Book 6: Erato

Chapter 1

1Aristagoras, after setting Ionia in revolt, met his end. Histiaeus, the tyrant of Miletus, released by Darius, had come to Sardis; and when he arrived there from Susa, Artaphrenes, the governor of Sardis, asked him what he thought was the reason the Ionians had revolted. He said he did not know, and marveled at what had happened, as if he knew nothing of the present state of affairs.

2Artaphrenes, seeing him dissembling, spoke thus, for he knew the truth of the revolt: "This is how matters stand, Histiaeus: you stitched the shoe, but it was Aristagoras who put it on."

Chapter 2

1Artaphrenes said this much about the revolt. Histiaeus, fearing that Artaphrenes had understood, fled to the sea under cover of the first night that came, having deceived king Darius; he had undertaken to subdue Sardinia, the greatest of islands, and had taken upon himself the leadership of the Ionians in the war against Darius.

2Crossing over to Chios, he was put in chains by the Chians, who condemned him of plotting against them in Darius' interest. When the Chians learned the whole story—that he was an enemy to the king—they released him.

Chapter 3

1Then the Ionians asked Histiaeus why he had written so eagerly to Aristagoras to revolt from the king, and had brought so great a harm upon the Ionians; he did not at all reveal the true reason he had had for it, but told them that king Darius had planned to uproot the Phoenicians and settle them in Ionia, and the Ionians in Phoenicia, and that for these reasons he had sent his message. Though the king had planned nothing of the sort whatsoever, he used this to put fear into the Ionians.

Chapter 4

1After this Histiaeus sent letters by the hand of a messenger, Hermippus of Atarneus, to the Persians who were at Sardis, as though he had already spoken with them about a revolt. Hermippus did not deliver the letters to those to whom he had been sent, but brought them and gave them into the hands of Artaphrenes;

2and Artaphrenes, learning all that was going on, ordered Hermippus to deliver the letters from Histiaeus to those for whom he was carrying them, and to give to him the replies that the Persians were sending back to Histiaeus. When this had been done and brought to light, Artaphrenes put many of the Persians to death there.

Chapter 5

1There was turmoil around Sardis. Histiaeus, baulked of this hope, was brought back by the Chians to Miletus, at his own request. The Milesians, glad to be rid of Aristagoras as well, were in no way willing to receive another tyrant into their land, since they had tasted freedom.

2And so, under cover of night, Histiaeus tried to enter Miletus by force, and was wounded in the thigh by one of the Milesians. He, thus driven out of his own city, came back to Chios; and from there, since he could not persuade the Chians to give him ships, he crossed over to Mytilene and persuaded the Lesbians to give him ships.

3They manned eight triremes and sailed with Histiaeus to Byzantium, and there they lay in wait and caught the ships sailing out of the Pontus, except for any whose crews declared that they were ready to obey Histiaeus.

Chapter 6

1This is what Histiaeus and the Mytilenaeans were doing. Against Miletus itself a great force by sea and by land was expected; for the Persian generals had combined and formed a single army and were marching on Miletus, thinking the other towns of less account. Of the fleet the Phoenicians were the most eager, and there served with them the Cypriots, lately subdued, and the Cilicians and the Egyptians.

Chapter 7

1Against Miletus and the rest of Ionia these were campaigning; and the Ionians, learning of it, sent picked men of their own to Panionium. When these had come to that place and taken counsel, they resolved to gather no land army to oppose the Persians, but to leave the Milesians to defend their own walls, and to man the fleet, leaving not one of the ships uncrewed, and to gather with all speed at Lade to fight the sea battle in defense of Miletus. Lade is a small island lying off the city of the Milesians.

Chapter 8

1After this the Ionians arrived with their ships manned, and with them also those of the Aeolians who inhabit Lesbos. They were drawn up as follows. The wing toward the east was held by the Milesians themselves, furnishing eighty ships; next to them were the Prienians with twelve ships and the Myesians with three; next to the Myesians the Teians with seventeen ships; and next to the Teians the Chians with a hundred ships;

2next to these were drawn up the Erythraeans and the Phocaeans, the Erythraeans furnishing eight ships and the Phocaeans three; next to the Phocaeans the Lesbians with seventy ships; and last, holding the wing toward the west, the Samians with sixty ships. The total number of all these came to three hundred and fifty-three triremes.

Chapter 9

1These were the Ionians' ships; of the foreigners the multitude of ships was six hundred. When these too had arrived in the Milesian territory and all their land army was with them, the Persian generals, learning how numerous the Ionian ships were, greatly feared that they would not prove a match for them, and so would be unable to take Miletus without winning command of the sea, and would also risk receiving some harm at Darius' hands.

2With these thoughts they gathered together the Ionian tyrants—those who, having been deposed from their rule by Aristagoras of Miletus, were living in exile among the Medes, and happened then to be serving in the campaign against Miletus—and summoning those of these men who were present, they spoke to them as follows.

3"Men of Ionia, now let one of you show himself a benefactor to the king's house: let each of you try to detach his own fellow citizens from the rest of the allied force. And putting this forward, promise them this: that they will suffer no harm for the revolt, and that neither their temples nor their private property will be burned, and that they will be treated no more harshly than they were before."

4"But if they will not do this, and are determined to come to battle, then tell them this, threatening them with what is in store for them: that if they are worsted in battle they will be sold into slavery, and that we will make eunuchs of their sons and carry their maidens off to Bactra, and that we will give their land to others."

Chapter 10

1This is what the Persians said. The Ionian tyrants each sent word by night to their own peoples. The Ionians to whom these messages came refused them in their folly and would have no part in the treachery; each of them thought that the Persians were making this offer to them alone.

Chapter 11

1This, then, happened at once upon the arrival of the Persians at Miletus. After this, when the Ionians were gathered at Lade, assemblies were held, and various men addressed them—among them Dionysius, the Phocaean general, speaking as follows.

2"Our affairs are balanced on a razor's edge, men of Ionia: whether we shall be free or slaves—slaves who are runaways at that. So now, if you are willing to endure hardships, there will be toil for you at once, but you will be able, by getting the better of your enemies, to be free; but if you give way to softness and disorder, I have no hope at all that you will not pay the king the penalty for your revolt."

3"But obey me and entrust yourselves to me; and I promise you—if the gods deal evenly—that either the enemy will not join battle with you, or if they do, they will come off very much the worse."

Chapter 12

1On hearing this, the Ionians entrusted themselves to Dionysius. He would put the ships out in line each day, to drill the rowers by sailing the ships through one another and to arm the marines; then for the rest of the day he kept the ships at anchor, and kept the Ionians hard at work all day long.

2For seven days they obeyed and did what was commanded; but on the day after these the Ionians, unused to such hardships and worn out by toil and the sun, spoke among themselves as follows.

3"What god have we offended, that we are suffering this? We have lost our wits and sailed out of our right minds, handing ourselves over to a braggart of a Phocaean who furnishes three ships; and he, having taken us in hand, abuses us past all cure—and now many of us have fallen sick, and many more are like to suffer the same. Before these troubles come upon us, better it is for us to suffer anything else that may befall, and to endure the slavery that is coming, whatever it will be, than to be held fast by the present one. Come now, let us obey him no longer."

4This they said, and after it no one would obey any longer; but like an army they pitched tents on the island and lived in the shade, and would neither board the ships nor practice.

Chapter 13

1When the Samian generals learned of what was happening among the Ionians, they then accepted those overtures that Aeaces son of Syloson had sent them before, at the Persians' bidding, asking them to withdraw from the Ionian alliance; for the Samians, seeing on the one hand that there was great disorder among the Ionians, accepted the proposals, while at the same time it seemed to them impossible to get the better of the king's power, since they well knew that even if they overcame the fleet that Darius now had, another five times as great would be upon them.

2Seizing a pretext, then, as soon as they saw that the Ionians were unwilling to fight well, they counted it gain to save both their temples and their private property. Aeaces, from whom the Samians accepted these proposals, was the son of Syloson son of Aeaces, and though he was tyrant of Samos he had been deprived of his rule by Aristagoras of Miletus, just like the other tyrants of Ionia.

Chapter 14

1Then, when the Phoenicians sailed against them, the Ionians too put out their ships in line to meet them. When they drew close and joined battle, from that point on I cannot write with certainty which of the Ionians proved good or bad in this sea fight; for they accuse one another.

2The Samians are said to have raised sail and sailed away out of their station to Samos, according to the agreement made with Aeaces, except for eleven ships; the captains of these stayed and fought, disobeying their generals;

3and the Samian people, because of this, granted them the right to be inscribed on a pillar with their fathers' names, as men who had shown themselves brave, and this pillar stands in the marketplace. The Lesbians too, seeing their neighbors flee, did the same as the Samians; and most of the Ionians did the same.

Chapter 15

1Of those who stayed in the sea fight, the Chians fared the roughest, since they kept proving their valor and would not play the coward. For they furnished, as was said before, a hundred ships, and on each of them forty picked citizens serving as marines.

2Seeing most of their allies betraying them, they did not think it right to make themselves like the cowards among them, but with only a few allies and left to themselves, they sailed through the enemy and fought, until they had taken many of the enemy's ships and lost the greater part of their own.

Chapter 16

1The Chians escaped home with the surviving ships; but those of the Chians whose ships were disabled by damage, when they were pursued, fled to Mycale. There they ran their ships ashore and left them, and made their way on foot across the mainland.

2When the Chians on their way entered the Ephesian territory—they arrived there by night, and the women were at that time celebrating the Thesmophoria—the Ephesians, who had no word of how matters stood with the Chians and saw an army that had invaded their country, took them for robbers come against the women, and rushed out in full force and killed the Chians.

Chapter 17

1Such were the fortunes that befell these. Dionysius the Phocaean, when he learned that the Ionians' cause was ruined, took three ships of the enemy and sailed away—no longer to Phocaea, well knowing that it would be enslaved along with the rest of Ionia—but sailed straight to Phoenicia; and there he sank some merchant vessels, took a great deal of money, and sailed to Sicily. Making that his base, he turned pirate, preying on no Greeks, but on Carthaginians and Tyrrhenians.

Chapter 18

1When the Persians had defeated the Ionians in the sea fight, they besieged Miletus by land and sea, mining the walls and bringing all kinds of engines against them, and took it by storm in the sixth year after the revolt of Aristagoras, and enslaved the city, so that the event answered the oracle given about Miletus.

Chapter 19

1When the Argives inquired at Delphi about the safety of their city, an oracle was given that was common to both, bearing on the Argives themselves but with a clause concerning the Milesians. The part that concerned the Argives,

2when I come to that point in my account, then I will recall it; but what he answered for the Milesians, who were not present, is as follows: "And then indeed, Miletus, planner of evil deeds, / for many you shall be a feast and glorious gifts, / and your wives shall wash the feet of many long-haired men, / and of our temple at Didyma others shall take care."

3Then indeed these things came upon the Milesians: most of the men were killed by the Persians, who wore their hair long, the women and children were made slaves, and the sanctuary at Didyma, both the temple and the oracle, was plundered and burned. The treasures in this temple I have mentioned many times elsewhere in my account.

Chapter 20

1From there the captured Milesians were led away to Susa. King Darius did them no further harm, but settled them on the shore of the sea called the Erythraean, in the city of Ampe, past which the river Tigris flows and empties into the sea. Of the Milesians' territory the Persians themselves held the land round the city and the plain, but gave the upland parts to the Carians of Pedasus to possess.

Chapter 21

1When the Milesians suffered this at the hands of the Persians, the Sybarites did not requite them in kind—they who now dwelt at Laus and Scidrus, having been driven from their city. For when Sybaris was taken by the Crotonians, all the Milesians shaved their heads in mourning and put on deep mourning; for these two cities, more than any others we know of, had been bound in friendship with one another;

2but the Athenians acted nothing like the same way. The Athenians made clear their exceeding grief at the fall of Miletus in many ways, and especially when Phrynichus wrote a play, The Sack of Miletus, and produced it: the theater fell to weeping, and they fined him a thousand drachmas for reminding them of their own troubles, and forbade anyone ever to put this play on the stage.

Chapter 22

1Miletus was thus emptied of its Milesians. Among the Samians, those who had anything to lose were in no way pleased by what their generals had done toward the Medes; and after the sea fight they resolved, on deliberation, to sail out at once to a colony, before the tyrant Aeaces came back to their land, rather than remain and be slaves to the Medes and to Aeaces.

2For the Zancleans of Sicily, at this same time, were sending messengers to Ionia and summoning the Ionians to Calacte, wishing to found a city of Ionians there. This place called Calacte belongs to the Sicels and faces Tyrrhenia in Sicily. On their summons the Samians alone of the Ionians set out, and with them the exiles from Miletus; in the course of which the following came about.

Chapter 23

1The Samians, on their voyage to Sicily, came to the Epizephyrian Locrians, and the Zancleans themselves with their king, whose name was Scythes, were besieging a city of the Sicels, wishing to take it.

2Learning of this, Anaxilaus, tyrant of Rhegium, who was then at odds with the Zancleans, met with the Samians and persuaded them that they ought to leave Calacte, to which they were sailing, and seize Zancle instead, since it was left without men.

3The Samians obeyed and put in at Zancle; whereupon the Zancleans, learning that their city was being held, came to its relief and called upon Hippocrates, tyrant of Gela—for he was their ally.

4When Hippocrates too came to their aid with his army, he put Scythes, the monarch of the Zancleans, in chains, as one who had lost his city, and sent him and his brother Pythogenes away to the city of Inyx; and the rest of the Zancleans, after coming to terms with the Samians and exchanging oaths with them, he betrayed.

5His reward had been agreed upon with the Samians as follows: to receive half of all the movables and the slaves in the city, and to have for himself all that was in the countryside.

6Most of the Zancleans he kept in chains as slaves, but the three hundred leading men among them he gave to the Samians to slaughter; the Samians, however, did not do this.

Chapter 24

1Scythes, the monarch of the Zancleans, escaped from Inyx to Himera, and from there came to Asia and went up to king Darius; and Darius judged him to be the most just man of all who had come up to him from Greece.

2For he asked the king's leave and returned to Sicily, and then came back from Sicily to the king again, until at last he died among the Persians in old age, in great prosperity. The Samians, freed from the Medes, won for themselves without toil Zancle, a most beautiful city.

Chapter 25

1After the sea battle fought at Miletus, the Phoenicians, at the Persians' command, brought Aeaces son of Syloson back to Samos, as one who had been of great worth to them and had accomplished much;

2and to the Samians alone, of all who had revolted from Darius, because of their withdrawal of the ships in the sea battle, neither the city nor the temples were burned. When Miletus was taken, the Persians immediately gained possession of Caria, some of the cities submitting of their own accord and others they brought over by force.

Chapter 26

1This, then, is how these things happened. To Histiaeus of Miletus, who was at Byzantium and was seizing the Ionian merchantmen sailing out of the Pontus, news came of what had befallen Miletus. The affairs around the Hellespont he entrusted to Bisaltes son of Apollonides, a man of Abydos; and he himself sailed with the Lesbians to Chios, and fell in with a Chian garrison that would not admit him, at the place called Coela in the Chian territory.

2Of these he killed a good many, and of the rest of the Chians, since they were already weakened by the sea battle, Histiaeus with the Lesbians got the mastery, operating out of Polichne in Chios.

Chapter 27

1Somehow or other it is the way of things to give warning beforehand when a great evil is about to befall a city or a nation; for the Chians too, before these events, were given great signs;

2first, when they sent a chorus of a hundred youths to Delphi, only two of them came home again, while the other ninety-eight were carried off by a pestilence that fell upon them; and second, in the city at this same time, a little before the sea battle, the roof fell in on children learning their letters, so that of one hundred and twenty boys only one escaped.

3These were the signs the god forewarned them of; and after this the sea battle fell upon them and brought the city to its knees, and on the sea battle followed Histiaeus with the Lesbians; and the Chians being already broken, he made an easy end of them.

Chapter 28

1From there Histiaeus campaigned against Thasos, leading many Ionians and Aeolians. While he was besieging Thasos, word came to him that the Phoenicians were sailing from Miletus against the rest of Ionia. Learning this, he left Thasos unwasted and hastened to Lesbos with his whole army.

2From Lesbos, as his army went hungry, he crossed to the mainland, to reap the harvest both there and in the plain of the Caicus, the Mysians' plain. In these regions there happened to be Harpagus, a Persian, the general of no small an army; who fell upon him as he landed, took Histiaeus alive, and destroyed the greater part of his army.

Chapter 29

1Histiaeus was taken alive as follows. When the Greeks fought the Persians in the plain of Malene in the country of Atarneus, they stood their ground for a long time, until the cavalry charged late in the day and fell upon the Greeks. This was the work done by the cavalry, and when the Greeks were routed, Histiaeus, hoping that he would not be put to death by the king for the fault he had committed, took the following course out of love of life:

2as he was overtaken in flight by a Persian and was being cut down and was about to be stabbed to death, he spoke in the Persian tongue and declared himself to be Histiaeus of Miletus.

Chapter 30

1If now he had been taken as he was and brought before king Darius, he would have suffered no harm, in my opinion, and the king would have let him off his offense; but as it was, both for this very reason and so that he might not escape and become great at court again, Artaphrenes the governor of Sardis and Harpagus who had taken him, when he had been brought to Sardis, impaled his body there, and pickling his head sent it up to king Darius at Susa.

2Darius, learning of this and finding fault with those who had done it for not bringing him alive into his presence, ordered them to wash the head of Histiaeus and dress it well and give it burial, as the head of a man who had been a great benefactor both to himself and to the Persians.

Chapter 31

1This is how things went with Histiaeus. The Persian naval force, wintering at Miletus, in the second year when it sailed out, easily took the islands lying off the mainland—Chios, Lesbos, and Tenedos. And whenever they took one of the islands, as they took each in turn, the foreigners swept the people with a drag-net.

2They sweep with a net in this way: men linking hands one with another they stretch from the northern sea to the southern, and then they pass through the whole island, hunting out the people. They took the Ionian cities on the mainland in the same way, except that they did not sweep the people with a net; for that was not possible.

Chapter 32

1There the Persian generals made good the threats they had threatened against the Ionians while the Ionians were encamped opposite them. For when they had gotten the mastery of the cities, they picked out the goodliest of the boys and castrated them, making eunuchs of them in place of whole men, and carried the fairest of the maidens away to the king; this they did, and they burned the cities along with their very temples. Thus for the third time the Ionians were enslaved, first by the Lydians, and then twice in succession by the Persians.

Chapter 33

1Leaving Ionia, the naval force took everything on the left as one sails into the Hellespont; for the places on the right were already subject to the Persians themselves by land. These are the places in Europe on the Hellespont: the Chersonese, in which there are many cities, and Perinthus, and the fortresses on the Thracian coast, and Selymbria, and Byzantium.

2The Byzantians and the Chalcedonians on the far side did not even wait for the Phoenicians to sail against them, but left their own country and fled away into the Euxine Pontus, and there they founded the city of Mesembria. The Phoenicians, after burning the lands that have been listed, turned to Proconnesus and Artace, and after giving these too to the fire they sailed back to the Chersonese to take the cities that were left, as many as they had not destroyed on their earlier visit.

3Against Cyzicus they did not even sail at all; for the Cyzicenians had already, even before the Phoenicians sailed in, come under the king, having come to terms with Oebares son of Megabazus, the governor at Dascylium.

Chapter 34

1Of the Chersonese the Phoenicians reduced all the cities except Cardia. Miltiades son of Cimon son of Stesagoras had been tyrant of them until then, this rule having been acquired before him by Miltiades son of Cypselus in the following way. The Doloncian Thracians held this Chersonese. These Dolonci, being hard pressed in war by the Apsinthians, sent their kings to Delphi to consult about the war.

2The Pythia told them to bring home as founder of their land the man who should first invite them to hospitality when they came away from the sanctuary. The Dolonci journeyed on by the sacred road through Phocis and Boeotia; and since no one called them in, they turned aside to Athens.

Chapter 35

1At Athens at that time Pisistratus held the whole power, but Miltiades son of Cypselus too was a man of standing, being of a house that bred four-horse teams; in his older descent he came of Aeacus and Aegina, in the more recent he was Athenian, Philaeus son of Ajax having been the first of that house to become an Athenian.

2This Miltiades was sitting in his own doorway, and seeing the Dolonci passing by in dress that was not of the country and carrying spears, he called out to them; and when they came up to him he offered them lodging and hospitality. They accepted, and after they had been entertained by him they revealed the whole oracle; and having revealed it, they urged him to obey the god.

3When Miltiades heard it, the proposal at once persuaded him, since he was chafing under the rule of Pisistratus and wished to be out of the way. So he straightway sent to Delphi, to ask the oracle whether he should do what the Dolonci were begging of him.

Chapter 36

1When the Pythia also gave her bidding, then Miltiades son of Cypselus—who before this had won a victory at Olympia with a four-horse chariot—took with him every Athenian who wished to share in the expedition and sailed with the Dolonci, and took possession of the land; and those who had brought him there set him up as their tyrant.

2First he walled off the isthmus of the Chersonese from the city of Cardia to Pactye, so that the Apsinthians could not do them harm by invading the land. The isthmus is thirty-six stades; and from this isthmus the whole Chersonese beyond it is four hundred and twenty stades in length.

Chapter 37

1Having walled off the neck of the Chersonese and repulsed the Apsinthians in such a way, Miltiades made war next on the people of Lampsacus; and they laid an ambush and took him alive. Miltiades had stood high in the favor of Croesus the Lydian; so Croesus, learning of this, sent a message and commanded the people of Lampsacus to let Miltiades go; if not, he threatened to destroy them like a pine tree.

2The people of Lampsacus were at a loss over the words—what the threat of Croesus meant, to destroy them like a pine tree—until at last one of the older men understood and told the truth: that the pine alone of all trees, when it is cut down, puts forth no new shoot, but perishes utterly. So the people of Lampsacus, in fear of Croesus, set Miltiades free and let him go.

Chapter 38

1This man, then, escaped through Croesus, and after this he died childless, leaving his rule and his possessions to Stesagoras son of Cimon, his half-brother on the mother's side. And after his death the Chersonesites sacrifice to him as the custom is to a founder, and they hold games, horse races and athletic contests, in which no man of Lampsacus is allowed to compete.

2While the war with the people of Lampsacus was going on, Stesagoras too was overtaken by death, dying childless, having been struck on the head with an axe in the town hall by a man who was a deserter in name but in deed an enemy and a shade too hot-blooded.

Chapter 39

1When Stesagoras too had died in this way, the Pisistratids sent out Miltiades son of Cimon, the brother of the dead Stesagoras, in a trireme to take over the government in the Chersonese; and they had made much of him at Athens as men who supposedly knew nothing of the death of his father Cimon—whose death, and how it came about, I shall show in another account.

2Miltiades, coming to the Chersonese, kept to his house, openly holding a grudge against his brother Stesagoras. The Chersonesites, learning of this, gathered from all their cities the men who held power, and coming with a common embassy as though to share his grief, they were put in chains by him. Miltiades then held the Chersonese, keeping five hundred mercenaries, and married Hegesipyle daughter of Olorus, king of the Thracians.

Chapter 40

1This Miltiades son of Cimon had only lately come to the Chersonese, and on his arrival there awaited him other troubles, worse than those that had befallen him before. For three years earlier he had fled from the Scythians. The nomad Scythians, provoked by king Darius, gathered together and drove as far as this Chersonese;

2these, as they came against him, Miltiades did not await, but fled the Chersonese, until the Scythians departed and the Dolonci brought him back again. This had happened three years before the troubles that then held him.

Chapter 41

1Then, learning that the Phoenicians were at Tenedos, he manned five triremes with the money he had at hand and sailed away to Athens. And as he had set out from the city of Cardia he sailed through the Gulf of Melas; and as he was passing along the Chersonese the Phoenicians fell upon him with their ships.

2Miltiades himself escaped to Imbros with four of the ships, but the fifth of his ships the Phoenicians took in pursuit. On this ship happened to be sailing as commander the eldest of Miltiades' sons, Metiochus, who was not born of the daughter of Olorus the Thracian, but of another wife;

3him the Phoenicians took along with the ship, and learning that he was the son of Miltiades they brought him up to the king, thinking to lay up a great store of gratitude, because Miltiades had once declared his opinion among the Ionians, urging them to obey the Scythians, at the time when the Scythians were begging them to break up the bridge of boats and sail back to their own land.

4Darius, when the Phoenicians brought up Metiochus son of Miltiades, did him no harm at all but many kindnesses; for he gave him a house and an estate and a Persian wife, by whom he had children who are reckoned among the Persians. Miltiades from Imbros came to Athens.

Chapter 42

1In this year nothing further than this was done by the Persians to the harm of the Ionians; rather, these measures were of great advantage to the Ionians in this year: Artaphrenes, the governor of Sardis, summoning envoys from the cities, compelled the Ionians to make agreements among themselves, so that they might have the law between them and not carry off and drive off one another's goods.

2This he compelled them to do, and measuring their lands by parasangs—what the Persians call thirty stades—by these measures he laid a tribute on each, which they keep paying unchanged from that time right down to my own day, as it was assessed by Artaphrenes; and the assessment was much as they had had before. Such, then, were their peaceful arrangements.

Chapter 43

1With the spring, when the other generals had been discharged by the king, Mardonius son of Gobryas came down to the coast, taking with him a very great land army and a great fleet, being a young man and newly married to Darius' daughter Artozostra;

2and leading this army, when he had come to Cilicia, Mardonius himself embarked on a ship and sailed with the rest of the fleet, while other commanders led the land army to the Hellespont.

3When Mardonius, coasting along Asia, came to Ionia, then I shall tell a marvel to those Greeks who will not accept that Otanes declared his opinion among the seven Persians that the Persians should be a democracy; for Mardonius deposed all the tyrants of the Ionians and set up democracies in their cities.

4Having done this he hastened to the Hellespont. When a vast number of ships and a great land army had been gathered, they crossed the Hellespont in the ships and marched through Europe, marching on Eretria and Athens.

Chapter 44

1These were the stated aim of the expedition; but their intent was to subdue as many of the Greek cities as they could; and some they subdued with the ships—the Thasians, who did not so much as raise a hand against them—and with the land army they acquired the Macedonians as slaves in addition to those they already had; for all the nations within Macedonia were already subject to them.

2From Thasos they crossed to the mainland and sailed along under the coast as far as Acanthus; and setting out from Acanthus they were rounding Athos. But a great north wind, impossible to deal with, fell upon them as they sailed round and dashed them very roughly about, casting many of the ships against Athos.

3For it is said that three hundred ships of the fleet were destroyed, and more than twenty thousand men. For since this sea around Athos is the wildest of seas, some perished being carried off by the creatures of the deep, others were dashed against the rocks; some, who could not swim, perished for this reason, and others of the cold.

Chapter 45

1So fared the naval force; but while Mardonius and the land army were encamped in Macedonia, the Brygian Thracians attacked by night; and the Brygi killed many of them, and wounded Mardonius himself. Yet not even they escaped slavery at the hands of the Persians; for Mardonius did not withdraw from these regions before he had made them subject.

2Having subdued these, he led his army back again, since he had stumbled in the land battle against the Brygi and had suffered greatly at sea around Athos. This expedition, then, having acquitted itself shamefully, returned to Asia.

Chapter 46

1In the second year after these events, Darius first—since the Thasians were accused by their neighbors of plotting a revolt—sent a messenger and ordered them to tear down their wall and bring their ships to Abdera.

2For the Thasians, since they had been besieged by Histiaeus of Miletus and had great revenues, used their wealth to build warships and to wall about a stronger wall. Their revenue came from the mainland and from the mines;

3from the gold mines at Scaptesyle about eighty talents came in on average, and from those on Thasos itself less than these but still so much that, the Thasians being free of any tax on their crops, there came in to them from the mainland and from the mines two hundred talents on average every year, and in the best year three hundred.

Chapter 47

1I have seen these mines myself, and by far the most marvelous of them are those which the Phoenicians discovered, who settled this island along with Thasos, from whom it now has the name of Thasos.

2These Phoenician mines are on Thasos between a place called Aenyra and Coenyra, facing Samothrace, a great hill that has been torn up and turned inside out by the search for ore. So much for this. The Thasians, at the king's command, both demolished their own wall and brought all their ships to Abdera.

Chapter 48

1After this Darius tested the Greeks, to learn what they had in mind—whether to make war on him or to give themselves up.

2He sent heralds to various places throughout Greece, commanding them to ask for earth and water for the king. These he sent to Greece; others he sent to his own tributary cities on the coast, commanding them to build warships and horse-transports.

Chapter 49

1These, then, were making their preparations; and of the heralds who came to Greece, many of the mainlanders gave what the Persian asked in his demand, and all the islanders to whom they came to ask. The other islanders gave earth and water to Darius, and so did the Aeginetans.

2When they did this, the Athenians immediately bore down on them, thinking that the Aeginetans had given earth and water with Athens in mind, so that together with the Persian they might make war on them; and gladly seizing this pretext, they went again and again to Sparta and accused the Aeginetans of what they had done, of betraying Greece.

Chapter 50

1To meet this accusation Cleomenes son of Anaxandrides, king of the Spartans, crossed over to Aegina, wishing to seize those of the Aeginetans who were most to blame.

2When he tried to seize them, various men of the Aeginetans stood against him, and among them Crius son of Polycritus most of all, who declared that he would not let him carry off any Aeginetan with impunity; for Cleomenes was doing this without the consent of the Spartan state, having been bribed with Athenian money; and he would only be carried off if Cleomenes came with the other king.

