very vehement one.

Stesagoras having died in that manner, the Pisistratidæ thereupon sent Miltiades, son of Cimon, and brother of Stesagoras who had died, with one ship to the Chersonese, to assume the government; they had also treated him with kindness at Athens, as if they had not been parties to the death of his father Cimon; the particulars of which I will relate in another place. Miltiades having arrived in the Chersonese, kept himself at home under colour of honouring the memory of his brother Stesagoras; but the Chersonesians having heard of this, the principal persons of all the cities assembled together from every quarter, and having come in a body, with the intention of condoling with him, were all thrown into chains by him. Thus Miltiades got possession of the Chersonese, maintaining five hundred auxiliaries, and married Hegesipyle, daughter of Olorus, King of the Thracians. This Miltiades, son of Cimon, had lately arrived in the Chersonese; and after his arrival other difficulties, greater than the present, befell him. For in the third year before these things he fled from the Scythians; for the Scythian nomads, having been provoked by King Darius, had assembled their forces and marched as far as this Chersonese: Miltiades, not daring to wait their approach, fled from the Chersonese, until the Scythians departed, and the Dolonci brought him back again. These things happened in the third year before the present affairs. Miltiades, having heard that the Phoenicians were at Tenedos, loaded five triremes with the property he had at hand, and sailed away for Athens; and when he had set out from the city of Cardia, he sailed through the Gulf of Melas, and as he was passing by the Chersonese, the Phoenicians fell in with his ships. Now Miltiades himself escaped with four of the ships to Imbrus, but the fifth the Phoenicians pursued and took of this ship, Metiochus, the eldest of the sons of Miltiades, not by the daughter of Olorus the Thracian, but by another woman, happened to be commander, and him the Phoenicians took together with the ship. When they heard that he was son of Miltiades, they took him up to the king,

thinking that they should obtain great favour for themselves, because Miltiades had given an opinion to the Ionians advising them to comply with the Scythians, when the Scythians requested them to loose the bridge and return to their own country. But Darius, when the Phoenicians had taken Metiochus, son of Miltiades, up to him, did him no injury, but many favours; for he gave him a house and estate, and a Persian wife, by whom he had children, who were reckoned among the Persians. But Miltiades arrived at Athens from Imbros.

During this year nothing more was done by the Persians relative to the war with the Ionians; on the contrary, the following things were done in this year which were advantageous to the Ionians: Artaphernes, governor of Sardis, having sent for deputies from the cities, compelled the Ionians to enter into engagements among themselves, that they would submit to legal decisions, and not commit depredations one upon another. This he compelled them to do, and having measured their lands by parasangs, which name the Persians give to thirty stades; having measured them into these, he imposed tributes on each, which have continued the same from that time to the present, as they were imposed by Artaphernes; and they were imposed nearly at the same amount as they had been before. These things then tended to peace. In the beginning of the spring, the other generals having been dismissed by the king, Mardonius, son of Gobryas, went down to the coast, taking with him a very large land army and a numerous naval force: he was young in years, and had lately married King Darius's daughter Artazostra. Mardonius, leading this army, when he arrived in Cilicia, having gone in person on board ship, proceeded with the rest of the fleet, but the other generals led the land army to the Hellespont. When Mardonius, sailing by Asia, reached Ionia, there he did a thing which, when I mention it, will be a matter of very great astonishment to those Grecians who can not believe that Otanes, one of the seven Persians, gave an opinion that it was right for the Persians to be governed by a democracy; for Mardonius, having deposed the tyrants of the Ionians, established democracies in the cities. Having done this, he hastened to the Hellespont. And when a vast body of ships, and a numerous land army was assembled, having crossed the Hellespont in ships, they marched through Europe and directed their march against Eretria and Athens. These cities, indeed, were the pretext of the expedition; but purposing to subdue as many Grecian cities as they could, in the first place

