# Herodotus The Persian Wars (Godley)/Book VI

Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA
1. This was the end of Aristagoras, after he had brought about the Ionian revolt. But Histiaeus, the despot of Miletus, being let go by Darius, arrived in Sardis. When he came thither from Susa, Artaphrenes the governor of Sardis asked him for what reason he supposed the Ionians to have rebelled; Histiaeus said that he did not know, and that he marvelled at what had happened; pretending to have no knowledge of the present troubles. But Artaphrenes saw that he dissembled, and said, speaking out of his exact knowledge of the story of the revolt: “I will tell you, Histiaeus, the truth of this business: it was you that stitched this shoe, and Aristagoras that put it on.”
2. Thus said Artaphrenes regarding the revolt; and Histiaeus, affrighted by Artaphrenes’ understanding of the matter, fled at the next nightfall to the sea; for he had deceived Darius, promising to subdue Sardo, the greatest of the islands, with secret intent to make himself leader of the Ionians in their war against Darius. Crossing over to Chios, he was taken and bound by the Chians, they judging him to be sent by Darius to do them some mischief; howbeit when they learnt the whole story of his enmity to the king they set him free.
3. Then Histiaeus was asked by the Ionians, why he had so zealously charged Aristagoras to revolt from the king and done the Ionians so great harm; the true reason he did by no means reveal to them, but told them instead that king Darius had planned to remove the Phoenicians and settle them in Ionia, and the Ionians in Phoenice; for this reason, he said, he had sent the charge. No such plan had the king made; but Histiaeus would affright the Ionians.
4. Presently Histiaeus, using for messenger Hermippus, a man of Atarneus, sent letters to the Persians at Sardis; this he did, because they had ere now held converse with him about revolt. But Hermippus gave not these letters to those to whom he was sent, and carried and delivered them to Artaphrenes instead. Artaphrenes, learning all that was afoot, bade Hermippus carry Histiaeus’ letters to those for whom he was bringing them, and give him those which the Persians sent in answer to Histiaeus. Thus these men became known to Artaphrenes, and he put many Persians there and then to death.
5. So troubles arose in Sardis. Histiaeus being disappointed of this hope, the Chians brought him back to Miletus, at his own entreaty. But the Milesians were glad enough to be rid of Aristagoras himself, and had no wish to receive another despot into their country, now that they had tasted of freedom; and when Histiaeus essayed by night to force his way into Miletus, he was wounded by a Milesian in the thigh. So, being thrust out from his own city, he went back to Chios; and there, when he could not persuade the Chians to give him ships, he crossed over to Mytilene and strove to persuade the Lesbians to give him ships. They manned eight triremes, and sailed with Histiaeus to Byzantium; there they encamped, and seized all the ships that were sailing out of the Euxine, save when the crews consented to serve Histiaeus.
6. Such were the doings of Histiaeus and the Mytilenaeans. As regards Miletus itself, there was expectation of a great fleet and army coming against it; for the Persian generals had joined their power together and made one host, which they led against Miletus, taking less account of the other fortresses. Of the fleet, the Phoenicians were the most eager to fight, and there came with them to the war the newly subdued Cyprians, and the Cilicians and Egyptians.
7. These then coming to attack Miletus and the rest of Ionia, the Ionians, when they had word of it, sent men of their own to take counsel for them in the Panionium. These, when they came to that place and there consulted, resolved to raise no land army to meet the Persians, but to leave the Milesians themselves to defend their walls, and to man their fleet to the last ship and muster with all speed at Lade, there to fight for Miletus at sea. This Lade is an islet lying off the city of Miletus.
8. The Ionians came presently thither with their ships manned, and as many Aeolians with them as dwell in Lesbos. And this was their order of battle:—The Milesians themselves had the eastern wing, bringing eighty ships; next to them were the men of Priene with twelve ships, and they of Myus with three; next to the men of Myus were the men of Teos with seventeen ships; next to these the Chians with a hundred; near these in the line were the Erythraeans, bringing eight ships, and the Phocaeans with three, and next to these the Lesbians with seventy; last of all in the line were the Samians, holding the western wing with sixty ships. All these together attained to the number of three hundred and fifty-three triremes.
9. These were the Ionian ships; the ships of the foreigners were six hundred. Now these, too, being come to the Milesian shore, and all their land power being there, the Persian generals, when they learnt the number of the Ionian ships, began to fear lest they should be too weak to overcome the Greeks, and thereby, if they had not the mastery of the sea, should fail of taking Miletus and peradventure be evilly entreated by Darius. Having this in mind, they assembled the despots of the Ionians, who had been deposed from their governments by Aristagoras of Miletus and had fled to the Medes, and were now as it chanced with the army that was led against Miletus; they assembled, I say, as many of these as were with them, and thus they addressed them: “Men of Ionia, let each one of you now show that he has done good service to the king’s house; let every one of you essay severally to separate his own countrymen from the rest of the allied power. Set this before them, and promise withal, that they shall suffer no hurt for their rebellion, and that neither their temples shall be burnt nor their houses, nor shall they in any regard be more violently used than aforetime. But if they will not be so guided, and nothing will serve them but fighting, then utter a threat that shall put constraint upon them, and tell them that if they are worsted in battle they shall be enslaved; we will make eunuchs of their boys, and carry their maidens captive to Bactra, and deliver their land to others.”
10. Thus said the generals; the Ionian despots sent their messages by night, each to his own countrymen; but the Ionians to whom these messages did indeed come were stubborn and would have none of the treachery, each part thinking that the Persians made this offer to it alone.
11. This befel immediately after the Persians’ coming to Miletus. Presently, the Ionians being gathered at Lade, assemblies of them were held; among those whom I suppose to have addressed them were Dionysius the Phocaean general, who spoke thus: “Our cause, Ionians, stands on the very razor-edge of decision whether we be freemen or slaves, yea, runaway slaves; now therefore if you consent to endure hardness, you will have toil for the present time, but it will be in your power to overcome your enemies and gain freedom; but if you will still be slothful and disorderly, I see nothing that can save you from being punished by the king for your rebellion. Nay, do you take my word, and entrust yourselves to me; and I promise you that (if heaven deal fairly with us) either our enemies shall not meet us in battle, or if they so do they shall be utterly vanquished.”
12. When the Ionians heard this, they put themselves in Dionysius’ hands. He then ever put out to sea with ships in column, and having used the rowers to pierce each other’s line of ships, and armed the fighting men on board, he would for the rest of the day keep the fleet at anchor; all day he made the Ionians work. For seven days they obeyed him and did his bidding; but on the next day, untried as they were in such labour and worn out by hard work and the sun’s heat, the Ionians began to say each to other, “Against what god have we sinned that we fulfil this hard measure? We have gone clean daft and launched out into folly, committing ourselves into the hands of this Phocaean braggart, who brings but three ships; and having got us he afflicts us with afflictions incurable, whereby many of us have fallen sick already and many are like so to do; better than these ills it were for us to endure any and every lot, and abide this coming slavery whatsoever it be, rather than be oppressed by that which is now upon us. Marry, let us obey him no longer!” Thus they said; and from that day no man would obey: they built them booths on the island (as though they had been an army) wherein they lived sheltered from the sun, and never would embark in their ships nor exercise themselves therein.
13. But when the generals of the Samians learnt of this that the Ionians did, they bethought them of that message which Aeaces son of Syloson had already sent them at the Persians’ bidding, entreating them to desert the Ionian alliance; now therefore, when they saw much disorder on the Ionian side, they consented to the message; moreover, it seemed to them to be a thing impossible to overcome the king’s power, and they were well assured that if they overcame Darius’ present fleet they would have another fivefold greater on their hands. Therefore as soon as they saw that the Ionians would not be serviceable, they laid hold on that for a pretext, thinking themselves in luck’s way so to save their temples and their own houses. This Aeaces, to whose message the Samians consented, was son of Syloson the son of Aeaces, and had been despot of Samos, till he was deposed from his government by Aristagoras of Miletus, even as the other Ionian despots.
14. Now therefore, when the Phoenician fleet came sailing against them, the Ionians for their part put out to sea with their ships in column. When they drew near together and met in battle, which of the Ionians did thereafter quit themselves ill or well in that sea-fight my history cannot with exactness record; for they all blame each other. But this is said, that the Samians, according to their compact with Aeaces, did then make all sail for Samos, leaving their post, all save eleven ships, the captains whereof stood their ground and fought, disobeying their admirals; and by reason of this deed the Samian people granted them for their valour that their names and their fathers’ should be engraved on a pillar, which pillar now stands in their market-place. But the Lesbians, seeing their neigh bours fly, did even as the Samians; and so, too, the greater part of the Ionians did likewise.
15. Of those that stood their ground in the sea-fight, most roughly handled were the Chians, for they would not be cravens but achieved deeds of renown. They brought an hundred ships, as I have before told, to the fleet, and on each ship were forty picked men of their citizens; and seeing themselves betrayed by the greater part of their allies they thought shame to bear themselves like the baser sort of the rest, but albeit with none but a few allies to aid them they fought on and broke the enemy’s line, till they had taken many of his ships but lost the greater part of their own.
16. So with the remnant of their ships the Chians fled to their own country; but the crews of the Chian ships that were crippled by hurts fled before the pursuit to Mycale. There the men beached and left their ships, and made their way thence across the mainland. But when the Chians entered the lands of Ephesus on their march, it chanced that they came by night and the women were keeping their Thesmophoria; and the Ephesians thereupon, never having heard the story of the Chians and seeing an army invading their country, were fully persuaded that these were robbers come after their women; so they mustered all their force and slew the Chians.
17. They, then, met with such fate as I have said. As for Dionysius the Phocaean, when he saw that the Ionian cause was lost, he sailed away with three enemy ships that he had taken; but not to Phocaea, now that he knew well that it would be enslaved with the rest of Ionia; he sailed then and there with a straight course to Phoenice instead, and having sunk there certain galleons and taken much substance he made sail to Sicily, making which his station he set up for a pirate, robbing Carchedonians and Tyrrhenians, but no Greeks.
18. When the Persians had vanquished the Ionians by sea, they laid siege to Miletus by sea and land, mining the walls and using every device against it, till in the sixth year after the revolt of Aristagoras they took the city high and low and enslaved it. Thus did this calamity accord with the oracle concerning Miletus.
19. For when the Argives enquired at Delphi of the safety of their city, there was given them an oracle of twofold import, part of it regarding the Argives themselves, but there was an oracle added thereto for the Milesians. Of that which concerned the Argives I will then make mention when I come to that part of my history; but this was the propheqy given to the Milesians, they not being then present:
All this now came upon the Milesians; for the most part of their men were slain by the long-haired Persians, and their women and children were accounted as slaves, and the temple at Didyma with its shrine and place of divination was plundered and burnt. Of the wealth that was in this temple I have often spoken elsewhere in my history.
20. After that, the captive Milesians were brought to Susa. King Darius did them no further hurt, but settled them by the sea called Red, in the city called Ampe, whereby flows the river Tigris as it issues into the sea. Of the Milesian land the Persians themselves held what was nearest to the city, and the plain, giving the hill country into the possession of Carians from Pedasa.
21. Now when the Milesians suffered all this at the hands of the Persians, the men of Sybaris (who had lost their city and dwelt in Laüs and Scidrus) gave them no just requital for what they had done; for when Sybaris was taken by the men of Croton, all the people of Miletus, young and old, shaved their heads and made great public lamentation; no cities within my knowledge were ever so closely joined in friendship as these. The Sybarites did nothing after the Athenian manner. For the Athenians, besides that they signified in many other ways their deep grief for the taking of Miletus, did this in especial:—Phrynichus having written a play entitled “The Fall of Miletus” and set it on the stage, the whole theatre brake into weeping; and they fined Phrynichus a thousand drachmae for bringing to mind a calamity that touched them so nearly, and forbade for ever the acting of that play.