3He said this on the strength of a letter from Demaratus. Cleomenes, being driven out of Aegina, asked Crius what his name was; and he told him the truth. Then Cleomenes said to him: "Now tip your horns with bronze, Ram, for you are about to clash with great trouble."

Chapter 51

1At Sparta at this time Demaratus son of Ariston, who was staying there, slandered Cleomenes—he too being a king of the Spartans, but of the lesser house; in no other respect the lesser, for they are of the same stock; but in point of seniority the house of Eurysthenes is held in greater honor.

Chapter 52

1For the Lacedaemonians, agreeing with no poet, say that it was Aristodemus son of Aristomachus son of Cleodaeus son of Hyllus who, being king, led them into this land which they now possess, and not the sons of Aristodemus.

2Not long after, Aristodemus' wife, whose name was Argeia, bore children; they say she was the daughter of Autesion son of Tisamenus son of Thersander son of Polynices; she bore twins, and Aristodemus, having seen the children, died of disease.

3The Lacedaemonians of that time resolved to make the elder of the children king, as their law required. But they could not tell which to choose, since the children were alike and equal; and being unable to decide—and indeed even before this—they asked the mother.

4She said that she could not tell herself. She knew the truth very well and said so with a purpose, wishing if she could that both should be kings. The Lacedaemonians were at a loss, and being at a loss they sent to Delphi to ask what they should do about the matter.

5The Pythia bade them count both the children kings, but honor the elder the more. This the Pythia declared to them; but the Lacedaemonians, no less at a loss how to find out which was the elder, were given a plan by a Messenian man whose name was Panites;

6this Panites advised the Lacedaemonians as follows: to watch the mother and see which of the children she washed and fed first; and if she were always seen doing the same, then they would have all they were looking for and wished to find out; but if she varied and did it now one way, now another, it would be clear to them that she knew no more than they, and they must turn to some other way.

7Then the Spartans, following the advice of the Messenian, watched the mother of Aristodemus' children and caught her always honoring the same child first, both with food and with the bath, she not knowing why she was being watched. And they took the child that was favored by the mother as the elder and brought him up at the public cost; and the name of one was set down as Eurysthenes, and of the other as Procles.

8These two, when they grew to manhood, though they were brothers, are said to have been at odds with one another all their lives, and those descended from them continue in the same enmity.

Chapter 53

1This the Lacedaemonians alone among the Greeks say; but the following I write according to what is told by the Greeks: that these kings of the Dorians, up to Perseus son of Danae—the god being left out of the account—are rightly reckoned by the Greeks and proved to be Greeks; for by that time they were already counted among the Greeks.

2I have traced the line as far as Perseus for this reason and did not carry it further back from the beginning, because no mortal father's name is attached to Perseus, as Amphitryon is to Heracles. So far, then, my account is correct if one reckons rightly, up to Perseus; but from Danae daughter of Acrisius, if one reckons their fathers above her without end, the leaders of the Dorians would be shown to be Egyptians by birth.

Chapter 54

1This, then, is the genealogy as the Greeks tell it; but as the Persian account goes, Perseus himself was an Assyrian who became a Greek, and not the ancestors of Perseus; whereas the ancestors of Acrisius, who have no kinship whatever with Perseus, were, as the Greeks themselves say, Egyptians.

Chapter 55

1Let this much be said about these matters. But how they came to be Egyptians, and by what deeds they won the kingship of the Dorians—for others have written of this—we will pass over; but what others have not treated, of that I shall make mention.

Chapter 56

1These are the privileges the Spartans have given their kings: two priesthoods, that of Zeus Lacedaemon and that of Zeus of the Heavens, and the right to make war on whatever country they wish, in which no Spartan may hinder them, or else he lies under a curse. On campaign the kings go first and return last; and a hundred picked men guard them on campaign; and on their travels they may use as many cattle as they wish, and of all the victims sacrificed they receive the skins and the chines.

Chapter 57

1These are their war privileges; in peacetime their rights are as follows. When a public sacrifice is made, the kings sit first at the dinner, and the meal begins with them, serving each of them double portions of everything as compared with the other diners, and they have the presidency of the libations and the skins of the victims.

2On every new moon and every seventh day of the month there is given from the public funds to each of them a full-grown victim for Apollo, and a medimnus of meal, and a Laconian quart of wine, and at all the games seats of honor set apart. And they may appoint as proxeni whatever citizens they wish to attach to their service, and each of them may choose two Pythii. The Pythii are envoys sent to Delphi, who eat at public cost with the kings.

3If the kings do not come to the public dinner, there is sent to their homes two choenices of meal for each and a cotyle of wine; and when they are present, double of everything is given them; and the same honor is paid them when private persons invite them to dinner.

4The kings are to keep charge of the oracles that are given, and the Pythii share the knowledge of them. And the kings alone judge these cases only: the case of an heiress who has no father, to whom it falls to have her, if her father has not betrothed her, and the case of public roads;

5and if anyone wishes to adopt a son, he must do so before the kings. And they sit beside the council of elders, who are two short of thirty; and if the kings do not come, those of the elders who are nearest of kin to them hold the kings' privileges, casting two votes, and their own as a third.

Chapter 58

1These privileges are granted to the kings while they live from the commonwealth of the Spartans; and when they die, the following. Horsemen ride through all Laconia announcing what has happened, and in the city women go about beating a kettledrum. When this is done, it is required that from each household two free persons defile themselves in mourning, a man and a woman; and those who fail to do this incur great penalties.

2The custom the Lacedaemonians observe at the deaths of their kings is the same as that of the foreigners in Asia; for most of the foreigners use the same custom at the deaths of their kings. Whenever a king of the Lacedaemonians dies, a set number of the periochi from all Laconia, apart from the Spartans, are compelled to attend the funeral.

3When these and the helots and the Spartans themselves are gathered together in one place, many thousands mingled with the women, they strike their foreheads eagerly and give way to unbounded wailing, declaring that the one of their kings who has died last was always the best. Whichever of the kings dies in war, for him they dress up an image and carry it out laid on a bier. And when they have buried him, no assembly is held for ten days, nor does the board of elections meet, but they mourn for these days.

Chapter 59

1These agree with the Persians in this further matter: when the king dies and another becomes king, this new king frees any Spartan who owed anything to the king or to the state; and among the Persians likewise the new king remits to all the cities the tribute that was owed before.

Chapter 60

1The Lacedaemonians agree with the Egyptians in this: their heralds and flute-players and cooks succeed to their fathers' crafts, and the son of a flute-player is a flute-player, of a cook a cook, of a herald a herald; others do not shut them out by reason of a louder voice, but they carry on the crafts of their fathers.

Chapter 61

1This, then, is how these things are done. But at that time Cleomenes was in Aegina, working for the common good of Greece, and Demaratus slandered him, not so much out of concern for the Aeginetans as out of envy and ill will. Cleomenes, returning from Aegina, planned to strip Demaratus of the kingship, making an attack upon him over the following matter. Ariston, being king in Sparta and having married two wives, had no children.

2And since he did not admit himself to be the cause of this, he took a third wife; and he took her in this way. There was a friend of Ariston's among the Spartans, the man to whom Ariston was more attached than to any of the citizens. This man happened to have a wife who was by far the most beautiful woman in Sparta, and what is more, most beautiful though she had once been the ugliest.

3For while she was ugly to look upon, her nurse, seeing that she was the daughter of prosperous parents and ill-favored, and seeing too that her parents counted her looks a misfortune, took all this to heart and devised the following: every day she carried the child to the sanctuary of Helen. This is in the place called Therapne, above the temple of Phoebus. Whenever the nurse brought her, she set the child before the image and prayed to the goddess to free her from her ugliness.

4And once, it is said, as the nurse was leaving the sanctuary, a woman appeared to her and asked her what she was carrying in her arms; and she said that she was carrying a child; and the woman bade her show it to her; but she refused—for it had been forbidden her by the parents to show the child to anyone; yet the woman on no account would be gainsaid.

5Seeing that the woman made a great point of seeing it, the nurse at last showed her the child; and the woman stroked the child's head and said that she would be the most beautiful of all the women in Sparta. From that day her looks changed. And when she came of age to marry, Agetus son of Alcides married her—this very man, the friend of Ariston.

Chapter 62

1Ariston, then, was smitten with love for this woman; and he contrived as follows. He promised his comrade, whose wife she was, to give him a gift—any one of all his own possessions that the man should choose—and he asked the comrade in return to grant him the like; and he, having no fear for his wife, seeing that Ariston too had a wife, agreed to this; and upon these terms they confirmed it with oaths.

2After this Ariston gave whatever it was that Agetus chose of Ariston's treasures, and then, seeking to get the like from him in return, he tried to carry off his comrade's wife. The other said he had agreed to anything but this; yet constrained by the oath and by the trickery of the deception, he let her go.

Chapter 63

1In this way Ariston took to wife his third wife, having sent away the second. In a shorter time, without completing the ten months, this wife bore him this same Demaratus.

2And one of his servants, as he was sitting in session with the ephors, brought him word that a son had been born to him. He, knowing the time when he had taken the wife, and reckoning the months on his fingers, declared with an oath that the child could not be his. This the ephors heard, but they made nothing of it at the time. The boy grew, and Ariston repented of what he had said; for he came to count Demaratus his son beyond all doubt.

3The name Demaratus was given to him for this reason: before this, the Spartans had with one accord prayed that a son might be born to Ariston, since he was the most esteemed of all the kings who had ever been at Sparta.

Chapter 64

1For this reason the name Demaratus was given him; and as time went on Ariston died, and Demaratus held the kingship. But it was fated, it seems, that when these matters came to light they should cost Demaratus his kingship—for the wrongs on account of which he had grievously slandered Cleomenes, both before, when Demaratus led the army back from Eleusis, and again on that occasion, when Cleomenes crossed over against the Aeginetans who had medized.

Chapter 65

1Setting out then to have his revenge, Cleomenes made a compact with Leotychides son of Menares son of Agis, who was of the same house as Demaratus, on condition that if he set him up as king in place of Demaratus, he would follow him against the Aeginetans.

2This Leotychides had become the bitterest enemy of Demaratus over the following matter: when Leotychides was betrothed to Percalus daughter of Chilon son of Demarmenus, Demaratus plotted and robbed Leotychides of the marriage, getting ahead of him by carrying off Percalus and taking her to wife.

3On this ground Leotychides' enmity toward Demaratus had arisen; and now, spurred on by the eagerness of Cleomenes, Leotychides swore an oath against Demaratus, declaring that he was not rightfully king of the Spartans, being no son of Ariston; and after the oath he prosecuted him, reviving the saying that Ariston uttered at the time when the servant told him a son had been born, and he reckoned the months and swore that the child was not his.

4Relying on this word, Leotychides declared that Demaratus was neither born of Ariston nor rightfully king of Sparta, bringing as witnesses those ephors who happened to have been sitting with Ariston and to have heard him say this.

Chapter 66

1At last, as the quarrel over this went on, the Spartans resolved to ask the oracle at Delphi whether Demaratus was the son of Ariston.

2When the question was referred to the Pythia through the contrivance of Cleomenes, Cleomenes then won over Cobon son of Aristophantus, a man of the greatest power at Delphi, and Cobon persuaded the prophetess Perialla to say what Cleomenes wished to be said.

3So when the envoys inquired, the Pythia gave judgment that Demaratus was not the son of Ariston. In later time, however, the truth came to light, and Cobon fled from Delphi and the prophetess Perialla was stripped of her office.

Chapter 67

1This is how the deposition of Demaratus from the kingship came about; and Demaratus fled from Sparta to the Medes because of the following reproach. After his deposition from the kingship Demaratus held an office to which he had been elected.

2It was the festival of the Gymnopaidiai, and as Demaratus was watching, Leotychides, now king in his place, sent his servant and asked Demaratus, in mockery and derision, what it was like to hold office after having been king.

3He, stung by the question, said that he himself had by now made trial of both, while the other had not; yet this question of his would be the beginning for the Lacedaemonians of either ten thousand woes or ten thousand blessings. Having said this and veiled his head, he went from the theater to his own house, and straightway making ready he sacrificed an ox to Zeus, and having sacrificed he called his mother.

Chapter 68

1When his mother came, he put the entrails into her hands and made supplication to her, speaking as follows: "Mother, I beseech you, calling upon the other gods and upon this Zeus of the Courtyard, to tell me the truth: who is my father in all sincerity?"

2"Leotychides declared in the quarrel that you came to Ariston already with child by your former husband; but others, telling a yet more foolish tale, say that you went to one of the servants, a donkey-driver, and that I am his son.

3"I therefore implore you by the gods to tell me the truth; for if indeed you have done any of the things they tell, you are not the only one who has done it—you have many companions; and there is a common saying in Sparta that Ariston had no seed for begetting children, or his earlier wives too would have borne him children."

Chapter 69

1He had said such things, and she made answer as follows: "My son, since you come to me with entreaties, asking me to speak the truth, the whole truth shall be told you. When Ariston brought me into his house, on the third night after our first there came to me a phantom with the likeness of Ariston, and it lay with me, and then set upon me the garlands it carried."

2"The phantom went away, and after this Ariston came in. When he saw me wearing garlands, he asked who had lain with me; I said that he himself had, but he would not admit it. Then I swore an oath, telling him he did wrong to deny it, since only a little while before he had come, lain with me, and given me the garlands."

3"Seeing me swearing my oath, Ariston understood that the thing was a work of the divine; and the garlands proved to have come from the hero-shrine of Astrabacus, which stands by the outer doors of the courtyard, and the seers judged that this same hero was the one responsible."

4"So now, my son, you have the whole of what you wished to learn: either you were born from this hero, and Astrabacus the hero is your father, or from Ariston, for it was on that night that I conceived you. And it is above all this that your enemies fling at you, saying that Ariston himself, when you were reported to him as born, in the hearing of many, refused to say you were his — 'for the time, the ten months, was not yet up' — and it was in heedlessness of such matters that he let fall those words."

5"For women bear children at nine months and at seven months, and not all complete the ten; and I bore you, my son, a seven-month child. Ariston himself, not long after, saw that he had spoken that word to no purpose and would gladly have taken it back. Do not accept other stories about your birth, for you have heard the truest of all. As for Leotychides and those who say such things — may their wives bear children by donkey-drivers!"

Chapter 70

1She said these things; and he, having learned all he wanted, took provisions for the road and set out for Elis, making it his story that he was going to consult the oracle at Delphi. But the Lacedaemonians, finding out that Demaratus meant to flee, went in pursuit of him.

2Demaratus, however, got the start of them, crossing over from Elis to Zacynthus; the Lacedaemonians crossed after him, laid hands on him, and carried off his servants. Afterward, since the Zacynthians would not give him up, he crossed from there to Asia, to King Darius, who received him with great honor and gave him land and cities.

3So Demaratus came to Asia and met with such a fortune as this — he who had made himself shining in the eyes of the Lacedaemonians in many things, in deeds as in counsels, and who, among other things, had put in a four-horse chariot at the Olympic games and won with it, the only one of all the kings who have ever reigned at Sparta to have done so.

Chapter 71

1Leotychides son of Menares, when Demaratus was put down, took over the kingship, and there was born to him a son, Zeuxidemus, whom some of the Spartans called Cyniscus. This Zeuxidemus never reigned at Sparta, for he died before Leotychides, leaving a son, Archidamus.

2Leotychides, having lost Zeuxidemus, married a second wife, Eurydame, sister of Menius and daughter of Diactorides; by her there was born to him no son, but a daughter, Lampto, whom Archidamus son of Zeuxidemus married, Leotychides giving her to him.

Chapter 72

1Nor did Leotychides grow old at Sparta either, but he paid Demaratus a retribution of this kind: he was general of the Lacedaemonians on campaign into Thessaly, and though everything lay ready for him to bring it all under their power, he took a great deal of silver in bribes;

2and he was caught red-handed there in the camp, sitting with his sleeve full of silver, and fled from Sparta when he was brought up before a court, and his house was razed to the ground. He fled to Tegea and died there.

Chapter 73

1These things happened at a later time; at the time of which I speak, as soon as Cleomenes had his way in the matter of Demaratus, he took Leotychides with him at once and marched against the Aeginetans, bearing them a grievous grudge for the mockery he had suffered.

2Thus the Aeginetans, both kings having come against them, no longer thought it right to offer resistance, and the kings picked out from the Aeginetans ten men most eminent in wealth and birth; they led off others too, and among them Crius son of Polycritus and Casambus son of Aristocrates, men who held the greatest power, and bringing them into the land of Attica they deposited them as hostages with the Athenians, the bitterest enemies of the Aeginetans.

Chapter 74

1After these things, because Cleomenes had done so unseemly and fraudulent a thing in the matter of Demaratus, fear fell upon the Spartans, and he slipped away to Thessaly. From there he came into Arcadia and set about stirring up fresh mischief, drawing the Arcadians together against Sparta and binding them by other oaths besides to follow him wherever he might lead; and he was eager to bring the leading men of the Arcadians out from the city of Nonacris to swear by the water of the Styx.

2In that city, the Arcadians say, is the water of the Styx, and this is what it is like: a little water, seen coming from a rock, drips into a hollow, and around the hollow runs a ring of rough masonry. Nonacris, where this spring is, is a city of Arcadia near Pheneus.

Chapter 75

1But the Lacedaemonians, learning that Cleomenes was doing these things, in fear brought him back down to Sparta on the same terms as he had ruled before. When he came down, a sickness of madness seized him at once, though even before he had been somewhat unsteady; for whenever he met any of the Spartans, he would strike him in the face with his scepter.

2When he did this and had gone out of his mind, his kinsmen bound him in a wooden stock. Bound there, he saw that the guard had been left alone of the others, and asked the man for a knife; at first the guard was unwilling to give it, so he threatened him with what he would do to him later, and the guard, frightened by the threats (he was one of the helots), gave him the knife.

3Cleomenes, taking the iron, began to mutilate himself, starting with his shins: cutting the flesh in long strokes he went on from the shins to the thighs, from the thighs to the hips and the flanks, until he came to the belly, and slicing that too he died in this manner. As most of the Greeks tell it, he did this because he had brought over the Pythia to say what was said about Demaratus; as the Athenians alone say, because he invaded Eleusis and cut down the precinct of the goddesses; as the Argives say, because out of their sanctuary at Argos he cut down the Argives who had fled from the battle for refuge there, and, holding the very grove in no regard, set it on fire.

Chapter 76

1For when Cleomenes consulted the oracle at Delphi he was told that he would take Argos; but when, leading the Spartans, he came to the river Erasinus, which is said to flow from the Stymphalian lake — for that lake, they say, pours itself out into a chasm unseen and rises again at Argos, and from there this water is called by the Argives the Erasinus — then Cleomenes, when he came to this river, sacrificed to it;

2for the omens were in no way favorable to his crossing it, and he said that he admired the Erasinus for not betraying its townsfolk, but that even so the Argives would get no joy of it. After this he withdrew his army and led it back to Thyrea, and having sacrificed a bull to the sea, he brought them aboard ship into the Tirynthian country and Nauplia.

Chapter 77

1The Argives, learning this, marched to the rescue down to the sea; and when they had come near Tiryns, in the country where lies the place called Hysiae, they settled in line facing the Lacedaemonians, leaving no great gap between. There the Argives were not afraid of a battle in the open; what they feared was being caught by treachery.

2For an oracle had a bearing on this matter, one that the Pythia had given in common both to them and to the Milesians, speaking as follows: "But whenever the female conquers the male and drives him out, and wins glory among the Argives, then shall she leave many a wife of Argos with her cheeks torn. / Such a thing shall some man say in days to come, when generations of men are passing away: a terrible serpent, thrice-coiled, perished, mastered by the spear."

3All these things coming together brought fear upon the Argives. And so they resolved in this situation to make use of the enemy herald; and this was their notion: whatever the Spartan herald signaled to the Lacedaemonians, the Argives would do the very same.

Chapter 78

1Cleomenes, learning that the Argives were doing whatever their own herald signaled, gave them this order: when the herald signaled the time to make their morning meal, they were then to take up their arms and move in on the Argives.

2This came about just as the Lacedaemonians commanded: at the herald's signal they fell upon the Argives as they were making their meal, and they killed many of them, while far more still, who fled for refuge into the grove of Argos, they surrounded and kept under watch.

Chapter 79

1Then Cleomenes did as follows. He had with him men who had deserted, and questioning these he called the Argives out from the sanctuary, sending a herald and naming by name those shut up within; and he called them out on the plea that he held their ransom-money — for the "apoina," ransom-money, among the Peloponnesians is two minas fixed to be paid for each man taken prisoner. So Cleomenes, calling the Argives out fifty at a time, killed them.

2While this was going on it escaped the notice of the rest inside the precinct; for the grove being thick, those within could not see what those outside were doing, until one of their number climbed up into a tree and saw what was being done. Then, as they were called out no more, they came out on their own.

Chapter 80

1Thereupon Cleomenes ordered every single helot to pile brushwood around the grove, and they obeying, he set fire to the grove. While it was burning he asked one of the deserters whose of the gods the grove was; the man said it was Argos'. When he heard this, Cleomenes groaned aloud and said, "O Apollo of the oracle, you have hugely deceived me, saying I should take Argos; I take it that the oracle has now come home to me."

Chapter 81

1After this Cleomenes sent the larger part of his army away to return to Sparta, while he himself took a thousand of the best men and went to the Heraion to sacrifice. When he wished to sacrifice at the altar, the priest forbade him, saying it was not holy for a stranger to sacrifice there. Cleomenes then ordered the helots to drag the priest away from the altar and flog him, and he himself sacrificed; and having done this he went back to Sparta.

Chapter 82

1On his return his enemies brought him before the ephors, saying he had taken bribes, and that was why he had not taken Argos when it lay easy for him to take. To them he gave an answer — whether speaking falsely or truly I cannot say for certain — but he did answer, saying that when he had taken the sanctuary of Argos he thought the oracle of the god had come out fulfilled, and that after this he did not think it right to make trial of the city before he had consulted the holy places and learned whether the god would deliver it up to him or stand in his way.

2When he performed the great sacrifice in the Heraion, a flame of fire flashed out from the breasts of the statue; and so he himself learned the truth, that he would not take Argos. For had the light flashed from the head of the statue, he would have taken the city from the very crown of it; but since it flashed from the breasts, all that he had done was as much as the god wished to be done. Speaking thus, he seemed to the Spartans to speak with truth and reason, and he got clear away by far from those pursuing the charge.

Chapter 83

1Argos was so emptied of its men that their slaves took over everything, ruling it and managing it, until the sons of the fallen men grew up; then these won Argos back for themselves and drove the slaves out, and the slaves, thrust from the city, took Tiryns by battle.

2For a time there were friendly relations between the two; then there came to the slaves a seer, Cleander, a Phigalean by descent from Arcadia, and he persuaded the slaves to fall upon their masters. From then on there was war between them for a long time, until at last the Argives with difficulty got the better of them.

Chapter 84

1The Argives say that for these reasons Cleomenes went mad and came to a miserable end; the Spartans themselves say that Cleomenes went mad from no divine cause, but that from consorting with the Scythians he became a drinker of unmixed wine, and went mad from that.

2For the nomad Scythians, once Darius had invaded their country, were eager after that to take vengeance on him; they sent to Sparta and made an alliance and agreed on this: that it was required for them, the Scythians, to make the attempt into Media by way of the river Phasis, while the Spartans were to set out from Ephesus, march up-country, and then meet them at the same place.

3They say that when the Scythians came for this purpose Cleomenes consorted with them a great deal, and that in the course of that association he learned more than was needed of drinking unmixed wine from them; and from this the Spartans believe he went mad. From that time on, as they themselves say, whenever they want to drink their wine stronger, they say they will do it "Scythian-fashion." So the Spartans tell the story of Cleomenes; in my own judgment, Cleomenes paid this penalty to Demaratus.

Chapter 85

1When the Aeginetans learned of Cleomenes' death, they sent messengers to Sparta to bring a formal complaint against Leotychides over the hostages they had held in Athens. The Lacedaemonians convened a court and found that the Aeginetans had been outrageously used by Leotychides, and condemned him to be carried off as a hostage to Aegina in place of the men held in Athens.

2As the Aeginetans were on the point of leading Leotychides away, Theasides son of Leoprepes, a man of standing in Sparta, said to them: "What is it you mean to do, men of Aegina — to lead away the king of the Spartans, given up as he has been by his own countrymen? If the Spartans in their anger have now so decided, take care that later, if you do this thing, they do not hurl upon your country some utterly ruinous harm."

3Hearing this, the Aeginetans gave up the leading away, and instead they made this agreement: that Leotychides should go with them to Athens and restore the men to the Aeginetans.

Chapter 86

1When Leotychides came to Athens and demanded back the hostages, the Athenians took hold of pretexts, not wishing to give them up: they said they had deposited them with two kings, and did not think it right to give them back to one of them without the other.

Chapter 86A

1The Athenians declaring they would not give them back, Leotychides said this to them: "Athenians, do what you yourselves please; for in giving them back you act as is holy, and in not giving them back, the opposite of this. But I wish to tell you what manner of thing once came to pass at Sparta concerning a deposit."

2"We Spartans tell that in Lacedaemon, in the third generation back from me, there lived Glaucus son of Epicydes. This man, we say, surpassed all others in everything else, and had the finest reputation for justice of all who dwelt in Lacedaemon at that time."

3"This is what we tell befell him as time went on: a man of Miletus came to Sparta and wished to open a conversation with him, and began with words like these: 'I am a Milesian, and I have come to you, Glaucus, wanting to share in your justice.'"

4"'For since through all the rest of Greece, and indeed in Ionia too, there was much talk of your justice, I gave myself these arguments: that Ionia is always at one time or another in danger, while the Peloponnese stands securely founded, and that nowhere does one see the same men keeping their wealth.'"

5"'Weighing and pondering these things, it seemed to me best to sell half of all my property and deposit the proceeds with you, in the sure knowledge that it would lie with you safe. So take the money, and keep these tokens when you have taken them, and give the money back to whoever comes asking for it with these in hand.'"

Chapter 86B

1So much said the guest come from Miletus, and Glaucus accepted the deposit on those terms. But when much time had gone by, the sons of the man who had made the deposit came to Sparta; and having spoken with Glaucus and shown the tokens, they asked him to give back the money.

2But he thrust them off, answering as follows: "I remember nothing of the matter, and nothing moves me to know anything of what you say; I wish, if I can be put in mind of it, to do all that is just. For if I took it, it is right to give it back; and if I never took it at all, I will have the laws of the Greeks against you. Let me then defer giving you my decision to the fourth month from this."

Chapter 86C

1The Milesians went away in grief, as men robbed of their money; but Glaucus traveled to Delphi to consult the oracle. And when he asked the oracle whether he might rob them of the money by an oath, the Pythia came back to him with these verses:

2"Glaucus, son of Epicydes: for the present it is more profitable thus to conquer by an oath and to seize the money. Swear — for death too awaits even the man who swears true. / But the oath has a child, nameless, that has neither hands nor feet, and swift it comes upon one, until it seizes and destroys the whole race and the whole house together. / But the race of the man who keeps his oath is better hereafter." Glaucus, hearing this, begged pardon of the god for what he had said; and the Pythia said that to make trial of the god and to do the deed were one and the same.

Chapter 86D

1Glaucus then sent for his Milesian guests and gave the money back to them. And, Athenians, the reason this story was set afoot to be told to you shall be said now: there is today no descendant of Glaucus at all, nor any hearth anywhere held to be Glaucus', and his stock has been worn clean out of Sparta. So good a thing is it not even to conceive any thought about a deposit other than to give it back when it is asked for.

Chapter 87

1Leotychides, having said this—and the Athenians did not heed him even so—departed. But the Aeginetans, before paying the penalty for the wrongs they had done before against the Athenians to gratify the Thebans, did the following: blaming the Athenians and claiming to be wronged, they made ready to take vengeance on them. Now the Athenians held a festival at Sunium every fifth year; lying in wait for it, the Aeginetans captured the sacred ship, full of men, and the men were the foremost of the Athenians. They seized them and bound them.

Chapter 88

1When the Athenians had suffered this at the hands of the Aeginetans, they no longer delayed to contrive everything against the Aeginetans. Now there was in Aegina a man of standing called Nicodromus, son of Cnoithus. This man had a grievance against the Aeginetans, who had driven him out of the island before; and when he learned at this time that the Athenians were in full readiness to do the Aeginetans harm, he made a bargain with the Athenians to betray Aegina, fixing the day on which he would make his attempt, and promising to signal them to come to his aid when the need arose.

Chapter 89

1After this, Nicodromus seized the part of the city called the Old City, on the day agreed with the Athenians; but the Athenians did not arrive in time, for their ships were not fit to meet those of the Aeginetans in battle. While they had to borrow ships from the Corinthians, in that interval the affair was ruined. The Corinthians—at that time the Athenians' closest friends—gave twenty ships to the Athenians when they asked for them, but sold them at five drachmas apiece, for the law did not allow them to give a gift. Taking these ships along with their own, and making seventy in all, the Athenians sailed against Aegina, and arrived one day after the day that had been fixed.

Chapter 90

1Nicodromus, since the Athenians did not come in time, went aboard a ship and fled from Aegina; other Aeginetans followed with him, and the Athenians gave them Sunium to live in. Setting out from there, these men kept carrying off and leading away captive the Aeginetans on the island.

