Sparta.*
Not less than six thousand Dorian Argives, it is said, per-
ished on this occasion ; and the Dorians were so enfeebled
by it, that the Gymnesians, as the serfs (answering to the He-
lots) were called at Argos, were enabled to seize the govern-
rnent, which they held till the sons of the slaughtered Dori-
ans were grown up, who drove them to Tiryns, and, after an
obstinate contest, succeeded in reducing or expelling them.f
CHAPTER IX.
KINGDOM OF LYDIA. PERSIA. INVASION OF SCYTHIA BY
DARIUS. REVOLT OF THE ASIATIC GREEKS.
The expulsion of the Peisistratids gave occasion to the
political relations between Greece and the East, which have
so much influence on the future Grecian history.
The Grecian colonies on* the coast of Asia early rose to
wealth by means of trade and manufactures. Though we
* Herod, vi. 7680. t Id. vi. 83. vii. J 48. Arist. Pol. v. 2.
KINGDOM OF LYDIA. 79
have not the means of tracing their commerce, we know
that it was considerable, with the mother country, with
Italy, and at length Spain, with Phoenicia and the interior
of Asia, whence the productions of India passed to Greece.
The Milesians, who had fine woollen manufactures, extend-
ed their commerce to the Euxine, on all sides of which
they founded factories, and exchanged their manufactures
and other goods with the Scythians and the neighboring
peoples, for slaves, wool, raw hides, bees-wax, flax, hemp,
pitch, etc. There is even reason to suppose that, by means
of caravans, their traders bartered their wares not far from
the confines of China.*
The facility with which the Greeks formed their first
establishments on the coast of Asia, leads to the supposi-
tion that there was no extensive monarchy in the vicinity
at that time. But while they were advancing in wealth
and prosperity, a powerful monarchy formed itself in Lydia,
of which the capital was Sardes, a city at the foot of Mount
Tmolus, about four hundred stadia from the sea. Histo-
rians tell of three dynasties of kings of Lydia ; the Atyades,
named from their god Atys ; the Heracleids, or rather San-
donids, from a god or hero Sandon, whom the Greeks iden-
tified with their own Hercules ; the Mermnads, the origin
of whose name is doubtful. f Of these the two first are
mythic ; the third belongs to history.
Gyges, the first of this dynasty, (Ol. 16,) turned his
arms against the Ionian cities on the coast. During a cen-
tury and a half, the efforts of the Lydian monarchs to re-
duce these states were unavailing. At length, (Ol. 55,) the
celebrated Croesus mounted the throne of Lydia ; and he
made all Asia this side of the River Halys (Lycia and Ci-
licia excepted) acknowledge his dominion. The iEolian,
Ionian, and Dorian cities of the coast all paid him tribute;
but, according to the usual rule of Eastern conquerors, he
* Volcker (Myth. Geographic der Griechen und ROmer, ch. viii.) traces
the route to the foot of the Altai Mountains,
t Herod, i. 7.
80 HISTORY OF GREECE.
meddled not with their political institutions, and they might
deem themselves fortunate in being insured against war by
the payment of an annual sum of money. Croesus, more-
over, cultivated the friendship of the European Greeks.
The Lydian monarchs, from the time of Gyges, had been
benefactors of the Delphic oracle ; but the offerings of Croesus
far exceeded in number and value those of his predeces-
sors. The splendid court of Sardes was the resort of the
sages and the nobles of Greece ; and the felicity of the king
of Lydia seemed complete, when a storm from the East
burst over his realm and levelled all its glories.*
In the country east and south of the Caspian Sea, a
powerful and civilized empire had long existed. The peo-
ple named the Medes had been for some time at the head
of it ; but in the time of Croesus, king of Lydia, the Persians,
who dwelt, subject to the Medes, partly stationary, partly
nomadic, in the mountains bordering on the Persian Gulf,
rose in arms under their native prince Cyrus, and wrested
the supreme power from the hands of the Medes. The
change was little more than a change of dynasty ; t but, as
is usually the case, it was productive of an increase of mar-
tial energy. The River Halys had been the boundary be-
tween Median and Lydian dominion : there had, moreover,
been affinity between the Lydian and Median monarchs ;
a war between Cyrus and Croesus therefore naturally fol-
lowed.
Croesus, having assembled an army, crossed the Halys,
and wasted the country beyond it. Cyrus hastened to en-
gage him. The armies encountered in the Pterian Plain, J
* Herod, i. 26 29. The remainder of this writer's First Book con-
tains the history of Croesus and Cyrus.
t There is, perhaps, too much importance given to this event in the
history of the world. It is probable that the change was not in reality
much greater than what has occurred almost in our own days in Persia.