22. Miletus then was left empty of its people. But as regards the Samians, their men of substance were ill-pleased by the dealings of their generals with the Medes; after the sea-fight they took counsel straightway and resolved that before Aeaces the despot came to their country they would sail away to a colony, rather than remain and be slaves to the Medes and Aeaces. For the people of Zancle in Sicily about this time sent messengers to Ionia inviting the Ionians to the Fair Coast, desiring there to found an Ionian city. This Fair Coast, as it is called, is in Sicily, in that part which looks towards Tyrrhenia. At this invitation, then, the Samians alone of the Ionians, with those Milesians who had escaped, set forth; and in their journey a thing befel them such as I will show.
23. As they voyaged to Sicily the Samians came to the country of the Epizephyrian Locrians at a time when the people of Zancle and their king (whose name was Scythes) were besieging a Sicilian town, desiring to take it. Learning this, Anaxilaus the despot of Rhegium, being then at feud with the Zanclaeans, consorted with the Samians and persuaded them from their purpose; they had best, he said, leave off their voyage to the Fair Coast, and seize Zancle while it was deserted by its men. To this the Samians consented and seized Zancle; whereat the Zanclaeans, when they learnt of the taking of their city, came to deliver it, calling to their aid Hippocrates the despot of Gela, who was their ally. But Hippocrates, when he came bringing his army to aid them, put Scythes the monarch of Zancle and his brother Pythogenes in chains for Scythes’ losing of the city, and sent them away to the town of Inyx; and for the rest of the people of Zancle, he betrayed them into the hands of the Samians, with whom he had taken counsel and exchanged oaths of agreement. The price which the Samians covenanted to give him was, that Hippocrates should take for his share half of the movable goods and of the slaves in the city, and all that was in the country. The greater number of the Zanclaeans were kept in chains as slaves by Hippocrates himself; three hundred, that were their chief men, he delivered to the Samians to be put to death; but the Samians did not so with them.
24. Scythes the monarch of Zancle escaped from Inyx to Himera, and thence being arrived in Asia went up the country to king Darius. He was esteemed by Darius the most honest man of all who had come up to him from Hellas; for he returned by the king’s permission to Sicily and from Sicily back again to Darius; at the last he ended his life in Persia, full of years and of great possessions. Thus lightly did the Samians plant themselves in that most excellent city of Zancle, when they had escaped from the Medes.
25. After the fight at sea for Miletus, the Phoenicians at the Persians’ bidding brought Aeaces, son of Syloson, back to Samos, for the high worth of his service to them, and his great achievements; and by reason of the desertion of their ships in the sea-fight the Samians were the only rebel people whose city was not burnt, nor their temples. Miletus being taken, the Persians thereby at once gained possession of Caria, some of the towns submitting themselves of their own accord and others being subdued perforce.
26. All this fell out as I have said. But Histiaeus the Milesian was at Byzantium, seizing the Ionian merchant ships as they sailed out of the Euxine, when he had news of the business of Miletus. Thereupon, leaving all matters concerning the Hellespont in charge of Bisaltes of Abydos, son of Apollophanes, he himself sailed with Lesbians to Chios, and there did battle in the Hollows of Chios (as they are called) with Chian guardships that would not receive him. Many of their crews he slew; the rest of the people of the country (so crippled were they by the sea-fight) Histiaeus with his Lesbians subdued to his will, coming out from Polichne in Chios.
27. Ever is some warning given by heaven, when great ills threaten cities or nations; for before all this plain signs had been sent to the Chians. Of a band of a hundred youths whom they had sent to Delphi two only returned, ninety-eight being caught and carried off by pestilence; moreover, at about this same time, a little before the sea-fight, the roof fell in on boys at school, insomuch that of a hundred and twenty of them one alone escaped. These signs had been shown to them by heaven; thereafter the sea-fight brake upon them and beat the city to its knees, and with that came Histiaeus and the Lesbians to end what the sea-fight began; and the Chians being in so evil a case, he easily subdued them.
28. Thence Histiaeus brought a great force of Ionians and Aeolians against Thasos. But while he beleaguered Thasos there came to him a message that the Phoenicians were putting out to sea from Miletus to attack the rest of Ionia; learning which he left Thasos unsacked, and made haste instead with all his army to Lesbos. Thence, for his men were anhungered, he crossed over with intent to reap from Atarneus the corn of that place and the Mysian corn of the Caïcus plain. Now it chanced that in that region was Harpagus, a Persian, having no small force under him; who, when Histiaeus landed, met him in battle and took Histiaeus himself alive and slew the greater part of his army.
29. Histiaeus was taken prisoner after this wise: the Greeks fought with the Persians at Malene in the country of Atarneus, and for a long time the armies battled foot to foot, till the Persian horse charged and fell upon the Greeks; thus it was they that achieved the victory; then, the Greeks being routed, Histiaeus, supposing that the king would not put him to death for his late transgression, did what showed him to love his life too well. Being overtaken in his flight by a Persian, and so caught and like to be stabbed, he cried out in the Persian language and discovered himself for Histiaeus of Miletus.
30. Now had he been taken prisoner and brought on his way to king Darius, no harm had been done him (to my thinking) and the king had forgiven his guilt; but as it was, Histiaeus being brought to Sardis, there both by reason of what he had done, and for fear that he might escape and again win power at the court, Artaphrenes, viceroy of Sardis, and Harpagus who had taken Histiaeus, impaled his body on the spot, and sent his head embalmed to king Darius at Susa. When Darius learnt of this he blamed those who had so done, because they had not brought Histiaeus before him alive; for the head, he gave command that it should be washed and buried with full observance, as the head of one that had done great good to Darius himself and to Persia.
31. Thus it fared with Histiaeus. The Persian fleet wintered at Miletus, and putting out to sea in the next year easily subdued the islands that lie off the mainland, Chios and Lesbos and Tenedos. Whenever they took an island, the foreigners would “net” each severally. This is the manner of their doing it:—the men link hands and make a line reaching from the northern sea to the southern, and then advance over the whole island hunting the people down. They took likewise also the Ionian cities of the mainland, albeit not by netting the people; for that was not possible.
32. There the Persian generals failed not to fulfil the threats which they had uttered against the Ionians when they were encamped over against them; for when they had gained the mastery over the cities, they chose out the comeliest boys and castrated them, making them eunuchs instead of men, and they carried the fairest maidens away to the king; this they did, and burnt the cities, yea, and their temples. Thus thrice had the Ionians been enslaved, first by the Lydians and then once and now yet again by the Persians.
33. Then the fleet departed from Ionia and took all that lay on the left hand of the entrance of the Hellespont; for what was to the right had been subdued by the Persians themselves from the side of the land. These are the regions of Europe that belong to the Hellespont,—the Chersonese, wherein are many towns; Perinthus, and the forts that lie towards Thrace, and Selymbria and Byzantium. The people of Byzantium, and they of Calchedon beyond, did not even await the onfall of the Phoenicians, but left their own land and fled away within the Euxine, and there settled in the town Mesambria. The Phoenicians, having burnt these places aforesaid, turned against Proconnesus and Artace, and having given these also to the flames sailed back to the Chersonese to make an end of the remnant of the towns, as many as they had not destroyed at their former landing. But against Cyzicus they did not so much as sail at all; for the Cyzicenes had before this visitation of the fleet already made themselves the king’s subjects, by an agreement which they made with the viceroy at Dascyleum, Oebares son of Megabazus.
34. As for the Chersonese, the Phoenicians subdued all the towns in it, save only Cardia. These had been ruled till then by Miltiades son of Cimon who was the son of Stesagoras. This sovereignty had been formerly won by Miltiades son of Cypselus in such manner as I will now show. The Dolonci, who were Thracians, possessed this Chersonese; they then, being hard pressed in war by he Apsinthians, sent their princes to Delphi to ask an oracle concerning the war; and the priestess in her reply bade them bring him in to found their state who should first offer them hospitality when they departed from the temple. Then the Dolonci followed the Sacred Way and journeyed through Phocis and Boeotia; and when none invited them in they turned aside towards Athens.
35. Now at this time the supreme ruler of Athens was Pisistratus, but Miltiades also, son of Cypselus, was a man of power; he was of a house that kept four-horse chariots, tracing his earliest descent from Aeacus and Aegina, but by later lineage Athenian; the first Athenian of that house was Philaeus son of Aias. This Miltiades, as he sat in his porch, saw the Dolonci pass by with raiment and spears of foreign fashion, and he hailed them, and when they approached offered them lodging and hospitality. They consented thereto; and when he had received them as guests they laid before him all the words of the oracle, and entreated him to obey the god. Hearing this, Miltiades was persuaded by what they said; for he was impatient of the rule of Pisistratus and desired to be away from it. Forthwith he set out for Delphi, to enquire of the oracle if he should do as the Dolonci entreated him.
36. The priestess too bidding him consent, thereupon Miltiades son of Cypselus, that Miltiades who had ere now won a race of four-horse chariots at Olympia, took with him all Athenians who desired to share his enterprise, and sailing with the Dolonci gained possession of their country; and they who had brought him in made him their despot. First he built a wall across the isthmus of the Chersonese from the town Cardia to Pactye, that so the Apsinthians might not be able to harm them by invading the country. The breadth of the isthmus is six-and-thirty furlongs; and the length of the Chersonese on the hither side of that isthmus is four hundred and twenty furlongs.
37. Having then built a wall across the neck of the Chersonese, and thus thrust the Apsinthians back, Miltiades made war upon the Lampsacenes first of all the rest; and they lay in ambush and took him captive. But Miltiades was well known to Croesus the Lydian; wherefore Croesus, learning of what had been done, warned the men of Lampsacus to let Miltiades go; “or,” he threatened, “I will raze you from the earth like a pine-tree.” The men of Lampsacus were all astray in their counsels as to what this threat of Croesus to them (that he would raze them like a pine-tree) might mean, till after much seeking one of their elders at last told them the truth, to wit, that the pine is the only tree that sends forth no shoots after it is cut down, but perishes utterly; wherefore in fear of Croesus they freed Miltiades and let him go.
38. So Miltiades was saved by Croesus; but afterwards he died childless, leaving his government and his possessions to Stesagoras, the son of his full brother Cimon; and since his death the men of the Chersonese have ever offered him such sacrifice as is a founders right, ordaining days for horse-races and feats of strength, wherein no man of Lampsacus is suffered to contend. But in the war against the Lampsacenes Stesagoras too met his end and died childless; he was smitten on the head with an axe in the town-hall by one that feigned to be a deserter but in truth was an enemy and a man of violence.
39. Such having been the end of Stesagoras, Miltiades son of Cimon and brother of the dead Stesagoras was sent in a trireme to the Chersonese, there to take control of the country, by the sons of Pisistratus; these had already used him well at Athens, feigning that they had not been accessory to the death of Cimon his father, the manner whereof I will relate in another place. Being come to the Chersonese, Miltiades kept himself within his house, professing thus to honour the memory of his brother Stesagoras. When this was known to the people of the Chersonese, the ruling men gathered together from all their cities on every side, and came in a body, as with intent to show fellow-feeling with his mourning; but he put them in bonds. So Miltiades made himself master of the Chersonese; there he maintained a guard of five hundred men, and married Hegesipyle the daughter of Olorus, king of Thrace.
40. But not long after this Miltiades, son of Cimon, had come to the Chersonese, he was overtaken by a visitation heavier than the former. For he had been driven from the country three years ere this by the Scythians, their nomad tribes, provoked by Darius, having gathered themselves together and ridden as far as the Chersonese aforesaid. Not abiding their onset, Miltiades fled from the Chersonese, till the Scythians departed and the Dolonci brought him back again. All this had happened three years before the matters that now engaged him.