Chapter 91

1All this happened later. As for the Aeginetans, their rich men prevailed when the common people rose against them together with Nicodromus; and then, having subdued them, they led them out to be put to death. For this too a curse came upon them, one they were never able to expiate by sacrifice, try every device as they might; they were driven out of the island before the goddess grew gracious to them.

2For they took seven hundred of the common people alive and led them out to be killed; and one of these, slipping his bonds, fled for refuge to the doors of Demeter Thesmophorus, and grasping the door-handles held fast. When they found they could not drag him away, they cut off his hands and led him away so; and those hands had grown fast to the door-handles.

Chapter 92

1These things the Aeginetans brought on themselves. When the Athenians arrived, they met them in a sea battle with seventy ships; beaten in the battle, they called in the same helpers as before, the Argives. But the Argives gave them no more help, charging that Aeginetan ships, constrained by Cleomenes, had put in to the Argolid country and landed men there alongside the Lacedaemonians, and that men from Sicyonian ships had disembarked in the same descent:

2and the Argives laid upon them a fine of a thousand talents to pay, five hundred on each people. The Sicyonians owned that they had done wrong and agreed to pay a hundred talents, and so were free of the penalty; the Aeginetans would not admit any wrongdoing, and grew all the more defiant. For this reason, when the Aeginetans asked for help, no Argive aided them from the state any longer, but about a thousand came as volunteers, led by a general named Eurybates, a man trained in the pentathlon.

3Most of these men never came home again, but died at the hands of the Athenians in Aegina; and the general Eurybates himself, fighting in single combats, killed three men in this way, and then died at the hands of the fourth, Sophanes son of Deceletus.

Chapter 93

1The Aeginetans, falling on the Athenians while they were still in disorder, won the battle of the ships, and took four of their ships with the men aboard them.

Chapter 94

1So war was joined between the Athenians and the Aeginetans. Meanwhile the Persian pursued his own purpose, so that, his servant reminding him day after day, he did not forget the Athenians; and the Pisistratidae sat beside him and slandered them, while Darius for his part wished, holding to this pretext, to subdue those in Hellas who had not given him earth and water.

2Mardonius, who had fared badly with the fleet, he relieved of his command; and choosing other generals, he sent them against Eretria and Athens—Datis, a Mede by descent, and Artaphrenes son of Artaphrenes, his own nephew—with orders that, after enslaving Athens and Eretria, they were to bring the slaves up into his presence.

Chapter 95

1When these generals, thus appointed, set out from the king and came, leading with them a great land army, large and well equipped, to the Aleian plain of Cilicia, there, as they encamped, the whole naval force assigned to each of them came in, and the horse-transport ships arrived as well, those which Darius in the year before had ordered his tribute-paying subjects to prepare.

2Having loaded the horses into these transports and embarked the land army on the ships, they sailed for Ionia with six hundred triremes. From there they no longer kept their ships along the mainland, toward the Hellespont and Thrace, but putting out from Samos they made their voyage past Icaria and through the islands—chiefly, as it seems to me, for fear of the long circuit round Athos, since the year before, taking that route, they had come mightily to grief; and besides, Naxos, which they had failed to take before, compelled them to make for it first.

Chapter 96

1When, moving out of the Icarian Sea, they came up to Naxos—for the Persians were making for this island first, remembering what had gone before—the Naxians did not stand their ground but fled away into the mountains, and the Persians enslaved those they caught and burned both the sanctuaries and the city. This done, they sailed on to the other islands.

Chapter 97

1While these men were doing this, the Delians too abandoned Delos and fled away to Tenos. As the expedition put in, Datis sailed ahead and would not let the ships anchor off Delos, but moored them across from it at Rhenea; and learning where the Delians were, he sent a herald and proclaimed to them this:

2"Holy men, why do you go off in flight, having judged that I am not well disposed toward you? For I myself, so far as my own mind goes, am so minded, and this is the order I have from the king: to do no harm to the land where the two gods were born, neither to the land itself nor to the people who dwell in it. Now then, go back to your homes and live on your island." Having proclaimed this to the Delians, he then heaped three hundred talents' weight of frankincense upon the altar and burned it as an offering.

Chapter 98

1Datis, having done this, sailed with his army first against Eretria, bringing Ionians and Aeolians along with him. But after he had put out from there, Delos was shaken by an earthquake, as the Delians said—the first and the last up to my time. And this sign, I suppose, the god showed to men of the evils that were to come.

2For under Darius son of Hystaspes, and Xerxes son of Darius, and Artaxerxes son of Xerxes, these three generations in a row, more evils came upon Hellas than in the twenty generations before Darius—some brought on it by the Persians, and some by its own foremost men, waging war among themselves for supremacy.

3So there was nothing unfitting in Delos, which before had never been moved, being shaken. And there was written about it in an oracle, this: "I will shake Delos too, though it is unmoved." In the Greek tongue these names have this meaning: Darius, the Doer of Deeds; Xerxes, the Warrior; Artaxerxes, the Great Warrior. Thus, then, the Greeks would rightly call these kings in their own speech.

Chapter 99

1The barbarians, as soon as they had put back from Delos, made for the islands, and from there they took aboard troops and seized as hostages the children of the islanders.

2Sailing round the islands, they put in also at Carystus, for the Carystians would neither give hostages nor consent to march against their neighboring cities, Eretria and Athens; so the Persians besieged them and laid waste their land, until the Carystians too came over to the side of the Persians.

Chapter 100

1The Eretrians, when they learned that the Persian expedition was sailing against them, asked the Athenians to come to their aid. The Athenians did not refuse their help, but gave them, to avenge them, the four thousand men who held allotments in the country of the horse-breeders of Chalcis. But the Eretrians had, as it fell out, no sound plan at all: they sent for the Athenians, yet their minds were divided two ways.

2For some of them planned to leave the city and take refuge on the heights of Euboea, while others, looking for private gain from the Persian, made ready to betray the city.

3When Aeschines son of Nothon, one of the first men of the Eretrians, learned how things stood with both parties, he told the whole present state of affairs to the Athenians who had come, and begged them to depart to their own land, that they might not perish with the Eretrians. The Athenians took the counsel of Aeschines and went.

Chapter 101

1These crossed over to Oropus and saved themselves. The Persians sailed on and brought their ships to land in the Eretrian country, at Temenus and Choereae and Aegilea; and having taken these places they at once disembarked their horses and made ready to move against their enemies.

2The Eretrians made no plan to come out and give battle; their whole care, if by any means they could, was to keep their walls safe, since the stronger counsel had prevailed, not to abandon the city. As the assault on the wall grew fierce, many fell on both sides for six days; but on the seventh day Euphorbus son of Alcimachus and Philagrus son of Cyneas, two men of standing among the citizens, betrayed the city to the Persians.

3They entered the city and first plundered the sanctuaries and set them on fire, to pay back for the sanctuaries that had been burned at Sardis; and then they enslaved the people, according to the orders of Darius.

Chapter 102

1Having subdued Eretria and waited a few days, they sailed for the land of Attica, having already achieved much and expecting to do to the Athenians the very things they had done to the Eretrians. For Marathon was the most suitable ground in all Attica for cavalry, and it lay nearest to Eretria; toward this place Hippias son of Pisistratus was guiding them.

Chapter 103

1When the Athenians learned this, they too marched out to the aid of Marathon. Ten generals led them, and Miltiades was the tenth; his father was Cimon son of Stesagoras, whom it befell to flee Athens when Pisistratus son of Hippocrates held power there.

2And while he was in exile it chanced that he won an Olympic victory with the four-horse chariot; and having won this victory he carried off the same prize as his half-brother by the same mother, Miltiades. At the next Olympiad, winning again with the same horses, he handed the victory over to be proclaimed for Pisistratus, gave it up to him, and came home to his own estate under a truce.

3And it befell him, after winning with those same horses yet another Olympic victory, to be put to death by the sons of Pisistratus, Pisistratus himself being no longer alive; they killed him by night at the prytaneion, setting men to lie in wait for him. Cimon is buried before the city, beyond the road called Through the Hollow, and facing his tomb lie buried those same mares that won the three Olympic victories.

4The same thing had been done before by other horses only once, those of Euagoras the Lacedaemonian; none besides these ever managed it. Now the elder of Cimon's sons, Stesagoras, was at that time being brought up with his uncle Miltiades in the Chersonese, and the younger was with Cimon himself in Athens, bearing the name Miltiades after Miltiades the founder of the Chersonese.

Chapter 104

1This Miltiades, then, having come from the Chersonese and escaped a double death, was now general of the Athenians; for first the Phoenicians, who pursued him as far as Imbros, set great store by catching him and carrying him up to the king;

2and then, when he had escaped them and come home, thinking himself already in safety, from there his enemies received him, brought him into court, and prosecuted him for the tyranny he had held in the Chersonese. He escaped these men too, and so it was that he became general of the Athenians, elected by the people.

Chapter 105

1First, while the generals were still in the city, they sent off to Sparta a herald, Pheidippides, an Athenian by birth, who was in other respects a day-long runner and made that his calling. This man, as Pheidippides himself said and as he reported to the Athenians, was met by Pan on Mount Parthenion, the mountain above Tegea:

2Pan, crying out the name of Pheidippides, bade him announce to the Athenians: "Why do you take no thought for me, though I am well disposed toward you and have already been of use to you in many ways, and will be so again?"

3The Athenians, when their affairs had now come to be in good order, believing these things true, established under the Acropolis a shrine of Pan, and from that message onward they propitiate him with sacrifices each year and with a torch race.

Chapter 106

1This Pheidippides, then, sent by the generals, and at the very time when he said Pan also appeared to him, was in Sparta on the second day after leaving the city of the Athenians; and coming before the rulers he said:

2"Lacedaemonians, the Athenians entreat you to come to their help and not to look on while a city the most ancient among the Greeks falls into slavery to foreign men; for even now Eretria has been enslaved, and Hellas has become the weaker by a city of great account."

3He then delivered to them the message with which he was charged; and they were minded to help the Athenians, but it was impossible for them to do it at once, for they would not break the law: it was the ninth day of the month then beginning, and they said they would not march out on the ninth until the circle of the moon should be full.

Chapter 107

1These, then, waited for the full moon. Meanwhile Hippias son of Pisistratus guided the barbarians to Marathon, for on the night just past he had seen a vision of this kind: it seemed to Hippias that he lay with his own mother.

2Reading the dream, then, he concluded that he would come back to Athens, recover his rule, and end his days an old man in his own country. Such was his reading of the vision. Now, as he guided them, he first landed the prisoners from Eretria on the island of the Styreans, called Aegilia; and then, when the ships were brought into Marathon, he anchored them there and drew up the barbarians as they disembarked on land.

3While he was managing these things, he was seized with sneezing and a cough stronger than usual; and since he was an older man and most of his teeth were shaken loose, he coughed one of them out by the violence of it. It fell into the sand, and he took great pains to hunt for it.

4When the tooth would not appear, he drew a deep sigh and said to those who stood by: "This land is not ours, nor shall we be able to make it our own; whatever share of it was mine, my tooth holds."

Chapter 108

1Thus Hippias saw what his vision had meant when he set out. The Athenians, drawn up in the precinct of Heracles, were joined by the Plataeans coming to their aid in full force; for the Plataeans had already given themselves over to the Athenians, and the Athenians had already undertaken many labors for their sake. This was how they gave themselves.

2Pressed hard by the Thebans, the Plataeans first gave themselves to Cleomenes son of Anaxandrides and the Lacedaemonians, who happened to be on the spot; but they would not receive them, and said: "We live far away, and such help as ours would be a cold one for you; many a time you would be utterly enslaved before any one of us ever heard of it."

3"We counsel you, then, to give yourselves to the Athenians, men who live near you and are not bad at avenging their friends." This advice the Lacedaemonians gave, not so much from goodwill toward the Plataeans as because they wished the Athenians to have trouble on their hands, bound up with the Boeotians.

4This counsel the Lacedaemonians gave the Plataeans, and the Plataeans were not disappointed in it; for while the Athenians were offering sacrifice to the Twelve Gods, they sat down as suppliants at the altar and gave themselves to them. When the Thebans learned of this, they marched out against the Plataeans, and the Athenians came to their aid.

5When the two sides were on the point of joining battle, the Corinthians would not look on; coming upon the scene, they brought the parties together, both sides consenting, and marked out the land with these bounds: that the Thebans let alone the Boeotians who did not wish to pay dues to the Boeotians. The Corinthians, this settled, went away; and as the Athenians were going home, the Boeotians fell upon them, and attacking, were beaten in the fight.

6The Athenians then passed beyond the bounds the Corinthians had fixed for the Plataeans, and, going beyond them, made the Asopus itself the boundary of the Thebans toward the Plataeans and Hysiae. The Plataeans had thus given themselves to the Athenians in the manner described, and now they came to Marathon to help them.

Chapter 109

1The generals of the Athenians were divided in opinion: some held that they must not join battle, for they were too few to fight the army of the Medes, while others were for it, and among them Miltiades.

2But as they stood divided and the worse of the two opinions was winning—since the man who had drawn the bean to serve as polemarch of the Athenians carried an eleventh vote (for from of old the Athenians made the polemarch equal in vote to the generals, and the polemarch at that time was Callimachus of Aphidna)—to this man Miltiades came and spoke as follows:

3"Now it rests with you, Callimachus, either to bring Athens under the yoke of slavery or, making her free, to leave behind you memorials such as not even Harmodius and Aristogeiton left, to endure for the whole life of mankind. For the Athenians have come to the greatest danger they have known since they first became a people: if they bow down to the Medes, what they will suffer is already fixed, given over into Hippias' hands; but if this city prevails, she can stand first among the cities of Greece.

4"How these things can come to pass, and how with them the deciding voice belongs to you, I have come now to show. We generals are ten, and our opinions split two ways: some of us bid you fight, some forbid it.

5"If we do not fight, I look for some great faction to shake the resolve of the Athenians until it gives way and they go over to the Medes; but if we fight before anything rotten breeds among the Athenians for the other side, then, with the gods dealing out fair shares, we may well come off winners in the battle.

6"All of this now turns upon you and hangs from you. If you add your vote to mine, your fatherland will be free and your city first of all in Greece; but if you choose the side of those who hang back from battle, you will have the very opposite of the good things I have counted out for you."

Chapter 110

1By these words Miltiades won Callimachus over; and with the polemarch's opinion joined to his, the resolution to fight stood confirmed. After that, the generals whose opinion it was to fight handed over to Miltiades each presidency of the day as it came round to them; and he, taking it, still gave no battle, until the presidency fell to himself.

Chapter 111

1When it fell to him, then at last the Athenians drew up for battle as follows: the right wing was led by the polemarch Callimachus—for such was the law of the Athenians at that time, that the polemarch hold the right wing—and as he led, the tribes followed in the order in which they were numbered, one after another; and last, holding the left wing, the Plataeans were drawn up.

2From this battle [for] onward, whenever the Athenians hold the sacrifices at the festivals that come round every fifth year, the Athenian herald prays that good things come, naming the Athenians and the Plataeans together.

3And as the Athenians drew up their lines at Marathon, this is what befell: making their own camp even in breadth with the Median camp, they left the middle of their line but a few ranks deep, and there the army was weakest, while each wing was strong with numbers.

Chapter 112

1The battle-order thus fixed and the sacrifices proving fair, at that point, the word being given, the Athenians went at the foreigners on the run. The space between the two armies was no less than eight stades.

2The Persians, seeing them coming on at a run, made ready to receive them, and charged the Athenians with madness and utter destruction—seeing how few they were, and how they ran headlong with neither cavalry nor archers at their side.

3So the foreigners reckoned; but when the Athenians closed with them all together, they fought a fight worth the telling. They were the first of all the Greeks we know of to charge their enemies at the run, and the first to endure the sight of Median dress and of men wearing it; for until then, the very name of the Medes was terror to Greek ears.

Chapter 113

1The fighting at Marathon lasted long; in the middle of the line the foreigners won, for there the Persians themselves and the Sacae stood drawn up, and there they broke through and drove the Athenians back upon the inland; but at each wing the Athenians and the Plataeans won.

2And in their victory they let the beaten part of the foreign host flee, but wheeled both wings together upon those who had broken their center, and there the Athenians won. They followed hard on the Persians in flight, cutting them down, until they came to the sea, where they called for fire and laid hold of the ships.

Chapter 114

1In this labor of battle the polemarch perished, a man proved brave, and with him there died Stesileus son of Thrasylus, one of the generals; there too Cynegirus son of Euphorion, seizing the stern of a ship, had his hand struck off by an axe and fell; and many other Athenians, men of mark, with them.

Chapter 115

1Seven ships the Athenians mastered in this way. The rest the foreigners pushed off and got away with, and taking up the Eretrian captives whom they had left on the island, they sailed round Sunium, wanting to reach the city before the Athenians could. And a charge arose among the Athenians that the Alcmaeonids had contrived this for them: that they had agreed with the Persians to raise the shield-signal when they were already aboard the ships.

Chapter 116

1So they sailed round Sunium; but the Athenians hurried to the city's help with all the speed of their feet, and arrived before the foreigners, and encamped, coming from the Heracleum at Marathon to another Heracleum, that of Cynosarges. The foreigners for their part brought their ships round past Phaleron—for that was then the harbor of the Athenians—and riding their ships a little beyond it, put about and sailed away back to Asia.

Chapter 117

1In this battle at Marathon there died of the foreigners six thousand four hundred men, and of the Athenians one hundred and ninety-two. Such were the fallen on either side.

2And on the spot there befell a wonder of this kind: an Athenian, Epizelus son of Cophagoras, fighting in the press and proving himself a brave man, lost the sight of his eyes, though he had been struck nowhere on the body and hit by nothing whatever; and for the rest of his life, from that day on, he remained blind.

3And of his affliction I heard him himself give this account: that there had stood against him an armored man of giant size, whose beard overshadowed the whole of his shield; but that this apparition passed him by and killed the man stationed beside him. So much I learned that Epizelus told.

Chapter 118

1Datis, making his way back to Asia with the army, came to Myconus and saw a vision in his sleep; what the vision was is not told. But the moment day first broke he made a search of the ships, and finding in a Phoenician ship a statue of Apollo covered in gold, he asked from what sanctuary it had been plundered; and learning from which, he sailed with his own ship to Delos.

2The Delians had by then gone back to their island; he set the statue in the sanctuary and charged the Delians to carry it away to Delium, the sanctuary of the Thebans, which stands on the seacoast opposite Chalcis.

3With these orders Datis sailed away; but the Delians did not carry the statue away—twenty years later the Thebans themselves brought it up to Delium, on the strength of an oracle.

Chapter 119

1The Eretrians they had enslaved, Datis and Artaphrenes carried up to Susa when they made land in Asia. Until the Eretrians were taken captive, king Darius had laid upon them a terrible anger, seeing that they had been the first to do the wrong;

2but when he saw them brought into his presence and delivered into his hands, he did them no other harm, but settled them in the country of Cissia, at a station of his own whose name is Ardericca, two hundred and ten stades from Susa and forty from the well that yields three things; for asphalt and salt and oil are drawn from it after this manner:

3it is hauled up with a windlass, and to the beam, in place of a bucket, is fastened half a skin; dipping with this, the man pours it into a cistern, and from there, run off into another, it parts three ways. The asphalt and the salt harden at once; the oil the Persians call rhadinace, and it is black and gives off a heavy smell.

4There king Darius settled the Eretrians, and they held that country down to my own day, keeping their ancient tongue. So, then, it went with the Eretrians.

Chapter 120

1The Lacedaemonians came to Athens two thousand strong after the full moon, in such haste to be in time that they left Sparta on the third day and were in Attica. Late though they were for the battle, they still longed to behold the Medes; and going out to Marathon they looked on them. Then, praising the Athenians and their deed, they turned and went home.

Chapter 121

1To me it is a marvel, and I do not accept the story, that the Alcmaeonids would ever have raised a shield for the Persians by prior agreement, wanting Athens to be at the beck of the foreigners and of Hippias; men who seem to have hated tyrants as much as—rather more than—Callias son of Phaenippus, father of Hipponicus.

2For Callias was the one man of all the Athenians who dared, when Pisistratus was driven out of Athens, to buy up his goods while the state proclaimed them for sale, and he contrived against him everything else that was most hateful.

Chapter 122

1[This Callias deserves that everything of his be remembered everywhere. One is what has been said already, that he was a man of the first rank in freeing his fatherland; the other is what he did at Olympia: winning with a racehorse and coming second with a four-horse chariot, after first carrying off the Pythian victory, he made himself known to all the Greeks by the greatness of his spending.]

2[And he was such a man, too, in the matter of his three daughters: when they came of age to marry, he gave them the most magnificent dowry and granted them this in addition—each should choose for herself a husband from among all the Athenians, and to that man he gave her.]

Chapter 123

1And the Alcmaeonids were haters of tyranny like him, or not a whit less. So it is a marvel to me and I do not accept the slander, that these men raised the shield—men who all that time were in flight from the tyrants, and by whose contriving the Pisistratids lost their tyranny;

2they were the ones, as I judge, who set Athens free far more than Harmodius and Aristogeiton. Those two, by killing Hipparchus, only maddened the rest of the Pisistratids, and stopped the remaining tyrants from ruling not one whit more; but the Alcmaeonids plainly set the city free—if indeed they were truly the ones who persuaded the Pythia to bid the Lacedaemonians free Athens, as I made clear before.

Chapter 124

1But perhaps, finding fault with the Athenian people, they betrayed the fatherland beforehand. Yet no other men stood in higher esteem among the Athenians, nor were any more honored.

2So even the story does not allow that a shield was raised by men such as these, on a ground like this. A shield was raised; that much cannot be said otherwise—it happened; but who the man was who raised it, I have no power to say beyond this.

Chapter 125

1The Alcmaeonids had been illustrious in Athens from of old, but from Alcmaeon, and again from Megacles, they became very illustrious indeed.

2For this Alcmaeon son of Megacles became a fellow-worker for the Lydians who came up from Sardis to the oracle at Delphi in the days of Croesus, and helped them eagerly; and when Croesus learned from the Lydians who frequented the oracle that this man was at pains to do him service, he sent for him to Sardis, and on his coming presented him with as much gold as he could carry out of the treasury at one time on his own body.

3Confronted with a gift of that kind, Alcmaeon went about it thus: putting on a great robe and leaving a deep fold of it open, and lacing on the broadest boots he could find, he went into the treasury to which he was shown.

4Once inside, falling on a heap of gold dust, he first packed gold down beside his shins, as much as the boots would hold; then, filling the whole fold of the robe with gold and sprinkling the dust through all the hair of his head and taking yet more into his mouth, he came out of the treasury, dragging his boots with difficulty, and looking more like anything on earth than a man; his mouth was stopped, and he was swollen out in every part.

5At the sight of him Croesus burst out laughing, and he gave him all that gold, and other gifts besides, no less than it. So this house grew great in riches, and this Alcmaeon, keeping teams of four-horse chariots, carried off an Olympic victory.

Chapter 126

1Two generations on, Cleisthenes, tyrant of Sicyon, raised the house up again, so that it became far more famous among the Greeks than before. For to this Cleisthenes, son of Aristonymus son of Myron son of Andreas, was born a daughter named Agariste; and he wished to give her in marriage to the best man he could find among all the Greeks.

2So when the Olympic Games were held, and Cleisthenes won in them with a four-horse chariot, he had a proclamation made: whichever of the Greeks held himself worthy to become Cleisthenes' son-in-law should come to Sicyon by the sixtieth day, or sooner; for Cleisthenes would confirm the marriage within a year, counting from the sixtieth day.

3Then all the Greeks who were puffed up with pride in themselves and in their houses came as suitors; and Cleisthenes, making for them both a running track and a wrestling ground, kept them there for this end.

Chapter 127

1From Italy came Smindyrides son of Hippocrates of Sybaris, the man who arrived in the greatest luxury of any one person (Sybaris was then at the very height of her bloom), and Damasus of Siris, son of Amyris, the man called the Wise.

2These came from Italy; from the Ionian gulf came Amphimnestus son of Epistrophus of Epidamnus—he from the Ionian gulf. From Aetolia came Males, brother of that Titormus who surpassed the Greeks in strength and fled from men to the farthest ends of the Aetolian land.

3From the Peloponnese came Leocedes son of Pheidon, the tyrant of the Argives—the Pheidon who made the measures for the Peloponnesians and behaved more insolently than any Greek we know of, who drove out the Elean presidents of the games and himself appointed the contest at Olympia; son of that Pheidon also was Amiantus son of Lycurgus, an Arcadian from Trapezus; and Azan from the city of Paeus, son of Laphanes son of Euphorion—the Laphanes who, as the story is told in Arcadia, welcomed the Dioscuri into his house, and from that day kept open house for all mankind; and Onomastus son of Agaeus, an Elean.

4These came from the Peloponnese itself. From Athens came Megacles, son of that Alcmaeon who went to Croesus, and another, Hippocleides son of Tisander, who excelled the Athenians in wealth and in looks. From Eretria, then in her flower, came Lysanias, the only one from Euboea. From Thessaly came Diactorides of Crannon, of the Scopads; and from the Molossians, Alcon.

Chapter 128

1Such were the suitors. When they had come to the day foretold, Cleisthenes first asked of each his country and his lineage; then for a full year he tested them for manly worth and temper, for education and character: he consorted with each alone and with all together, led out the younger ones to the exercises, and—greatest test of all—proved them at the common table; for as long as he kept them with him he did everything for them, and at the same time entertained them magnificently.

2Of the suitors those who had come from Athens pleased him most, and of those Hippocleides son of Tisander above all, who was judged foremost both in manly worth and because from of old he was akin to the Cypselids of Corinth.

Chapter 129

1When the day came that was fixed for the wedding-bed and for Cleisthenes' declaring whom he chose from among them all, Cleisthenes sacrificed a hundred oxen and feasted both the suitors and all the Sicyonians.

2When they rose from dinner, the suitors held a contest in music and in the game of speaking to the point; and as the drinking went forward, Hippocleides, who held the rest far beneath him, called on the flute-player to play a dance tune, and the flute-player obeying, he danced; and he danced, to be sure, to his own liking—but Cleisthenes, watching the whole of the business, grew suspicious.

3After holding off a while, Hippocleides bade a table be brought in; and when the table came, he danced on it first the Laconian figures, then others, Attic ones; and third, planting his head against the table and throwing up his legs, he made the figures of hand-dancing with his feet.

4Cleisthenes, while he danced the first figures and the second, still held himself in: loath as he already was to have Hippocleides for a son-in-law, because of the dancing and the shamelessness, he would not burst out at him. But when he saw him making figures with his legs, no longer able to contain himself, he said: "Son of Tisander, you have danced away your marriage." And Hippocleides, taking it up, answered: "Hippocleides does not care." From that day this saying has been current.

Chapter 130

1Cleisthenes, having brought silence about him, spoke as follows in their midst: "Suitors of my daughter, I commend every one of you, and I would oblige you all alike if it were possible, singling out none of you as the one I choose and rejecting none of the rest.

2But it is not possible, when deciding about a single maiden, to please everyone; so to those of you who are being turned away from this marriage I give a talent of silver to each as a gift, in return for the claim you made to wed my daughter and for your absence from your homes; and to Megacles son of Alcmeon I betroth my daughter Agariste, according to the laws of the Athenians." When Megacles said that he accepted the betrothal, the marriage was settled for Cleisthenes.

Chapter 131

1Such was the outcome of the judgment of the suitors, and in this way the Alcmeonids were proclaimed throughout Greece. When the two were joined in marriage, there was born Cleisthenes, who established the tribes and the democracy for the Athenians, taking his name from his mother's father, the Sicyonian;

2to Megacles were born this Cleisthenes and Hippocrates; and from Hippocrates came another Megacles and another Agariste, named after the Agariste of Cleisthenes' line. She married Xanthippus son of Arriphron, and while with child she saw a vision in her sleep, dreaming that she bore a lion; and a few days later she bore Pericles to Xanthippus.

Chapter 132

1After the defeat at Marathon, Miltiades, already well regarded among the Athenians, grew even greater in standing. He asked the Athenians for seventy ships, and an army, and money, without telling them against which land he would march, but saying only that he would make them rich if they followed him; for he would lead them to a land of such a kind that they would carry off gold in abundance and with ease. Speaking so, he asked for the ships, and the Athenians, fired up by his words, handed them over.

Chapter 133

1Taking over the army, Miltiades sailed against Paros, putting forward as his pretext that the Parians had been the first to act, having campaigned with triremes to Marathon together with the Persian. This was the show of reasons he gave; but he also bore a grudge against the Parians because of Lysagoras son of Tisias, a man of Parian stock, who had slandered him to Hydarnes the Persian.

2Arriving at the land he had sailed against, Miltiades with his army besieged the Parians, who were shut up within their wall; and sending in a herald he demanded a hundred talents, saying that if they did not give them to him he would not bring the army home before he had taken them.

3The Parians had no thought at all of giving Miltiades money, but set about contriving how they might save the city: they took various measures, and above all, wherever the wall was at any point most open to assault, there at night they raised it to twice its former height.

Chapter 134

1Thus far all the Greeks tell the same story; but from here on the Parians themselves say that it happened as follows. When Miltiades was at a loss, a captive woman came to speak with him, of Parian stock, named Timo, an under-priestess of the gods below. She came into Miltiades' presence and advised him that, if he set great store on taking Paros, he should do whatever she suggested.

