for some time, were at length overcome; and over those who survived, the Persians set up Lycaretus as governor, the brother of Maandrius who had reigned in Samos. This Lycaretus died while governor of Lemnos.) Otanes enslaved and subdued them all; his reasons for doing so were as follows: some he charged of desertion to the Scythians; others, of having harassed Darius's army in their return home from the Scythians. Such was his conduct while general of the forces. 28. Afterwards, for the intermission from misfortune was not of long duration, evils arose a second time to the Ionians from Naxos and Miletus. For, on the one hand, Naxos surpassed all the islands in opulence; and on the other hand, Miletus at the same time had attained the summit of its prosperity, and was accounted the ornament of Ionia; though before this period, it had for two generations suffered excessively from seditions, until the Parians reconciled them; for the Milesians had chosen them out of all the Greeks to settle their differences. 29. The Parians reconciled them in the following manner. When their most eminent men arrived at Miletus, as they saw their private affairs in a dreadful state, they said that they wished to go through their whole country; and, in doing this and going through all Milesia, wheresoever they saw in the devastated country any land well cultivated, they wrote down the name of the proprietor. And having traversed the whole country and found but few such, as soon as they came down to the city, they called an assembly, and appointed to govern the city those persons whose lands they had found well cultivated; for they said they thought they would administer the public affairs as well as they had done their own. The rest of the Milesians, who before had been split into factions, they ordered to obey them. Thus the Parians reconciled the Milesians. 30. From these two cities at that time misfortunes began to befal Ionia in the following manner. Some of the opulent men were exiled from Naxos by the people, and being exiled, went to Miletus: the governor of Miletus happened to be Aristagoras, son of Molpagoras, son-in-law and cousin of Histiæus, son of Lysagoras, whom Darius detained at Susa. For Histiæus was tyrant of Miletus, and happened to be at that time at Susa, when the Naxians came, who were before on terms of friendship with Histiæus. The Naxians then, having arrived at Miletus, entreated Aristagoras if he could

by any means give them some assistance, that so they might return to their own country. But he, having considered that if by his means they should return to their city, he would get the dominion of Naxos, used the friendship of Histiæus as a pretence, and addressed the following discourse to them: "I am not able of myself to furnish you with a force sufficient to reinstate you against the wishes of the Naxians who are in possession of the city, for I hear that the Naxians have eight thousand heavy-armed men, and a considerable number of ships of war. Yet I will contrive some way, and use my best endeavours; and I design it in this way: Artaphernes happens to be my friend; he is son of Hystaspes and brother of king Darius, and commands all the maritime parts of Asia, and has a large army and many ships. This man, I am persuaded, will do whatever we desire." The Naxians, having heard this, urged Aristagoras to bring it about in the best way he could, and bade him promise presents, and their expenses to the army, for that they would repay it, having great expectation that when they should appear at Naxos the Naxians would do whatever they should order, as also would the other islanders; for of these Cyclades islands not one was as yet subject to Darius.

31. Accordingly Aristagoras, having gone to Sardis, told Artaphernes, that Naxos was an island of no great extent, but otherwise beautiful and fertile, and near Ionia, and in it was much wealth and many slaves. "Do you therefore send an army against this country, to reinstate those who have been banished from thence; and if you do this, I have, in the first place, a large sum of money ready, in addition to the expenses of the expedition, for it is just that we who lead you on should supply that; and in the next, you will acquire for the king Naxos itself, and the islands dependent upon it, Paros, Andros, and the rest that are called Cyclades. Setting out from thence, you will easily attack Euboea, a large and wealthy island, not less than Cyprus, and very easy to be taken. A hundred ships are sufficient to subdue them all." He answered him as follows: "You propose things advantageous to the king's house, and advise every thing well, except the number of ships; instead of one hundred, two hundred shall be ready at the commencement of the spring. But it is necessary that the king himself should approve of the design." 32. Now Aris

tagoras, when he heard this, being exceedingly rejoiced, went back to Miletus. But Artaphernes, when, on his sending to Susa and communicating what was said by Aristagoras, Darius himself also approved the plan, made ready two hundred triremes, and a very numerous body of Persians and other allies and he appointed Megabates general, a Persian of the family of the Achemenidæ, his own and Darius's nephew, whose daughter, if the report be true, was afterwards betrothed to Pausanias, son of Cleombrotus the Lacedæmonian, who aspired to become tyrant of Greece. Artaphernes, having appointed Megabates general, sent forward the army to Aristagoras.