they reduced the Thasians with their fleet, who did not even raise a hand to resist them; and in the next place with their land forces they enslaved the Macedonians, in addition to those that were before subject to them; for all the nations on this side of the Macedonians were already under their power. Then crossing over from Thasus, they coasted along the continent as far as Acanthus: and proceeding from Acanthus, they endeavoured to double Mount Athos, but a violent and irresistible north wind falling upon them as they were sailing round, very roughly dealt with a great number of the ships by driving them against Athos: for it is said that as many as three hundred ships were destroyed, and upward of twenty thousand men; for, as this sea around Athos abounds in monsters, some of them were seized and destroyed by these monsters; and others were dashed against the rocks, others knew not how to swim and so perished, and others from cold. Such, then, was the fate of the naval force. Mardonius and the land forces, while encamped in Macedonia, the Thracian Brygi attacked in the night; and the Brygi slew many of them, and wounded Mardonius himself. Nevertheless, even they did not escape slavery at the hands of the Persians; for Mardonius did not quit those parts before he had reduced them to subjection. Having subdued them, he led his army back again, having suffered a disaster with his land forces from the Brygi, and with his navy a greater one near Athos. Accordingly, this armament, having met with such disgraceful reverses, retreated into Asia.

In the second year after these events, the Thasians having been accused by their neighbours of designing a revolt, Darius sent a messenger and commanded them to demolish their walls, and to transport their ships to Abdera. For the Thasians, having been besieged by Histiæus the Milesian, and having large revenues, applied their wealth in building ships of war and fortifying their city with a stronger wall. Their revenues arose both from the continent and from their mines: from the gold mines of Scapte-Hyle proceeded in all eighty talents yearly, and from those in Thasus less indeed than that amount, yet so much that, as they were exempt from taxes on the produce of the soil, there came in to the Thasians in all, from the continent and the mines, a revenue of two hundred talents yearly; and when the greatest quantity came in, three hundred talents. I myself have seen these mines; and by far the most wonderful of them are those which the Phoenicians discovered, who with Thasus colonized this island, which on that occasion took its name from this Thasus the Phoenician.

These Phoenician mines are in that part of Thasus between a place called Enyra and Conyra, opposite Samothrace: a large mountain has been thrown upside down in the search. This, then, is of such a description. The Thasians, in obedience to the king, both demolished their walls and transported all their ships to Abdera.

After this Darius made trial of what were the intentions of the Greeks, whether to make war with him or to deliver themselves up. He therefore despatched heralds, appointing different persons to go to different parts throughout Greece, with orders to demand earth and water for the king. These accordingly he sent to Greece; and despatched other heralds to the tributary cities on the coast, with orders to build ships of war and transports for horses. They then set about preparing these things; and to the heralds who came to Greece many of the inhabitants of the continent gave what the Persian demanded, as did all the islanders to whom they came and made the demand. Indeed, the other islanders gave earth and water to Darius, and, moreover, the Æginetæ: but when they had done so, the Athenians forthwith threatened them, thinking that the Æginetæ had given earth and water out of ill will toward themselves, in order that they might make war on them in conjunction with the Persians: they therefore gladly laid hold of the pretext, and, going to Sparta, accused the Æginetæ of what they had done, as betraying Greece. On this accusation Cleomenes, son of Anaxandrides, who was then King of the Spartans, crossed over to Ægina, intending to seize the most culpable of the Æginetæ; but when he attempted to seize them, others of the Æginetæ opposed him, and among them especially Crius, son of Polycritus, who said that he should not carry off any one of the Æginetæ with impunity; for that he was acting as he did without the consent of the commonwealth of the Spartans, being persuaded by bribes from the Athenians; and that if it had not been so, he would have come with the other king to seize them. He said this in consequence of a message from Demaratus. But Cleomenes, being driven from Ægina, asked Crius what his name was; and he told him the truth; whereupon Cleomenes said to him, "Now then tip your horns with brass, O Crius,1 as you will have to contend with great misfortunes." Meanwhile Demaratus, son of Ariston, who was likewise King of the Spartans, but of an inferior family, remaining in Sparta, aspersed the conduct of Cleomenes: he was in no other respect inferior, for they were sprung from the same origin, 1 Crius signifies "a ram."

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