2Once she had given her advice, he made his way to the mound before the city that is the precinct of Demeter the Lawgiver and leapt over it, since he could not open the doors; and once over, he went on toward the shrine, intending to do whatever it was he meant to do inside—whether to move some of the things that must not be moved or whatever else it might be. He came to the doors, and a sudden chill came over him, and he set off back along the same way; but in leaping down the wall he tore his thigh, though others say that he struck his knee.

Chapter 135

1Miltiades then sailed back in bad case, bringing no money to the Athenians and gaining no addition of Paros, though he had besieged the island for twenty-six days and ravaged it.

2The Parians, learning that Timo, the under-priestess of the gods, had guided Miltiades, wished to punish her for it; and as soon as the siege left them at peace they sent envoys to Delphi. They sent to ask whether they should make an end of the under-priestess of the gods who had shown the enemy the way to the capture of her own country and had revealed to Miltiades the rites of the male offspring that may not be spoken.

3But the Pythia forbade it, saying that Timo was not responsible for these events; it was fated, she said, that Miltiades should come to a bad end, and a guide of ruin had appeared to him.

Chapter 136

1Such was the oracle the Pythia gave the Parians. When Miltiades returned from Paros, the Athenians kept him on their lips—the rest of them, and especially Xanthippus son of Arriphron, who brought Miltiades before the people on a capital charge and prosecuted him for deceiving the Athenians.

2Miltiades himself, though present, made no defense, for he was unable to, with his thigh rotting away. As he lay before them on a couch, his friends defended him, dwelling at length on the battle fought at Marathon and on the capture of Lemnos: how he had taken Lemnos, punished the Pelasgians, and handed the island over to the Athenians.

3The people sided with him and acquitted him of death, but fined him fifty talents for the wrong; and after this Miltiades died, when his thigh mortified and rotted, and the fifty talents were paid by his son Cimon.

Chapter 137

1How Miltiades son of Cimon came to hold Lemnos was as follows. The Pelasgians, after they were driven out of Attica by the Athenians—whether justly or unjustly, for I cannot say, except to report what is told: Hecataeus son of Hegesander declared in his account that it was unjustly;

2for when the Athenians saw the land lying under Hymettus, which they had given the Pelasgians to dwell in as pay for the wall once built around the acropolis, and saw it well farmed, though before it had been poor and worth nothing, envy and desire for the land seized them; and so the Athenians drove them out, putting forward no other pretext.

3But as the Athenians themselves say, they drove them out justly. The Pelasgians, settled beneath Hymettus, set out from there and did wrong as follows: their daughters and their sons were forever going for water to the Enneacrunus—for at this time neither they nor the other Greeks had household servants—and whenever these came, the Pelasgians would force them, in wantonness and contempt. And even this was not enough for them: in the end they were caught red-handed, plotting an attack.

4And that they themselves proved better men than those by as much as this: though it lay in their power to kill the Pelasgians when they caught them plotting, they were not willing, but instead ordered them out of the land. So they withdrew, and came to hold other places, and Lemnos among them. That is what Hecataeus said; this is what the Athenians say.

Chapter 138

1These Pelasgians, then, who at that time held Lemnos and wished to punish the Athenians, and knew the Athenian festivals well, acquired fifty-oared ships and laid an ambush for the Athenian women who were celebrating the festival of Artemis at Brauron; from there they seized many of them and sailed away, and bringing them to Lemnos they kept them as concubines.

2When these women had borne children, they taught the children the Attic tongue and the Athenian ways. The boys would have nothing to do with the children of the Pelasgian wives, and if any one of them was struck by anyone, they all went to his help and took vengeance for one another; and indeed the boys claimed authority over the other children, and were masters of them by a wide margin.

3When the Pelasgians learned of this, they took counsel among themselves; and as they deliberated, a dread thought crept over them: if the boys were already set on standing by one another against the children of the wedded wives, and on ruling them then and there, what would they not do, they reasoned, when they had become men?

4Thereupon they resolved to kill the boys born of the Attic women. They did so, and destroyed the mothers as well. From this deed, and from the earlier one, when the women killed their own husbands along with Thoas, it has become the custom throughout Greece to call every cruel deed "Lemnian."

Chapter 139

1After the Pelasgians had killed their own sons and wives, the land bore no fruit, and neither women nor flocks any longer bore young as they had before. Hard pressed by famine and childlessness, they sent to Delphi to ask for some release from the evils that beset them.

2The Pythia commanded them to give the Athenians whatever satisfaction the Athenians themselves should judge. The Pelasgians came to Athens and announced that they were willing to give satisfaction for the whole offense.

3The Athenians spread a couch in the prytaneum as fine as they could and set before it a table loaded with every good thing, and then commanded the Pelasgians to hand over their land to them, just as it stood.

4The Pelasgians answered them: "When a ship completes the run from your land to ours in a single day with the north wind blowing, then we will hand it over"—knowing that this could never come about. For Attica lies a long way to the south of Lemnos.

Chapter 140

1That is how matters stood then; but very many years later, when the Chersonese on the Hellespont came under Athenian control, Miltiades son of Cimon, with the etesian winds established, made the crossing by ship from Elaeus in the Chersonese to Lemnos and proclaimed to the Pelasgians that they must leave the island, reminding them of the oracle, which the Pelasgians had never expected to be fulfilled for them.

2The men of Hephaestia obeyed; but the men of Myrina, refusing to admit that the Chersonese was Attic, were besieged, until they too submitted. In this way the Athenians and Miltiades took possession of Lemnos.

Chapter 1

1Aristagoras, then, caused Ionia to revolt and met his end in this way. Histiaeus, the tyrant of Miletus, had been released by Darius and came to Sardis. When he arrived there from Susa, Artaphrenes, the governor of Sardis, asked him why he thought the Ionians had revolted. Histiaeus said he did not know, and he acted surprised at what had happened, as if he knew nothing at all about the state of affairs.

2Artaphrenes saw that he was being tricky, and since he knew the truth about the revolt, he said: "This is how matters stand here, Histiaeus: you stitched this sandal, and Aristagoras put it on."

Chapter 2

1That is what Artaphrenes said about the revolt. Histiaeus was afraid, because he realized that Artaphrenes understood, so on the first night that came he fled to the sea, having deceived King Darius. He had promised Darius that he would conquer Sardinia, the biggest island there is, but instead he took command of the Ionians in the war against Darius.

2He crossed over to Chios and was put in chains by the Chians, who decided that he was plotting against them on Darius' orders. But when the Chians learned the whole story, that he was an enemy of the king, they set him free.

Chapter 3

1Then the Ionians asked Histiaeus why he had sent such an eager message to Aristagoras telling him to revolt from the king, and why he had brought such a great disaster on the Ionians. He did not really reveal the reason that had moved him. He told them instead that King Darius had planned to move the Phoenicians out and settle them in Ionia, and to settle the Ionians in Phoenicia, and that this was why he had sent the message. The king had planned nothing of the kind at all, but Histiaeus said this to frighten the Ionians.

Chapter 4

1After this, Histiaeus sent letters to the Persians who were in Sardis by way of a messenger, a man from Atarneus named Hermippus, as though he had already talked over a revolt with them. Hermippus did not deliver the letters to the men he had been sent to. He brought them instead and handed them over to Artaphrenes.

2When Artaphrenes learned the whole business, he ordered Hermippus to give Histiaeus' letters to the men he had been sent to, and to give him the replies that the Persians sent back to Histiaeus. When this was done and came out into the open, Artaphrenes killed many of the Persians there.

Chapter 5

1So there was unrest around Sardis. Histiaeus had lost this hope, and the Chians brought him back to Miletus at his own request. The Milesians were glad to be rid of Aristagoras as well, and they had no desire at all to accept another tyrant in their land, since they had tasted freedom.

2It was night, and Histiaeus tried to enter Miletus by force as he came in, but one of the Milesians wounded him in the thigh. So he was shut out of his own city and went back to Chios. From there, since he could not persuade the Chians to give him ships, he crossed to Mytilene and persuaded the Lesbians to give him ships.

3They manned eight triremes and sailed with Histiaeus to Byzantium. There they took up their station and captured the ships sailing out of the Pontus, except for those whose crews said they were ready to obey Histiaeus.

Chapter 6

1This is what Histiaeus and the Mytilenaeans were doing. Meanwhile a large fleet and an army were expected at Miletus itself. The Persian generals had joined their forces into one army and were marching on Miletus, since they cared less about the other towns. Of the fleet the Phoenicians were the most eager, and the Cypriots, who had recently been conquered, served too, along with the Cilicians and the Egyptians.

Chapter 7

1While they were marching against Miletus and the rest of Ionia, the Ionians learned of it and sent some of their own leading men to the Panionium. When these men arrived at that place and took counsel, they decided not to gather any land army to meet the Persians, but to leave the Milesians to defend their own walls. They were to man the fleet, leaving out none of the ships, and gather as fast as possible at Lade, to fight the sea battle in front of Miletus. Lade is a small island lying off the city of the Milesians.

Chapter 8

1After this the Ionians arrived with their ships manned, along with all the Aeolians who live on Lesbos. They were drawn up as follows. The wing facing east was held by the Milesians themselves, who provided eighty ships. Next to them were the Prienians with twelve ships and the Myesians with three ships. Next to the Myesians were the Teians with seventeen ships, and next to the Teians were the Chians with a hundred ships.

2Next to these the Erythraeans and the Phocaeans were drawn up, the Erythraeans providing eight ships and the Phocaeans three. Next to the Phocaeans were the Lesbians with seventy ships. Last of all, holding the wing facing west, were the Samians with sixty ships. The total number of all these came to three hundred and fifty-five triremes.

Chapter 9

1These were the ships of the Ionians. The foreigners had six hundred ships. When these too had arrived in Milesian territory and their whole land army was with them, the Persian generals learned how many ships the Ionians had and grew afraid that they might not be able to beat them. Then they would not be able to take Miletus without being masters of the sea, and they would risk getting some punishment from Darius.

2With this on their minds, they gathered the Ionian tyrants, the men who had been driven out of their offices by Aristagoras of Miletus and had fled to the Medes, and who happened to be serving in the campaign against Miletus. They called together the ones who were there and spoke to them as follows.

3"Men of Ionia, now let one of you show some kindness to the king's house. Let each of you try to pull his own citizens away from the rest of the allied force. Put this offer before them and promise them this: that they will suffer no harm for the revolt, that neither their temples nor their private property will be burned, and that they will be no worse off than they were before."

4"But if they will not do this and are set on fighting it out, then say this to them as a threat, and this is what will happen to them: once they are beaten in the battle they will be sold into slavery, we will make eunuchs of their sons, we will carry their daughters off to Bactra, and we will give their land to others."

Chapter 10

1That is what they said. The Ionian tyrants each sent word of it by night to his own city. But the Ionians to whom these messages came rejected the offer and would have nothing to do with the betrayal. Each group thought that the Persians were making this offer to them alone.

Chapter 11

1All this happened right after the Persians arrived at Miletus. Then, when the Ionians had gathered at Lade, assemblies were held, and various men addressed them. Among them was the Phocaean general Dionysius, who spoke as follows.

2"Our situation hangs on a razor's edge, men of Ionia. We must either be free men or slaves, and runaway slaves at that. So now, if you are willing to put up with hard work, you will have a struggle at once, but you will be able to beat your enemies and be free. But if you go on being soft and disorderly, I see no hope that you will not pay the king the penalty for your revolt."

3"Obey me, then, and put yourselves in my hands. If the gods deal out equal fortune, I promise you that the enemy will either never join battle with us or, if they do join battle, will come off much worse."

Chapter 12

1When the Ionians heard this, they put themselves in Dionysius' hands. Each day he would bring the ships out in battle line, so that he could drill the rowers by making the ships charge through one another and could get the fighting men armed. For the rest of the day he kept the ships at anchor, and he kept the Ionians working hard all day long.

2For seven days they obeyed him and did what they were told. But on the day after those, the Ionians, who had never suffered such hardships and were worn out by the toil and the sun, said to one another:

3"What god have we wronged, that we have landed in this mess? We must have lost our minds and sailed right out of our senses, to hand ourselves over to a Phocaean braggart who provides only three ships. Now that he has us, he is breaking us with unbearable trouble. Many of us have already fallen sick, and many more look set to suffer the same thing. Before these troubles come, it would be better for us to endure anything at all, even the slavery that is coming, whatever it will be, than to be crushed by what we have now. Come on, let's not obey him any more."

4That is what they said, and after that no one was willing to obey. Instead, like an army, they pitched tents on the island and stayed in the shade, and they would not go aboard the ships or do any drill.

Chapter 13

1When the Samian generals learned what the Ionians were doing, they then accepted those earlier messages from Aeaces son of Syloson, which Aeaces had sent at the Persians' orders, asking them to leave the Ionian alliance. The Samians saw that the Ionians were in great disorder, and at the same time it seemed to them impossible to beat the king's forces. They knew very well that even if they beat Darius' fleet as it stood, another one five times as large would come against them.

2So they grabbed at an excuse. As soon as they saw that the Ionians would not behave well, they decided it was to their advantage to save their temples and their own property. This Aeaces, from whom the Samians had taken the message, was the son of Syloson son of Aeaces. He had been tyrant of Samos, and Aristagoras of Miletus had stripped him of his rule, just as he had the other tyrants of Ionia.

Chapter 14

1So then, when the Phoenicians sailed against them, the Ionians too brought their ships out in battle line to meet them. When the two sides came close and joined battle, from that point on I cannot write with certainty which of the Ionians proved cowards and which proved brave in this sea battle, since they accuse one another.

2The Samians are said to have raised their sails at this point, in keeping with their agreement with Aeaces, and to have sailed out of their place in the line back to Samos, all except eleven ships. The captains of these stayed and fought, refusing to obey their generals.

3For this deed the Samian community granted them the honor of having their names inscribed on a pillar together with their fathers' names, as men who had proved brave, and this pillar stands in the marketplace. The Lesbians saw their neighbors fleeing and did the same as the Samians, and most of the Ionians did the same as well.

Chapter 15

1Of those who stayed and fought the battle, the Chians came off worst, since they kept winning glory and refused to hold back. As I said before, they provided a hundred ships, and on each of them forty picked men of the city served as marines.

2When they saw that most of their allies were betraying them, they did not think it right to be like the cowards among them. Left on their own with only a few allies, they kept charging through the line and fighting, until they had taken many of the enemy's ships but lost most of their own.

Chapter 16

1The Chians escaped home with the ships they had left. Those Chians whose ships were too damaged to sail, when they were being pursued, fled to Mycale. There they ran the ships aground and left them, and they made their way overland through the mainland.

2When the Chians came into the territory of Ephesus as they traveled, they arrived there at night, and the women of the place were holding the festival of Thesmophoria. The Ephesians had not heard beforehand how things stood with the Chians. They saw an army invading their land and were completely convinced that they were robbers coming for the women, so they rushed out in full force and killed the Chians.

Chapter 17

1That is the fate that overtook these men. Dionysius the Phocaean, when he learned that the Ionian cause was ruined, captured three enemy ships and sailed off. He sailed no longer to Phocaea, since he knew very well that it would be enslaved along with the rest of Ionia. He sailed straight off to Phoenicia. There he sank some cargo ships, took a great deal of money, and sailed to Sicily. Making his base there, he turned pirate, preying on no Greeks, but on Carthaginians and Tyrrhenians.

Chapter 18

1When the Persians had beaten the Ionians in the sea battle, they besieged Miletus by land and by sea, digging under the walls and bringing up every kind of siege device. They took the city by storm in the sixth year after the revolt of Aristagoras and sold the people of the city into slavery, so that the disaster matched the oracle given about Miletus.

Chapter 19

1When the Argives consulted Delphi about the safety of their city, an oracle was given that applied to both sides. Part of it concerned the Argives themselves, and the addition was given about the Milesians. The part that concerned the Argives—

2when I come to that point in my account, I will mention it then. What was said to the Milesians, who were not present, runs like this: "And then, Miletus, planner of evil deeds, / you will be a feast and splendid gifts for many, / and your wives will wash the feet of many long-haired men, / and others will take care of our temple at Didyma."

3This is what happened to the Milesians. Most of the men were killed by the Persians, who wore their hair long, and the women and children were turned into slaves. The holy place at Didyma, the temple and the oracle, was looted and set on fire. I have mentioned the treasures in this temple many times elsewhere in my account.

Chapter 20

1From there the Milesians who had been taken alive were led to Susa. King Darius did them no further harm but settled them at a city called Ampe on the sea that is called the Erythraean, near which the river Tigris flows past and empties into the sea. Of the land of the Milesians the Persians kept the part around the city and the plain, and they gave the hill country to the Pedasian Carians to hold.

Chapter 21

1When the Milesians suffered this at the hands of the Persians, the Sybarites did not pay them back in kind, though they lived at Laus and Scidrus after being driven from their own city. When Sybaris was taken by the Crotonians, all the Milesians shaved their heads in mourning and took on deep grief, since these two cities were closer friends to each other than any others we know of.

2The Athenians were nothing like this. The Athenians made it clear that they were deeply grieved by the fall of Miletus in many other ways too, but especially like this: Phrynichus wrote a play called The Fall of Miletus and staged it, and the theater burst into tears. They fined him a thousand drachmas for reminding them of their own troubles, and they ordered that no one should put this play on again.

Chapter 22

1So Miletus was emptied of its Milesians. Among the Samians, those who had any property were not at all pleased with what their generals had done in dealing with the Medes. Right after the sea battle they decided, while they still had time, to sail away to a colony before the tyrant Aeaces came back to their land, rather than stay and be slaves to the Medes and to Aeaces.

2The Zancleans of Sicily were at this same time sending messengers to Ionia and calling the Ionians to the Fair Shore, since they wanted to found a city of Ionians there. This shore called the Fair belongs to the Sicels and faces Tyrrhenia in Sicily. In answer to their call, the Samians were the only Ionians who set out, along with those of the Milesians who had escaped. While this was going on, the following thing happened.

Chapter 23

1The Samians were on their way to Sicily and reached the Epizephyrian Locrians. The Zancleans themselves and their king, whose name was Scythes, were laying siege to a city of the Sicels and wanted to take it.

2Anaxilaus, the tyrant of Rhegium, who was at that time at odds with the Zancleans, learned of this. He met with the Samians and persuaded them that they ought to leave the Fair Shore, which they were sailing to, and take Zancle instead, since it was empty of men.

3The Samians obeyed and took Zancle. When the Zancleans learned that their city had been taken, they came to its rescue and called on Hippocrates, the tyrant of Gela, who was their ally.

4When Hippocrates arrived to help them with his army, he put Scythes, the ruler of the Zancleans, in chains for losing the city, and sent him and his brother Pythagenes away to the city of Inyx. The rest of the Zancleans he made a deal with the Samians about, and after giving and taking oaths, he betrayed them.

5His pay had been agreed on with the Samians as follows: he was to receive half of all the movable goods and the slaves in the city, and everything out in the fields was to go to Hippocrates.

6Most of the Zancleans he bound and kept as slaves himself. The three hundred leading men among them he gave to the Samians to kill. The Samians, however, did not do this.

Chapter 24

1Scythes, the ruler of the Zancleans, escaped from Inyx to Himera, and from there he came to Asia and went up to King Darius. Darius considered him the most just man of all those who came up to him from Greece.

2For he got the king's permission and went back to Sicily, and then from Sicily back to the king again, until he died in Persia, at a great old age and very rich. The Samians, once they were clear of the Medes, threw a wall around the fine city of Zancle without any trouble.

Chapter 25

1After the sea battle off Miletus, the Phoenicians, on the Persians' orders, brought Aeaces son of Syloson back to Samos, because he had been worth a great deal to them and had done them great services.

2Of the peoples that revolted from Darius, the Samians alone, because they had no ships at the sea battle, kept their city and their temples from being burned. When Miletus was taken, the Persians took over Caria at once. Some of the cities gave in to them on their own; the rest they brought over by force.

Chapter 26

1That is how those things happened. Histiaeus of Miletus was at Byzantium, catching the Ionian merchant ships that sailed out of the Pontus. News reached him of what had happened at Miletus. He handed over his affairs in the Hellespont region to Bisaltes son of Apollophanes, a man from Abydos. Then he sailed for Chios with the Lesbians. A Chian garrison would not let him in, so he fought a battle against them at the place called the Hollows in Chian territory.

2He killed many of them there, and with the Lesbians he beat the rest of the Chians too, since they were already in bad shape after the sea battle. He operated out of Polichne in Chios.

Chapter 27

1Somehow the god tends to send warning signs beforehand when great trouble is going to hit a city or a people. The Chians had great signs before these events.

2First, when they sent a chorus of a hundred young men to Delphi, only two of them came home. A plague caught the other ninety-eight and carried them off. Second, at this same time in the city, a little before the sea battle, the roof fell in on some boys who were being taught their letters. Of one hundred and twenty boys only one got away alive.

3The god showed the Chians these signs in advance. Then the sea battle hit them and brought the city to its knees. After the sea battle came Histiaeus with the Lesbians. The Chians were in bad shape, and he finished them off without much trouble.

Chapter 28

1From there Histiaeus marched against Thasos with a large force of Ionians and Aeolians. While he was sitting around Thasos, word came that the Phoenicians were sailing up from Miletus against the rest of Ionia. When he learned this, he left Thasos unharmed and hurried to Lesbos with his whole army.

2His army in Lesbos was hungry, so he crossed to the mainland from Atarneus to cut the grain there and the grain of the Mysians in the plain of the Caicus. In those parts a Persian named Harpagus happened to be commanding a fair-sized army. He met Histiaeus as he landed, took him alive, and destroyed most of his force.

Chapter 29

1Histiaeus was taken alive as follows. The Greeks were fighting the Persians at Malene in the territory of Atarneus. For a long time the two sides held their ground. Then the cavalry charged and fell on the Greeks. That is what the cavalry did. When the Greeks turned and ran, Histiaeus thought the king would not have him killed for his present mistake. Eager to save his own life, he did something like this.

2As he fled, a Persian overtook him. When the man was about to cut him down and he was about to be run through, Histiaeus spoke in the Persian language and said that he was Histiaeus of Miletus.

Chapter 30

1If he had been brought alive to King Darius, I think he would have suffered no harm, and the king would have let him off the charge. But Artaphrenes, the governor of Sardis, and Harpagus, who had caught him, acted as they did for these very reasons and so that he could not escape and become powerful at the king's court again. When he was brought to Sardis, they impaled his body there on the spot. They packed his head in salt and sent it to King Darius at Susa.

2When Darius learned of this, he found fault with the men who had done it for not bringing Histiaeus to him alive. He ordered them to wash Histiaeus' head, wrap it well, and bury it, as the head of a man who had done great good service to him and to the Persians.

Chapter 31

1That is how things went with Histiaeus. The Persian fleet spent the winter at Miletus. In the second year it sailed out and easily took the islands that lie near the mainland: Chios, Lesbos, and Tenedos. Each time they took one of the islands, the foreigners swept up the people like a net.

2They sweep people up in this way: men hold hands in a line from the north sea to the south sea. Then they march across the whole island and hunt down the people. They took the Ionian cities on the mainland in the same way, but they did not sweep up the people there, because that was not possible.

Chapter 32

1There the Persian generals made good on the threats they had made to the Ionians when the Ionians camped opposite them. Once they got control of the cities, they picked out the best-looking boys and castrated them, making eunuchs out of them instead of whole men. They carried the most beautiful girls off to the king. They did this and also burned the cities together with their temples. That was the third time the Ionians were enslaved: first by the Lydians, and then twice in a row by the Persians.

Chapter 33

1When the fleet left Ionia, it took everything on the left as you sail into the Hellespont. The places on the right were already in the hands of the Persians on the mainland. The places in Europe on the Hellespont are these: the Chersonese, which has many cities in it, Perinthus, the forts on the Thracian coast, Selybria, and Byzantium.

2The Byzantians and the Chalcedonians across the water did not even wait for the Phoenicians to sail against them. They left their own land and fled into the Euxine Pontus. There they settled the city of Mesembria. The Phoenicians burned the territories listed above. Then they turned to Proconnesus and Artace. They burned those too and sailed back to the Chersonese to finish off the cities still left, the ones they had not destroyed on their earlier visit.

3They did not sail against Cyzicus at all. Even before the Phoenicians sailed in, the people of Cyzicus had already submitted to the king. They had come to terms with Oebares son of Megabazus, the governor at Dascylium.

Chapter 34

1The Phoenicians took all the cities of the Chersonese except Cardia. Until then Miltiades son of Cimon son of Stesagoras had ruled them as tyrant. His rule had been won earlier by Miltiades son of Cypselus, in this way. The Thracian Doloncians held this Chersonese. They were hard pressed in a war with the Apsinthians, so they sent their kings to Delphi to ask about the war.

2The Pythia told them to bring in as founder for the land the man who first invited them in as guests when they left the temple. The Doloncians traveled home along the sacred road through Phocis and Boeotia. No one invited them, so they turned aside toward Athens.

Chapter 35

1At that time Pisistratus held the whole power in Athens. But Miltiades son of Cypselus was also a powerful man. He came from a family that kept four-horse chariots. Long ago he was descended from Aeacus and Aegina. In more recent times he was an Athenian: Philaeus son of Ajax was the first of this line to become an Athenian.

2This Miltiades was sitting in his own doorway. He saw the Doloncians walking past in clothes that were not local and carrying spears. He called them over. When they came up to him, he offered them lodging and hospitality. They accepted and were entertained by him, and then they told him the whole oracle. Once they had told it, they asked him to obey the god.

3When Miltiades heard this, the plan won him over right away, since he was annoyed at Pisistratus' rule and wanted to be out of the way. He set out at once for Delphi to ask the oracle whether he should do what the Doloncians wanted.

Chapter 36

1The Pythia also told him to do it. So Miltiades son of Cypselus, who had already won an Olympic victory with a four-horse chariot before this, took along any Athenians who wanted to join the expedition. He sailed with the Doloncians and took over the land. Those who had brought him in made him their tyrant.

2First he walled off the isthmus of the Chersonese from the city of Cardia to Pactye, so that the Apsinthians could not do damage by raiding the land. This isthmus is thirty-six stades wide. From this isthmus the whole Chersonese further in is four hundred and twenty stades long.

Chapter 37

1So Miltiades walled off the neck of the Chersonese and pushed back the Apsinthians in this way. The first people he went to war with were the Lampsacenes. They set an ambush and captured him alive. Miltiades had been on good terms with Croesus the Lydian. When Croesus heard what had happened, he sent a message ordering the Lampsacenes to let Miltiades go. If they did not, he threatened to wipe them out like a pine tree.

2The Lampsacenes could not work out what Croesus' threat to wipe them out like a pine tree meant. At last one of the older men figured it out and told them the truth: the pine is the only tree that sends up no new shoot when it is cut down, but dies completely. The Lampsacenes were afraid of Croesus, so they released Miltiades.

Chapter 38

1That is how Miltiades escaped because of Croesus. Later he died without children, leaving his rule and his money to Stesagoras, the son of Cimon, his half-brother on his mother's side. The people of the Chersonese sacrifice to him after his death, as the law requires for a founder. They hold horse races and athletic games, and no Lampsacene is allowed to compete in them.

2While there was war with the Lampsacenes, Stesagoras too was struck down by death and died childless. A man hit him on the head with an axe in the town hall. The man said he was a deserter, but he was really an enemy, and rather too hot-headed in what he did.

Chapter 39

1When Stesagoras had died in this way, the sons of Pisistratus sent Miltiades son of Cimon, the dead man's brother, out to the Chersonese in a warship to take charge of the situation there. In Athens they had treated him well, pretending they knew nothing about the death of his father Cimon. I will tell how that happened in another account.

2Miltiades arrived in the Chersonese and stayed at home, plainly holding a grudge against his brother Stesagoras. When the men in power in the Chersonese heard about this, they gathered from all their cities. They came together in one body as if to share his mourning, and he put them in chains. Miltiades then held the Chersonese, keeping five hundred hired soldiers, and married Hegesipyle, daughter of Olorus the king of the Thracians.

Chapter 40

1This Miltiades son of Cimon had only just come to the Chersonese, and when he arrived, troubles fell on him that were harder than the ones I have named. Three years before this he had fled from the Scythians. The nomad Scythians had been provoked by King Darius, gathered together, and raided as far as this Chersonese.

2Miltiades did not wait for them to come on. He fled from the Chersonese and stayed away until the Scythians left, and then the Doloncians brought him back again. This had happened three years before the troubles that now faced him.

Chapter 41

1Now he learned that the Phoenicians were at Tenedos. He filled five warships with the money he had on hand and sailed off to Athens. He set out from the city of Cardia and sailed through the Gulf of Melas. As he passed the Chersonese, the Phoenician ships fell on him.

2Miltiades himself escaped to Imbros with four of the ships. The Phoenicians chased down and captured his fifth ship. That ship happened to be commanded by the eldest of Miltiades' sons, Metiochus. He was not the son of Olorus' daughter the Thracian woman, but of another wife.

3The Phoenicians took him along with the ship. When they learned that he was Miltiades' son, they brought him up to the king, thinking they would earn great gratitude. This was because Miltiades had given his opinion among the Ionians, urging them to obey the Scythians, at the time when the Scythians asked them to break up the bridge and sail home.

4When the Phoenicians brought Metiochus son of Miltiades to Darius, Darius did him no harm at all and gave him many good things. He gave him a house and property and a Persian wife. By her he had children who are counted among the Persians. Miltiades came from Imbros to Athens.

