Page images
PDF
EPUB

After this Nicodromus, according to his agreement with the Athenians, seized that which is called the old town. 89. The Athenians, however, did not arrive at the proper time, for they happened not to have a sufficient number of ships to engage with the Ægineta; and while they were entreating the Corinthians to furnish them with ships, their plan was ruined. The Corinthians, for they were then on very friendly terms with them, at their request supplied the Athenians with twenty ships; and they furnished them, letting them to hire for five drachmæ for each; because by their laws they were forbidden to give them for nothing. The Athenians, therefore, having taken these and their own, manned seventy ships in all, and sailed to Ægina, and arrived one day after that agreed upon. 90. Nicodromus, when the Athenians did not arrive at the proper time, embarked on ship-board and made his escape from Ægina; and others of the Æginetæ accom panied him, to whom the Athenians gave Sunium for a habitation; and they, sallying from thence, plundered the Æginetæ in the island. This, however, happened subsequently. 91. In the mean time the most wealthy of the Æginetæ overpowered the common people, who, together with Nicodromus, had revolted against them, and afterwards, having subdued them, they led them out to execution. And on this occasion they incurred a guilt, which they were unable to expiate by any contrivance; but they were ejected out of the island, before the goddess became propitious to them. For having taken seven hundred of the common people prisoners, they led them out to execution; and one of them, having escaped from his bonds, fled to the porch of Ceres the lawgiver, and seizing the door-handle, held it fast: but they, when they were unable by dragging to tear him away, cut off his hands, and so took him away; and the hands were left sticking on the door-handles. 92. Thus, then, the Ægineta treated their own people. But when the Athenians arrived with their seventy ships, they came to an engagement, and being conquered in the sea-fight, they called on the same persons as before for assistance, that is, on the Argives. They, however, would not any longer succour them, but complained that the ships of the Æginetæ, having been forcibly seized by Cleomenes, had touched on the territory of Argos, and the crews had disembarked with the Lacedæmonians. Some

men had also disembarked from Sicyonian ships in the same invasion; and a penalty was imposed upon them by the Argives, to pay a thousand talents, five hundred each. The Sicyonians, accordingly, acknowledging that they had acted unjustly, made an agreement to pay one hundred talents, and be free from the rest; but the Æginetæ would not own themselves in the wrong, and were very obstinate. On this account, therefore, none of the Argives were sent by the commonwealth to assist them; but, on their request, volunteers went to the number of a thousand: a general, whose name was Eurybates, and who had practised for the pentathlon, led them the greater number of these never returned home, but were slain by the Athenians in Ægina. The general, Eurybates, engaging in single combat, killed three several antagonists in that manner, but was slain by the fourth, Sophanes of Decelea. 93. The Æginetæ, however, having attacked the fleet of the Athenians, when they were in disorder, obtained a victory, and took four of their ships with the men on board.

94. War was accordingly kindled between the Athenians and Æginetæ. But the Persian pursued his own design, for the servant continually reminded him to remember the Athenians, and the Pisistratida constantly importuned him and accused the Athenians; and at the same time Darius, laying hold of this pretext, was desirous of subduing those people of Greece who had refused to give him earth and water. He therefore dismissed Mardonius from his command, because he had succeeded ill in his expedition; and having appointed other generals, he sent them against Eretria and Athens, namely, Datis, who was a Mede by birth, and Artaphernes, son of Artaphernes, his own nephew; and he despatched them with strict orders, having enslaved Athens and Eretria, to bring the bondsmen into his presence. 95. When these generals who were appointed left the king, and reached the Aleian plain of Cilicia, bringing with them a numerous and well-equipped army, while they were there encamped the whole naval force required from each people came up the horse-transports were also present, which Darius in the preceding year had commanded his tributaries to prepare. Having put the horses on board of these, and having embarked the land-forces in the ships, they sailed for Ionia with six hundred

390

HERODOTUS.

[96-98 triremes. From thence they did not steer their ships along the continent direct towards the Hellespont and Thrace; but parting from Samos they directed their course across the Icarian sea, and through the islands; as appears to me, chiefly, dreading the circumnavigation of Athos, because in the preceding year, in attempting a passage that way, they had sustained great loss; and besides, Naxos compelled them, not having been before captured. 96. When, being carried out of the Icarian sea, they arrived off Naxos, (for the Persians, bearing in mind what had formerly happened, purposed to attack this place first,) the Naxians fled to the mountains, and did not await their approach: the Persians, therefore, having seized as many of them as they could lay hold of, as slaves, set fire to both the sacred buildings and the city; and having done this, they proceeded against the rest of the islands.