41. But now, learning that the Phoenicians were in Tenedos, he sailed away to Athens with five triremes laden with the possessions that he had by him. Setting sail from Cardia he crossed the Black Bay, and as he sailed past the Chersonese the Phoenician ships fell in with him. Miltiades himself escaped with four of his ships to Imbros, but the fifth was pursued and overtaken by the Phoenicians. Now, it chanced that the captain of this ship was Metiochus, the eldest son of Miltiades by another wife, not the daughter of Olorus the Thracian; this man the Phoenicians took captive with his ship, and hearing that he was Miltiades’ son brought him up to the king; they thought that this would be a very thankworthy service, seeing that Miltiades had given his voice among the Ionians for obeying the Scythians when they demanded of the Ionians that they should break the bridge of boats and sail away to their homes. But when the Phoenicians brought Miltiades’ son Metiochus before him, Darius did him no hurt but much good, giving him a house, and substance, and a Persian wife, who bore him children that were reckoned as Persians. As for Miltiades, he made his way from Imbros to Athens.
42. In this year no further deed of enmity was done by the Persians against the Ionians; but at this same time certain things happened which greatly benefited them. Artaphrenes viceroy of Sardis summoned to him ambassadors from the cities and compelled the Ionians to make agreements among themselves, that they might submit to redress at law and not harry and plunder each other. This he compelled them to do; and he measured their lands by parasangs, which is the Persian name for a distance of thirty furlongs, and appointed that each people should according to this measurement pay a tribute which has remained fixed ever since that time to this day, even as it was ordained by Artaphrenes; the sum appointed was about the same as that which they had rendered heretofore. This then tended to their peace.
43. But at the beginning of spring, the other generals being now deposed by the king from their offices, Mardonius son of Gobryas, a man young in years and lately wedded to Darius’ daughter Artozostre, came down to the coast at the head of a very great army and fleet; with which when Mardonius was come to Cilicia, he himself embarked on shipboard and sailed with the rest of his ships, while the land army was led by other captains to the Hellespont. When Mardonius arrived at Ionia in his voyage by the coast of Asia, he did a thing which I here set down for the wonder of those Greeks who will not believe Otanes to have declared his opinion among the Seven that democracy was best for Persia: Mardonius deposed all the Ionian despots and setup democracies in their cities. This done, he made all speed for the Hellespont; and a great multitude of ships and a great army being there assembled, the Persians crossed the Hellespont on shipboard and marched through Europe, with Eretria and Athens for their goal.
44. This was the avowed end of their expedition; but their intent being to subdue as many of the Greek cities as they could, first their fleet subdued the Thasians, who did not so much as lift up their hands against it; and next, their land army added the Macedonians to the slaves that they had already; for all the nations nearer to them than Macedonia had been made subject to the Persians ere this. Crossing then over from Thasos they voyaged near the land as far as Acanthus, and putting out from thence they would have rounded Athos. But as they sailed, there brake upon them a north wind great and irresistible, and dealt very roughly with them, driving many of their ships upon Athos; three hundred, it is said, was the tale of the ships that perished, and more than twenty thousand men. For inasmuch as these coasts of Athos abounded in wild beasts, some were carried off by these and so perished; others were dashed against the rocks; and those of them that could not swim perished by reason of that, and others again by the cold.
45. Thus then it fared with the fleet; as for Mardonius and his land army, while they were encamped in Macedonia the Brygi of Thrace attacked them by night, and slew many of them, wounding Mardonius himself. Nevertheless not even these themselves could escape being enslaved by the Persians; for Mardonius did not depart out of those lands before he had made them subject to him. Yet when he had subdued them, he led his host away homewards, seeing that the Brygi had dealt a heavy blow to his army and Athos a blow yet heavier to his fleet. This expedition then after an inglorious adventure returned back to Asia.
46. In the next year after this, Darius first sent a message bidding the Thasians, of whom it was falsely reported by their neighbours that they were planning rebellion, destroy their walls and bring their ships to Abdera. For the Thasians, inasmuch as they had been besieged by Histiaeus of Miletus and had great revenues, had used their wealth to build their ships of war and encompass themselves with stronger walls. Their revenue came from the mainland and the mines. Eighty talents for the most part they drew from the gold-mines of the “Digged Forest”; and from the mines of Thasos itself, albeit less than that, yet so much that the Thasians, paying no tax for their crops, drew for the most part a yearly revenue from the mainland and the mines of two hundred talents, and three hundred when the revenue was greatest.
47. I myself have seen these mines; most marvellous by far were those of them that were found by the Phoenicians who came with Thasos and planted a settlement in this island, which is now called after that Phoenician Thasos. These Phoenician mines are between the place called Aenyra and Coenyra in Thasos, over against Samothrace; they are in a great hill that has been digged up in the searching. Thus much I have to say of this. The Thasians at the king’s command destroyed their walls and brought all their ships to Abdera.
48. After this, Darius essayed to learn whether the Greeks purposed to wage war against him or to surrender themselves. Therefore he sent heralds this way and that about Hellas as they were severally appointed, bidding them demand a gift of earth and water for the king. These he despatched to Hellas, and others he sent severally to his own tributary cities of the sea-coast, commanding that ships of war and transports for horses be built.
49. So the cities set about these preparations; and the heralds that went to Hellas received that which the king’s proclamation demanded, from many of the dwellers on the mainland and all the islanders to whom they came with the demand. Among the islanders that gave earth and water to Darius were the Aeginetans. These by so doing straightway brought the Athenians upon them, who supposed the Aeginetans to have given the gift out of enmity against Athens, that so they might join with the Persians in attacking the Athenians; and, gladly laying hold of this pretext, they betook themselves to Sparta and there accused the Aeginetans of an act that proved them traitors to Hellas.
50. On this impeachment, Cleomenes, son of Anaxandrides, being then a king of Sparta, crossed over to Aegina, that he might lay hands on the guiltiest of its people. But when he essayed to lay hands on them, Crius son of Polycritus, with other Aeginetans at his back, withstood him, and bade Cleomenes take no man of Aegina, or he would rue it; “for,” said he, “you have no authority from the Spartans for what you do, but a bribe from Athens; had you such, the other king had come with you to take us.” This he said, being so instructed in a letter by Demaratus. Being thus compelled to depart from Aegina, Cleomenes asked Crius what was his name; and when Crius told him what it was, “Now is the time to put bronze on your horns, Sir Ram,” said Cleomenes, “for great calamity will confront you.”
51. All this time Demaratus son of Ariston abode at Sparta and spread evil reports of Cleomenes. This Demaratus was also king of Sparta, but of the less worthy family of the two; not indeed in any other regard less worthy (for they have a common ancestor), but the house of Eurysthenes has in some sort the greater honour by right of primogeniture.
52. For by the Lacedaemonian story, wherewith no poet agrees, it was Aristodemus (the son of Aristomachus, who was the son of Cleodaeus, who was the son of Hyllus), and not his sons, who led them to that land which they now possess. After no long time Aristodemus’ wife, whose name was Argeia, bore him offspring; she, they say, was daughter of Autesion, who was the son of Tisamenus, who was the son of Thersander, who was the son of Polynices; she bore him twins; Aristodemus lived to see the children, and presently died of a sickness. The Lacedaemonians of that day planned to follow their custom and make the eldest of the children king. But the children being in all respects alike, they knew not which to choose; and when they could not judge between them, or perchance even before they had essayed, they asked the mother. But she said that she knew no better than the Lacedaemonians which was the elder; this she said, though she knew right well, because she desired that by some means both might be made kings. Being then in a quandary (so the story goes), the Lacedaemonians sent to Delphi to enquire how they should deal with the matter. The priestess bade them make both the children kings, but honour the first of them most. On this answer of the priestess, the Lacedaemonians knowing no better than before how to discover the eldest child, a certain Messenian, called Panites, gave them counsel; and this was his counsel, that they should watch the mother and see which of the children she washed and fed before the other; and if in this she should ever follow one rule, they would then have all that they sought and desired to discover; but if she changed about in her practice at haphazard, then it would be manifest to the Lacedaemonians that she know no more than they did, and they must betake them to some other means. Thereupon the Spartans did as the Messenian counselled, and watching the mother of Aristodemus’ children, found her ever preferring the first-born of the two when she fed and washed them, she not knowing wherefore she was watched. So they took the child that was preferred by its mother and brought it up at the public charge as the first-born; and they called it Eurysthenes, and the other Procles. These two brothers, it is said, when they came to man’s estate, were ever at feud with each other as long as they lived, and their descendants too continued in the same state.
53. Such is the story told by the Lacedaemonians, but by no other Greeks. But I in what I write follow the Greek report, and hold that the Greeks are right in recording these kings of the Dorians as far back as to Perseus son of Danaë,—wherein they make no mention of the god,—and in proving the said kings to be Greek; for by Perseus’ time they had come to be reckoned as Greeks. As far back as Perseus, I say, and I take the matter no farther than that, because none is named as the mortal father of Perseus, as Amphitryon is named father of Heracles. It is plain, then, that I have right reason on my side when I say that the Greek record is right as far back as to Perseus; farther back than that, if the king’s ancestors in each generation, from Danae daughter of Acrisius upward, be reckoned, then the leaders of the Dorians will be shown to be true-born Egyptians.
54. Thus have I traced their lineage according to the Greek story; but the Persian tale is, that Perseus himself was an Assyrian, and became a Greek, which his forbears had not been; as for Acrisius (say the Persians), his ancestors had no bond of kinship with Perseus, and they indeed were, as the Greeks say, Egyptians.
55. Enough of these matters. Now the reason why and for what achievements these men, being Egyptian, won the kingship of the Dorians, has been told by others; of this therefore I will say nothing, and will make mention of matters which others have not touched.
56. These prerogatives, then, the Spartans have given to their kings:—They shall have two priesthoods, of Zeus called Lacedaemon, and Zeus of Heaven; they shall wage war against what land soever they will, and no Spartan shall hinder them therein, on peril of being laid under the curse. When the armies go forth the kings shall be first in the advance and last in the retreat. A hundred chosen men shall guard them in their campaigns. They shall use for sacrifice at the setting out of their expeditions as many sheep and goats as they will, and shall take the hides and the chines of all sacrificed beasts.
57. Such are their rights in war; in peace the powers given them are according as I shall now show. At all public sacrifices the kings shall be first to sit down to the banquet, and shall be first served, each of them receiving a portion double of what is given to the rest of the company; theirs shall be the first Libations, and theirs the hides of the sacrificed beasts. At each new moon and each seventh day of the first part of the month, there shall be given to each of them from the public store a full-grown victim for Apollo’s temple, and a bushel of barley-meal and a Laconian quart of wine, and chief seats set apart for them at the games. Moreover, to these it shall belong to appoint what citizens soever they will to be protectors of foreigners; and they shall choose the Pythians, each of them two. (The Pythians are messengers sent to enquire at Delphi, who eat with the kings at the public charge.) And if the kings come not to the public dinner there shall be sent to their houses two choenixes of barley-meal and half a pint of wine, but when they come they shall receive a double share of everything; and the same honour shall be theirs when they are bidden by private citizens to dinner. All oracles that are given shall be in the king’s keeping, the Pythians also being cognisant thereof. The kings alone shall judge concerning the rightful possessor of an unwedded heiress, if her father have not betrothed her, and concerning the public ways, but in no other cases. And if a man desire to adopt a son he shall do it in the presence of the kings. And they shall sit with the twenty-eight elders in council; but if they come not thereto, then those elders that are nearest of kin to them shall have the king’s prerogative, giving two votes over and above the third which is their own.