The Kajers, who now govern there, are a Turkish tribe, who won the
throne from the Zends, a native Persian tribe.
t On this plain Pompeius defeated Mithridates ; Timoor Bayazeed
PERSIA. 81
south of Sinope, and victory remained with neither. Croe-
sus, finding his troops inferior in number to those of the
Persian monarch, led them back to Sardes. He dismissed
the Greeks and other strangers who were in his service,
and wrote pressing letters to the kings of Babylon and
Egypt, and to the Lacedaemonians, with all of whom he was
in alliance, urging them to send him troops against the
ensuing spring, when he intended again to take the field.
But Cyrus, on learning that Croesus had dismissed his army,
resolved to push on for Sardes, and take him unprepared.
He soon appeared before that city. Crcesus led his valiant
Lydians out against him : but as the Lydian troops were
mostly all horse, Cyrus had recourse to the stratagem of
putting in the front of his army the camels, the sight and
smell of which the Lydian horses could not endure. They
became unmanageable ; the riders dismounted, and fought
bravely, but were obliged to yield to numbers. Crcesus
was besieged in his capital, and forced to surrender ; and
the Lydian empire merged in that of Persia. (Ol. 58, 3.)
Cyrus had, during the war, endeavored, without success,
to alienate the Ionians from Crcesus. They and the JEo-
lians now sent ambassadors, praying to be received to sub-
mission on the same terms as those on which they had
obeyed the Lydian monarch ; but the Milesians alone found
favor : the rest had to prepare for war. They repaired the
walls of their towns, and sent to Sparta for aid. Aid, how-
ever, was refused ; but Cyrus, being called away by the war
with Babylon, neglected them for the present. ' Three years
afterwards, (Ol. 59, 2,) Harpagus, who had saved Cyrus in his
infancy from his grandfather Astyages, came as governor of
Lydia. He instantly prepared to reduce the cities of the
coast- Town after town submitted ; the Teians abandoned
theirs, and retired to Abdera in Thrace ; the Phocseans, get-
ting on shipboard, and vowing never to return, sailed for
and an army of Crusaders was annihilated on it by the Turks in the
time of the first Crusade.
82 HISTORY OF GREECE.
Corsica, and being there harassed by the Carthaginians and
Tyrrhenians, they went to Rhegion in Italy, and at length
founded Massalia (Marseilles) on the coast of Gaul.
The Grecian colonies thus became a part of the Persian-
empire. Cyrus, meantime, had taken Babylon ; but not long
afterwards, he was defeated and slain by the Massagetes, a
Turkish tribe who dwelt north of Persia. His son and suc-
cessor, Cambyses, invaded and conquered Egypt. On his
death, his throne was usurped by a Magian, or priest of the
fire-religion of Persia, who personated the late monarch's
brother ; but a conspiracy deprived him of life, and the
throne was occupied (Ol. 64, 4) by Darius, son of Hystaspes,
a Persian of noble birth. The dominions of Darius extended
from the River Indus to the Mediterranean, from the con-
fines of Scythia to those of ^Ethiopia.*
An energetic prince, like Darius, at the head of a power-
ful empire, could not be expected to remain at rest. As
Asia now offered no enemy, he resolved to lead an army
into Scythia, and teach the nomades, who roamed its plains,
to respect the power of the lord of Asia. Under the direc-
tion of a Samian named Mandrocles, a bridge of boats was
constructed by the Greeks across the Bosporus, over which
Darius led his army of seventy myriads of men.f The
Greeks then sailed away to the Ister, (Danube,) near the
mouth of which they made another bridge, while the Per-
sian army marched through Thrace, crossed Mount Haemus,
(Balkan,) and came to the banks of that river. Leaving the
Greeks to take care of the bridge, Darius entered Scythia,
(southern Russia;) but the Scythians would give no oppor-
tunity for fighting, and want of supplies at length forced
* The authority for the remainder of this chapter is Herodotus,
Books iv. v. and vi.
t That is, 700,000. This is evidently a gross exaggeration ; for
where could food be had for such a number ? We will observe, once
for all, that the numbers in ancient, middle-age, and oriental history are
to be received with extreme suspicion. They are frequently greatly
exaggerated.
INVASION OF SCYTHIA BY DARIUS. 83
the Persian monarch to make a rapid retreat to the Ister.