33. Megabates, having taken with him from Miletus, Aristagoras, and the Ionian forces and the Naxians, sailed professedly for the Hellespont; but when he arrived at Chios, anchored at Caucasa, that he might cross over from thence to Naxos by a north wind. However, since it was fated that the Naxians were not to perish by this armament, the following event occurred. As Megabates was going round the watches on board the ships, he found no one on guard on board a Myndian ship; thereupon, being indignant at this, he ordered his body-guards to find the captain of this ship, whose name was Scylax, and to bind him, having passed him half-way through the lower rowlock of the vessel, so that his head should be on the outside of the vessel, and his body within. When Scylax was bound, some one told Aristagoras that Megabates had bound and disgraced his Myndian friend. He went therefore and interceded for him with the Persian, but when he found he could obtain nothing, he went and released him. Megabates, hearing of this, was very indignant, and enraged with Aristagoras: but he said, "What have you to do with these matters? Did not Artaphernes send you to obey me, and to sail wheresoever I should command? Why do you busy yourself?" Aristagoras spoke thus. But Megabates, exasperated at this, as soon as night arrived, despatched men in a ship to Naxos, to inform the Naxians of the impending danger. 34. Now the Naxians did not at all expect that this armament was coming against them; when therefore they heard of it, they immediately carried every thing from the fields into the town, and prepared to undergo a siege, and brought food and drink within the walls. Thus they made

preparations, as if war was close at hand; but the Persians, when they crossed over from Chios to Naxos, had to attack men well fortified, and besieged them during four months. So that having consumed all the supplies they had brought with them, together with large sums furnished by Aristagoras, and wanting still more to carry on the siege, they therefore built a fortress for the Naxian exiles, and retired to the continent, having been unsuccessful.

35. Aristagoras was unable to fulfil his promise to Artaphernes; and at the same time the expense of the expedition, which was demanded, pressed heavy on him; he was alarmed too on account of the ill success of the army, and at having incurred the ill will of Megabates, and thought that he should be deprived of the government of Miletus; dreading therefore each of these things, he meditated a revolt: for it happened at the same time that a messenger with his head punctured came from Susa from Histiæus, urging Aristagoras to revolt from the king. For Histiæus, being desirous to signify to Aristagoras his wish for him to revolt, had no other means of signifying it with safety, because the roads were guarded; therefore, having shaved the head of the most trustworthy of his slaves, he marked it, and waited till the hair was grown again: as soon as it was grown again, he sent him to Miletus without any other instructions, than that when he arrived at Miletus he should desire Aristagoras to shave off his hair and look upon his head: the punctures, as I said before, signified a wish for him to revolt. Histiæus did this because he looked upon his detention at Susa as a great misfortune; if then a revolt should take place he had great hopes that he should be sent down to the coast; but if Miletus made no new attempt, he thought that he should never go there again. 36. Histiæus accordingly under these considerations sent off the messenger. All these things concurred together at the same time to Aristagoras; he therefore consulted with his partisans, communicating to them his own opinion and the message that had come from Histiæus: now all the rest concurred in the same opinion, urging him to revolt; but Hecatæus, the historian, at first endeavoured to dissuade him from undertaking a war against the king of the Persians, enumerating all the nations whom Darius governed, and his power; but when he could not prevail, he in the next

place advised, that they should so contrive as to make themselves masters of the sea. "Now," he continued, " he saw no other way of effecting this, for he was well aware that the power of the Milesians was weak; but if the treasures should be seized from the temple of the Branchida, which Croesus the Lydian had dedicated, he had great hopes that they might acquire the dominion of the sea; and thus they would have money for their own use, and the enemy could not plunder that treasure." But this treasure was very considerable, as I have already related in the first part of my history.5 This opinion however did not prevail. Nevertheless it was resolved to revolt, and that one of them, having sailed to Myus to the force that had returned from Naxos, and which was then there, should endeavour to seize the captains on board the ships. 37. Iatragoras, having been despatched for this very purpose, and having, by stratagem, seized Oliatus, son of Ibanolis of Mylassa, Histiæus, son of Tymnes of Termera, Coes, son of Erxandrus, to whom Darius had given Mitylene, Aristagoras, son of Heraclides, of Cyme, and many others; Aristagoras thus openly revolted, devising every thing he could against Darius. And first, in pretence, having laid aside the sovereignty, he established an equality in Miletus, in order that the Milesians might more readily join with him in the revolt. And afterwards he effected the same throughout the rest of Ionia, expelling some of the tyrants; and he delivered up those whom he had taken from on board the ships that had sailed with him against Naxos, to the cities, in order to gratify the people, giving them up generally to the respective cities, from whence each came. 38. The Mityleneans, as soon as they received Coes, led him out, and stoned him to death; but the Cymeans let their tyrant go; and in like manner most of the others let theirs go. Accordingly there was a suppression of tyrants throughout the cities. But Aristagoras the Milesian, when he had suppressed the tyrants, and enjoined them all to appoint magistrates in each of the cities, in the next place went himself in a trireme as ambassador to Sparta, for it was necessary for him to procure some powerful alliance.

39. Anaxandrides, son of Leon, no longer survived and reigned over Sparta, but was already dead; Cleomenes, son of Anaxandrides, held the sovereignty, not having acquired it

5 See B. I. chap. 50, 51, 92.