58. These rights have the kings received from the Spartan commonwealth for their lifetime; when they die, their rights are as I shall now show. Horsemen proclaim their death in all parts of Laconia, and in the city women go about beating on a caldron. So when this is done, two free persons from each house, a man and a woman, must needs put on the signs of defilement, or incur heavy penalties if they fail so to do. The Lacedaemonians have the same custom at the deaths of their kings as have the foreign people of Asia; for the most of the foreigners use the same custom at their kings’ deaths. For when a king of the Lacedaemonians is dead, from all Lacedaemon, besides the Spartans, such and such a number of their subject neighbours must perforce come to the funeral. These then and the helots and the Spartans themselves being assembled in one place to the number of many thousands, together with the women, they zealously smite their foreheads and make long and loud lamentation, calling that king that is lateliest dead, whoever he be, the best of all their kings. Whenever a king is slain in war, they make an image of him and carry it out on a well-bedecked bier, and after burial, for ten days thereafter there is no meeting for market or assize, nor for choosing of magistrates, but these are days of mourning.
59. Here is another matter wherein the Lacedaemonians are like to the Persians:—When one king is dead and another takes his office, this successor releases from debt what Spartan soever owed anything to the king or the commonwealth; so too among the Persians the king at the beginning of his reign forgives all cities their arrears of tribute.
60. Moreover the Lacedaemonians are like the Egyptians, in that their heralds and flute-players and cooks inherit the craft from their fathers, a flute-player’s son being a flute-player, and a cook’s son a cook, and a herald’s son a herald; no others usurp their places, making themselves heralds by loudness of voice; they ply their craft by right of birth.
61. Such is the way of these matters. But at the time whereof I speak, while Cleomenes was in Aegina, there working for what should be afterwards the common advantage of Hellas, Demaratus spread ill reports of him, less because he cared for the Aeginetans, than out of jealousy and malice. When Cleomenes returned back from Aegina, he planned to depose Demaratus from his kingship; for what cause he thus assailed him I will now show. Ariston, king of Sparta, had married two wives, but no children were born to him. Believing that he himself was not in fault, he married a third wife; and this was how it came about. There was a certain Spartan who was Ariston’s nearest and dearest friend. This man had a wife who was by far the fairest of Spartan women, yet albeit she was now the fairest she had been most ill-favoured. For, she being of mean aspect, her nurse having in mind that the daughter of a wealthy house was so uncomely, and that her parents took her appearance much to heart, bethought her for these reasons of a plan, and carried the child every day to the shrine of Helen, which is in the place called Therapne, above the temple of Phoebus. Thither the nurse would bear the child, and set her by the image, and pray the goddess to deliver her from her ill looks. Now on a day, as the nurse was departing out of the temple, a woman (it is said) appeared to her, and asked her what she bore in her arms. “It is a child,” said the nurse. “Show it to me,” said the woman. “That,” quoth the nurse, “I cannot do; for I am forbidden by the parents to show it to any.” “Nay,” said the woman, “but you must by all means show me the child.” So when the nurse saw that the woman was very desirous to see the child, she did then show it; whereupon the woman stroked the child’s head, and said that this should be the fairest of all Spartan ladies. From that day, it is said, the child’s appearance changed; and when she came to marriageable age she was wedded to that friend of Ariston, Agetus son of Alcidas.
62. But Ariston, it would seem, conceived a passion for this woman; and this was his device to get her. He promised his friend, the husband of this woman, that he would make him a present of some one of his possessions, whatever the friend himself should choose, on condition that his friend should give him a recompense in like manner. Having no fear for his wife,—seeing that Ariston had a wife also,—Agetus consented thereto; and they swore an oath upon it. Then Ariston gave Agetus whatsoever it was that he chose out of Ariston’s treasures; for himself, as the recompense that he was fain to win from Agetus, he essayed to take away his friend’s wife. Agetus said he would consent to all else, save only that; howbeit he was compelled by his oath and the trick whereby he was deceived, and suffered Ariston to take her.
63. Thus Ariston brought home his third wife, having divorced the second; and in a shorter time than the full ten months his wife bore him a child, the Demaratus aforesaid. He was sitting in council with the ephors when one of his household came to tell him that a son was born to him; and knowing the time of his marriage, he reckoned the months on his fingers and said, with an oath, “The boy cannot be mine.” The ephors heard that; but for the nonce they took no account of it. As the boy grew, Ariston repented him of what he had said; for he believed Demaratus to be in very truth his son. He called him Demaratus, because ere this the whole “people” of the Spartans had “prayed” that Ariston might have a son, he being held in greater honour than any king of Sparta.
64. For that cause the name Demaratus was given to the boy; and as time went on Ariston died, and Demaratus obtained his kingship. But fate (it would seem) willed that these matters should be discovered and lose Demaratus his kingship for some such reason as this. Cleomenes had been bitterly at enmity with Demaratus ere this, when Demaratus led his army away from Eleusis, and as bitterly now when he himself had crossed over to punish those Aeginetans who espoused the Persian cause.
65. Being therefore desirous of revenge, Cleomenes made an agreement with a man of Demaratus’ family, Leutychides son of Menares, who was the son of Agis, that if he made Leutychides king in Demaratus’ stead, Leutychides should go with him against the Aeginetans. Now Leutychides was a mortal foe of Demaratus; for he having been betrothed to Percalus, daughter of Chilon the son of Demarmenus, Demaratus had plotted and robbed Leutychides of his bride, carrying her off before the marriage and wedding her himself. Such was the reason of Leutychides’ feud with Demaratus; and now by Cleomenes’ instigation he brought an accusation against Demaratus, alleging him to be no rightful king of Sparta, seeing that he was not the son of Ariston; which accusation being laid he impeached Demaratus in court, ever keeping in mind what Ariston had said when the servant brought news of the birth of a son, and on a reckoning of the months he swore that the boy was none of his. On that saying Leutychides took his stand, and strove to prove that Demaratus was no son of Ariston or rightful king of Sparta, by calling as witnesses those ephors who had then been sitting in council and heard Ariston say that.
66. At the last, the matter being in dispute, the Spartans resolved to enquire of the Delphic oracle if Demaratus were the son of Ariston. This was reported to the Pythian priestess by the instigation of Cleomenes; who then gained the aid of Cobon son of Aristophantus, a man of very great power at Delphi; and Cobon over-persuaded Perialla, the prophetess, to say what Cleomenes desired to be said. On this the priestess, when the messengers enquired of her, gave judgment that Demaratus was not the son of Ariston. But at a later day these doings were discovered; Cobon was banished from Delphi and Perialla the prophetess was deprived of her honourable office.
67. This then was how Demaratus was deposed from his kingship; and he betook himself from Sparta into banishment among the Medes by reason of a reproach of which I will now tell. After he was deposed, Demaratus held an office whereto he had been elected. Now while the festival of the Naked Men was celebrating, and Demaratus watching it, Leutychides, having by this time been made king in his place, sent his servant to ask Demaratus by way of mere mockery and insult how he liked his office after being a king. Wroth at that question, Demaratus made answer that he had made trial of both states, which Leutychides had not; but of that question (he said) ’twas likelier that huge calamity would come upon Lacedaemon than huge prosperity. Thus he spoke, and covering his head he quitted the theatre and went to his own house; there he made ready and sacrificed an ox to Zeus; after which sacrifice he called to him his mother.
68. She came, and he put a part of the entrails in her hands, and said in entreaty: “My mother, I entreat you in the name of the gods, but especially Zeus of the household in whose presence we stand: tell me now truly, who was in very deed my father. For Leutychides said in those disputes, that you had a son in you by your first husband when you came to Ariston; and others there are that have a yet more random tale, saying that you consorted with one of the household that was the ass-keeper, and that it is his son that I am. Therefore I entreat you by the gods to tell me the truth; for if you have done aught such as they say of you, not you only but many other women have done the like; and it is currently reported at Sparta that Ariston had it not in him to be a father, else would his former wives have borne him children.”
69. Thus he spoke, and thus she answered him: “My son, since you pray and entreat me to tell you the truth, the whole truth shall be told to you. On the third night after Ariston had brought me to his house, there came to me an appearance like to Ariston, and lay with me, and then put on me the garlands which he had. So when that figure was gone, presently Ariston came to me. Seeing the garlands on me, he asked me who had given them; I said they were his gift, but he denied it. Then I said, and swore it, that he did not well to deny it; for, I told him, he had come but a little while ago and lain with me and so given me the garlands. When Ariston saw that I swore to that, he perceived that the hand of heaven was in the matter; and not only were the garlands plainly seen to have come from the hero’s shrine they call Astrobaeus’ shrine, that stands by the door of the courtyard, but the diviners declared that it was that same hero, Astrobacus, that had visited me. Thus, my son, you have all that you desire to know; for either you are the son of that hero, and the hero Astrobacus is your father, or Ariston is; for on that night did I conceive you. But as touching the plea that they most urge against you, namely, that Ariston himself, when your birth was announced to him, said in the hearing of many that you were not his son, the full ten months’ time being not completed: that was an idle word that he spoke, as not knowing the truth of such matters; for not all women complete the full ten months’ time, but some bear children after nine months, or even after seven; and you, my son, were born after seven months. It was not long ere Ariston himself came to know that this was a foolish word that had escaped him. Give no credence to any other tales concerning your birth; for this is very truth that I have told you; and for Leutychides himself and those that tell such tales, may they be cuckolded by their ass-keepers.”
70. Thus his mother spoke. Demaratus, having learnt what he desired, took provision for the way and journeyed to Elis, pretending that he journeyed to Delphi to enquire of the oracle. But the Lacedaemonians suspected that he planned to escape, and pursued after him; Demaratus was by some means beforehand with them and crossed the sea from Elis to Zacynthus; the Lacedaemonians crossed over after him and strove to lay hands on him, carrying off his servants. Then, the Zacynthians refusing to give him up, he crossed thence to Asia and betook himself to king Darius, who received him royally and gave him lands and cities. Thus and after such adventures came Demaratus to Asia, a man that had gained much renown in Lacedaemon by his many achievements and his wisdom, but most by making over to the state the victory in a chariot-race that he had won at Olympia; he was the only king of Sparta who did this.
71. Demaratus being deposed, Leutychides son of Menares succeeded to his kingship; and there was born to him a son, Zeuxidemus, called by some of the Spartans Cyniscus. This Zeuxidemus never came to be king of Sparta; for he died in Leutychides’ lifetime, leaving a son, Archidemus. Having thus lost Zeuxidemus, Leutychides married a second wife, Eurydame, sister of Menius and daughter of Diactorides; by her he had no male issue, but a daughter, Lampito, to whom Archidemus son of Zeuxidemus was married by Leutychides.
72. But neither did Leutychides himself win to old age in Sparta; he was punished for his dealing with Demaratus, as I will show: he led a Lacedaemonian army to Thessaly, and when he might have subdued all the country he took a great bribe; and being caught in the very act of hoarding a sleeve full of silver there in the camp, he was brought before a court and banished from Sparta, and his house destroyed; and he went into exile at Tegea and there died.
73. This befel long afterwards; but at the time of my story, Cleomenes, his dealing in the matter of Demaratus being so sped, forthwith took Leutychides with him and went to punish the Aeginetans, against whom he was terribly wroth by reason of their despiteful usage of him. When the Aeginetans saw that both the kings were come after them, they now deemed it best to offer no further resistance; and the kings chose out ten men of Aegina who were most honoured for wealth and lineage, among them Crius son of Polycritus and Casambus son of Aristocrates, the two most powerful men in Aegina; these they carried to Attica and gave them into the keeping of the Athenians, the bitterest foes of the Aeginetans.