Chapter 42

1In this year nothing more came from the Persians to bring trouble on the Ionians. But these things turned out very useful to the Ionians in that year. Artaphrenes, the governor of Sardis, sent for envoys from the cities and forced the Ionians to make agreements with each other. The point was that they should settle their disputes by law and not raid and carry off one another's people and property.

2He forced them to do this, and he measured their territories in parasangs. The Persians call thirty stades a parasang. By this measure he set the taxes for each group. They keep these assessments unchanged from that time right down to my own day, just as Artaphrenes set them. They were set at about the level they had before. These were the peaceful measures they settled on.

Chapter 43

1At the beginning of spring, when the other generals had been released by the king, Mardonius son of Gobryas came down to the sea. He took with him a very large land army and a large fleet. He was a young man, and he had recently married Artazostra, daughter of King Darius.

2Mardonius led this army to Cilicia. There he boarded a ship and traveled along with the rest of the fleet. Other commanders led the land army to the Hellespont.

3When Mardonius had sailed along Asia and reached Ionia, I will tell a most surprising thing to those Greeks who do not accept that Otanes, one of the seven Persians, gave the opinion that the Persians should be governed by a democracy. Mardonius removed all the tyrants of the Ionians and set up democracies in the cities.

4After doing this he hurried to the Hellespont. A huge number of ships and a large land army came together. They crossed the Hellespont in the ships and marched through Europe. They were heading for Eretria and Athens.

Chapter 44

1These were the stated targets of the expedition. But their plan was to bring under their power as many Greek cities as they could. With the ships they subdued the Thasians, who did not even raise a hand against them. With the land army they added the Macedonians to those already in their power. For all the peoples inside Macedonia had already been made subject to them.

2They sailed across from Thasos and moved along under the mainland as far as Acanthus. Setting out from Acanthus, they rounded Athos. As they sailed around, a great north wind fell on them. It was impossible to get past, and it battered the fleet hard, driving many ships up onto Athos.

3It is said that three hundred ships were lost, and more than two myriads of men. The sea around Athos is full of sea creatures. Some men were destroyed by these creatures, which grabbed them. Others were dashed against the rocks. Others could not swim and died for that reason. Still others died of the cold.

Chapter 45

1That is how it went with the fleet. While Mardonius and the land army were camped in Macedonia, the Thracian Brygi attacked them at night. The Brygi killed many of them and wounded Mardonius himself. But the Brygi did not escape slavery to the Persians either. Mardonius did not leave those lands until he had made them subject to him.

2After conquering them, he led the army back again. He had stumbled badly against the Brygi with his land army and had suffered greatly with the fleet at Athos. This expedition ended in disgrace and went back to Asia.

Chapter 46

1In the year after these events, Darius first dealt with the Thasians. Their neighbors accused them of planning a revolt. Darius sent a messenger and ordered them to tear down their wall and bring their ships to Abdera.

2The Thasians had been besieged by Histiaeus of Miletus and had large incomes. They spent their money on building warships and on putting a stronger wall around their city. Their income came from the mainland and from the mines.

3From the gold mines at Scaptesyle they took in a total of eighty talents. The mines on Thasos itself brought in less than that, but still a good amount. All in all, with no tax on their crops, the Thasians took in two hundred talents a year from the mainland and the mines. In the best year their income was three hundred talents.

Chapter 47

1I saw these mines myself. By far the most remarkable of them are the ones the Phoenicians discovered, the ones who founded this island together with Thasos. The island now takes its name from this Thasos the Phoenician.

2These Phoenician mines are on Thasos, between the places called Ainyra and Coenyra, and opposite Samothrace. They are on a big mountain that has been dug over and turned upside down in the search for ore. That is how things are there. As for the Thasians, when the king ordered them, they tore down their own wall and brought all their ships to Abdera.

Chapter 48

1After this Darius tested the Greeks to find out what they had in mind, whether they would make war on him or give themselves up.

2He sent out heralds and assigned them to different parts of Greece. He ordered them to ask for earth and water for the king. These heralds he sent to Greece. Other heralds he sent out to his own cities along the coast that paid him tribute, ordering them to build warships and horse-transport ships.

Chapter 49

1These cities were getting these things ready. Meanwhile the heralds who came to Greece got earth and water for the Persian from many of the mainlanders, and from all the islanders to whom they came to ask. The other islanders gave earth and water to Darius, and so did the Aeginetans.

2As soon as they had done this, the Athenians pressed hard on the Aeginetans. They believed that the Aeginetans had given these tokens with hostile intent toward them, so that they could join the Persians in an attack on the Athenians. They were glad to have found a pretext. They kept going to Sparta and accused the Aeginetans of what they had done, of betraying Greece.

Chapter 50

1In answer to this accusation, Cleomenes son of Anaxandrides, who was king of the Spartans, crossed to Aegina, because he wanted to seize the Aeginetans who were most responsible.

2When he tried to arrest them, some of the Aeginetans stood against him. The strongest opposition came from Crius son of Polycritus. He said that Cleomenes would not take any Aeginetan away and get away with it. Cleomenes was acting without the agreement of the Spartan state. The Athenians had won him over with money. Otherwise he would have come with the other king to make the arrests.

3He said this on the strength of a message from Demaratus. As Cleomenes was being driven out of Aegina, he asked Crius what his name was, and Crius told him the truth. Then Cleomenes said to him: "Now you must bronze your horns, ram, since you are about to clash with great trouble."

Chapter 51

1At this same time Demaratus son of Ariston was working against Cleomenes back in Sparta. He too was a king of the Spartans, and he belonged to the lesser of the two royal houses. In no other respect was it lesser, because both houses come from the same ancestor. But somehow the house of Eurysthenes has more honor, since it is the older line.

Chapter 52

1The Lacedaemonians, who agree with no poet, say that Aristodemus son of Aristomachus son of Cleodaeus son of Hyllus was king and led them into the land they now hold, and that it was not the sons of Aristodemus who led them.

2Not long afterward, Aristodemus' wife bore children. Her name was Argeia. They say she was the daughter of Autesion son of Tisamenus son of Thersander son of Polynices. She bore twins. Aristodemus lived to see the children and then died of a disease.

3The Lacedaemonians of that time decided to make the older of the two boys king, as the law required. But they could not tell which one to choose, since the two children were alike and equal. Being unable to tell, or perhaps even before trying, they asked the mother.

4She said that she herself could not tell them apart either. She knew quite well, but she said this because she wanted both of them to become kings if she could manage it. So the Lacedaemonians were at a loss. While they were at a loss, they sent to Delphi to ask what they should do about the matter.

5The Pythia told them to treat both babies as kings and to give more honor to the older one. That was the Pythia's answer. But the Lacedaemonians were still just as much at a loss over how to find out which of the two was older. Then a Messenian man named Panites suggested a plan to them.

6This Panites suggested the following to the Lacedaemonians. Keep watch on the mother and see which of the two children she washes and feeds first. If she is always seen to do it the same way, then they will have everything they are looking for and want to find out. But if she herself varies and does it one way and then the other, it will be clear to them that she knows no more than they do, and they should turn to some other method.

7So the Spartans, following the Messenian's advice, watched the mother of Aristodemus' children. They found that she kept giving priority to the same one, both in meals and in baths, though she did not know why she was being watched. They took the child the mother honored as the one born first and raised him at public expense. They named him Eurysthenes, and the other one Procles.

8When these two grew up, they say that the brothers were at odds with each other for their whole lives, and that those descended from them have kept up the same feud.

Chapter 53

1These stories are told by the Lacedaemonians alone of the Greeks. But I write the following according to what the Greeks say. The Greeks trace these kings of the Dorians back correctly as far as Perseus son of Danae, leaving the god out of the reckoning, and show that they were Greeks. For by that time these men already counted as Greeks.

2I stopped at Perseus for this reason and did not go further back to take in the rest: Perseus has no mortal father's name attached to him, the way Heracles has Amphitryon. So for someone following the line correctly, what I have said is right up to Perseus. But if one counts from Danae daughter of Acrisius and keeps going up through their ancestors, the leaders of the Dorians would turn out to be native Egyptians.

Chapter 54

1So much then for the genealogy as the Greeks tell it. But the story told among the Persians says that Perseus himself was an Assyrian who became a Greek, and not Perseus' ancestors. Acrisius' ancestors, they agree, had no family connection with Perseus, and these men, just as the Greeks say, were Egyptians.

Chapter 55

1Enough of these matters. How these men came to be Egyptians, and what they did to win the kingship of the Dorians, other writers have covered, so I will leave that alone. But the things that other writers have not covered, those I will describe.

Chapter 56

1These are the privileges the Spartans have given their kings: two priesthoods, that of Zeus Lacedaemon and that of Zeus of the sky, and the right to make war against any land they wish, with no Spartan allowed to stop them, on pain of a curse on himself. When the army goes out on campaign, the kings go first and come back last. A hundred picked men guard them on campaign. They may use as many cattle as they wish on the marches, and of all the animals sacrificed they receive the hides and the backs.

Chapter 57

1Those are the privileges in wartime. In peacetime they are given the following. When a public sacrifice is held, the kings sit at the first place at the dinner. The meal starts with them, and they are served double portions of everything compared with the other diners. They also lead in pouring the drink offerings, and they get the hides of the sacrificed animals.

2On every new moon and on every seventh day of the month, the state gives each of them a full-grown victim to offer at the temple of Apollo, a medimnus of barley meal, and a Laconian fourth of wine. At all the games they have the best seats. They may appoint as public friends for themselves any citizens they wish, and each of them chooses two Pythioi. The Pythioi are messengers sent to Delphi, and they eat at public cost with the kings.

3If the kings do not come to the dinner, two choineces of barley meal and a kotyle of wine are sent to their homes for each of them. If they are present, they are given double of everything. When they are invited to dinner at a private citizen's house, they are honored in the same way.

4The kings are the guardians of all the oracles that are given, and the Pythioi share the knowledge. The kings alone judge these cases only: the case of an heiress girl, that is, which man has the right to marry her, if her father has not betrothed her himself, and the case of public roads.

5And if someone wants to adopt a son, he must do it in the presence of the kings. The kings also sit with the council of elders, who are two short of thirty in number. If the kings do not come, the elders closest to them take over the kings' privileges, casting two votes, and their own vote as the third.

Chapter 58

1These are the privileges the kings are given by the Spartan state while they are alive. When they die, this is what happens. Horsemen carry the news of the death all through Laconia. In the city, women go around beating a cooking pot. When this happens, two free people from each household, a man and a woman, are required to defile themselves. Big fines are imposed on anyone who fails to do this.

2The Lacedaemonians have the same custom at the deaths of their kings as the foreigners in Asia do. Most of the foreigners use the same custom at the deaths of their kings. When a king of the Lacedaemonians dies, a set number of the people of the outlying towns, apart from the Spartans, must come from all of Laconia to the funeral.

3When these people and the helots and the Spartans themselves gather in one place, many thousands of them mixed in with the women, they beat their foreheads eagerly and cry out with endless wailing, saying that the king who has died most recently was always the best of them. If a king dies in war, they dress up a likeness of him and carry it out on a well-decked bed. After they bury him, no assembly meets for ten days, and no election meeting is held. Instead they mourn during these days.

Chapter 59

1These people have one other custom in common with the Persians. When one king dies and another takes over as king, the new king cancels whatever any Spartan owed to the king or to the state. In Persia too, the new king cancels the tribute still owed by all the cities.

Chapter 60

1The Lacedaemonians also have these customs in common with the Egyptians. Their heralds, flute players, and cooks take over the trades of their fathers. A flute player's son becomes a flute player, a cook's son becomes a cook, and a herald's son becomes a herald. Other men do not shut them out of these trades by coming forward with a finer voice. Instead they carry out the trades as their fathers did.

Chapter 61

1That is how these things are done. Now at this time Cleomenes was in Aegina, working for the good of Greece as a whole, and Demaratus brought accusations against him. Demaratus did not care so much about the Aeginetans as he was moved by envy and spite. When Cleomenes came back from Aegina, he planned to put a stop to Demaratus' kingship, making his attack on him over a matter like this. When Ariston was king in Sparta, he married two wives, but no children were born to him.

2Since he did not believe that he himself was the cause of this, he married a third wife. He married her in this way. One of the Spartans was his friend, and Ariston was more attached to him than to any other citizen. This man happened to have a wife who was by far the most beautiful woman in Sparta. And what is more, she had become the most beautiful after being the ugliest.

3She was ugly to look at as a child, and her nurse, seeing that she was the daughter of rich parents but ugly to look at, and seeing too that her parents took her looks as a misfortune, thought up the following plan once she understood all of this. She carried the girl every day to the shrine of Helen. This shrine is in the place called Therapne, above the temple of Phoebus. Whenever the nurse brought her there, she stood the child in front of the image and begged the goddess to free the child from her ugliness.

4One day, they say, as the nurse was leaving the temple, a woman appeared to her. The woman asked her what she was carrying in her arms, and the nurse said that she was carrying a baby. The woman told her to show it to her, but the nurse said no, because the parents had forbidden her to show the child to anyone. The woman insisted that she show it to her no matter what.

5When the nurse saw that the woman set great importance on seeing the child, she finally handed the baby over. The woman stroked the child's head and said that she would be the most beautiful of all the women in Sparta. From that day on the child's looks changed. When she came of age, Agetus son of Alcides married her. This was the very friend of Ariston.

Chapter 62

1It was this woman, then, that desire fastened on in Ariston. He made the following plan. He promised his comrade, whose wife she was, that he would give him one of his own possessions, whichever one he himself chose. He told his comrade to give him a matching gift in return. His comrade was not at all afraid for his wife, since he saw that Ariston had a wife of his own, and he agreed. They sealed these terms with oaths.

2Ariston then gave him the object, whatever it was, that Agetus chose from Ariston's treasures. Then, when Ariston asked for the matching gift in return, he tried to take away his comrade's wife. The comrade said that he had agreed to everything except this. But he was forced by the oath and by the trick that had led him on, and he let Ariston take her away.

Chapter 63

1That is how Ariston brought in his third wife, having sent his second one away. In less time than expected, before this woman had completed ten months, she gave birth to this Demaratus.

2One of his servants told him that a son had been born to him, while he was sitting in his seat with the ephors. Ariston knew the date on which he had taken the woman as his wife. Counting up the months on his fingers, he said under oath that the child could not be his. The ephors heard this, but they made nothing of it at the time. The boy grew up, and Ariston came to regret what he had said. He came to believe that Demaratus was his son above all others.

3He named him Demaratus for this reason. Before these events, the Spartans, the whole people, had prayed that a son might be born to Ariston, because he stood in higher repute than any of the kings who had ever been in Sparta.

Chapter 64

1That is why the name Demaratus was given to him. As time went on, Ariston died, and Demaratus took the kingship. It was fated, it seems, that when these things came to light they would put a stop to Demaratus' kingship, because of the wrongs he had done to Cleomenes. There was the wrong earlier, when Demaratus led the army away from Eleusis, and there was this wrong now, when Cleomenes crossed against those Aeginetans who had sided with the Medes.

Chapter 65

1Cleomenes therefore set out to get his revenge. He made an agreement with Leotychides son of Menares son of Agis, who belonged to the same house as Demaratus. The terms were that if Cleomenes made Leotychides king instead of Demaratus, Leotychides would follow him against the Aeginetans.

2This Leotychides had become Demaratus' bitterest enemy over a matter like this. Leotychides had arranged to marry Percalus daughter of Chilon son of Demarmenus. Demaratus plotted against him and robbed him of the marriage. He got there first, carried Percalus off, and made her his wife.

3That is how the enmity of Leotychides toward Demaratus came about. Now, with the strong backing of Cleomenes, Leotychides swore a charge against Demaratus, saying that he was not rightfully king of the Spartans, since he was not Ariston's son. After this sworn charge he went on prosecuting him, bringing up again the words Ariston had spoken when the servant told him that a son had been born to him. Ariston had counted up the months and sworn an oath, saying that the child was not his.

4Riding on this statement, Leotychides argued that Demaratus was neither born from Ariston nor the rightful king of Sparta. He brought forward as witnesses those ephors who happened to be sitting with Ariston at the time and heard him say these things.

Chapter 66

1In the end, since there was quarreling over these matters, the Spartans decided to consult the oracle at Delphi and ask whether Demaratus was Ariston's son.

2The question was put to the Pythia through Cleomenes' planning. Cleomenes then won over Cobon son of Aristophantus, a man with the greatest power in Delphi. Cobon in turn persuaded the prophetess Perialla to say what Cleomenes wanted said.

3That is how the Pythia, when the envoys put their question, gave the judgment that Demaratus was not Ariston's son. Later, though, these things came to light. Cobon was driven out of Delphi, and the prophetess Perialla was stripped of her office.

Chapter 67

1That is how the ending of Demaratus' kingship came about. Demaratus went into exile from Sparta to the Medes over an insult like this. After he lost the kingship, Demaratus was elected to an office and held it.

2There was the festival of the Gymnopaidiai, and Demaratus was watching it. Leotychides, who was now king in his place, sent his servant to him and, to mock him and make a laughingstock of him, asked Demaratus what it was like to hold an office after being king.

3Demaratus was hurt by the question. He said that he himself had now tried both of them, while Leotychides had not. But this question of his, he said, would mean for the Lacedaemonians either a myriad of misery or a myriad of happiness. After saying this, he covered his head and walked out of the theater to his own house. At once he prepared and sacrificed a bull to Zeus. After the sacrifice he sent for his mother.

Chapter 68

1When his mother came, he placed the innards in her hands and pleaded with her, saying this: "Mother, I beg you by the other gods and by this Zeus of the courtyard here, tell me the truth: who is my father, by a true account?"

2"For Leotychides said in the quarrel that you were already carrying a child by your former husband when you came to Ariston. Others tell an even sillier story, that you went to one of the servants, the donkey driver, and that I am his son."

3"So I beg you by the gods to tell the truth. If you did do one of the things people say, you were not the only one, for many women have done it. And there is a widespread story in Sparta that Ariston could not have fathered children, since otherwise his earlier wives would have borne him children too."

Chapter 69

1He said these things, and she answered him as follows: "My son, since you come to me with pleas to tell the truth, everything that is true will be told to you. After Ariston brought me into his house, on the third night after the first one an apparition came to me that looked like Ariston. It slept with me and put on me the garlands it was wearing."

2Then it went away, and Ariston came after this. When he saw me wearing the garlands, he asked who had given them to me. I said he had, but he would not admit it. I swore an oath and said he was doing wrong to deny it, because a little while earlier he had come, slept with me, and given me the garlands.

3When Ariston saw me swearing, he realized that the matter was something divine. The garlands turned out to come from the hero's shrine that stands by the courtyard gates, which they call the shrine of Astrobacus. And the seers declared that this same hero was the father.

4So, my son, you have the whole story, everything you want to know. Either you were born from this hero, and the hero Astrobacus is your father, or Ariston is, for I conceived you in that night. As for the point on which your enemies attack you hardest, saying that Ariston himself, when the news of your birth was brought to him, said in front of many witnesses that you were not his, because the time, the ten months, had not yet run out—he threw out that remark out of ignorance of such things.

5Women bear children at nine months and at seven months, and not all of them finish the full ten months. I bore you at seven months, my son. Ariston himself recognized not long afterward that he had thrown out that word in folly. Do not accept any other stories about your birth, for you have heard everything that is most true. Let Leotychides and those who say these things have children begotten by donkey herders.

Chapter 70

1She said this. He learned what he wanted, took money for the journey, and set out for Elis, saying that he was going to Delphi to consult the oracle. The Lacedaemonians suspected that Demaratus was trying to run away, and they chased him.

2Demaratus somehow got across to Zacynthus from Elis before they caught him. The Lacedaemonians crossed over after him, and they seized him and took away his servants. But the Zacynthians would not hand him over, and so from there he crossed over to Asia, to king Darius. Darius received him in grand style and gave him land and cities.

3That is how Demaratus reached Asia, after meeting with such a fortune. He won honor among the Lacedaemonians in many ways, both in deeds and in advice. In particular he won a victory at Olympia with a four-horse chariot—the only one of all the kings who ever ruled at Sparta to do this.

Chapter 71

1When Demaratus was put out of power, Leotychides son of Menares took over the kingship. A son was born to him, Zeuxidamus, whom some of the Spartans called Cyniscus. This Zeuxidamus never became king of Sparta. He died before Leotychides, leaving a son named Archidamus.

2When Leotychides lost Zeuxidamus, he married a second wife, Eurydame. She was the sister of Menius and the daughter of Diactorides. She bore him no son, but a daughter, Lampito. Archidamus son of Zeuxidamus married her, when Leotychides gave her to him.

Chapter 72

1Leotychides did not grow old in Sparta either. He paid Demaratus a penalty, something like this one. He commanded the Lacedaemonian army in Thessaly. He could have brought everything there under his control, but he took a large amount of money as a bribe.

2He was caught in the act right there in the camp, sitting on a glove full of money. He was brought before a court and went into exile from Sparta, and his house was torn down. He fled to Tegea and died there.

Chapter 73

1These things happened some time later. When the plan against Demaratus had worked out for Cleomenes, he took Leotychides along at once and went against the Aeginetans. He held a terrible grudge against them because of the insult.

2With both kings coming against them, the Aeginetans no longer felt they could resist. They chose ten of the Aeginetans, the men of the greatest worth in both wealth and family. Among others they took Crius son of Polycritus and Casaubus son of Aristocrates, who held the greatest power. They took them to Attica and left them as a deposit with the Athenians, who were the Aeginetans' worst enemies.

Chapter 74

1After this it came out that Cleomenes had plotted against Demaratus, and fear took hold of the Spartans. He slipped away to Thessaly. From there he came to Arcadia and stirred up trouble. He organized the Arcadians against Sparta and made them swear oaths to follow wherever he led. He was also eager to bring the leading men of the Arcadians to the city of Nonacris and make them swear by the water of the Styx.

2In this city the Arcadians say the water of the Styx is, and it is like this: a small amount of water drips from a rock into a hollow, and a ring of wall runs around the hollow. Nonacris, where this spring happens to be, is a city of Arcadia near Pheneus.

Chapter 75

1When the Lacedaemonians learned that Cleomenes was doing these things, they brought him back to Sparta because they were afraid. He came back on the same terms as before. As soon as he was back, a fit of madness took hold of him, and he had already been rather crazy before. Whenever he met any Spartan, he would jab his staff into the person's face.

2While he was doing these things and had lost his mind, his relatives put him in the stocks. Once he was tied up, he saw the guard standing alone away from the others and asked for a knife. At first the guard did not want to give him one, and he threatened what he would do to him in return. Finally the guard was afraid of the threats (he was one of the helots) and gave him the knife.

3Cleomenes took the iron and began to cut up his own body. He sliced the flesh lengthwise, moving from his shins up to his thighs, and from his thighs to his hips and sides, until he reached his belly. He sliced that open too, and he died in that way. Most Greeks say it was because he forced the Pythia to speak about Demaratus; the Athenians alone say it was because he invaded Eleusis and cut down the sacred grove of the gods; the Argives say it was because he dragged out the Argives who had fled from the battle to the sanctuary of Argos and cut them down, and then set the grove itself on fire, holding it in no regard.

Chapter 76

1Cleomenes had asked the oracle at Delphi, and it told him he would capture Argos. When he led the Spartans to the river Erasinus, which is said to flow from the Stymphalian lake—for this lake flows out into a hidden chasm and appears again at Argos, and from there the water is already called Erasinus by the Argives—when he reached this river he made sacrifice to it;

2but the omens never came out right for him to cross. He said he admired the Erasinus for not betraying its own citizens, but that the Argives still would not get away with it. After this he withdrew and led the army down to Thyrea. He sacrificed a bull to the sea and carried his men over in ships to the land of Tiryns and Nauplia.

Chapter 77

1When the Argives heard this, they rushed to the coast to help. When they came close to Tiryns, at a place called Hesipia, they left only a small gap and sat down facing the Lacedaemonians. There the Argives were not afraid of an open battle. What they feared was being taken in by a trick.

2The oracle that the Pythia had given in common to them and to the Milesians bore on this matter. It went like this: "But when the female conquers the male and drives him off, and wins glory among the Argives, then she will make many Argive women tear at both their cheeks. / So one day someone will say, in the time of people still to come: the dread three-coiled serpent was destroyed, overcome by the spear."

3All these things together filled the Argives with fear. So they decided to follow the signals of the enemy's herald, and they did as follows: whenever the Spartan herald signaled something to the Lacedaemonians, the Argives did the same thing.

Chapter 78

1Cleomenes noticed that the Argives did whatever their own herald signaled. So he sent word to his men: when the herald signals to make breakfast, take up your weapons and advance against the Argives.

2The Lacedaemonians carried this out. When the signal told the Argives to make breakfast and they were doing so, the Lacedaemonians attacked them. They killed many of them, and many more fled into the grove of Argos. The Lacedaemonians surrounded them and kept watch.

Chapter 79

1Then Cleomenes did the following. He had deserters with him and learned from them the names of the Argives shut up in the temple. He sent a herald and called the men out by name, saying that he had their ransom money. Among the Peloponnesians the ransom for a prisoner is set at two minas a man. Cleomenes called the Argives out in groups of fifty and killed them.

2All this happened without the rest of those in the sacred ground knowing about it. The grove was thick, so those inside could not see what those outside were doing. Then one of them climbed a tree and saw what was being done. After that they no longer came out when they were called.

Chapter 80

1Then Cleomenes ordered every one of the helots to pile brushwood around the grove. When they obeyed, he set the grove on fire. While it was already burning, he asked one of the deserters whose grove it was. The man said it belonged to Argos. When he heard this, he groaned deeply and said, "Apollo of the oracle, you have greatly deceived me by saying I would capture Argos. I understand now that the oracle has had its fulfillment."

Chapter 81

1After this Cleomenes let most of the army go back to Sparta. He took a thousand of the best men himself and went to the Heraeum to sacrifice. When he wanted to sacrifice at the altar, the priest stopped him, saying that it was not right for a foreigner to sacrifice there. Cleomenes ordered the helots to drag the priest away from the altar and whip him, and he himself sacrificed. After doing this he went back to Sparta.

Chapter 82

1When he came home, his enemies brought him before the ephors. They said he had taken a bribe and had not captured Argos, although he could easily have taken it. He answered them—whether he was lying or telling the truth I cannot say for sure. He said that when he had taken the sanctuary of Argos, he thought the god's oracle had had its fulfillment. So he did not think it right to attack the city before he used sacrifices and found out whether the god was handing it over to him or standing in his way;

2and when the sacrifices at the Heraeum went well, a flame of fire blazed out from the statue's chest. That is how he learned the truth: he would not capture Argos. For if the flame had blazed from the statue's head, he would have taken the city from its highest point. Since it blazed from the chest, everything the god wanted to happen had already been done. When he said these things, he seemed to the Spartans to speak what was both convincing and reasonable, and he easily got away from those who were prosecuting him.

Chapter 83

1Argos was left so empty of men that their slaves took over all its affairs, ruling and running them, until the sons of the dead grew up. Then these men took Argos back for themselves and drove out the slaves. Forced out, the slaves took Tiryns in battle.

2For a while the two sides were at peace with each other. Then a seer named Cleander came to the slaves. He was from Phigalia in Arcadia by birth. He persuaded the slaves to attack their masters. After this they were at war for a long time, until at last the Argives got the upper hand.

Chapter 84

1For these reasons the Argives say that Cleomenes went mad and died badly. The Spartans themselves say that no divine power drove Cleomenes mad. They say he spent time with the Scythians, took to drinking wine unmixed, and went mad because of that.

2After Darius invaded their land, the nomad Scythians wanted to pay him back. They sent to Sparta to make an alliance and to agree on a plan: the Scythians themselves would try to invade Media by way of the river Phasis, while the Spartans were to march up from Ephesus and then meet them in the same place.

3They say that when the Scythians came for this purpose, Cleomenes spent a great deal of time with them. He spent more time with them than was proper, and so he learned from them how to drink wine unmixed. From this the Spartans think he went mad. Since then, as they themselves say, whenever they want to drink their wine stronger, they say "Make it Scythian." That is the Spartan story about Cleomenes. It seems to me that Cleomenes paid this penalty to Demaratus.

Chapter 85

1When Cleomenes died and the Aeginetans found out, they sent messengers to Sparta to complain about Leotychides and the hostages being held in Athens. The Lacedaemonians called a court together and decided that the Aeginetans had been gravely abused by Leotychides. They sentenced him to be handed over and taken to Aegina in place of the men held in Athens.

2Just as the Aeginetans were about to take Leotychides away, Theasides son of Leoprepes spoke to them. He was an influential man in Sparta. He said: "What are you planning to do, men of Aegina? Are you going to take away the king of the Spartans after his own citizens have handed him over? If the Spartans made this decision in anger, take care that later they do not bring total ruin on your land, if you go through with this."

3When the Aeginetans heard this, they gave up taking him. They made this agreement instead: Leotychides would go with them to Athens and give the men back to the Aeginetans.

Chapter 86

1When Leotychides came to Athens and demanded the deposit back, the Athenians made excuses, because they did not want to give it back. They said that two kings had made the deposit with them, and they did not think it right to give the men back to one of them without the other.

Chapter 86A

1When the Athenians said they would not give them back, Leotychides spoke to them as follows: "Athenians, do whichever you want. If you give them back, you do what is right; if you do not give them back, you do the opposite. But I want to tell you about something that happened in Sparta concerning a deposit."