97. While they were doing this, the Delians also, abandoning Delos, fled to Tenos; but as the fleet was sailing down towards it, Datis, having sailed forward, would not permit the ships to anchor near the island, but further on, off Rhenea; and he, having ascertained where the Delians were, sent a herald and addressed them as follows: "Sacred men, why have you fled, forming an unfavourable opinion of me? For both I myself have so much wisdom, and am so ordered by the king, that in the region where the two deities were born, no harm should be done either to the country itself or its inhabitants. Return, therefore, to your houses, and resume possession of the island." This message he sent to the Delians by means of a herald; and afterwards having heaped up three hundred talents of frankincense upon the altar, he burnt it. 98. Datis, accordingly, having done this, sailed with the army first against Eretria, taking with him both Ionians and Eolians. But after he had put out to sea from thence, Delos was shaken by an earthquake, as the Delians say, the first and last time that it was so affected to my time. And the deity assuredly by this portent intimated to men the evils that were about to befal them. For during the reigns of Darius, son of Hystaspes, of Xerxes, son of Darius, and of Artaxerxes, son of Xerxes; during these three successive Apollo and Diana.

9 See B. V. ch. 34.

generations, more disasters befel Greece than during the twenty generations that preceded the time of Darius; partly brought upon it by the Persians, and partly by the chief men amongst them contending for power. So that it is nothing improbable that Delos should be moved at that time, having been until then unmoved: and in an oracle respecting it, it had been thus written: "I will move even Delos, although hitherto unmoved." And in the Grecian language these names mean, Darius, "one who restrains;" Xerxes, "a warrior;" and Artaxerxes, "a mighty warrior." Thus, then, the Greeks may rightly designate these kings in their language.

99. The barbarians, after they had parted from Delos, touched at the islands; and from thence they took with them men to serve in the army, and carried away the sons of the islanders for hostages. And when, having sailed round the islands, they touched at Carystus, as the Carystians would not give hostages, and refused to bear arms against their neighbouring cities, meaning Eretria and Athens, they thereupon besieged them, and ravaged their country, until at last the Carystians also submitted to the will of the Persians. 100. The Eretrians, being informed that the Persian armament was sailing against them, entreated the Athenians to assist them ; and the Athenians did not refuse their aid, but gave them as auxiliaries those four thousand men to whom had been allotted the territory of the horse-feeding Chalcidians.2 But the councils of the Eretrians were not at all sound: they sent for the Athenians indeed, but held divided opinions; for some of them proposed to abandon the city, and to retire to the fastnesses of Euboea; but others of them, hoping that they should derive gain to themselves from the Persians, were planning to betray their country. But Eschines, son of Nothon, a man of rank among the Eretrians, being informed of the views of both parties, communicated to the Athenians, who had come, the whole state of their affairs; and entreated them to return to their own country, lest they too should perish. The Athenians followed this advice of Eschines, and having crossed over to Oropus, saved themselves. 101. In the mean time the Persians, sailing on, directed their ships' course to Tamynæ, Chorea, and Ægilia, of the Eretrian territory; and having 2 See B. V. ch. 77.

taken possession of these places, they immediately disembarked the horses, and made preparations to attack the enemy. But the Eretrians had no thoughts of going out against them and fighting, but since that opinion had prevailed, that they should not abandon the city, their only care now was, if by any means they could defend the walls. A violent attack on the walls ensuing, for six days many fell on both sides; but on the seventh, Euphorbus, son of Alcimachus, and Philargus, son of Cyneus, men of rank among the citizens, betrayed the city to the Persians. But they, having gained entrance into the city, in the first place pillaged and set fire to the temples, in revenge for those that had been burnt at Sardis; and in the next, they enslaved the inhabitants, in obedience to the commands of Darius.

102. Having subdued Eretria, and rested a few days, they sailed to Attica, pressing them very close, and expecting to treat the Athenians in the same way as they had the Eretrians. Now as Marathon was the spot in Attica best adapted for cavalry, and nearest to Eretria, Hippias, son of Pisistratus, conducted them there. 103. But the Athenians, when they heard of this, also sent their forces to Marathon: and ten generals led them, of whom the tenth was Miltiades, whose father, Cimon,3 son of Stesagoras, had been banished from Athens by Pisistratus, son of Hippocrates. During his exile, it was his good fortune to obtain the Olympic prize in the four-horse chariot race, and having gained this victory, he transferred the honour to Miltiades, his brother by the same mother; and afterwards, in the next Olympiad, being victorious with the same mares, he permitted Pisistratus to be proclaimed victor; and having conceded the victory to him, he returned home under terms. And after he had gained another Olympic prize with these same mares, it happened that he died by the hands of the sons of Pisistratus, when Pisistratus himself was no longer alive: they slew him near the Prytaneum, having placed men to waylay him by night. Cimon was buried in front of the city, beyond that which is called the road through Cola, and opposite him these same mares were buried, which won the three Olympic prizes. Other mares also had already done the same thing, belonging to Evagoras the Lacedæmonian; but besides these, none others. Stesagoras,

3 See ch. 39-41.

« PreviousContinue »