74. After this, Cleomenes’ treacherous plot against Demaratus became known; and he was seized with fear of the Spartans and slunk away into Thessaly. Coming thence into Arcadia he wrought disorder in that country; for he strove to unite the Arcadians against Sparta; besides his other ways of binding them by oath to follow him to whatsoever enterprise he led them, he was fain to bring the chief men in Arcadia to the town of Nonacris and make them to swear by the water of Styx. Near this town is said to be the Arcadian water of Styx, and this is its nature: it is a stream, small to behold, that flows from a cliff into a pool; a wall of stones runs round the pool. Nonacris, where this spring rises, is a town of Arcadia nigh to Pheneus.
75. When the Lacedaemonians learnt that such was Cleomenes’ intent, they took fright, and brought him back to Sparta, there to be king as he had heretofore been. But Cleomenes had ere now been not wholly in his right mind, and now he fell sick of a madness; for any Spartan that he met he would smite in the face with his staff. For so doing, and for the frenzy that was on him, his nearest of kin made him fast in the stocks. But he saw in his bonds that his guard was left alone and none by, and he asked him for a dagger; the guard at first would not give it, but Cleomenes threatening what he would do to him thereafter, the guard, who was a helot, was affrighted by the threats and gave him the dagger. Then Cleomenes took the weapon and set about gashing himself from his shins upwards; from the shin to the thigh he cut his flesh lengthways, and from the thigh to the hip and the flank, till he reached the belly, and cut it into strips; thus he died, as the most of the Greeks say, because he over-persuaded the Pythian priestess to tell the tale of Demaratus; as the Athenians say (but none other) because he invaded Eleusis and laid waste the precinct of the gods; and as the Argives say, because when Argives had taken refuge after the battle in their temple of Argus he brought them out thence and cut them down, and held the sacred grove itself in no regard but burnt it.
76. For when Cleomenes was seeking a divination at Delphi, an oracle was given him that he should take Argos. When he came with Spartans to the river Erasinus, which is said to flow from the Stymphalian lake (for this lake, they say, issues into a cleft out of sight and reappears at Argos, and from that place onwards the stream is called by the Argives Erasinus),—when Cleomenes came to this river he sacrificed victims to it; and being in nowise able to get favourable omens for his crossing, he said that he honoured the Erasinus for keeping true to its countrymen, but that even so the Argives should not go unscathed. Presently he withdrew thence and led his army seaward to Thyrea, where he sacrificed a bull to the sea and carried his men on shipboard to the region of Tiryns, and Nauplia.
77. Hearing of this, the Argives came to the coast to do battle with him; and when they had come near Tiryns and were at the place called Hesipaea, they encamped over against the Lacedaemonians, leaving but a little space between the armies. There the Argives had no fear of fair fighting, but rather of being worsted by guile; for it was that which was signified by the oracle which the Pythian priestess gave to the Argives and Milesians in common, which ran thus:
All these things meeting together spread fear among the Argives. Therefore they resolved to defend themselves by making the enemies’ herald serve them, and, being so resolved, whenever the Spartan herald cried any command to the Lacedaemonians they, too, did the very thing that he bade.
78. When Cleomenes saw that the Argives did whatever was bidden by his herald, he gave command that when the herald cried the signal for the men to breakfast, they should then put on their armour and attack the Argives. The Lacedaemonians performed this bidding: for when they assaulted the Argives they caught them breakfasting in obedience to the herald’s signal; many of them they slew, and more by far of the Argives fled for refuge into the grove of Argus, where the Lacedaemonians encamped round and closely watched them.
79. Then Cleomenes’ plan was this: he had with him certain deserters, from whom he made due enquiry, and then sent a herald calling the names of the Argives that were shut up in the sacred precinct and inviting them to come out; saying therewith, that he had their ransom. Now among the Peloponnesians there is a fixed ransom to be paid for every prisoner, two minae for each. So Cleomenes invited about fifty Argives to come out, one after another, and slew them. It happened that this slaying was unknown to the rest that were in the temple precinct; for the grove being thick, they that were within could not see how it fared with them that were without, till one of them climbed a tree and saw what was being done. Thereafter they would not come out at the herald’s call.
80. On that Cleomenes bade all the helots pile wood about the grove; they obeyed, and he burnt the grove. When the fire was now burning, he asked of one of the deserters, to what god the grove was sacred; “to Argus,” said the man; when he heard that he cried loudly and lamentably: “Apollo, thou god of oracles, sorely hast thou deceived me with thy word that I should take Argos; this, I guess, is the fulfilment of that prophecy.”
81. Presently Cleomenes sent the more part of his army back to Sparta; he himself took with him a thousand that were his best warriors, and went to the temple of Here, there to sacrifice. But when he would have sacrificed on the altar the priest forbade him, saying that no stranger might lawfully sacrifice there. Thereupon Cleomenes bade the helots bring the priest away from the altar and scourge him, and he himself offered sacrifice; which done, he returned to Sparta.
82. But after his returning his enemies brought him before the ephors, saying that it was for a bribe that he had not taken Argos, when he might have taken it easily. But Cleomenes alleged (whether falsely or truly, I cannot rightly say; but this he alleged in his speech) that he had supposed the god’s oracle to be fulfilled by his taking of the temple of Argus; wherefore, he had thought it best not to make any assay on the city before he should have enquired by sacrifice and learnt whether the god would deliver it to him or withstand him; and while he took omens in Here’s temple a flame of fire had shone forth from the breast of the image, whereby he had learnt the truth of the matter, that Argos was not for his taking. For (said he) had the flame come out of the head of the image, he would have taken the city from head to foot utterly; but its coming from the breast signified that he had done as much as it was the god’s will should happen. This plea of his seemed to the Spartans to be credible and reasonable, and he far outdistanced the pursuit of his accusers.
83. But Argos was so wholly widowed of her men, that their slaves took all in possession, and ruled and governed, till the sons of them that were slain came to man’s estate. Then these recovered Argos for themselves and cast out the slaves, who, being thrust out, took possession of Tiryns by force. For a while they were at peace with each other; but presently there came to the slaves one Cleander, a prophet, a man of Phigalea in Arcadia by birth; he persuaded the slaves to attack their masters. From this out for a long time there was war between them, till at last with much ado the Argives got the upper hand.
84. This was the reason (say the Argives) of Cleomenes’ madness and his evil end; but the Spartans themselves say, that heaven had no hand in Cleomenes’ madness, but by consorting with Scythians he became a drinker of strong wine, and thence the madness came. For (so they say) the nomad Scythians, after Darius had invaded their land, were fain to be revenged upon him, and made an alliance with Sparta by messengers sent thither; whereby it was agreed, that the Scythians themselves should essay to invade Media by way of the river Phasis, while the Spartans by their counsel should set out and march inland from Ephesus, and meet the Scythians. When the Scythians had come with this intent, Cleomenes, it is said, kept too close company with them, and by consorting with them out of measure learnt from them to drink strong wine; and this the Spartans hold to have been the cause of his madness. Ever since, as they themselves say, when they desire a strong draught they will call for “a Scythian cup.” Such is the Spartan story of Cleomenes; but to my thinking, it was for what he did to Demaratus that he was punished thus.
85. When Cleomenes was dead, and the Aeginetans heard of it, they sent messengers to Sparta to cry for justice on Leutychides, for the matter of the hostages that were held at Athens. The Lacedaemonians then assembled a court and gave judgment that Leutychides had done violence to the Aeginetans; and they condemned him to be given up and carried to Aegina, in requital for the men that were held at Athens. But when the Aeginetans were about to carry Leutychides away, a man of repute at Sparta, Theasides, son of Leoprepes, said to them, “Men of Aegina, what is this that you purpose to do? Would you have the king of the Spartans given up to you by the citizens and carry him away? Nay, if the Spartans have now so judged in their anger, look to it lest at a later day, if you do as you purpose, they bring utter destruction upon your country.” Hearing this, the Aeginetans stayed their hand from carrying the king away, and made an agreement that Leutychides should go with them to Athens and restore the men to the Aeginetans.
86. So when Leutychides came to Athens and demanded that what had been entrusted be restored, and the Athenians, being loath to restore it, made excuses, and said that, having been charged with the trust by both the kings, they deemed it wrong to restore it to the one alone without the other,—when the Athenians refused to restore, Leutychides said to them: “Men of Athens, do whichever thing you desire; if you restore, you do righteously, if you restore not you do contrariwise; yet hear from me the story of what befel at Sparta in the matter of a trust. It is told by us Spartans that three generations agone there was at Lacedaemon one Glaucus, son of Epicydes. This man (so the story goes) added to his other excellences a reputation for justice above all men who at that time dwelt in Lacedaemon. But in the fitting time this, as it is told, befel him:—There came to Sparta a certain man of Miletus, desiring to hold converse with Glaucus, and making him this proffer: ‘I am,’ he said, ‘of Miletus, and hither am I come, Glaucus! to reap advantage from your justice. For seeing that all about Hellas and Ionia too there was much talk of your justice, I bethought me in myself that Ionia is ever a land of dangers and Peloponnesus securely stablished, and in Ionia nowhere are the same men seen continuing in possession of wealth. Considering and taking counsel concerning these matters, I resolved to turn the half of my substance into silver and give it into your charge, being well assured that it will lie safe for me in your keeping. Do you then receive the sum, and take and keep these tokens; and restore the money to him that comes with the like tokens and demands it back.’ Thus spoke the stranger who had come from Miletus, and Glaucus received the trust according to the agreement. When a long time had passed, there came to Sparta the sons of the man who had given the money in trust; they spoke with Glaucus, showing him the tokens and demanding the money back. But Glaucus put them off with a demurrer: ‘I have no remembrance,’ he said, ‘of the matter, nor am I moved to any knowledge of that whereof you speak; let me bring it to mind, and I will do all that is just; if I took the money I will duly restore it, and if I never took it at all I will deal with you according to the customs of the Greeks. Suffer me, therefore, to delay making my words good till the fourth month from this day.’ So the Milesians went away in sorrow, as men robbed of their possessions; but Glaucus journeyed to Delphi, to enquire of the oracle. When he asked the oracle whether he should swear and so ravish the money, the Pythian priestess threatened him in these verses:
When Glaucus heard that, he entreated the god to pardon him for what he had said. But the priestess answered, that to tempt the god and to do the deed were of like effect. Glaucus, then, sent for the Milesian strangers and restored them their money; but hear now, Athenians! why I began to tell you this story. There is at this day no descendant of Glaucus, nor any household that bears Glaucus’ name; he and his have been utterly uprooted out of Sparta. So good a thing it is not even to design aught concerning a trust, save the restoring of it on demand.”
87. Thus spoke Leutychides; but even so the Athenians would not listen to him, and he took his departure. But the Aeginetans, before paying the penalty for the high-handed wrong they had done the Athenians to please the Thebans, did as I will show. Having a grudge against Athens and deeming themselves wronged, they prepared to take vengeance on the Athenians. Among these there was now a five-yearly festival toward on Sunium; wherefore the Aeginetans set an ambush and took the ship that bore deputies to the festival, with many noble Athenians therein, and put in prison the men whom they took.
88. Thus mishandled by the Aeginetans, the Athenians delayed no longer to devise all mischief against Aegina. Now there was one Nicodromus, son of Cnoethus by name, a notable man in Aegina. He, having a grudge against the Aeginetans for his former banishment from the island, and learning now that the Athenians were set upon doing hurt to the Aeginetans, agreed with the Athenians to betray Aegina to them, naming the day whereon he would essay it and whereon they must come to aid him.