The Scythians had meantime urged the Greeks to seize
the opportunity now presented of regaining their independ-
ence, by breaking up the bridge and leaving the Persian
army to perish. In the council held by the chiefs, that is,
the tyrants of the subject Greek cities, Miltiades, an Athe-
nian, who was tyrant of the Chersonese, strongly exhorted
them to follow the advice of the Scythians ; but Histiaeus of
Miletus reminding them that if the Persian yoke was thrown
off, their own would not long be submitted to, it was re-
solved to remain faithful to the king. To deceive the Scyth-
ians, however, they began to loosen the bridge at the fur-
ther side of the river.
It was night when the Persian army reached the Ister;
and finding the bridge loosened, they were in consternation.
An Egyptian, who had a powerful voice, stood, by Darius'
command, on the side of the river, and called Histiaeus the
Milesian. Histiaeus soon appeared ; the bridge was speedily
put together again, and the Persians passed safely over.
Darius marched his army to Sestos on the Hellespont,
whence he passed over to Asia, leaving a part of his troops
with Megabazus in Thrace, to subdue the remainder of that
country. He proceeded thence to Sardes, where he staid
some time.
Megabazus speedily reduced all Thrace, to the confines
of Macedonia, the king of which country also acknowledged
himself the vassal of Persia. He then proceeded to Sardes,
where he remonstrated with Darius on the impolicy of which
he had been guilty in giving Histiaeus, as a reward for his
services, permission to build a town at the River Strymon
in Thrace, where there were mines of gold and plenty of
timber for ship-building ; so that, by putting himself at the
head of the Greeks and the people of the country, he could
raise a rebellion whenever he pleased. Darius saw the force
of what Megabazus said, and by his advice sent for Histiaeus,
and pretending that his counsel and presence were indispen-
sable to him, took him with him to Persia.
84 HISTORY OF GREECE.
Histiaeus left the government of Miletus to his son-in-
law Aristagoras. Some time afterwards, (01. 69, 4,) in
consequence of the contest between the aristocratic and
democratic principles, which prevailed there as well as
every where else at this time, some of the nobility were ex-
pelled from the Isle of Naxos. Being guest-friends * (%evol)
of Histiaeus, they came to Miletus seeking aid. Aristagoras
said that his own power was not adequate to restore them,
but offered to apply to Artaphernes, King Darius' brother,
who was at Sardes, in their behalf. To the Persian he rep-
resented how easily he might make himself master of
Naxos, and then of the other Cyclades, and finally of the
rich Isle of Eubcea, under the pretext of restoring these
exiles. Artaphernes approved, the consent of the king was
obtained, and a fleet of two hundred triremes with troops
put to sea under the command of a Persian named Mega-
bates. They sailed as if for the Hellespont, and stopped at
Chios, intending to run for Naxos with the north wind.
While here, Megabytes punished, for neglect of duty, one of
the captains, who was a friend of Aristagoras. The Mile-
sian insulted Megabytes, who, in revenge, sent secretly to
inform the Naxians of their danger. As soon as the Naxians
learned that their isle was to be attacked, they collected all
their property from the country into their town, and the
Persian army, after besieging them for four months, was
obliged to retire for want of supplies.
Aristagoras, fearing the ill consequences of this failure
to himself, began now to meditate a revolt. Just at this
time, too, came a message from Histiaeus recommending this
course to him. For, weary of his abode at Susa, the Mile-
sian prince thought his only chance of escape was to raise
a rebellion on the coast, which he might be sent to quell.
Fearing to write, he took a trusty slave, and shaving off the
hair of his head, pricked on the skin what he wished to say ;
* We use this compound, as no single word in our language will ex-
press the relation indicated by it.
REVOLT OF THE ASIATIC GREEKS. 85
then having kept him till the hair was grown, he sent him
to Miletus, telling him to desire Aristagoras to shave off
his hair and look at the skin. This decided Aristagoras ;
he held a council of the principal Milesians, and all declared
for revolt but Hecataeus the historian, who knew the extent
and the strength of the Persian empire far better than they.
Finding them, however, bent on it, he advised them to take
the treasures which Croesus had dedicated at the temple
of Branchidae, and to endeavor to become masters at sea.
This counsel, too, was rejected. The greater part of the
commanders of the ships which had been at Naxos were
gained over. To win the people, Aristagoras laid down his
own tyranny, and seizing the other tyrants who were on
board the ships, sent them prisoners to their respective
towns ; and with one exception, the people let them go free
and uninjured a proof that their rule had not been very
oppressive.
Some powerful ally being necessary, Aristagoras repaired
in person to Lacedaemon, taking with him money and a
brass plate on which was cut a map of the world probably
the work of Hecataeus. He addressed himself to King Cle-
omenes, showing him on the map the different nations of
Asia, expatiating on their wealth, and assuring him that
with ease he might reach Susa and win the Persian empire.