2"We Spartans say that in Lacedaemon, three generations before my time, there lived a man named Glaucus, son of Epicydes. We say that this man stood first in every other way, and that he had the best reputation for justice of all the men who lived in Lacedaemon at that time."

3"We say that the following happened to him at the proper time. A man from Miletus came to Sparta and wanted to talk with him. He put it this way: 'I am a Milesian, and I have come to you, Glaucus, because I want to enjoy the benefit of your justice.'"

4"'For there is a great reputation for your justice all over the rest of Greece, and in Ionia too. I thought it over and saw that Ionia is always in danger, while the Peloponnese is firmly settled, and that money never stays with the same people.'"

5"'Considering all this and thinking it over, I decided to turn half of all my property into silver and place it with you, because I know well that it will be safe with you. So accept the money and keep these tokens I give you; and give the money back to whoever comes and asks for it with these tokens.'"

Chapter 86B

1"The stranger from Miletus said this much, and Glaucus accepted the deposit on the terms stated. After a long time had passed, the sons of the man who had left the money came to Sparta. They talked with Glaucus, showed the tokens, and asked for the money back.

2But he put them off and answered like this: 'I do not remember the matter, and nothing brings any knowledge of what you are saying to my mind. But I want to do everything that is right, once I have remembered. For if I did take the money, it is right to give it back; and if I never took it at all, I will use the Greek laws against you. I will put you off and give my decision four months from now.'"

Chapter 86C

1"The Milesians treated it as a disaster and went away, as if they had been robbed of the money. Glaucus went to Delphi to consult the oracle. When he asked the oracle whether he could get the money by swearing an oath, the Pythia answered him with these verses:

2'Glaucus, son of Epicydes, for the moment it is better this way: win with an oath and take the money. / Swear, since death waits for the man who keeps his oath. / But the child of the oath is there, with no name, no hands, and no feet. / Yet it comes swiftly, until it seizes and destroys the whole line and the whole house. / But afterward the line of a man who keeps his oath is better off.' When Glaucus heard this, he asked the god to hold him excused for what had been said. The Pythia said that to test the god and to do the deed were the same thing."

Chapter 86D

1"Glaucus sent for the Milesian strangers and gave them back the money. And now I will tell you, Athenians, why I started telling this story to you: today there is no descendant of Glaucus left, and no household is recognized as his. He has been cut off root and branch from Sparta. That is how good it is to have no other thought about a deposit than to give it back when the owners ask for it."

Chapter 87

1Leotychides said this, and when the Athenians still would not listen to him, he went away. Before the Aeginetans paid the penalty for their earlier wrongs against the Athenians—wrongs they had done to please the Thebans—they did the following. They were angry with the Athenians and felt wronged by them, and they prepared to take their revenge on the Athenians. The Athenians had a festival every five years at Sunium, and the Aeginetans laid an ambush and captured the ship carrying the sacred mission, full of the leading men of Athens. They took the men and put them in chains.

Chapter 88

1When the Athenians suffered this at the hands of the Aeginetans, they no longer put off making every plan against the Aeginetans. There was in Aegina a man of good standing named Nicodromus, son of Cnoithus. He was angry with the Aeginetans because they had driven him out of the island before. When he learned that the Athenians were set on doing harm to the Aeginetans, he made a deal to betray Aegina to them. He told them on what day he would make his attempt, and on what day they would have to come to help.

Chapter 89

1After this Nicodromus seized the part of the city called the Old Town, as he had agreed with the Athenians. But the Athenians did not arrive at the right time. They did not happen to have ships that were a match for the Aeginetans. While they were asking the Corinthians to lend them ships, the plan fell through. The Corinthians were very good friends of theirs at this time. They gave the Athenians twenty ships when they asked, and they sold them for five drachmas each, because the law did not allow them to be given as a gift. The Athenians took these ships along with their own and manned seventy ships in all. They sailed against Aegina, but they arrived one day later than the agreed time.

Chapter 90

1When the Athenians did not come at the set time, Nicodromus got onto a boat and escaped from Aegina. Other Aeginetans went with him, and the Athenians gave them Sunium to live in. Making their base there, they raided and carried off the goods of the Aeginetans on the island.

Chapter 91

1These things happened later. The rich men of Aegina put down the uprising of the common people, which had broken out along with Nicodromus. They got the upper hand, overpowered the rebels, led them out, and killed them. Because of this a pollution also came on them, and try as they might, they could not purify themselves of it. They were driven out of the island before they could make the goddess well disposed to them again.

2They had taken seven hundred of the common people alive and were leading them out to kill them. One of them escaped his bonds and fled to the doorway of Demeter Thesmophorus. He grabbed the door handles and held on to them. When they could not pull him off by dragging at him, they cut off his hands and led him away like that. His hands were still stuck to the door handles.

Chapter 92

1This is what the Aeginetans did to each other. When the Athenians arrived, they fought them with seventy ships. Defeated in the sea battle, they called on the same allies as before, the Argives. But the Argives no longer came to help. They were angry because Aeginetan ships had been taken by force by Cleomenes, had sailed to the Argive land, and had landed men along with the Lacedaemonians. Men from Sicyonian ships had also landed in that same invasion;

2and the Argives had imposed a fine of a thousand talents on both peoples, five hundred on each. The Sicyonians admitted that they were in the wrong and agreed to pay a hundred talents to be let off. The Aeginetans admitted nothing and were more stubborn. So when they asked for help, no Argive came any longer as a state force, but about a thousand men volunteered. Their general was a man named Eurybates, who had trained for the pentathlon.

3Most of these men never went home again. They died in Aegina at the hands of the Athenians. The general Eurybates himself was a champion at single combat. In this way he killed three men, but he was killed by the fourth, Sophanes son of Deceleus.

Chapter 93

1The Aeginetans attacked the Athenians while they were in disorder. They fought with their ships and won, and they captured four ships along with their crews.

Chapter 94

1So the Athenians were at war with the Aeginetans. Meanwhile the Persian was going about his own business. His servant kept reminding him to remember the Athenians, and the sons of Pisistratus kept pressing him and speaking against the Athenians. At the same time Darius wanted to use this as a pretext to conquer those in Greece who had not given him earth and water.

2He removed Mardonius from the command of the expedition because he had done badly. He appointed other generals and sent them against Eretria and Athens: Datis, who was a Mede by birth, and Artaphrenes son of Artaphrenes, his own nephew. He gave them their orders and sent them off: they were to enslave Athens and Eretria and bring the slaves up to him to see.

Chapter 95

1When these appointed generals set out from the king and reached the Aleian plain in Cilicia, they brought with them a large and well-equipped infantry force. While they were camped there, the whole fleet that had been assigned to each of the peoples arrived, and the horse-transport ships came too. Darius had ordered his tribute-paying peoples to prepare these ships the year before.

2They put the horses on board these ships and the infantry on the ships too, and they sailed with six hundred triremes to Ionia. From there they did not keep their ships along the mainland, straight for the Hellespont and Thrace. Instead they set out from Samos and sailed past Icaria and through the islands. In my view this was mainly because they feared the voyage around Athos, since the year before, when they came that way, they had suffered a great disaster. Naxos also drove them to this course, because it had not been captured before.

Chapter 96

1When they came from the Icarian Sea and reached Naxos—for this was the first place the Persians meant to campaign against, keeping the earlier events in mind—the Naxians fled up into the mountains and did not wait for them. The Persians enslaved those they caught and burned both the temples and the city. After doing this they sailed on against the other islands.

Chapter 97

1While the Persians were doing this, the Delians themselves left Delos too and fled to Tenos. As the fleet sailed down, Datis sailed ahead and would not let the ships moor at Delos. He moored them on the other side, at Rhenea. When he found out where the Delians were, he sent a herald and made this announcement to them:

2"Sacred men, why have you run away? You have judged wrongly about me. For my own thinking goes at least this far, and this is what the king has ordered me: the land where the two gods were born must not be harmed, neither the land itself nor the people who live on it. So now go back to your own homes and live on your island." This is what he announced to the Delians. Then he piled three hundred talents of frankincense on the altar and burned it.

Chapter 98

1After doing this, Datis sailed with the army first against Eretria, taking along the Ionians and the Aeolians too. After he had sailed out from there, Delos shook—or so the Delians say—for the first and last time up to my own day. This was a sign the god showed of the troubles that were going to come.

2In the time of Darius son of Hystaspes, Xerxes son of Darius, and Artaxerxes son of Xerxes, three generations one after another, Greece suffered more troubles than in the twenty generations before Darius. Some of these came from the Persians, and some came from the leading men themselves, fighting over the throne.

3So there is nothing strange about Delos being shaken, since it had never moved before. An oracle about it was written like this: "I will shake Delos too, though it has never been moved." These names mean the following in the Greek language: Darius means "doer," Xerxes means "warrior," and Artaxerxes means "great warrior." This is how the Greeks would rightly call these kings in their own language.

Chapter 99

1When the foreigners left Delos, they put in at the islands. From there they took on troops and took hostages, the children of the islanders.

2When they had sailed around the islands, they put in at Carystus too. The Carystians would not give hostages, and they said they would not campaign against neighboring cities, meaning Eretria and Athens. So the Persians besieged them and cut down their land, until the Carystians also came over to the Persian side.

Chapter 100

1When the Eretrians learned that the Persian army was sailing against them, they asked the Athenians to send them help. The Athenians did not refuse the aid. They gave them the four thousand men who were holding allotments of the rich horse-pasture land of the Chalcidians. But the plans of the Eretrians were no good at all. They had called for the Athenians, but they were thinking in two different ways.

2Some of them planned to leave the city and go to the highlands of Euboea. Others of them expected to get private gains from the Persian and were preparing to betray the city.

3Aeschines son of Nothon, one of the leading men of the Eretrians, learned how things stood with each group. He told the Athenians who had come everything about their situation. He asked them to go home, so that they would not be destroyed along with the Eretrians. The Athenians took the advice of Aeschines.

Chapter 101

1They crossed over to Oropus and saved themselves. The Persians sailed on and brought their ships to the land of Eretria, at Temenus, Choireas, and Aegilea. Once they landed at these places, they put the horses ashore at once and got ready to attack their enemies.

2The Eretrians made no plan to come out and fight. What they cared about was how to save their walls, since the decision not to leave the city had won. The attacks on the wall were fierce, and for six days many men fell on both sides. On the seventh day Euphorbus son of Alcimachus and Philagrus son of Cyneus, two well-known men of the city, betrayed it to the Persians.

3The Persians entered the city. They looted and burned the temples, paying back for the temples that had been burned at Sardis. And they enslaved the people, following the orders of Darius.

Chapter 102

1After they had conquered Eretria and waited a few days, they sailed for the land of Attica. They pressed on hard, expecting the Athenians to do the same things they had done to the Eretrians. Marathon was the place in Attica best suited for a cavalry attack and closest to Eretria. Hippias son of Pisistratus led them there.

Chapter 103

1When the Athenians heard this, they too rushed to Marathon. They were led by ten generals, and the tenth was Miltiades. His father Cimon son of Stesagoras had been driven out of Athens by Pisistratus son of Hippocrates.

2While he was in exile, he happened to win a victory at Olympia with a four-horse chariot. When he won this victory, he had it proclaimed in the name of his half-brother Miltiades. At the next Olympiad he won again with the same horses, and he handed the proclamation over to Pisistratus. Giving up this victory to him, he returned home under an agreement.

3Then, after winning yet another Olympiad with the same horses, he met his end. He was killed by the sons of Pisistratus, after Pisistratus himself was no longer alive. They killed him by the town hall, sending men in against him at night. Cimon is buried in front of the city, across the road called the Hollow Road. Opposite him those three mares are buried that won three Olympiads.

4Other mares have done the same thing already, those of Evagoras the Lacedaemonian, but no others besides these. The older of Cimon's sons, Stesagoras, was at that time being raised by his uncle Miltiades in the Chersonese. The younger was with Cimon in Athens, and he had the name of Miltiades, after the founder of the Chersonese.

Chapter 104

1This is the Miltiades who now came from the Chersonese and commanded the Athenians, after escaping two kinds of death. For one thing, the Phoenicians who chased him as far as Imbros were eager to catch him and bring him before the king.

2For another, when he had escaped them and reached his own home, and thought he was already safe, his enemies lay in wait for him. They brought him before a court and prosecuted him for tyranny in the Chersonese. He got away from them too, and in this way he was appointed general of the Athenians, chosen by the people.

Chapter 105

1First, while the generals were still in the city, they sent a herald to Sparta: Pheidippides, an Athenian, who was a day-runner and made that his work. As Pheidippides himself said and reported to the Athenians, Pan met him at Mount Parthenion above Tegea.

2Pan called out Pheidippides' name and told him to ask the Athenians why they paid no attention to him, even though he was well disposed to the Athenians and had already been useful to them in many ways, and would be so in the future too.

3The Athenians believed the message was true, once their affairs had turned out well, and they built a shrine to Pan under the acropolis. Because of this message they appease him with yearly sacrifices and a torch race.

Chapter 106

1This Pheidippides was sent by the generals at the very time he said Pan had appeared to him. On the second day after leaving the city of the Athenians he was in Sparta. He came before the rulers and said:

2"Lacedaemonians, the Athenians ask you to help them and not to stand by while a very ancient city among the Greeks falls into slavery at the hands of foreign men. For Eretria has now been enslaved, and Greece has become weaker with the loss of a notable city."

3He reported to them what he had been told to say, and they decided to help the Athenians. But they could not do it right away, because they did not want to break their law. It was the ninth day of the month, and they said they would not march out until the moon's circle was full.

Chapter 107

1So the Spartans waited for the full moon. Meanwhile Hippias son of Pisistratus was leading the foreigners to Marathon. The night before he had seen a vision like this: Hippias dreamed that he slept with his own mother.

2From the dream he guessed that he would return to Athens, win back his rule, and die in his own land as an old man. That is what he guessed from the vision. As he led the way, he landed the slaves from Eretria on the island of the Styreans, called Aegleia. He also brought the ships in to Marathon and moored them. And he drew up the foreigners as they landed on the shore.

3While he was busy with these things, he felt the need to sneeze and cough harder than usual. Because he was an old man, most of his teeth were loose. He coughed hard and knocked out one of his teeth. It fell into the sand, and he made a great effort to find it.

4When the tooth did not appear, he groaned and said to the men standing near him: "This land is not ours, and we will not be able to bring it under our control. My share in it has gone with the tooth."

Chapter 108

1Hippias decided the vision had been fulfilled this way. While the Athenians were drawn up in the precinct of Heracles, the Plataeans came to help them, bringing their whole people. The Plataeans had given themselves over to the Athenians, and the Athenians had already taken on many troubles for them. It happened like this.

2The Plataeans were being pressed hard by the Thebans. First they gave themselves to Cleomenes son of Anaxandrides and the Lacedaemonians, who happened to be near. But the Lacedaemonians would not take them and said: "We live farther away, and the help we could give you would be a cold comfort. You would often be enslaved before any news of it reached us."

3"We advise you to give yourselves to the Athenians. They live near you, and they are not bad at helping people in trouble." The Lacedaemonians gave this advice not so much out of goodwill toward the Plataeans as because they wanted the Athenians to have troubles, being at war with the Boeotians.

4This is the advice the Lacedaemonians gave the Plataeans. They did not reject it. While the Athenians were sacrificing to the twelve gods, the Plataeans sat at the altar as suppliants and gave themselves to them. When the Thebans learned of this, they marched against the Plataeans, and the Athenians came to help them.

5When the two sides were about to join battle, the Corinthians would not allow it. They were there, and they made peace between the two sides. With both sides leaving the decision to them, they fixed the border of the land on these terms: the Thebans were to leave alone those of the Boeotians who did not want to belong to the Boeotians. When the Corinthians had settled this, they went away. As the Athenians were leaving, the Boeotians attacked them, but they were defeated in the battle.

6The Athenians crossed the borders that the Corinthians had set for the Plataeans. After crossing them, they made the river Asopus the border for the Thebans against Plataea and Hysiae. This is how the Plataeans gave themselves to the Athenians in the way described, and this is why they came to Marathon to help.

Chapter 109

1The generals of the Athenians were split in their opinions. Some would not let them join battle, because they said they were too few to fight the army of the Medes. Others, and Miltiades with them, urged them to fight.

2When they were split and the worse opinion was winning, here is what happened. There was an eleventh vote, held by the man chosen by lot to be polemarch of the Athenians. In old times the Athenians gave the polemarch a vote equal to the generals'. The polemarch at that time was Callimachus of Aphidna. Miltiades went to him and said this:

3"Now, Callimachus, it lies with you either to enslave Athens or to set it free and leave behind a memorial for all the rest of human life, greater than the one Harmodius and Aristogeiton leave. Right now the Athenians have come into the greatest danger since they first came into being. If they bow to the Medes, it is settled what they will suffer, since they will be handed over to Hippias. But if this city comes through, it can become the first of the Greek cities."

4"How this can happen, and how the power of decision in this business comes to rest with you, I will now explain. We generals are ten, and our opinions are split. Some of us urge joining battle and some do not."

5"If we do not join battle, I expect a great faction to shake the Athenians and make them take the side of the Medes. But if we join battle before any rot has set in among some of the Athenians, then, if the gods deal out equal shares, we can win the battle."

6"All of this now comes down to you and depends on you. If you add your vote to mine, your country will be free and your city the first in Greece. But if you choose the side of the men who are holding back from battle, you will get the opposite of the good things I have listed."

Chapter 110

1With these words Miltiades won Callimachus over. When the polemarch's opinion was added to the others, it was settled that they would join battle. After that, the generals whose opinion favored fighting handed their turn of command for the day to Miltiades, as each man's turn came round. He took it, but he still did not bring on the battle until his own turn came.

Chapter 111

1When the command came round to him, the Athenians drew up for battle like this. The polemarch Callimachus led the right wing. For the rule at Athens was then that the polemarch held the right wing. Next after him came the tribes in order, as they were counted, each following the one before. Last of all, holding the left wing, the Plataeans were drawn up.

2Ever since this battle [you see], whenever the Athenians offer sacrifices at the festivals held every four years, the Athenian herald prays for good things to come to the Athenians and the Plataeans alike.

3Then, as the Athenians were drawing up at Marathon, something like this happened. Their army was made as long as the Median army, so its center was only a few ranks deep, and there the army was weakest. Each wing, though, was strong in numbers.

Chapter 112

1When their line was set and the sacrifices came out well, the Athenians were let go and charged at a run against the foreigners. The open ground between the two armies was not less than eight stades.

2The Persians saw them coming at a run and got ready to receive them. They thought the Athenians were mad and rushing to their total destruction, since they saw that they were few, that they were hurrying in with a charge, and that they had neither cavalry nor archers.

3That is what the foreigners guessed. But when the Athenians closed with the foreigners all together, they fought in a way worth remembering. They were the first of all the Greeks we know of to use a running charge against the enemy, and the first to stand up to seeing Median clothing and the men who wore it. Before then, even the name of the Medes was a fright for the Greeks to hear.

Chapter 113

1The fighting at Marathon went on for a long time. In the center of the army the foreigners were winning, since that is where the Persians themselves and the Sacae were drawn up. There the foreigners won, broke through, and chased the Athenians inland. But on each wing the Athenians and the Plataeans were winning.

2When they had won, they let the routed foreigners run away. On the men who had broken through the center they closed both wings together and fought, and the Athenians won. They followed the fleeing Persians and cut them down, until they reached the sea. There they called for fire and laid hold of the ships.

Chapter 114

1In this struggle the polemarch died, a man who proved himself brave. Of the generals, Stesilaus son of Thrasylaus also died. Then Cynegirus son of Euphorion grabbed the stern ornament of a ship, had his hand chopped off by an axe, and fell. Many other Athenians died there too, men of note.

Chapter 115

1That is how the Athenians took control of seven of the ships. With the rest the foreigners backed water and pulled away. They picked up from the island the captives from Eretria that they had left there, and they sailed around Sunium, wanting to get to the city before the Athenians did. But the Athenians blamed a trick of the Alcmaeonids for this plan, saying that they had made an agreement with the Persians and raised a shield as a signal while they were already on board the ships.

Chapter 116

1While these men sailed around Sunium, the Athenians hurried to the city as fast as their legs could carry them. They arrived before the foreigners came, and when they got there they camped at the Heracleum in Cynosarges, coming from the Heracleum at Marathon. The foreigners held their ships off Phalerum, which was the Athenians' port at the time. After waiting there, they sailed back to Asia.

Chapter 117

1In this battle at Marathon about six thousand four hundred of the foreigners died, and one hundred ninety-two Athenians. That is how many fell on both sides.

2A wonder happened there too. An Athenian man, Epizelus son of Cuphagoras, was fighting in the battle line and doing brave work when he lost his eyes. He was not hit anywhere on his body and was not struck by anything, and he went on being blind for the rest of his life from that time.

3I heard him tell a story like this about what happened to him. He said that a huge man in armor seemed to stand facing him. The man's beard covered his whole shield. This phantom passed him by, but it killed the man standing next to him. That is what I heard Epizelus say.

Chapter 118

1Datis was on the march with his army to Asia. When he reached Myconus, he saw a vision in his sleep. What the vision was is not told. But as soon as day broke, he searched the ships. In a Phoenician ship he found a gilded statue of Apollo and asked where it had been looted from. When he learned which temple it came from, he sailed in his own ship to Delos.

2The Delians had by then come back to the island. He set the statue down in the temple and ordered the Delians to carry the statue to Delium in the land of the Thebans. That place is on the sea, facing Chalcis.

3After giving these orders Datis sailed away. The Delians did not carry the statue off. But twenty years later the Thebans themselves carried it to Delium, following an oracle.

Chapter 119

1Datis and Artaphrenes brought the captives from Eretria to Susa when they reached Asia on their voyage. King Darius had held a terrible anger against the Eretrians before they were captured, since the Eretrians had been the first to do wrong.

2But when he saw them brought to him and in his power, he did no further harm to them. He settled them in the Cissian land at one of his own posting stations, whose name is Ardericca. It lies two hundred ten stades from Susa and forty from the well that yields three different things. They draw asphalt, salt, and oil from it in this way.

3The liquid is drawn up with a lifting pole, and half a skin is tied to it in place of a bucket. The man lowers this and draws up the liquid, and then pours it into a tank. From that tank it flows into another and splits into three paths. The asphalt and the salt harden at once. The oil, which the Persians call radinace, is black and gives off a heavy smell.

4There King Darius settled the Eretrians. They held that land down to my own time and kept their old language. That is how things went with the Eretrians.

Chapter 120

1Two thousand Lacedaemonians came to Athens after the full moon. They were so eager to arrive in time that they reached Attica from Sparta on the third day. They got there after the battle, but they still wanted to see the Medes. They went to Marathon and saw them. Then they praised the Athenians and what they had done and went back home.

Chapter 121

1I am amazed at the story, and I do not accept it, that the Alcmaeonids ever raised a shield as a signal to the Persians by agreement. They wanted the Athenians to be under foreigners and under Hippias. They show themselves to have hated tyranny more than, or at least as much as, Callias son of Phoenippus, the father of Hipponicus.

2Callias was the only Athenian who dared to buy the property of Pisistratus when it was put up for sale by the state, whenever Pisistratus was driven out of Athens. He also contrived everything else that was most hateful to Pisistratus.

Chapter 122

1[This Callias deserves to be remembered by everyone in many ways. First, for what has been said already, that he was an outstanding man in setting his country free. Second, for what he did at Olympia. He won with a single horse, he came second in the chariot race, and he had earlier won at the Pythian games, and he made himself known to all the Greeks at very great expense.]

2[Then there is the kind of man he showed himself to be about his three daughters. When they were old enough to marry, he gave them a most magnificent gift and did them a great kindness. Each one could choose whatever husband she wanted from all the Athenians, and he gave her to that man.]

Chapter 123

1The Alcmaeonids hated tyranny in the same way, or no less than he did. So I am amazed, and I do not accept the slander that these were the ones who raised a shield. They spent all their time in exile from the tyrants, and through their scheme the sons of Pisistratus lost the tyranny.

2In this way these were the men who freed Athens, much more than Harmodius and Aristogeiton did, as I judge it. Those two made the remaining Pisistratids savage by killing Hipparchus, and they no more stopped the rest from ruling as tyrants. But the Alcmaeonids plainly set Athens free, if in fact it really was they who persuaded the Pythia to tell the Lacedaemonians to set Athens free, as I have shown earlier.

Chapter 124

1Still, perhaps they had some complaint against the Athenian people and so betrayed their country. Yet there were no men of higher standing among the Athenians, nor any who were more honored.

2So reason does not accept that a shield was raised by any of them on such grounds. A shield was raised, and there is no other way to put it, because it did happen. But who the man was who raised it, I cannot say anything beyond this.

Chapter 125

1The Alcmaeonids had been men of high standing in Athens from early times, and from Alcmaeon and again from Megacles they became very rich and famous indeed.

2Alcmaeon son of Megacles helped the Lydians who came from Sardis, sent by Croesus to the oracle at Delphi. He worked with them and gave them every help eagerly. When Croesus learned from the Lydians who went to the oracles that Alcmaeon had treated him well, he sent for him to Sardis. When Alcmaeon came, Croesus gave him as much gold as he could carry off on his own body at one time.

3With such a gift to deal with, Alcmaeon did the following. He put on a large tunic and left a deep fold hanging from it. He put on the widest boots he could find, and he went into the storeroom they led him to.

4He fell on a heap of gold dust. First he packed as much gold as his boots would hold around his legs. Then he filled the whole fold of his tunic with gold, sprinkled the dust through the hair of his head, took more in his mouth, and came out of the storeroom. He could barely drag his boots along. He looked less like a man than like anything else, since his mouth was stuffed and every part of him was swollen up.

5When Croesus saw him, he burst out laughing and gave him all of that gold, and then gave him other gifts no smaller than those. That is how this family grew very rich. This same Alcmaeon raised chariot horses and won at Olympia.

Chapter 126

1Two generations later Cleisthenes, the tyrant of Sicyon, raised the family higher, so that it became much more famous among the Greeks than it had been before. Cleisthenes son of Aristonymus son of Myron son of Andros had a daughter whose name was Agariste. He wanted to find the best man in all of Greece and give her to him as his wife.

2At the time of the Olympic games, when Cleisthenes had won the chariot race there, he made a proclamation. Any Greek who thought himself fit to become Cleisthenes' son-in-law was to come to Sicyon within sixty days or sooner, since Cleisthenes would settle the marriage within a year, counting from the sixtieth day.

3Then all the Greeks who were proud of themselves and of their family came as suitors. For them Cleisthenes built a running track and a wrestling school, and he kept them there for this very purpose.

Chapter 127

1From Italy came Smindyrides son of Hippocrates of Sybaris, who reached the greatest luxury of any single man (and Sybaris was at its height at this time). There also came Damasus son of Amyris of Siris, the one called the Wise.

2These came from Italy. From the Ionian gulf came Amphimnestus son of Epistratus of Epidamnus, and he came from the Ionian gulf. From Aetolia came Malles, the brother of Tithormus, a man who surpassed all Greeks in strength and then fled from other men to the farthest edges of the land of Aetolia.

3From the Peloponnese came Leocedes son of Pheidon, the tyrant of the Argives. This was the Pheidon who made the measures for the Peloponnesians and committed the greatest outrage of all the Greeks, since he drove out the Elean judges and set up the contest at Olympia himself. His son came. So did Amiantus son of Lycurgus, an Arcadian from Trapezus, and Laphanes son of Euphorion, an Azanian from the city of Paeus, whose father had received the Dioscuri in his house, as the story is told in Arcadia, and from then on entertained all men as guests. There also came Onomastus son of Agaeus, an Elean.

4These came from the Peloponnese itself. From Athens came Megacles son of Alcmaeon, the one who had gone to Croesus, and also Hippocleides son of Tisander, who stood out among the Athenians for wealth and good looks. From Eretria, which was at its height at this time, came Lysanias, and he was the only one from Euboea. From Thessaly came Diactorides of Crannon, one of the Scopadae, and from the Molossians came Alcon.

Chapter 128

1That was the whole number of the suitors. When they came on the day that had been named, Cleisthenes first asked about their cities and the family of each one. Then he kept them with him for a year and tested their courage, temper, upbringing, and character. He spent time with each one alone and with all of them together. He took the younger ones out to the gymnasia, and, most important of all, he tested them at the dinner table. All the time he kept them, he did this, and at the same time he entertained them in great style.

2The suitors who pleased him most were the ones who had come from Athens. Among them he preferred Hippocleides son of Tisander. He was judged best for courage, and he was also connected by birth with the Cypselids in Corinth.

Chapter 129

1When the appointed day came for the wedding feast and for Cleisthenes to announce which one he chose out of all of them, Cleisthenes sacrificed one hundred cattle and feasted both the suitors and all the Sicyonians.

2When they had finished dinner, the suitors competed in music and in speaking before the group. As the drinking went on, Hippocleides far outdid the others. He told the flute player to play a dance tune, and when the flute player obeyed, he danced. He danced in a way that satisfied himself, but Cleisthenes watched the whole performance and grew suspicious.

3Then Hippocleides paused for a while and told someone to bring in a table. When the table was brought in, he first danced Laconian figures on top of it, then Attic ones. The third time he rested his head on the table and waved his legs in the air.

4During the first and second dances Cleisthenes held himself back. He hated the thought that Hippocleides could still become his son-in-law, because of the dancing and the shamelessness, but he did not want to burst out at him. When he saw him waving his legs in the air, though, he could hold back no longer. He said, "Son of Tisander, you have danced away your marriage." Hippocleides answered, "Hippocleides does not care." That is where this saying comes from.