89. Presently, according to his agreement with the Athenians, Nicodromus took possession of the Old City, as it was called; but the Athenians failed of arriving at the right time; for it chanced that they had not ships enough to cope with the Aeginetans; wherefore they entreated the Corinthians to lend them ships, and by that delay their business was thwarted. The Corinthians, being at that time their close friends, consented to the Athenians’ entreaty and gave them twenty ships, at a price of five drachmas apiece; for by their law they could not make a free gift of them. Taking these ships and their own, the Athenians manned seventy in all and sailed for Aegina, whither they came a day later than the time agreed.
90. But Nicodromus, the Athenians not being at hand on the day appointed, took ship and escaped from Aegina, he and other Aeginetans with him, to whom the Athenians gave Sunium to dwell in; making which their headquarters they harried the Aeginetans of the island.
91. This was done after the time whereof I have spoken. But the rich men of Aegina gained the mastery over the commonalty, who had risen against them with Nicodromus, and having made them captive led them out to be slain. For this cause a curse fell upon them, whereof for all their devices they could not rid themselves by sacrifice, but they were driven out of their island ere the goddess would be merciful to them. For they had taken seven hundred of the commonalty alive; and as they led these out for slaughter one of them escaped from his bonds and fled to the temple gate of Demeter the Lawgiver, where he laid hold of the door-handles and clung to them; so when his enemies could not drag him away for all their striving, they cut off his hands, and so brought him off; and those hands were left clinging fast to the door-handles.
92. Thus the Aeginetans dealt with each other; when the Athenians had come, they fought with them at sea with seventy ships, and being worsted in the sea-fight they asked help of the Argives, as they had done before. But this time the Argives would not aid them, for a grudge that they bore the Aeginetans; since ships of Aegina had been taken perforce by Cleomenes and put in on the Argolid coast, where their crews landed with the Lacedaemonians; and there were men too from ships of Sicyon that took part in this same onfall; and the Argives laid on them the payment of a fine of a thousand talents, each people five hundred. The Sicyonians owned that they had done wrongfully and agreed to go scathless for a payment of a hundred talents, but the Aeginetans made no such confession, and were stiff-necked. For this cause the Argive state sent no man at their entreaty to aid them, but about a thousand came of their own will, led by a captain whose name was Eurybates, a man practised in the five contests. Of these the greater part never returned back but met their death by the hands of the Athenians in Aegina; Eurybates himself, their captain, fought in single combat and thus slew three men, but was slain by the fourth, Sophanes the son of Deceles.
93. The Aeginetan ships found the Athenians in disarray, and attacked and overcame them, taking four Athenian ships and their crews.
94. Thus Athens and Aegina grappled together in war. But the Persian was going about his own business; for his servant was ever reminding him to remember the Athenians, and the Pisistratidae were at his elbow maligning the Athenians, and moreover Darius desired to take this pretext for subduing all the men of Hellas that had not given him earth and water. As for Mardonius, who had fared so ill with his armament, him he dismissed from his command, and appointed other generals to lead his armies against Athens and Eretria, Datis a Mede, and his own nephew Artaphrenes son of Artaphrenes; and the charge he gave them at their departure was, to enslave Athens and Eretria, and bring the slaves into his presence.
95. When these the appointed generals on their way from the king’s presence were arrived at the Aleïan plain in Cilicia, bringing with them a host great and well furnished, there they encamped and were overtaken by all the armament of ships that was assigned to each portion; and the transports too for horses came up, that in the year before this Darius had bidden his tributary subjects to make ready. Having cast the horses into these, and embarked the land army in the ships, they sailed to Ionia with six hundred triremes. Thence they held their course not by the mainland and straight towards the Hellespont and Thrace, but setting forth from Samos they sailed by the Icarian sea and from island to island; this, to my thinking, was because they feared above all the voyage round Athos, seeing that in the year past they had come to great disaster by holding their course that way; and moreover Naxos constrained them, in that they had not yet taken it.
96. When they approached Naxos from the Icarian sea and came to land (for it was Naxos which the Persians purposed first to attack), the Naxians, mindful of what had before happened, fled away to the mountains, not abiding their coming. The Persians enslaved all of them that they caught, and burnt even their temples and their city; which done, they set sail for the other islands.
97. While they so did, the Delians also left Delos and fled away to Tenos. But Datis, when his host was sailing landwards, went before it in his ship and bade his fleet anchor not off Delos, but across the water off Rhenaea; and being informed where the Delians were, he sent a herald to them with this proclamation: “Holy men, why have you fled away, and so misjudged my intent? For it is my own desire, and the king’s command to me, to do no harm to the land wherein the two gods were born, neither to the land itself nor to those that dwell therein. Now, therefore, I bid you return to your homes and dwell in your island.” This proclamation he made to the Delians, and presently laid upon the altar and burnt there three hundred talents’ weight of frankincense.
98. This done, Datis sailed with his host against Eretria first, taking with him Ionians and Aeolians; and after he had put out thence to sea, there was an earthquake in Delos, the first and last, as the Delians say, before my time. This portent was sent by heaven, as I suppose, to be an omen of the ills that were coming on the world. For in three generations, that is, in the time of Darius son of Hystaspes and Xerxes son of Darius and Artoxerxes son of Xerxes, more ills befel Hellas than in twenty generations before Darius; which ills came in part from the Persians and in part from the wars for preëminence among the chief of the nations themselves. Thus it was no marvel that there should be an earthquake in Delos where none had been ere that. Also there was an oracle concerning Delos, wherein it was written:
Now as touching the names of those three kings, Darius signifies the Doer, Xerxes the Warrior, Artoxerxes the Great Warrior; and such the Greeks would rightly call them in their language.
99. Launching out to sea from Delos, the foreigners put in at the islands, and gathered an army thence and took the sons of the islanders for hostages. When in their voyage about the islands they came to Carystos, the Carystians gave them no hostages and refused to join with them against neighbouring cities, whereby they signified Eretria and Athens; wherefore the Persians besieged them and laid waste their land, till the Carystians too came over to their side.
100. The Eretrians, when they learnt that the Persian host was sailing to attack them, entreated aid from the Athenians. These did not refuse the aid, but gave the Eretrians for their defenders the four thousand tenant farmers that held the land of the Chalcidian horse-breeders. But it would seem that all was unstable in the designs of the Eretrians; for they sent to the Athenians for aid, but their counsels were divided; the one part of them planned to leave the city and make for the heights of Euboea, the other part plotted treason in hope so to win advantage for themselves from the Persians. Then Aeschines son of Nothon, who was a leading man in Eretria, out of his knowledge of both designs told those Athenians who had come how matters stood, and entreated them, moreover, to depart to their own country, lest they should perish like the rest; and the Athenians in this followed Aeschines’ advice.
101. So they saved themselves by crossing over to Oropus; the Persians in their sailing held their course for Temenos and Choereae and Aegilea, all in Eretrian territory, and having taken possession of these places they straightway disembarked their horses and made preparation to attack their enemies. The Eretrians had no design of coming out and fighting; all their care was to guard their walls, if they could, seeing that it was the prevailing counsel not to leave the city. The walls were stoutly attacked, and for six days many fell on both sides; but on the seventh two Eretrians of repute, Euphorbus son of Alcimachus and Philagrus son of Cineas, betrayed the city to the Persians. These entered the city and plundered and burnt the temples, in revenge for the temples that were burnt at Sardis; moreover they enslaved the townspeople, according to Darius’ command.
102. Having subdued Eretria they delayed for a few days, and then sailed to the Attic land, pressing hard forward and thinking that they would do to the Athenians what they had done to the Eretrians; and Marathon being the fittest part of Attica for horsemen to ride over, and nearest to Eretria, thither they were guided by Hippias son of Pisistratus.
103. When the Athenians learnt of this, they too marched out to Marathon. Ten generals led them, of whom the tenth was Miltiades, whose father, Cimon son of Stesagoras, had been, as fate would have it, banished from Athens by Pisistratus son of Hippocrates. Being an exile, he had the luck to win the prize for four-horse chariots at Olympia, by this victory gaining the same honour as his mother’s son Miltiades had won. At the next Olympiad he was a winner again with the same team of mares, but suffered Pisistratus to be proclaimed victor, for which surrender of his victory he returned to his home under treaty. A third Olympic prize he won with the same team; after that, Pisistratus himself being now dead, fate willed that Miltiades should be slain by Pisistratus’ sons; these suborned men and slew him by night in the town-hall. Cimon lies buried outside the city, beyond the road that is called Through the Hollow; and the mares that won him the three Olympic prizes are buried over against his grave. None others save the mares of the Laconian Evagoras had ever achieved the same. Now Stesagoras, the eldest of Cimon’s sons, was at that time being brought up in the Chersonese with Miltiades his uncle; but the younger, named Miltiades after that Miltiades who planted a settlement on the Chersonese, was with Cimon himself at Athens.
104. This Miltiades, then, had now come from the Chersonese and was a general of the Athenian army, after twice escaping death; for the Phoenicians, who held him in chase as far as Imbros, set great store by catching him and bringing him before the king; and when he had escaped from them to his country and supposed himself to be now in safety, he was next met by his enemies, who haled him before a court and would have justice on him for his rule of the Chersonese. From them too he was freed, and after that was appointed a general of the Athenians by the people’s choice.
105. And first, while they were yet in the city, the generals sent as a herald to Sparta Phidippides, an Athenian, and one, moreover, that was a runner of long distances and made that his calling. This man, as he said himself and told the Athenians, when he was in the Parthenian hills above Tegea, met with Pan; who, calling to Phidippides by name, bade him say to the Athenians, “Why is it that ye take no thought for me, that am your friend, and ere now have oft been serviceable to you, and will be so again?” This story the Athenians believed to be true, and when their state won to prosperity they founded a temple of Pan beneath the acropolis, and for that message sought the god’s favour with yearly sacrifices and torch-races.
106. But now, at the time when he was sent by the generals and said that Pan had appeared to him, this Phidippides was at Sparta on the day after he left Athens; and he came before the rulers and said, “Lacedaemonians, the Athenians entreat you to send them help, and not suffer a most ancient city of Hellas to be brought into bondage by foreigners; for even now Eretria has been enslaved, and Hellas is the weaker by the loss of a notable city. “Thus Phidippides gave the message wherewith he was charged, and the Lacedaemonians resolved to send help to the Athenians; but they could not do this immediately, being loath to break their law; for it was the ninth day of the first part of the month, and they would make no expedition (they said) on the ninth day, when the moon was not full.
107. So they waited for the full moon. As for the Persians, they were guided to Marathon by Hippias son of Pisistratus. Hippias in the past night had seen a vision in his sleep, wherein he thought that he lay with his own mother; he interpreted this dream to signify that he should return to Athens and recover his power, and so die an old man in his own mother-country. Thus he interpreted the vision; for the nonce, being the Persians’ guide, he carried the slaves taken in Eretria to the island of the Styreans called Aeglea; moreover, it was he who made the ships to anchor when they had put in at Marathon, and who set the foreigners in array when they were landed. Now while he dealt with these matters he fell a-sneezing and a-coughing more violently than he was wont; he was well stricken in years, and the most of his teeth were loose; whereby the violence of his cough made one of his teeth to fall out. It fell into the sand, and Hippias used all diligence to find it; but the tooth being nowhere to be seen, he said lamentably to them that stood by, “This land is none of ours, nor shall we avail to subdue it; my tooth has all the share of it that was for me.”