Cleomenes promised to give him his answer on the third
day. When that day came, he asked him how many days'
journey it was from the coast to Susa : the Milesian in-
cautiously replied, three months. Cleomenes, appalled at
such a distance, ordered him to quit Sparta by sunset, and
left him. Aristagoras, taking a branch of olive in his hand,
followed him to his house as a suppliant : he found him
alone with his little daughter Gorgo, a child of eight or
nine years. He begged him to send the child away, but
Cleomenes bade him to say what he wished without heed-
ing her. Aristagoras then offered him ten talents if he
would do as he desired : he rose gradually to fifty, when the
child cried out, " Father, the stranger will corrupt you if you
8
SO HISTORY OF GREECE.
do not go away ! " Cleomenes left the room, and the baffled
Milesian had to depart from Sparta without delay.
He thence proceeded to Athens, now revelling in her
recovered liberty, and drew there to the people the same
brilliant picture of Asiatic dominion which he had set be-
fore the Spartan king, reminding them at the same time
that the Milesians were their colonists. His words found
ready acceptance, and it was decreed to send twenty ships
to the aid of the Ionians. Aristagoras returned home, and
sent to the Paeonians whom Megabazus had taken from their
own country and placed in Phrygia, offering to convey them
back to Europe. The love of home excited them : with their
wives and children, they came down to the coast, and were
passed over to Chios, thence to Lesbos, thence to Doriscus
in Thrace, whence they proceeded overland home.
The Athenian fleet and five triremes from Eretria soon
arrived at Miletus, and being joined by the Milesians, pro-
ceeded to Ephesus. Here the troops landed, and, guided by
the Ephesians, crossed Mount Tmolus, and tookSardes with-
out opposition ; Artaphernes and the few troops that were
with him having retired to the citadel. The houses in
Sardes were mostly built of reeds, with which such of them
as were of brick were also roofed. A soldier chanced to set
one of them on fire : the flames spread rapidly from house
to house ; the inhabitants retired to the market, through
which the River Pactolus ran, and there stood on their de-
fence. The Ionians, seeing their numbers, retired to Mount
Tmolus, and in the night retreated to the coast. The Per-
sians, who were on this side of the Halys, hastened to the
aid of the Sardians, and pursuing the invaders, came up with
and defeated them at Ephesus. The Athenians went home,
refusing to take any further part in the war. The Ionians,
having gone so far, could not recede : they sailed to the
Hellespont, reduced Byzantion and some other towns, then,
returning, gained over the whole of Caria, and finally in-
duced the Isle of Cyprus to join in the revolt.
Darius, when he heard of the revolt of the Ionians, sent
REVOLT OF THE ASIATIC GREEKS. 87
for Histiseus, and intimated his suspicion of his being con-
cerned in exciting it. Histiseus easily cleared himself in
the king's mind, and assuring him that the want of his pres-
ence had been the true cause, persuaded him to let him go
down to the coast, promising to return to Susa when he
had reestablished tranquillity.
Meantime, Artybius, a Persian general, having assembled
an army in Cilicia, and being joined by the Phoenician fleet,
passed over to Cyprus, in which the people of Amathus alone
obeyed the king. Onesilus, the leader of the independent
party, sent to the Ionians for aid. Their fleet soon appeared,
and engaged and defeated that of the Phoenicians ; but the
Cypriotes, though Artybius fell by the hand of Onesilus, were
overcome in the land battle, and the whole island was again
reduced beneath the yoke of Persia.* At the same time,
the other Persian generals reduced the cities on the Helles-
pont, and defeated the Carians and Milesians at Labranda ;
and Aristagoras, despairing of safety, retired to Myrcinus
in Thrace, where he shortly afterwards fell in a battle against
the people of the country.
The whole force of Persia in these parts was now turned
against Miletus. A fleet of six hundred triremes came from
Phoenicia, Cyprus, Cilicia, and Egypt, and a numerous army
advanced against it by land. The Milesians resolved merely
to defend their walls, and only to try the chance of a naval
engagement. Miletus, Myus, Erythrae, Priene, Teos, and
Phocaea sent among them 123 ships, of which Miletus fur-
nished 80 ; Chios sent 100, Lesbos 70, Samos 60 ; in all,
353 triremes were assembled at the Isle of Lade before the
port of Miletus. The Persian leaders, fearing the number
of the Greek ships, called together the expelled tyrants of
the cities who were in their camp, and urged them to try
to detach their former subjects from the confederacy. They
therefore sent secretly, giving them terrific accounts of the
* Herodotus says the defeat was caused in a great measure by the
retreat of the Salaminian war-chariots. This is the last time we hear
of these vehicles in Grecian warfare.
bb HISTORY OF GREECE.
evils that awaited them in case of defeat ; but their efforts
were in vain ; the Ionians would not resign their liberty with-
out at least a struggle.