Chapter 130

1Cleisthenes called for silence and spoke to them from the middle: "Suitors for my daughter, I praise all of you, and if it were possible I would do a kindness for every one of you, without picking out one of you as the winner and rejecting the rest.

2But when it comes to one girl, it is not possible to please everyone. So here is what I do. To those of you who are turned away from this marriage I give a gift of one talent of silver each, because you thought yourselves worthy to marry into my family and because you have traveled so far from home. To Megacles son of Alcmaeon I betroth my daughter Agariste, according to the laws of the Athenians." When Megacles said he accepted the betrothal, the marriage was settled for Cleisthenes.

Chapter 131

1That is what happened about the choice of the suitors, and that is how the Alcmaeonids became famous throughout Greece. When this couple set up house together, they had a son Cleisthenes, the one who set up the tribes and the democracy for the Athenians. He took his name from his mother's father, the man from Sicyon.

2Megacles and Hippocrates were also born to them. From Hippocrates came another Megacles and another Agariste, named after the Agariste who was the daughter of Cleisthenes. She married Xanthippus son of Arriphron and, while she was pregnant, she saw a vision in her sleep. She dreamed that she had given birth to a lion, and a few days later she bore Pericles to Xanthippus.

Chapter 132

1After the defeat at Marathon, Miltiades, who had already been well regarded among the Athenians, grew even more in standing. He asked the Athenians for seventy ships, an army, and money, without telling them which land he would attack. He only said that he would make them rich if they followed him, because he would lead them to such a land that they would easily bring back gold without limit. With words like these he asked for the ships. The Athenians were raised up by them and handed the ships over to him.

Chapter 133

1Miltiades took over the force and sailed against Paros. His excuse was that the Parians had begun the wrong first, since they had sent triremes to Marathon along with the Persian. That was the story he put forward. But he also held a grudge against the Parians because of Lysagoras son of Tisias, a man of Parian family, who had spoken against him to Hydarnes the Persian.

2Miltiades reached the place he was sailing for and with his army besieged the Parians, who were shut up inside their walls. He sent in a herald and demanded one hundred talents, saying that if they did not give them to him, he would not lead his army home until he had conquered them.

3The Parians never even thought about giving Miltiades any money. What they worked out was how to save their city. They planned various things, and above all, whenever some part of the wall was easiest to attack, that part was raised to twice its height in a single night.

Chapter 134

1So far all the Greeks tell the same story. From this point on the Parians themselves say that it happened like this. When Miltiades was at a loss, a captive woman came to talk with him. She was of Parian family, her name was Timo, and she served as an attendant of the gods below. She came into Miltiades' presence and advised him that, if he thought it was worth a great deal to take Paros, he should do whatever she suggested.

2Then she gave her advice, and he went to the hill in front of the city, which was the precinct of Demeter the Lawgiver. He jumped over the fence, since he could not open the doors. Once over, he went toward the inner shrine, meaning to do whatever he was going to do inside, whether to move something that must not be moved or whatever else it was. He got to the doors, and at once a shudder came over him. He went back along the same way. As he jumped down over the fence, he twisted his thigh. Others say that he struck his knee.

Chapter 135

1Miltiades sailed back in bad shape. He brought no money to the Athenians and did not win Paros over to them, after besieging it for twenty-six days and ravaging the island.

2The Parians learned that Timo, the servant of the gods, had guided Miltiades. To pay her back for this, they sent messengers to Delphi as soon as the siege had let up. They sent them to ask whether they should put to death the servant of the gods who had pointed out to the enemies of her country how to take it, and who had revealed to Miltiades the rites about the male offspring that must not be told.

3The Pythia would not let them. She said that Timo was not the cause of these things. It was fated that Miltiades should end badly, and so a guide to his troubles had appeared to him.

Chapter 136

1That is what the Pythia answered the Parians. When Miltiades came back from Paros, the Athenians talked about him, everyone else and especially Xanthippus son of Arriphron. Xanthippus brought a capital charge against Miltiades before the people and prosecuted him for deceiving the Athenians.

2Miltiades did not defend himself in person, because he was unable to, with his thigh rotting away. He lay on a couch while his friends defended him in his place. They spoke a great deal about the battle at Marathon and about the capture of Lemnos. He had taken Lemnos, they said, punished the Pelasgians, and handed the island over to the Athenians.

3The people sided with him and cleared him of the death penalty, but fined him fifty talents for the wrong he had done. After this Miltiades died, when his thigh gangrened and rotted. The fifty talents were paid by his son Cimon.

Chapter 137

1Miltiades son of Cimon took Lemnos in this way. The Pelasgians had been driven out of Attica by the Athenians, whether justly or unjustly. I cannot say, except for what is told. Hecataeus son of Hegesander said in his account that it was unjustly.

2He said that the Athenians saw the land under Hymettus, which they had given the Pelasgians to live in as pay for the wall that was once built around the acropolis. When they saw it well farmed, though before it had been poor and worth nothing, they were seized by envy and by desire for the land. That is why the Athenians drove them out, offering no other excuse.

3But the Athenians themselves say that they drove them out justly. The Pelasgians were settled under Hymettus, and from there they did this wrong. Their daughters and their sons kept going to fetch water at the Enneacrunus, since at this time neither they nor the other Greeks had household servants. Whenever these came, the Pelasgians, out of arrogance and contempt, used force on them. That was still not enough for them. In the end they were caught in the act, plotting an attack.

4The Athenians say that they proved themselves better men than the Pelasgians by this much: though it was open to them to kill the Pelasgians when they caught them plotting, they did not want to. They only told them to leave the land. The Pelasgians left and took other places, and among them Lemnos. That is what Hecataeus said; this is what the Athenians say.

Chapter 138

1These Pelasgians were living on Lemnos at that time and wanted to pay the Athenians back. They knew the Athenians' festivals well. They got fifty-oared ships and laid an ambush at Brauron, where the Athenian women were celebrating the festival of Artemis. They carried off many of the women from there and sailed away. They took them to Lemnos and kept them as concubines.

2When these women had children, they taught them the Attic language and the Athenian ways. The boys would not mix with the sons of the Pelasgian women. If one of them was hit by any of those, they all came to help and stood up for each other. They also claimed the right to rule over the other boys, and they were much stronger.

3When the Pelasgians learned of this, they talked it over among themselves. As they took counsel, a terrible thought came over them: if the boys were already taking a stand against the children of the wedded wives, helping one another and trying to rule over them right now, what would they do when they grew into men?

4So they decided to kill the boys born to the Attic women. They did this, and they also killed the mothers. Because of this deed, and because of an earlier one, when the women killed their own husbands along with Thoas, it has become the custom throughout Greece to call every terrible crime "Lemnian."

Chapter 139

1After the Pelasgians killed their own children and wives, the land bore no crops, and the women and the flocks no longer bore young as they had before. Hard pressed by hunger and childlessness, they sent to Delphi to ask for some way out of the troubles they faced.

2The Pythia told them to give the Athenians whatever penalty the Athenians themselves judged. So the Pelasgians came to Athens and offered to make amends for the whole wrong.

3The Athenians spread a couch in the prytaneum as fine as they could and set a table full of good food beside it. Then they told the Pelasgians to hand over their land to them, just as it stood.

4The Pelasgians answered: "When a ship makes the trip from your land to ours in a single day with the north wind blowing, then we will hand it over." They knew this could not happen, because Attica lies a long way to the south of Lemnos.

Chapter 140

1That is what happened then. Many years after this, when the Chersonese on the Hellespont came under Athenian control, Miltiades son of Cimon, while the etesian winds were blowing, made the crossing by ship from Elaeus in the Chersonese to Lemnos. He told the Pelasgians to leave the island, reminding them of the oracle, which the Pelasgians never expected to come true for them.

2The Hephaestians obeyed, but the Myrinaeans did not agree that the Chersonese belonged to Attica and were besieged, until they too surrendered. That is how the Athenians and Miltiades took Lemnos.

Chapter 1

1This was the end of Aristagoras, after he had brought about the Ionian revolt. Histiaeus, the tyrant of Miletus, arrived in Sardis after he was let go by Darius. When he came there from Susa, Artaphrenes, the governor of Sardis, asked him for what reason he supposed the Ionians had rebelled; Histiaeus said that he did not know and marvelled at what had happened, pretending to have no knowledge of the present troubles.

2But Artaphrenes saw that he dissembled and, knowing the exact story of the revolt, said: “I will tell you, Histiaeus, the truth of this business: it was you who stitched this shoe, and Aristagoras who put it on.”

Chapter 2

1Thus spoke Artaphrenes regarding the revolt. Histiaeus was frightened by Artaphrenes' understanding of the matter and fled the next night to the sea, for he had deceived Darius by promising to subdue Sardo, the greatest of the islands, while secretly intending to make himself leader of the Ionians in their war against Darius.

2Crossing over to Chios, he was taken and bound by the Chians, because they judged him to have been sent by Darius to make trouble for them. But when they learned the whole story of his hostility to the king, they set him free.

Chapter 3

1Then Histiaeus was asked by the Ionians why he had so zealously ordered Aristagoras to revolt from the king and done the Ionians such great harm. He did not at all reveal the true reason to them, telling them instead that king Darius had planned to remove the Phoenicians and settle them in Ionia, and the Ionians in Phoenicia; for this reason, he said, he had sent the order. The king had made no such plan, but Histiaeus wanted to frighten the Ionians.

Chapter 4

1Then Histiaeus, using Hermippus, a man of Atarneus, as messenger, sent letters to the Persians at Sardis, because they had previously talked with him about revolt. But Hermippus did not give the letters to the men to whom he was sent, and went and delivered them to Artaphrenes instead.

2Artaphrenes, 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, and then Artaphrenes put many Persians to death.

Chapter 5

1So troubles arose in Sardis. Since he failed in this hope, the Chians brought Histiaeus back to Miletus at his own request. But the Milesians were glad enough to be rid of Aristagoras himself, and they had no wish to receive another tyrant into their country now that they had tasted freedom.

2When Histiaeus tried to force his way into Miletus by night, he was wounded in the thigh by a Milesian. Since he was thrust out from his own city, he went back to Chios; when he could not persuade the Chians to give him ships, he then crossed over to Mytilene and persuaded the Lesbians to give him ships.

3They manned eight triremes, and sailed with Histiaeus to Byzantium; there they encamped, and seized all the ships that were sailing out of the Euxine, except when the crews consented to serve Histiaeus.

Chapter 6

1Such were the doings of Histiaeus and the Mytilenaeans. Against Miletus itself a great fleet and army were expected, for the Persian generals had joined their power together and made one army, 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.

Chapter 7

1These were coming to attack Miletus and the rest of Ionia. When the Ionians learned of it, they sent deputies to take counsel for them in the Panionium. When they came to that place and consulted, they resolved not to collect a land army to meet the Persians, but to leave the Milesians to defend their walls themselves, and to man their fleet to the last ship and gather as quickly as possible at Lade to fight for Miletus at sea. This Lade is a small island lying off the city of Miletus.

Chapter 8

1The Ionians then came there with their ships manned, and with them the Aeolians who dwell in Lesbos. This was their order of battle: The Milesians themselves had the eastern wing, bringing eighty ships; next to them were the Prieneans with twelve ships, and the Myesians with three; next to the Myesians were the Teians 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.

2The total number of all these together was three hundred and fifty-three triremes.

Chapter 9

1These were the Ionian ships; the ships of the foreigners were six hundred. When these, too, reached the Milesian shore, and all their land power was present, the Persian generals, learning the number of the Ionian ships, feared they would be too weak to overcome the Greeks. If they did not have mastery of the sea, they would not be able to take Miletus, and would be in danger of some evil treatment by Darius.

2With this in mind, they gathered the tyrants of the Ionians who had been deposed from their governments by Aristagoras of Miletus and had fled to the Medes, and who now were with the army that was led against Miletus. They gathered as many of these men as were with them and said to them:

3“Men of Ionia, let each one of you now show that he has done good service to the king's house; let each one of you try to separate your own countrymen from the rest of the allied power. Set this promise before them: they will suffer no harm for their rebellion, neither their temples nor their houses will be burnt, nor will they in any way be treated more violently than before.

4But if they will not do so and are set on fighting, then utter a threat that will restrain them: if they are defeated in battle, they will be enslaved; we will make eunuchs of their boys, and carry their maidens captive to Bactra, and hand over their land to others.”

Chapter 10

1So they spoke; the Ionian tyrants sent their messages by night, each to his own countrymen. But the Ionians to whom these messages came were stubborn and would have no part of the treachery, each thinking that the Persians made this offer to them alone. This happened immediately after the Persians arrived at Miletus.

Chapter 11

1Then the Ionians who had gathered at Lade held assemblies; among those whom I suppose to have addressed them was Dionysius, the Phocaean general, who spoke thus:

2“Our affairs, men of Ionia, stand on the edge of a razor, whether to be free men or slaves, and runaway slaves at that. If you now consent to endure hardships, 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 be weak and disorderly, I see nothing that can save you from paying the penalty to the king for your rebellion.

3Believe me and entrust yourselves to me; I promise you that (if the gods deal fairly with us) either our enemies shall not meet us in battle, or if they do they shall be utterly vanquished.”

Chapter 12

1When the Ionians heard this, they put themselves in Dionysius' hands. He then each day put out to sea with ships in column, using the rowers to pierce each other's line of ships, and arming the fighting men on board; for the rest of the day he kept the fleet at anchor; all day he made the Ionians work.

2For seven days they obeyed him and did his bidding; but on the next day, untried as they were in such labor and worn out by hard work and by the sun, the Ionians began to say each to other:

3“Against what god have we sinned that we have to fulfill this task? We have lost our minds 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. Many of us have fallen sick already, and many are likely to suffer the same thing; instead of these ills, it would be better for us to suffer anything, and endure this coming slavery, whatever it will be, rather than be oppressed by that which is now upon us. Come, let us obey him no longer!”

4So they spoke, and from then on no man would obey. As if they were an army, they raised tents on the island where they stayed in the shade, and they were unwilling to embark upon their ships or to continue their exercises.

Chapter 13

1When the generals of the Samians learned what the Ionians were doing, they recalled that message which Aeaces son of Syloson had already sent them at the Persians' bidding, entreating them to desert the Ionian alliance; seeing great disorder on the Ionian side, they consented to the message; moreover, it seemed impossible to them to overcome the king's power, and they were well assured that if they overcame Darius' present fleet, another one five times as large would come.

2Therefore, as soon as they saw the Ionians refusing to be useful, they took up that for a pretext, considering it advantageous to save their own temples and houses. This Aeaces, from whom they received the message, was the son of Syloson son of Aeaces, and had been tyrant of Samos until he was deposed from his rule by Aristagoras of Miletus, just like the other Ionian tyrants.

Chapter 14

1Now when the Phoenician fleet came sailing against them, the Ionians put out to sea against them with their ships in column. When they drew near and met each other in battle, which of the Ionians were brave men or cowards then in that sea-fight I cannot exactly say; for they all blame each other.

2The Samians are said, according to their agreement with Aeaces, to have raised their sails and gone off to Samos, leaving their post, all except eleven ships.

3The captains of these stood their ground and fought, disobeying their admirals. For this deed the Samian people granted that their names and patronymics should be engraved on a pillar as brave men; this pillar now stands in their market-place. But the Lesbians, seeing their neighbors fleeing, did the same as the Samians; and most of the Ionians did likewise.

Chapter 15

1The most roughly handled of those that stood their ground in the sea-fight were the Chians, since they refused to be cowards and achieved deeds of renown. They brought a hundred ships to the fleet, as was mentioned above, and on each ship were forty picked men of their citizens.

2Seeing themselves betrayed by the greater part of their allies, they did not think it right to act like the worst among them; with only a few allies to aid them they fought on and broke the enemy's line, until they had taken many ships but lost most of their own.

Chapter 16

1The Chians escaped to their own country with their remaining ships, but the crews of the Chian ships that were damaged and disabled were pursued and took refuge in Mykale. There the men beached and left their ships, and made their way across the mainland.

2But when the Chians entered the lands of Ephesus on their march, they came by night while the women were celebrating the Thesmophoria; then the Ephesians, 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 killed the Chians.

Chapter 17

1So these men met with such a fate. As for Dionysius the Phocaean, when he saw that the Ionian cause was lost, he sailed away with the three enemy ships that he had captured; but not to Phocaea, now that he knew well that it would be enslaved with the rest of Ionia; he right away sailed straight to Phoenicia instead, sunk some merchant ships, took a lot of money, and sailed to Sicily; from this base he set himself up as a pirate, robbing Carthaginians and Tyrrhenians, but no Greeks.

Chapter 18

1When the Persians had conquered the Ionians by sea, they laid siege to Miletus by sea and land, mining the walls and using every device against it, until they utterly captured it in the sixth year after the revolt of Aristagoras. They enslaved the city, and thus the calamity agreed with the oracle concerning Miletus.

Chapter 19

1When the Argives inquired at Delphi about the safety of their city, a common response was given, one part regarding the Argives themselves, but there was an additional response for the Milesians.

2I will mention the part concerning the Argives when I come to that part of my history; this was the prophecy given to the Milesians in their absence: Then, Miletus, contriver of evil deeds, For many will you become a banquet and glorious gifts; Your wives will wash the feet of many long-haired men; Other ministers will tend my Didyman shrine!

3All this now came upon the Milesians, since most of their men were slain by the Persians, who wore long hair, 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.

Chapter 20

1After that, the captive Milesians were brought to Susa. King Darius did them no further harm, settling them by the sea called Red, in the city of Ampe, by which the river Tigris flows 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.

Chapter 21

1Now when the Milesians suffered all this at the hands of the Persians, the Sybarites (who had lost their city and dwelt in Laus and Scidrus) did not give them equal return for what they had done. When Sybaris was taken by the Crotoniates, all the people of Miletus, young and old, shaved their heads and made great public lamentation; no cities which we know were ever so closely joined in friendship as these.

2The Athenians acted very differently. The Athenians made clear their deep grief for the taking of Miletus in many ways, but especially in this: when Phrynichus wrote a play entitled “The Fall of Miletus” and produced it, the whole theater fell to weeping; they fined Phrynichus a thousand drachmas for bringing to mind a calamity that affected them so personally, and forbade the performance of that play forever.

Chapter 22

1Miletus then was left empty of Milesians. The men of property among the Samians were displeased by the dealings of their generals with the Medes, so after the sea-fight they took counsel immediately and resolved that before Aeaces the tyrant came to their country they would sail to a colony, rather than remain and be slaves of the Medes and Aeaces.

2The 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, the Samians alone of the Ionians, with those Milesians who had escaped, set forth.

Chapter 23

1In their journey a thing happened to them such as I will show. 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.

2Learning this, Anaxilaus the tyrant of Rhegium, being then in a feud with the Zanclaeans, joined forces with the Samians and persuaded them to leave off their voyage to the Fair Coast and seize Zancle while it was deserted by its men.

3The Samians consented and seized Zancle; when they learned that their city was taken, the Zanclaeans came to deliver it, calling to their aid Hippocrates the tyrant of Gela, who was their ally.

4But Hippocrates, when he came bringing his army to aid them, put Scythes the monarch of Zancle and his brother Pythogenes in chains for losing the city, and sent them away to the city of Inyx. He betrayed the rest of the Zanclaeans to the Samians, with whom he had made an agreement and exchanged oaths.

5The price which the Samians agreed to give him was that Hippocrates should take for his share half of the movable goods and slaves in the city, and all that was in the country.

6Most of the Zanclaeans were kept in chains as slaves by Hippocrates himself; he gave three hundred chief men to the Samians to be put to death, but the Samians did not do so.

Chapter 24

1Scythes the monarch of Zancle escaped from Inyx to Himera, and from there he came to Asia and went up country to king Darius. Darius considered him the most honest man of all who had come up to him from Hellas;

2for he returned by the king's permission to Sicily and from Sicily back again to Darius, until in old age he ended his life in Persia in great wealth. Without trouble the Samians planted themselves in that most excellent city of Zancle, after they had escaped from the Medes.

Chapter 25

1After 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 for his great achievements. Because of the desertion of their ships in the sea-fight, the Samians were the only rebel people whose city and temples were not burnt.

2After Miletus was captured, the Persians at once gained possession of Caria. Some of the towns submitted voluntarily; others were brought over by force.

Chapter 26

1All this happened so. 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. Leaving all matters concerning the Hellespont in charge of Bisaltes of Abydos, son of Apollophanes, he himself sailed with the Lesbians to Chios and, when the Chian guardships would not receive him, fought in the Hollows of Chios (as they are called).

2Many of their crews he killed; the rest of the people of the country, since they were crippled by the sea-fight, were mastered by Histiaeus with his Lesbians, setting out from Polichne in Chios.

Chapter 27

1It is common for some sign to be given when great ills threaten cities or nations; for before all this plain signs had been sent to the Chians.

2Of a band of a hundred youths whom they had sent to Delphi only two 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 learning their letters: of one hundred and twenty of them one alone escaped.

3These signs a god showed to them; then the sea-fight broke upon them and beat the city to its knees; on top of the sea-fight came Histiaeus and the Lesbians. Since the Chians were in such a bad state, he easily subdued them.

Chapter 28

1Then Histiaeus brought a great force of Ionians and Aeolians against Thasos. While he was besieging Thasos a message came that the Phoenicians were putting out to sea from Miletus to attack the rest of Ionia. When he learned this, he left Thasos unsacked, and hastened instead with all his army to Lesbos.

2From there, since his army suffered from hunger, he crossed over to reap from Atarneus the corn there and the Mysian corn of the Caicus plain. Now it chanced that in that region was Harpagus, a Persian, with no small force under him; when Histiaeus landed, Harpagus met him in battle and took Histiaeus himself alive and killed most of his army.

Chapter 29

1Histiaeus was taken prisoner in this way: the Greeks fought with the Persians at Malene in the country of Atarneus; the armies fought for a long time, until the Persian cavalry charged and fell upon the Greeks. So this was the accomplishment of the cavalry; when the Greeks were routed, Histiaeus, supposing that the king would not put him to death for his present transgression, did what showed that he loved his life too well.

2He was overtaken in his flight by a Persian, and when he was caught and about to be stabbed, he cried out in the Persian language and revealed himself to be Histiaeus the Milesian.

Chapter 30

1Now if he had been taken prisoner and brought to king Darius, he would have suffered no harm (to my thinking) and the king would have forgiven his guilt; but as it was, when Histiaeus was brought to Sardis, both because of what he had done, and for fear that he might escape and again win power at the court, Artaphrenes, governor of Sardis, and Harpagus, who had captured him, impaled his body on the spot, and sent his head embalmed to king Darius at Susa.

2When Darius learned of this, he blamed those who had done it because they had not brought Histiaeus before him alive, and he commanded that the head should be washed and buried with due ceremony, as of a man who had done great good to Darius himself and to Persia.

Chapter 31

1Thus 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) the people.

2This 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 also captured the Ionian cities of the mainland in the same way, but not by netting the people; for that was not possible.

Chapter 32

1Then the Persian generals were not false to the threats they had made against the Ionians when they were encamped opposite them. When they had gained mastery over the cities, they chose out the most handsome boys and castrated them, making them eunuchs instead of men, and they carried the fairest maidens away to the king; they did all this, and they burnt the cities with their temples. Thus three times had the Ionians been enslaved, first by the Lydians and now twice in a row by the Persians.

Chapter 33

1Then the fleet departed from Ionia and captured everything which lies to the left of one sailing up the Hellespont; the right side had been subdued by the Persians themselves from the mainland. These are the regions of Europe that belong to the Hellespont: the Chersonese, in which there are many cities; Perinthus, and the forts that lie towards Thrace, and Selymbria and Byzantium.

2The Byzantines and the Calchedonians beyond them did not even wait for the attack of the Phoenicians, but left their own land and fled away into the Euxine, and there settled in the city of Mesambria. The Phoenicians burnt the aforementioned places and turned against Proconnesus and Artace; after giving these also to the flames they sailed back to the Chersonese to finish off the remaining cities, as many as they had not destroyed at their former landing.

3But they did not sail against Cyzicus at all; the Cyzicenes had already made themselves the king's subjects before the Phoenician expedition, by an agreement with the governor at Dascyleum, Oebares son of Megabazus.

Chapter 34

1The Phoenicians subdued all the cities in the Chersonese except Cardia. Miltiades son of Cimon son of Stesagoras was tyrant there. Miltiades son of Cypselus had gained the rule earlier in the following manner: the Thracian Dolonci held possession of this Chersonese. They were crushed in war by the Apsinthians, so they sent their kings to Delphi to inquire about the war.

2The Pythia answered that they should bring to their land as founder the first man who offered them hospitality after they left the sacred precinct. But as the Dolonci passed through Phocis and Boeotia, going along the Sacred Way, no one invited them, so they turned toward Athens.

Chapter 35

1At that time in Athens, Pisistratus held all power, but Miltiades son of Cypselus also had great influence. His household was rich enough to maintain a four-horse chariot, and he traced his earliest descent to Aeacus and Aegina, though his later ancestry was Athenian. Philaeus son of Ajax was the first of that house to be an Athenian.

2Miltiades was sitting on his porch when he saw the Dolonci go by with their foreign clothing and spears, so he called out to them, and when they came over, he invited them in for lodging and hospitality. They accepted, and after he entertained them, they revealed the whole story of the oracle to him and asked him to obey the god.

3He was persuaded as soon as he heard their speech, for he was tired of Pisistratus' rule and wanted to be away from it. He immediately set out for Delphi to ask the oracle if he should do what the Dolonci asked of him.

Chapter 36

1The Pythia also bade him do so. Then Miltiades son of Cypselus, previously an Olympic victor in the four-horse chariot, recruited any Athenian who wanted to take part in the expedition, sailed off with the Dolonci, and took possession of their land. Those who brought him appointed him tyrant.

2His first act was to wall off the isthmus of the Chersonese from the city of Cardia across to Pactye, so that the Apsinthians would not be able to harm them by invading their land. The isthmus is thirty-six stadia across, and to the south of the isthmus the Chersonese is four hundred and twenty stadia in length.

Chapter 37

1After Miltiades had pushed away the Apsinthians by walling off the neck of the Chersonese, he made war first on the people of Lampsacus, but the Lampsacenes laid an ambush and took him prisoner. However, Miltiades stood high in the opinion of Croesus the Lydian, and when Croesus heard what had happened, he sent to the Lampsacenes and commanded them to release Miltiades. If they did not do so, he threatened to cut them down like a pine tree.

2The Lampsacenes went astray in their counsels as to what the utterance meant which Croesus had threatened them with, saying he would devastate them like a pine tree, until at last one of the elders understood and said what it was: the pine is the only tree that once cut down never sends out any shoots; it is utterly destroyed. So out of fear of Croesus the Lampsacenes released Miltiades and let him go.

Chapter 38

1So he escaped by the intervention of Croesus, but he later died childless and left his rule and possessions to Stesagoras, the son of his half-brother Cimon. Since his death, the people of the Chersonese offer sacrifices to him as their founder in the customary manner, instituting a contest of horse races and gymnastics. No one from Lampsacus is allowed to compete.

2But in the war against the Lampsacenes Stesagoras too met his end and died childless; he was struck on the head with an axe in the town-hall by a man who pretended to be a deserter but in truth was an enemy and a man of violence.

Chapter 39

1Stesagoras met his end in this way. The sons of Pisistratus sent Miltiades, son of Cimon and brother of the dead Stesagoras, in a trireme to the Chersonese to take control of the country; they had already treated him well at Athens, feigning that they had not been accessory to the death of Cimon his father, which I will relate in another place.

2Reaching the Chersonese, Miltiades kept himself within his house, professing thus to honor the memory of his brother Stesagoras. When the people of the Chersonese learned this, their ruling men gathered together from all the cities on every side, and came together in a group 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.

Chapter 40

1But not long after this Miltiades son of Cimon had come to the Chersonese, greater difficulties than the present afflictions overtook him. He had been driven from the country three years before this by the Scythians. The nomadic Scythians, provoked by Darius, gathered themselves together and rode as far as the Chersonese.

2Miltiades did not await their attack and fled from the Chersonese, until the Scythians departed and the Dolonci brought him back again. All this had happened three years before the matters that now engaged him.

Chapter 41

1But now, learning that the Phoenicians were in Tenedos, he sailed away to Athens with five triremes loaded with the possessions that he had nearby. He set out from Cardia and crossed the Black Bay, and as he was sailing along the Chersonese the Phoenicians fell upon him with their ships.

2Miltiades himself escaped with four of his ships to Imbros, but the fifth was pursued and overtaken by the Phoenicians. It happened that the captain of this ship was Metiochus, the eldest son of Miltiades by another wife, not the daughter of Olorus the Thracian.

3The Phoenicians took this man captive with his ship; and when they heard that he was Miltiades' son, they brought him up to the king, thinking that this would be a very favorable service, because Miltiades had declared his opinion among the Ionians that they should obey the Scythians in their demand to break the bridge of boats and sail away to their homes.

4But when the Phoenicians brought Miltiades' son Metiochus before him, Darius did him no harm but much good, giving him a house and possessions and a Persian wife, who bore him children who were reckoned as Persians. Miltiades made his way from Imbros to Athens.