108. This then Hippias guessed to be the fulfilment of his dream. The Athenians were arrayed in the precinct of Heracles, and now the whole power of the Plataeans came to their aid; for the Plataeans had put themselves under the protection of Athens, and the Athenians had taken upon them many labours for their sake. The manner of the Plataeans’ so doing was this:—Being hard pressed by the Thebans, they had offered themselves to the first comers, Cleomenes son of Anaxandrides and the Lacedaemonians; but these would not accept them, and said: “We dwell afar off, and such aid as ours would be found but cold comfort to you; for you might be enslaved many times over ere any of us heard of it. We counsel you to put yourselves in the protection of the Athenians, who are your neighbours, and can defend you right well.” This counsel the Lacedaemonians gave not so much out of their goodwill to the Plataeans, as because they desired that the Athenians should bring trouble on themselves by making enemies of the Boeotians. The Lacedaemonians, then, gave them this counsel; the Plataeans obeyed it, and when the Athenians were sacrificing to the twelve gods they came as suppliants and sat them down by the altar, and so put themselves under protection. Hearing of this the Thebans sent an army against the Plataeans, and the Athenians came to the Plataeans’ aid; but when they were about to join battle, the Corinthians would not suffer them; as they chanced to be there, they made a reconciliation at the instance of both the parties, and drew a frontier line on the condition that the Thebans should not meddle with such Boeotians as desired not to be reckoned as part and parcel of Boeotia. Having given this judgment the Corinthians took their departure; but when the Athenians were on their way home the Boeotians set upon them and were worsted in the fight. The Athenians then made a frontier beyond that which had been assigned by the Corinthians for the Plataeans, and set the Asopus itself for the Theban border on the side of Plataea and Hysiae.—In the manner aforesaid the Plataeans had put themselves in the protection of the Athenians, and now they came to Marathon to aid them.
109. But the counsels of the Athenian generals were divided; some advised that they should not fight, thinking they were too few to do battle with the Median army, and some, of whom was Miltiades, that they should. Now there was an eleventh that had a vote, namely, that Athenian who had been chosen as polemarch by lot,—for by old Athenian custom the polemarch voted among the generals,—and at this time the polemarch was Callimachus of Aphidnae; so their counsels being divided and the worse opinion like to prevail, Miltiades betook himself to this man. “Callimachus,” said he, “it is for you to-day to choose, whether you will enslave Athens, or free her and thereby leave such a memorial for all posterity as was left not even by Harmodius and Aristogiton. For now is Athens in greater peril than ever since she was first a city; and if her people bow their necks to the Medes, their fate is certain, for they will be delivered over to Hippias; but if our city be saved, she may well grow to be the first of Greek cities. How then this can be brought about, and how it comes that the deciding voice in these matters is yours, I will now show you. We ten generals are divided in counsel, some bidding us to fight and some to forbear. Now if we forbear to fight, it is likely that some great schism will rend and shake the courage of our people till they make friends of the Medes; but if we join battle before some at Athens be infected by corruption, then let heaven but deal fairly with us, and we may well win in this fight. It is you that all this concerns; all hangs on you; for if you join yourself to my opinion, you make your country free and your city the first in Hellas; but if you choose the side of them that would persuade us not to fight, you will have wrought the very opposite of the blessings whereof I have spoken.”
110. By this plea Miltiades won Callimachus to be his ally; and with the polemarch’s vote added it was resolved to fight. Thereafter the generals whose counsel was for fighting made over to Miltiades the day’s right of leading that fell to each severally; he received it, but would not join battle till the day of his own leadership came round.
111. When his turn came, then were the Athenians arrayed for battle as I shall show: the right wing was commanded by Callimachus the polemarch; for it was then the Athenian custom, that the holder of that office should have the right wing. He being there captain, next to him came the tribes one after another in the order of their numbers; last of all the Plataeans were posted on the left wing. Ever since that fight, when the Athenians bring sacrifices to the assemblies that are held at the five-yearly festivals, the Athenian herald prays that all blessings may be granted to Athenians and Plataeans alike. But now, when the Athenians were arraying at Marathon, it so fell out that their line being equal in length to the Median, the middle part of it was but a few ranks deep, and here the line was weakest, each wing being strong in numbers.
112. Their battle being arrayed and the omens of sacrifice favouring, straightway the Athenians were let go and charged the Persians at a run. There was between the armies a space of not less than eight furlongs. When the Persians saw them come running they prepared to receive them, deeming the Athenians frenzied to their utter destruction, who being (as they saw) so few were yet charging them at speed, albeit they had no horsemen nor archers. Such was the imagination of the foreigners; but the Athenians, closing all together with the Persians, fought in memorable fashion; for they were the first Greeks, within my knowledge, who charged their enemies at a run, and the first who endured the sight of Median garments and men clad therein; till then, the Greeks were affrighted by the very name of the Medes.
113. For a long time they fought at Marathon; and the foreigners overcame the middle part of the line, against which the Persians themselves and the Sacae were arrayed; here the foreigners prevailed and broke the Greeks, pursuing them inland. But on either wing the Athenians and Plataeans were victorious; and being so, they suffered the routed of their enemies to fly, and drew their wings together to fight against those that had broken the middle of their line; and here the Athenians had the victory, and followed after the Persians in their flight, hewing them down, till they came to the sea. There they called for fire and laid hands on the ships.
114. In this work was slain Callimachus the polemarch, after doing doughty deeds; there too died one of the generals, Stesilaus son of Thrasylaus; moreover, Cynegirus son of Euphorion fell there, his hand smitten off by an axe as he laid hold of a ship’s poop, and many other famous Athenians.
115. Seven ships the Athenians thus won; with the rest the Persians pushed off from shore, and taking the Eretrian slaves from the island wherein they had left them, sailed round Sunium, hoping to win to the city before the Athenians’ coming. There was an accusation rife at Athens that this plan arose from a device of the Alcmeonidae, who, it was said, made a compact with the Persians and held up a shield for them to see when they were now on shipboard.
116. So they sailed round Sunium; but the Athenians marched back with all speed to defend their city, and outstripped the foreigners in their coming; they came from one precinct of Heracles at Marathon, and encamped in another at Cynosarges. The foreign fleet lay a while off Phalerum, which was then the Athenians’ arsenal; there they anchored, and thence sailed away back to Asia.
117. In this fight at Marathon there were slain of the foreigners about six thousand four hundred men, and of the Athenians a hundred and ninety-two. These are the numbers of them that fell on both sides. And it fell out that a marvellous thing happened: a certain Athenian, Epizelus son of Cuphagoras, while he fought doughtily in the mellay lost the sight of his eyes, albeit neither stabbed in any part nor shot, and for the rest of his life continued blind from that day. I heard that he told the tale of this mishap thus: a tall man-at-arms (he said) encountered him, whose beard spread all over his shield; this apparition passed Epizelus by, but slew his neighbour in the line. Such was the tale Epizelus told, as I heard.
118. Datis journeyed with his army to Asia; and being arrived at Myconos he saw a vision in his sleep. What that vision was, no man says; but as soon as day broke, Datis made search through his ships; and finding in a Phoenician ship a gilt image of Apollo, he enquired whence this plunder had been taken. Learning from what temple it had come, he sailed in his own ship to Delos; where, the Delians being now returned to their island, Datis set the image in the temple, and charged the Delians to carry it away to the Theban place Delium, on the sea-coast over against Chalcis. This charge given, Datis sailed back. But the Delians never carried that statue away; twenty years after that, the Thebans brought it to Delium, being so commanded by an oracle.
119. When Datis and Artaphrenes touched Asia in their voyage, they carried the enslaved Eretrians inland to Susa. Before the Eretrians were taken captive king Darius had been terribly wroth with them for doing him unprovoked wrong; but seeing them brought before him and subject to him, he did them no hurt, but gave them a domain of his own called Ardericca in the Cissian land to dwell in; this place is two hundred and ten furlongs distant from Susa, and forty from the well that is of three kinds, whence men bring up asphalt and salt and oil. This is the manner of their doing it:—a windlass is used in the drawing, with half a skin made fast to it in place of a bucket; therewith he that draws dips into the well, and then pours into a tank, whence what is drawn is poured into another tank, and goes three ways; the asphalt and the salt grow forthwith solid; the oil, which the Persians call rhadinace, is dark and evil-smelling. There king Darius planted the Eretrians, and they dwelt in that place till my time, keeping their ancient language. Such was the fate of the Eretrians.
120. After the full moon two thousand Lacedaemonians came to Athens, making so great haste to reach it that they were in Attica on the third day from their leaving Sparta. Albeit they came too late for the battle, yet they desired to see the Medes; and they went to Marathon and saw them. Presently they departed back again, praising the Athenians and their achievement.
121. It is to me a thing marvellous and incredible, that the Alcmeonidae could ever by agreement have held up a shield as a sign for the Persians, desiring to make Athens subject to foreigners and to Hippias; for it is plain to see that they were despot-haters as much as Callias (son of Phaenippus and father of Hipponicus), ay, and even more than he. Callias was the only Athenian who dared buy Pisistratus’ possessions when they were put up to auction by the state after Pisistratus’ banishment from Athens; and he devised other acts of bitter enmity against him.
122. [This Callias is worthy of all men’s remembrance for many reasons: firstly, because he so excellently freed his country, as I have said; secondly, for what he did at Olympia, where he won a horse-race, and was second in a four-horse chariot-race, having already won a Pythian prize, and was the cynosure of all Hellas for the lavishness of his spending; and thirdly, for his way of behaviour in the matter of his three daughters. For when they were of marriageable age, he gave them a most splendid gift and one very pleasant to them, promising that each of them should wed that husband whom she should choose for herself in all Athens.]
123. The Alcmeonidae were despot-haters as much as ever was Callias. Therefore it is to me a strange and unbelievable accusation, that they of all men should have held up a shield; for at all times they shunned despots, and it was by their devising that the sons of Pisistratus were deposed from their despotism. Thus in my judgment it was they who freed Athens much more than did Harmodius and Aristogiton; for these did but enrage the rest of Pisistratus’ kin by killing Hipparchus, and did nought to end the rule of the rest of them; but the Alcmeonidae did most plainly set their country free, if indeed it was in truth they by whose persuasion the Pythian priestess signified to the Lacedaemonians that they should free Athens, as I have ere now made plain.
124. Nay (one will say), but they bore perhaps some grudge against the Athenian commonalty, and therefore betrayed their country. But there were none at Athens that were of better repute or more honoured than they; wherefore plain reason forbids to believe that they of all men could have held the shield aloft for any such cause. Indeed a shield was held aloft, and that cannot be denied; for the thing was done; but who did it I know not, and can say no further.
125. The Alcmeonidae had been men of renown in old time at Athens, and from the days of Alcmeon and also Megacles their renown increased. For when the Lydians sent from Sardis came from Croesus to the Delphic oracle, Alcmeon son of Megacles wrought with and zealously aided them; so Croesus, hearing from the Lydians who visited the oracle of Alcmeon’s benefits to himself, sent for him to Sardis, and there made him a gift of as much gold as he could carry away at one time on his person. Such being the gift, Alcmeon planned and practised a device: he donned a wide tunic, leaving a deep fold in it, and shod himself with the most spacious buskins that he could find, and so entered the treasury whither he was guided. There, falling upon a heap of gold-dust, first he packed by his legs as much gold as his buskins would contain; then he filled the fold of his tunic all full of gold and strewed the dust among the hair of his head, and took more of it into his mouth; till when he came out of the treasury, hardly dragging the weight of his buskins, he was like anything rather than a human creature, with his mouth crammed full and all his body swollen. When Croesus saw him he fell a-laughing, and gave him all the gold he already had and as much more again. Thus that family grew very rich, and Alcmeon came to keep four-horse chariots, and won therewith at Olympia.