Dionysius, who commanded one of the three triremes
which Phocsea had furnished, promised, if they would follow
his directions, to render them superior to the enemy. They
assented, and every day he made them get on board of their
ships, and put out to sea and exercise. They bore this la-
bor for seven days; but at length declaring that slavery to
the Persians would be more tolerable than such hardship,
they positively refused to go on board any more, and setting
up tents in the isle, lived there at their ease. The Samian
leaders, it is said, seeing them acting thus, lent a willing
ear to the representations of iEacus, their former tyrant, and
agreed to desert the Ionians. In the battle which ensued,
all the Samian ships but eleven turned and fled ; the Les-
bians, who were next, then followed their example, as also
did some of the Ionians. The Chians fought bravely, and
lost most of their ships ; the rest they ran ashore at Mycale ;
but as they were going home by land, they came by night
near Ephesus, where the women were celebrating the feast
of the Thesmophoria ; the Ephesians, taking them for rob-
bers, come to carry off the women, fell on them, and the
brave Chians perished by their hands. Dionysius, knowing
that his country would be enslaved, would not return. He
made sail for Phoenicia, where he took several merchant-
vessels, and then going to Sicily, exercised piracy against the
Carthaginians and Etruscans, always sparing Greek vessels.
Miletus was now attacked by sea and by land. It was
taken (Ol. 71 , 3) in the sixth year after its revolt ; and its
inhabitants were transplanted by King Darius to Ampe on
the Tigris, at the head of the Erythrean Sea, (Persian Gulf.)
Such of the Milesians as escaped joined a portion of the
Samians, who would not live under the tyranny of JEacus,
and going to Sicily, made themselves masters of Zancle.
The whole of the revolted towns were reduced, one after
the other, by the Persian arms, and the struggle for inde-
pendence terminated.
REVOLT OF THE ASIATIC GREEKS. 89
We must now relate the fate of Histiseus, the author of
the revolt. On coming to Sardes, and finding himself sus-
pected by Artaphernes, he fled away by night, and got over
to Chios. He then tried to recover his former power in
Miletus ; but the people, having tasted the sweets of liberty,
would not admit him ; and he received a wound in the thigh
in an attempt he made on the town by night. He then went
to Lesbos, where the people gave him eight triremes, with
which he sailed to Byzantion, and captured the Ionian ves-
sels coming from the Pontus. When he heard of the defeat
of the Ionians, he made sail for Chios, and with the aid of
the Lesbians reduced that isle. Immediately after, he at-
tacked the Isle of Thasos ; but hearing that the Phoenician
fleet was reducing the coast of Ionia, he returned to the
defence of Chios and Lesbos. His troops being in want of
food, he led them over to the main land to seize the corn on
the plains of Mysia ; but Harpagus, the Persian commander,
fell upon and cut them to pieces, and Histiseus himself was
made a prisoner. He was brought to Sardes, where he was
instantly put to death by Artaphernes, and his head sent to
Susa. Darius, mindful of his former services, gave it an
honorable sepulture, and severely blamed those who had put
him to death.
Artaphernes now (Ol. 71, 4) regulated the tributes of
the Greek cities ; * but the amount was not raised. He also
prohibited their making war on and plundering each other,
as they had been in the habit of doing.
The following spring, (Ol. 72, 1,) Mardonius, the son of
Gobryas, who was lately married to one of King Darius's
daughters, came down to the sea-coast with a large army.
In Cilicia he got aboard of the fleet, leaving his army to
proceed by land ; and as he sailed along the coast of Ionia,
he reestablished the democracies in the cities probably
with a view to attaching the people to the Persian monarchy.
* " Which," says Herodotus, (vi. 42,) " they still pay," i. e. toward
the end of the Peloponnesian war.
90 HISTORY OF GREECE.
Having put the army across the Hellespont, he advanced,
professing to be about to take vengeance on Eretria and
Athens. He reduced the Isle of Thasos and Macedonia 5
but his fleet being greatly shattered in doubling Mount
Athos, and his army having suffered and himself being
wounded in a night attack of the Thracian Bryges, he re-
turned to Asia, after having subdued that people.
CHAPTER X.*