126. In the next generation Cleisthenes the despot of Sicyon raised that house yet higher, so that it grew more famous in Hellas than it had formerly been. For Cleisthenes son of Aristonymus, who was the son of Myron, who was the son of Andreas, had one daughter, whose name was Agariste. He desired to wed her to the best man he could find in Hellas; wherefore, the Olympian games being then toward, wherein he was victor in a race of four-horse chariots, Cleisthenes made a proclamation, bidding whatever Greek thought himself worthy to be his son-in-law come on the sixtieth day from then or earlier to Sicyon, where (said Cleisthenes) he would make good his promise of marriage in a year from that sixtieth day. Then all the Greeks who were proud of themselves and their country came to ask the lady’s hand; whom, having that end in view, Cleisthenes made to contend in running and wrestling.
127. From Italy came Smindyrides of Sybaris, son of Hippocrates, the most luxurious liver of his day (and Sybaris was then at the height of its prosperity), and Damasus of Siris, son of that Amyris who was called The Wise. These came from Italy; from the Ionian Gulf, Amphimnestus son of Epistrophus, an Epidamnian; he was of the Ionian Gulf. From Aetolia came Males, the brother of that Titormus who excelled all Greeks in strength, and fled from the sight of men to the farthest parts of the Aetolian land. From the Peloponnese came Leocedes, son of Phidon the despot of Argos, that Phidon who made weights and measures for the Peloponnesians, and dealt more high-handedly than any other Greek; for he drove out the Elean stewards of the lists, and ordered the contests at Olympia himself; this man’s son now came; and Amiantus an Arcadian from Trapezus, son of Lycurgus; and an Azenian from the town of Paeus, Laphanes son of that Euphorion who, as the Arcadian tale relates, gave lodging to the Dioscuri, and from that time forward kept open house for all men; and Onomastus from Elis, son of Agaeus. These came from the Peloponnese itself; from Athens, Megacles, son of that Alcmeon who visited Croesus, and beside him Hippoclides son of Tisandrus, the richest and goodliest man in Athens. From Eretria, which at that time was prosperous, Lysanias; he was the only man from Euboea; from Thessaly came a Scopad, Diactorides of Crannon; and from the Molossians, Alcon.
128. Such was the roll of the suitors. When they were come on the day appointed, Cleisthenes first enquired the country and lineage of each; then he kept them with him for a year, making trial of their manly worth and temper and upbringing and manner of life; this he did by consorting with them alone and in company, putting the younger of them to contests of strength, but especially watching their demeanour at the common meal; for as long as he kept them with him he did all for them and entertained them with magnificence. Now those of the suitors that best pleased him were they who came from Athens, and of these Hippoclides son of Tisandrus was judged the foremost, both for his manly worth and because by his lineage he was akin to the Cypselid family of Corinth.
129. When the day appointed came for the marriage feast to be held and Cleisthenes himself to declare whom he chose out of all, Cleisthenes sacrificed a hundred oxen and gave a feast to the suitors themselves and the whole of Sicyon. After dinner the suitors vied with each other in music and social discourse. As they sat late drinking, Hippoclides, now far outdoing the rest, bade the flute-player play him music, and when the flute-player so did, he began to dance; and he pleased himself marvellous well with his dancing; but Cleisthenes saw the whole business with much disfavour. After a while, Hippoclides bade a table be brought; when it came he danced on it Laconian first and then Attic figures; last of all he rested his head on the table and made gestures with his legs in the air. Now Cleisthenes at the first and the second bout of dancing could no more bear to think of Hippoclides as his son-in-law, for his dancing and his shamelessness; yet he had held himself in check, not willing to vent his wrath on Hippoclides; but when he saw him making gestures with his legs, he could no longer keep silence, but cried, “’Tis very well, son of Tisandrus, but you have danced yourself out of your marriage.” Whereat quoth the other, “Hippoclides cares nought for that!” which is a byword from that day.
130. Then Cleisthenes bade them all be silent, and spoke to the company at large. “Suitors for my daughter’s hand,” said he, “I thank you one and all; and were it possible I would grant each of you his wish, neither choosing out one to set him above another nor disparaging the rest. But seeing that I have but one damsel to plan for and so cannot please all of you, to those of you whose suit is rejected I make a gift of a talent of silver to each, for his desire to take a wife from my house and for his sojourn away from his home; and to Megacles son of Alcmeon do I betroth my daughter Agariste, as by Athenian law ordained.” Megacles accepted the betrothal, and so Cleisthenes made good his promise of the marriage.
131. Such is the tale of the choice among the suitors; and thus the fame of the Alcmeonidae was noised abroad in Hellas. Of this marriage was born that Cleisthenes (so called after him of Sicyon, his mother’s father) who gave the Athenians their tribes and their democratic state; he and Hippocrates were born to Megacles; Hippocrates was father of another Megacles and another Agariste, called after Agariste who was Cleisthenes’ daughter; she, being wedded to Xanthippus son of Ariphron, and with child, saw a vision in her sleep whereby she thought she gave birth to a lion. In a few days she bore Xanthippus a son, Pericles.
132. After the Persian disaster at Marathon, the fame of Miltiades, which had before been great at Athens, was increased. He asked of the Athenians seventy ships and an army and money, not telling them against what country he would lead them, but saying that he would make them rich men if they followed him; for he would bring them to a country whence they should easily carry away abundance of gold; so he promised when he asked for the ships; which the Athenians, being thus assured, gave him.
133. Miltiades took his army and sailed for Paros, on the pretext that the Parians had brought this on themselves by first sending triremes with the Persian fleet to Marathon. Such was the pretext whereof he spoke; but he had a grudge against the Parians because Lysagoras son of Tisias, a man of Parian descent, had made ill blood between him and Hydarnes the Persian. Having come to the place to which he sailed, Miltiades with his army drove the Parians within their walls and there besieged them; and sending in a herald he demanded a hundred talents, which (said he) if they would not give him, his army should not return before it had stormed their city. The Parians had no thought at all of giving any money to Miltiades, and had no other purpose but to defend their city, which they did by building their wall at night to double its former height where it was most assailable, and also by other devices.
134. As far as this all Greeks tell the same story; thenceforward this is the tale as it is told by the Parians themselves: Miltiades (they say) being in a quandary, a Parian slave woman named Timo, who was an under-priestess of the goddesses of the dead, had speech with him; coming before Miltiades, she counselled him, if he set great store by the taking of Paros, to do as she should advise him. Presently, at her advice, he passed through to the hill before the city, and there he climbed over the fence of the precinct of Demeter the Lawgiver,—not being able to open the door,—and having so done went to the shrine, whether to move something that should not be moved, or with some other intent; but when he was at the very door he was seized straightway by panic fear and returned by the same way; and in leaping down from the wall he twisted his thigh, or as some say took a blow on his knee.
135. So Miltiades sailed back home in sorry plight; for he brought no wealth, nor had he won Paros; he had besieged the town for six-and-twenty days and laid waste the island. The Parians, learning that Timo the under-priestess of the goddesses had been Miltiades’ guide, desired to punish her for this, and having now rest from the siege sent messengers to Delphi to enquire if they should put the under-priestess to death for having compassed the taking of her country by guiding its enemies, and revealing to Miltiades the rites that no male should know. But the Pythian priestess forbade them; it was not Timo, she said, that was in fault, but Miltiades was doomed to make an ill end, and an apparition had guided him in these evil courses.
136. Such was the priestess’ reply to the Parians; but when Miltiades returned back from Paros many tongues were let loose against him at Athens; and Xanthippus son of Ariphron impeached him before the people, calling for the penalty of death for the deceit which he had practised on the Athenians. Miltiades was present, but could not speak in his own defence, his thigh being mortified; but he was laid before the court on a bed, and his friends spoke for him, ever calling to mind the fight at Marathon and the conquest of Lemnos,—how Miltiades had punished the Pelasgians and taken Lemnos and delivered it to the Athenians. The people took his side in so far as they would not condemn him to death, but they fined him fifty talents for his wrong-doing. Presently Miltiades died of the gangrene and mortification of his thigh, and the fifty talents were paid by his son Cimon.
137. Now this is how Miltiades son of Cimon won Lemnos. When the Pelasgians were cast out of Attica by the Athenians, whether justly or unjustly,—as to that I can say nothing, beyond what is recorded, namely, that Hecataeus the son of Hegesandrus declares in his history that the act was unjust; for (says Hecataeus) when the Athenians saw the land under Hymettus which, being their own, they had given to the Pelasgians as a dwelling-place in reward for the wall that had once been built round the acropolis,—when the Athenians saw how well this place was tilled which erewhile had been bad and worthless, they grudged and coveted the land, and so drove the Pelasgians out on this and no other pretext. But the Athenians themselves say that their reason for expelling the Pelasgians was just. The Pelasgians, they say, issued out from their settlement at the foot of Hymettus and dealt wrongfully with the Athenians in this wise: neither the Athenians nor any other dwellers in Hellas had as yet servants at that time, and their sons and daughters resorted to the Nine Wells for water; and whenever they came, the Pelasgians maltreated them out of mere arrogance and pride. Nor yet were they content with so doing, but at last were caught in the act of planning to attack Athens. The Athenians, by their own showing, dealt so much more rightly than the Pelasgians, that when they might have killed them, caught plotting as they were, they would not so do but bade them depart out of the country. Thereupon the Pelasgians departed, and took Lemnos in possession, besides other places. This is the Athenian story; the other is told by Hecataeus.
138. These Pelasgians, dwelling at that time in Lemnos and desiring vengeance on the Athenians, and well knowing the time of the Athenian festivals, got them fifty-oared ships and lay in ambush for the Athenian women when they were celebrating a festival for Artemis at Brauron; carrying off many of the women, they sailed away further with them and brought them to Lemnos to be their concubines. Now as these women bore more and more children, they taught their sons the speech of Attica and Athenian manners. These boys would not consort with the sons of the Pelasgian women; if one of themselves were beaten by one of the others, they would all run to his aid and help each other; nay, the Athenian-bred boys even claimed to rule the others, and were much the stronger than they. When the Pelasgians perceived that, they took counsel together; and it troubled them much in their counsels to think what the boys would do when they grew to man’s estate, if they were resolved to help each other against the sons of the lawful wives and essayed to rule them forthwith. Thereupon the Pelasgians judged it best to slay the sons of the Attic women; and this they did, and slew the boys’ mothers likewise. From this and the former deed which was done by the women, when they slew their own husbands who were Thoas’ companions, a “Lemnian crime” has been a proverb in Hellas for any deed of cruelty.
139. But when the Pelasgians had slain their own sons and the women, their land brought forth no fruit, nor did their wives and their flocks and herds bear offspring as before. Under stress of hunger and childlessness they sent to Delphi to ask for some way of release from their present ills; and the Pythian priestess bidding them pay the Athenians whatsoever penalty the Athenians themselves should adjudge, the Pelasgians went to Athens and offered to pay the penalty for all their wrong-doing. The Athenians set in their town-hall a couch adorned to the best of their power, with a table thereby covered with all manner of good things, and said to the Pelasgians, “Deliver your land to us in a like state”; whereto the Pelasgians answered, “We will deliver it when a ship shall accomplish her voyage with a north wind from your country to ours in one day”; this they said, well assured that the thing was impossible; for Attica is far to the south of Lemnos.
140. This and no more was then said. But a great many years afterward, when the Chersonese by the Hellespont was made subject to Athens, Miltiades son of Cimon did, by virtue of the Etesian winds then constantly blowing, accomplish the voyage from Elaeus on the Chersonese to Lemnos; which done, he issued a proclamation to the Pelasgians bidding them leave their island, reminding them of the oracular word which the Pelasgians thought they would never see fulfilled. The men of Hephaestia, then, obeyed him; but they of Myrina would not agree that the Chersonese was Attic land, and they stood a siege; but in the end they too submitted. Thus did Miltiades and the Athenians take Lemnos in possession.