Chapter 42

1In this year the Persians caused no further trouble for the Ionians, and at this same time certain things happened which greatly benefited the Ionians. Artaphrenes governor of Sardis summoned ambassadors from the cities and compelled the Ionians to make agreements among themselves that they would abide by the law and not rob and plunder each other.

2He compelled them to do this, and he measured their lands by parasangs, which is the Persian name for a distance of thirty stadia, and ordered that each people should according to this measurement pay a tribute which has remained fixed as assessed by Artaphrenes ever since that time up to this day; the sum appointed was about the same as that which they had rendered before. This then kept them peaceable.

Chapter 43

1But at the beginning of spring the other generals were deposed by the king from their offices, and Mardonius son of Gobryas, a man young in years and recently married to Darius' daughter Artozostre, came down to the coast at the head of a very great army and fleet.

2When Mardonius reached Cilicia at the head of this army, he himself embarked on shipboard and sailed with the rest of his ships, while other captains led the land army to the Hellespont.

3When Mardonius arrived in Ionia in his voyage along 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 tyrants and set up democracies in their cities.

4He did this and hurried to the Hellespont. When a great multitude of ships and a great army were assembled, the Persians crossed the Hellespont on shipboard and marched through Europe, with Eretria and Athens as their goal.

Chapter 44

1This was the stated end of their expedition, but they intended to subdue as many of the Greek cities as they could. Their fleet subdued the Thasians, who did not so much as lift up their hands against it; 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 before this.

2Crossing over from Thasos they travelled near the land as far as Acanthus, and putting out from there they tried to round Athos. But a great and irresistible north wind fell upon them as they sailed past and dealt very roughly with them, driving many of their ships upon Athos.

3It is said that about three hundred ships were lost, and more than twenty thousand men. Since the coasts of Athos abound in wild beasts, some men were carried off by beasts and so perished; others were dashed against the rocks; those who could not swim perished because of that, and still others by the cold.

Chapter 45

1Thus 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 killed many of them, wounding Mardonius himself. But not even these could escape being enslaved by the Persians; Mardonius did not depart from those lands before he had subjugated them.

2After conquering them, he led his army away homewards, since the Brygi had dealt a heavy blow to his army and Athos an even heavier blow to his fleet. This expedition after an inglorious adventure returned back to Asia.

Chapter 46

1In the next year after this, Darius first sent a message bidding the Thasians, who were falsely reported by their neighbors to be planning rebellion, to destroy their walls and bring their ships to Abdera.

2Since they had been besieged by Histiaeus of Miletus and had great revenues, the Thasians had used their wealth to build ships of war and surround themselves with stronger walls.

3Their revenue came from the mainland and from the mines. About eighty talents on average came in from the gold-mines of the “Dug Forest”, and less from the mines of Thasos itself, yet so much that the Thasians, paying no tax on their crops, drew a yearly revenue from the mainland and the mines of two hundred talents on average, and three hundred when the revenue was greatest.

Chapter 47

1I myself have seen these mines; by far the most marvellous were those that were found by the Phoenicians who with Thasos colonized this island, which is now called after that Phoenician Thasos.

2These Phoenician mines are between the place called Aenyra and Coenyra in Thasos, opposite Samothrace; they are in a great hill that has been dug up in the searching. So much for that. The Thasians at the king's command destroyed their walls and brought all their ships to Abdera.

Chapter 48

1Then Darius attempted to learn whether the Greeks intended to wage war against him or to surrender themselves. He sent heralds this way and that throughout Hellas, bidding them demand a gift of earth and water for the king.

2He despatched some to Hellas, and he sent others to his own tributary cities of the coast, commanding that ships of war and transports for horses be built.

Chapter 49

1So the cities set about these preparations. The heralds who went to Hellas received what the king's proclamation demanded from many of those dwelling on the mainland and from all the islanders to whom they came with the demand. Among the islanders who gave earth and water to Darius were the Aeginetans.

2The Athenians immediately came down upon them for doing this, for they supposed the Aeginetans to have given the gift out of enmity for Athens, so they might join with the Persians in attacking the Athenians. Gladly laying hold of this pretext, they went to Sparta and there accused the Aeginetans of acting to betray Hellas.

Chapter 50

1Regarding this accusation, Cleomenes son of Anaxandrides, king of Sparta, crossed over to Aegina intending to arrest the most culpable of its people.

2But when he attempted to make the arrests, the Aeginetans opposed him, especially Crius son of Polycritus, who told him he would not take away any Aeginetan with impunity, for he had no authority from the Spartans for what he was doing; instead he had been bribed by the Athenians; otherwise he would have come to make the arrests with the other king. He said this because of a letter from Demaratus.

3Driven from Aegina, Cleomenes asked Crius his name; and when Crius told him what it was, Cleomenes said to him, “Now is the time to put bronze on your horns, Mr. Ram, for great calamity will confront you.”

Chapter 51

1All this time Demaratus son of Ariston remained at Sparta and spread evil reports of Cleomenes. This Demaratus was also king of Sparta, but of the inferior house; not indeed inferior in any other regard (for they have a common ancestor), but the house of Eurysthenes has in some sort the greater honor by right of primogeniture.

Chapter 52

1The Lacedaemonians say (but no poet agrees) that it was Aristodemus son of Aristomachus son of Cleodaeus son of Hyllus, and not his sons, who led them to that land which they now possess.

2After no long time Aristodemus' wife, whose name was Argeia, bore him offspring; they say she was daughter of Autesion son of Tisamenus son of Thersander son of Polynices; she bore him twins; Aristodemus lived to see the children, then died of a sickness.

3The Lacedaemonians of that day planned to follow their custom and make the eldest of the children king. But the children were identical in all respects, so the Lacedaemonians did not know which to choose; when they could not judge between them, or perhaps even before this, they asked the mother.

4She said she knew no better than the Lacedaemonians which was the elder; she knew perfectly well, but she said this because she desired that by some means both might be made kings. The Lacedaemonians were at a loss, so they sent to Delphi to inquire how they should deal with the matter.

5The priestess bade them make both children kings but give greater honor to the elder. When the priestess gave this response, the Lacedaemonians knew no better than before how to discover the elder child, and a man of Messenia, whose name was Panites, gave them advice:

6he advised them to watch the mother and see which of the children she washed and fed before the other; if she was seen to do this always in the same order, they would then have all that they sought and desired to discover; but if she changed her practice haphazardly, then it would be manifest to the Lacedaemonians that she know no more than they did, and they must have recourse to some other means.

7Then the Spartans did as the Messenian advised; as they watched the mother of Aristodemus' children, they found her always preferring the elder when she fed and washed them, since she did not know why she was being watched. So they took the child that was preferred by its mother and brought it up at public expense as the first-born; and they called it Eurysthenes, and the other Procles.

8They say that when these two brothers grew to manhood, they feuded with each other as long as they lived, and their descendants continued to do likewise.

Chapter 53

1The Lacedaemonians are the only Greeks who tell this story. But in what I write I follow the Greek report, and hold that the Greeks correctly recount these kings of the Dorians as far back as Perseus son of Danae—they make no mention of the god —and prove these kings to be Greek; for by that time they had come to be classified as Greeks.

2I said as far back as Perseus, and I took the matter no further than that, because no one is named as the mortal father of Perseus, as Amphitryon is named father of Heracles. So I used correct reasoning when I said that the Greek record is correct as far back as 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.

Chapter 54

1Thus 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 forebears had not been; the Persians say that the ancestors of Acrisius had no bond of kinship with Perseus, and they indeed were, as the Greeks say, Egyptians.

Chapter 55

1Enough of these matters. Why and for what achievements these men, being Egyptian, won the kingship of the Dorians has been told by others, so I will let it go, and will make mention of matters which others have not touched.

Chapter 56

1These privileges the Spartans have given to their kings: two priesthoods, of Zeus called Lacedaemon and of Zeus of Heaven; they wage war against whatever land they wish, and no Spartan can hinder them in this on peril of being put under a curse; when the armies go forth the kings go out first and return last; one hundred chosen men guard them in their campaigns; they sacrifice as many sheep and goats as they wish at the start of their expeditions, and take the hides and backs of all sacrificed beasts.

Chapter 57

1Such are their rights in war; in peace the powers given them are as follows: at all public sacrifices the kings first sit down to the banquet and are first served, each of them receiving a portion double of what is given to the rest of the company; they make the first libations, and the hides of the sacrificed beasts are theirs.

2At each new moon and each seventh day of the first part of the month, a full-grown victim for Apollo's temple, a bushel of barley-meal, and a Laconian quart of wine are given to each from the public store, and chief seats are set apart for them at the games.

3It is their right to appoint whatever citizens they wish to be protectors of foreigners; and they each choose two Pythians. (The Pythians are the ambassadors to Delphi and eat with the kings at the public expense.) If the kings do not come to the public dinner, two choenixes of barley-meal and half a pint of wine are sent to their houses, but when they come, they receive a double share of everything; and the same honor shall be theirs when they are invited by private citizens to dinner.

4They keep all oracles that are given, though the Pythians also know them. The kings alone judge cases concerning the rightful possessor of an unwedded heiress, if her father has not betrothed her, and cases concerning public roads.

5If a man desires to adopt a son, it is done in the presence of the kings. They sit with the twenty-eight elders in council; if they do not come, the elders most closely related to them hold the king's privilege, giving two votes over and above the third which is their own.

Chapter 58

1The kings are granted these rights from the Spartan commonwealth while they live; when they die, their rights are as follows: Horsemen proclaim their death in all parts of Laconia, and in the city women go about beating on cauldrons. When this happens, two free persons from each house, a man and a woman, are required to wear mourning, or incur heavy penalties if they fail to do so.

2The Lacedaemonians have the same custom at the deaths of their kings as the foreigners in Asia; most foreigners use the same custom at their kings' deaths. When a king of the Lacedaemonians dies, a fixed number of their subject neighbors must come to the funeral from all Lacedaemon, besides the Spartans.

3When these and the helots and the Spartans themselves have assembled in one place to the number of many thousands, together with the women, they zealously beat their foreheads and make long and loud lamentation, calling that king that is most recently dead the best of all their kings. Whenever a king dies in war, they make an image of him and carry it out on a well-spread bier. For ten days after the burial there are no assemblies or elections, and they mourn during these days.

Chapter 59

1The Lacedaemonians also resemble the Persians in this: when one king is dead and another takes his office, this successor releases from debt any Spartan who owes a debt to the king or to the commonwealth. Among the Persians the king at the beginning of his reign forgives all cities their arrears of tribute.

Chapter 60

1The Lacedaemonians resemble 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. Such is the way of these matters.

Chapter 61

1While Cleomenes was in Aegina working for the common good of Hellas, Demaratus slandered him, not out of care for the Aeginetans, but out of jealousy and envy. Once Cleomenes returned home from Aegina, he planned to remove Demaratus from his kingship, using the following affair as a pretext against him: Ariston, king of Sparta, had married twice but had no children.

2He did not admit that he himself was responsible, so he married a third time. This is how it came about: he had among the Spartans a friend to whom he was especially attached. This man's wife was by far the most beautiful woman in Sparta, but she who was now most beautiful had once been the ugliest.

3Her nurse considered her inferior looks and how she was of wealthy people yet unattractive, and, seeing how the parents felt her appearance to be a great misfortune, she contrived to carry the child every day to the sacred precinct of Helen, which is in the place called Therapne, beyond the sacred precinct of Phoebus. Every time the nurse carried the child there, she set her beside the image and beseeched the goddess to release the child from her ugliness.

4Once as she was leaving the sacred precinct, it is said that a woman appeared to her and asked her what she was carrying in her arms. The nurse said she was carrying a child and the woman bade her show it to her, but she refused, saying that the parents had forbidden her to show it to anyone. But the woman strongly bade her show it to her,

5and when the nurse saw how important it was to her, she showed her the child. The woman stroked the child's head and said that she would be the most beautiful woman in all Sparta. From that day her looks changed, and when she reached the time for marriage, Agetus son of Alcidas married her. This man was Ariston's friend.

Chapter 62

1So love for this woman pricked Ariston, and he contrived as follows: He promised to give to his comrade any one thing out of all he owned, whatever Agetus might choose, and he bade his comrade make him the same promise. Agetus had no fear about his wife, seeing that Ariston was already married, so he agreed and they took oaths on these terms.

2Ariston gave Agetus whatever it was that he chose out of all his treasures, and then, seeking equal recompense from him, tried to take the wife of his comrade. Agetus said that he had agreed to anything but that, but he was forced by his oath and by the deceitful trick to let his wife be taken.

Chapter 63

1In this way Ariston married his third wife, after divorcing the second one. But his new wife gave birth to Demaratus too soon, before ten lunar months had passed.

2When one of his servants announced to him as he sat in council with the ephors that he had a son, Ariston, knowing the time of the marriage, counted up the months on his fingers and swore on oath, “It's not mine.” The ephors heard this but did not make anything of it. When the boy grew up, Ariston regretted having said that, for he firmly believed Demaratus to be his own son.

3He named him Demaratus because before his birth all the Spartan populace had prayed that Ariston, the man most highly esteemed out of all the kings of Sparta, might have a son. Thus he was named Demaratus, which means “answer to the people's prayer.”

Chapter 64

1Time passed and Ariston died, so Demaratus held the kingship. But it seems that these matters had to become known and cause Demaratus to lose his kingship. He had already fallen out with Cleomenes when he had brought the army back from Eleusis, and now they were even more at odds when Cleomenes crossed over after the Aeginetans who were Medizing.

Chapter 65

1Cleomenes wanted revenge, so he made a deal with Leotychides son of Menares son of Agis, of the same family as Demaratus. The deal was that Leotychides would go with Cleomenes against the Aeginetans if he became king.

2Leotychides had already become strongly hostile to Demaratus for the following reason: Leotychides was betrothed to Percalus, daughter of Demarmenus, but Demaratus plotted and robbed him of his marriage, stealing Percalus and marrying her first.

3From this affair Leotychides was hostile toward Demaratus, so at Cleomenes' instigation he took an oath against him, saying that he was not king of the Spartans by right, since he was not Ariston's son. After making this oath, he prosecuted him, recalling that utterance which Ariston had made when the servant told him he had a son, and he counted up the months and swore that it was not his.

4Taking his stand on this remark, Leotychides declared that Demaratus was not Ariston's son and that he was not rightly king of Sparta, bringing as witnesses the ephors who had been sitting beside Ariston and heard him say this.

Chapter 66

1Disputes arose over it, so the Spartans resolved to ask the oracle at Delphi if Demaratus was the son of Ariston.

2At Cleomenes' instigation this was revealed to the Pythia. He had won over a man of great influence among the Delphians, Cobon son of Aristophantus, and Cobon persuaded the priestess, Periallus, to say what Cleomenes wanted her to.

3When the ambassadors asked if Demaratus was the son of Ariston, the Pythia gave judgment that he was not. All this came to light later; Cobon was exiled from Delphi, and Periallus was deposed from her position.

Chapter 67

1So it was concerning Demaratus' loss of the kingship, and from Sparta he went into exile among the Medes because of the following reproach: after he was deposed from the kingship, he was elected to office.

2When it was the time of the Gymnopaidia, Leotychides, now king in his place, saw him in the audience and, as a joke and an insult, sent a messenger to him to ask what it was like to hold office after being king.

3He was grieved by the question and said that he had experience of both, while Leotychides did not, and that this question would be the beginning for Sparta of either immense evil or immense good fortune. He said this, covered his head, left the theater, and went home, where he immediately made preparations and sacrificed an ox to Zeus. Then he summoned his mother.

Chapter 68

1When she came in, he put some of the entrails in her hands and entreated her, saying, “Mother, appealing to Zeus of the household and to all the other gods, I beseech you to tell me the truth. Who is my father? Tell me truly.

2Leotychides said in the disputes that you were already pregnant by your former husband when you came to Ariston. Others say more foolishly that you approached to one of the servants, the ass-keeper, and that I am his son.

3I adjure you by the gods to speak what is true. If you have done anything of what they say, you are not the only one; you are in company with many women. There is much talk at Sparta that Ariston did not have child-bearing seed in him, or his former wives would have given him children.”

Chapter 69

1Thus he spoke. His mother answered, “My son, since you adjure me by entreaties to speak the truth, I will speak out to you all that is true. On the third night after Ariston brought me to his house, a phantom resembling him came to me. It came and lay with me and then put on me the garlands which it had.

2It went away, and when Ariston came in later and saw me with the garlands, he asked who gave them to me. I said he did, but he denied it. I swore an oath that just a little while before he had come in and lain with me and given me the garlands, and I said it was not good of him to deny it.

3When he saw me swearing, he perceived that this was some divine affair. For the garlands had clearly come from the hero's precinct which is established at the courtyard doors, which they call the precinct of Astrabacus, and the seers responded that this was the same hero who had come to me. Thus, my son, you have all you want to know.

4Either you are from this hero and Astrabacus the hero is your father, or Ariston is, for I conceived you that night. As for how your enemies chiefly attack you, saying that Ariston himself, when your birth was announced, denied in front of a large audience that you were his because the ten months had not yet been completed, he spoke an idle word, out of ignorance of such things.

5Some women give birth after nine months or seven months; not all complete the ten months. I gave birth to you, my son, after seven months. A little later Ariston himself recognized that he had blurted out that speech because of foolishness. Do not believe other stories about your manner of birth. You have heard the whole truth. May the wife of Leotychides himself, and the wives of the others who say these things, give birth to children fathered by ass-keepers.”

Chapter 70

1Thus his mother spoke. After learning what he desired, Demaratus took provisions and travelled to Elis, pretending that he was going to Delphi to inquire of the oracle. But the Lacedaemonians suspected that he planned to escape and went in pursuit.

2Demaratus somehow went across to Zacynthus from Elis before them; the Lacedaemonians crossed over after him and laid hands on him, carrying off his servants. But the Zacynthians refused to give him up, and later he crossed from there to Asia and went to king Darius, who received him in grand style and gave him lands and cities.

3So Demaratus reached Asia through such chances, a man who had gained much renown in Lacedaemon by his many achievements and his wisdom, and by conferring on the state the victory in a chariot-race he had won at Olympia; he was the only king of Sparta who did this.

Chapter 71

1Leutychides son of Menares succeeded to the kingship after Demaratus was deposed. A son was born to him, Zeuxidemus, called by some of the Spartans Cyniscus. This Zeuxidemus never became king of Sparta, for he died before Leutychides, leaving his son Archidemus.

2After the loss of Zeuxidemus, Leutychides married a second wife, Eurydame, sister of Menius and daughter of Diactorides; by her he had no male offspring, but a daughter, Lampito, to whom Archidemus son of Zeuxidemus was married by Leutychides.

Chapter 72

1But Leutychides also did not come to old age in Sparta; he was punished for his dealings with Demaratus as I will show. He led a Lacedaemonian army to Thessaly, and when he could have subdued all the country he took a great bribe.

2After being caught in the 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 was destroyed. He went into exile at Tegea and died in that country.

Chapter 73

1This happened long afterwards. When Cleomenes' dealings with Demaratus came off successfully, he immediately took Leutychides with him and went to punish the Aeginetans, with whom he was terribly angry because of their insulting behavior.

2When the Aeginetans saw that both kings had come after them, they now deemed it best to offer no further resistance; the kings chose ten men of Aegina who were most honored for wealth and lineage, among them Crius son of Polycritus and Casambus son of Aristocrates, the two most powerful men in Aegina; they carried them to Attica and gave them into the keeping of the Athenians, the bitterest foes of the Aeginetans.

Chapter 74

1Later Cleomenes' treacherous plot against Demaratus became known; he was seized with fear of the Spartans and secretly fled to Thessaly. From there he came to Arcadia and stirred up disorder, uniting the Arcadians against Sparta; among his methods of binding them by oath to follow him wherever he led was his zeal to bring the chief men of Arcadia to the city of Nonacris and make them swear by the water of the Styx.

2Near this city is said to be the Arcadian water of the Styx, and this is its nature: it is a stream of small appearance, dropping from a cliff into a pool; a wall of stones runs round the pool. Nonacris, where this spring rises, is a city of Arcadia near Pheneus.

Chapter 75

1When the Lacedaemonians learned that Cleomenes was doing this, they took fright and brought him back to Sparta to rule on the same terms as before. Cleomenes had already been not entirely in his right mind, and on his return from exile a mad sickness fell upon him: any Spartan that he happened to meet he would hit in the face with his staff.

2For doing this, and because he was out of his mind, his relatives bound him in the stocks. When he was in the stocks and saw that his guard was left alone, he demanded a dagger; the guard at first refused to give it, but Cleomenes threatened what he would do to him when he was freed, until the guard, who was a helot, was frightened by the threats and gave him the dagger.

3Cleomenes took the weapon and set about slashing himself from his shins upwards; from the shin to the thigh he cut his flesh lengthways, then from the thigh to the hip and the sides, until he reached the belly, and cut it into strips; thus he died, as most of the Greeks say, because he persuaded the Pythian priestess to tell the tale of Demaratus. The Athenians alone say it was because he invaded Eleusis and laid waste the precinct of the gods. The Argives say it was because when Argives had taken refuge after the battle in their temple of Argus he brought them out and cut them down, then paid no heed to the sacred grove and set it on fire.

Chapter 76

1As Cleomenes was seeking divination at Delphi, the oracle responded that he would take Argos. When he came with Spartans to the river Erasinus, which is said to flow from the Stymphalian lake (this lake 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 offered sacrifices to it.

2The omens were in no way favorable for his crossing, so he said that he honored the Erasinus for not betraying its countrymen, but even so the Argives would not go unscathed. Then he withdrew 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 to Nauplia.

Chapter 77

1The Argives heard of this and came to the coast to do battle with him. When they had come near Tiryns and were at the place called Hesipeia, they encamped opposite the Lacedaemonians, leaving only a little space between the armies. There the Argives had no fear of fair fighting, but rather of being captured by a trick.

2This was the affair referred to by that oracle which the Pythian priestess gave to the Argives and Milesians in common, which ran thus: When the female defeats the male And drives him away, winning glory in Argos, She will make many Argive women tear their cheeks. As someday one of men to come will say: The dread thrice-coiled serpent died tamed by the spear.

3All these things coming together spread fear among the Argives. Therefore they resolved to defend themselves by making use of the enemies' herald, and they performed their resolve in this way: whenever the Spartan herald signalled anything to the Lacedaemonians, the Argives did the same thing.

Chapter 78

1When Cleomenes saw that the Argives did whatever was signalled by his herald, he commanded that when the herald cried the signal for breakfast, they should then put on their armor and attack the Argives.

2The Lacedaemonians performed this command, and when they assaulted the Argives they caught them at breakfast in obedience to the herald's signal; they killed many of them, and far more fled for refuge into the grove of Argus, which the Lacedaemonians encamped around and guarded.

Chapter 79

1Then Cleomenes' plan was this: He had with him some deserters from whom he learned the names, then he sent a herald calling by name the Argives that were shut up in the sacred precinct and inviting them to come out, saying that he had their ransom. (Among the Peloponnesians there is a fixed ransom of two minae to be paid for every prisoner.) So Cleomenes invited about fifty Argives to come out one after another and murdered them.

2Somehow the rest of the men in the temple precinct did not know this was happening, for the grove was thick and those inside could not see how those outside were faring, until one of them climbed a tree and saw what was being done. Thereafter they would not come out at the herald's call.

Chapter 80

1Then 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 belonged; the man said it was of Argos. When he heard that, he groaned aloud, “Apollo, god of oracles, you have gravely deceived me by saying that I would take Argos; this, I guess, is the fulfillment of that prophecy.”

Chapter 81

1Then Cleomenes sent most of his army back to Sparta, while he himself took a thousand of the best warriors and went to the temple of Hera to sacrifice. When he wished to sacrifice at the altar the priest forbade him, saying that it was not holy for a stranger to sacrifice there. Cleomenes ordered the helots to carry the priest away from the altar and whip him, and he performed the sacrifice. After doing this, he returned to Sparta.

Chapter 82

1But after his return his enemies brought him before the ephors, saying that he had been bribed not to take Argos when he might have easily taken it. 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; therefore he had thought it best not to make any attempt on the city before he had learned from the sacrifices whether the god would deliver it to him or withstand him;

2when he was taking omens in Hera's temple a flame of fire had shone forth from the breast of the image, and so he learned the truth of the matter, that he would not take Argos. If the flame had 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 the god willed to happen. This plea of his seemed to the Spartans to be credible and reasonable, and he far outdistanced the pursuit of his accusers.

Chapter 83

1But Argos was so wholly deprived of men that their slaves took possession of all affairs, ruling and governing until the sons of the slain men grew up. Then they recovered Argos for themselves and cast out the slaves; when they were driven out, the slaves took possession of Tiryns by force.

2For a while they were at peace with each other; but then there came to the slaves a prophet, Cleander, a man of Phigalea in Arcadia by birth; he persuaded the slaves to attack their masters. From that time there was a long-lasting war between them, until with difficulty the Argives got the upper hand.

Chapter 84

1The Argives say this was the reason Cleomenes went mad and met an evil end; the Spartans themselves say that Cleomenes' madness arose from no divine agent, but that by consorting with Scythians he became a drinker of strong wine, and the madness came from this.

2The nomadic Scythians, after Darius had invaded their land, were eager for revenge, so they sent to Sparta and made an alliance. They agreed that the Scythians would attempt to invade Media by way of the river Phasis, and they urged the Spartans to set out and march inland from Ephesus and meet the Scythians.

3They say that when the Scythians had come for this purpose, Cleomenes kept rather close company with them, and by consorting with them more than was fitting he learned from them to drink strong wine. The Spartans consider him to have gone mad from this. Ever since, as they themselves say, whenever they desire a strong drink they 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.

Chapter 85

1When the Aeginetans heard that Cleomenes was dead, they sent messengers to Sparta to cry out against Leutychides concerning 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.

2But 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 are you planning to do? To have the king of the Spartans given up to you by the citizens and carry him away? If the Spartans have now so judged in their anger, see that they do not bring utter destruction upon your country if you do this.”

3The Aeginetans heard this and refrained from carrying the king away, and made an agreement that Leutychides should go with them to Athens and restore the men to the Aeginetans.

Chapter 86

1When Leutychides came to Athens and demanded back the hostages, the Athenians were unwilling to give them back and made excuses, saying that two kings had given them the trust and they deemed it wrong to restore it to one without the other.

Chapter 86A

1When the Athenians refused to give them back, Leutychides said to them: “Men of Athens, do whichever thing you desire. If you give them back, you do righteously; if you do not give them back, you do the opposite. But I want to tell you the story of what happened at Sparta in the matter of a trust.

2We Spartans say that three generations ago there was at Lacedaemon one Glaucus, the son of Epicydes. We say that this man added to his other excellences a reputation for justice above all men who at that time dwelt in Lacedaemon.

3But we say that at the fitting time this befell him: There came to Sparta a certain man of Miletus, who desired to have a talk with Glaucus and made him this offer: ‘I am a Milesian, and I have come to have the benefit of your justice, Glaucus.

4Since there is much talk about your justice throughout all the rest of Hellas, and even in Ionia, I considered the fact that Ionia is always in danger while the Peloponnese is securely established, and nowhere in Ionia are the same men seen continuing in possession of wealth.

5Considering and taking counsel concerning these matters, I resolved to turn half of my property into silver and deposit it with you, being well assured that it will lie safe for me in your keeping. Accept the money for me, and take and keep these tokens; restore the money to whoever comes with the same tokens and demands it back.’

Chapter 86B

1Thus spoke the stranger who had come from Miletus, and Glaucus received the trust according to the agreement. After a long time had passed, the sons of the man who had deposited the money came to Sparta; they spoke with Glaucus, showing him the tokens and demanding the money back.

2But Glaucus put them off and answered in turn: ‘I do not remember the matter, and nothing of what you say carries my mind back. Let me think; I wish to do all that is just. If I took the money, I will duly restore it; if I never took it at all, I will deal with you according to the customs of the Greeks. I will put off making my decision for you until the fourth month from this day.’

Chapter 86C

1So the Milesians went away in sorrow, as men robbed of their possessions; but Glaucus journeyed to Delphi to question the oracle. When he asked the oracle whether he should seize the money under oath, the Pythian priestess threatened him in these verses:

2Glaucus son of Epicydes, it is more profitable now To prevail by your oath and seize the money. Swear, for death awaits even the man who swears true. But Oath has a son, nameless; he is without hands Or feet, but he pursues swiftly, until he catches And destroys all the family and the entire house. The line of a man who swears true is better later on. When Glaucus heard this, he entreated the god to pardon him for what he had said. The priestess answered that to tempt the god and to do the deed had the same effect.

Chapter 86D

1So Glaucus summoned the Milesian strangers and gave them back their money. But hear now, Athenians, why I began to tell you this story: there is today no descendant of Glaucus, nor any household that bears Glaucus' name; he has been utterly rooted out of Sparta. So good is it not even to think anything concerning a trust except giving it back on demand!”

Chapter 87

1Thus spoke Leutychides; but even so the Athenians would not listen to him, and he departed. The Aeginetans, before paying the penalty for the violence they had done to the Athenians to please the Thebans, acted as follows: blaming the Athenians and deeming themselves wronged, they prepared to take vengeance on the Athenians, who were now celebrating a quinquennial festival at Sunium. The Aeginetans set an ambush and captured the sacred ship, with many leading Athenians on board, and put in prison the men they seized.

Chapter 88

1Suffering this from the Aeginetans, the Athenians no longer put off devising all mischief against Aegina. There was a notable man in Aegina, Nicodromus son of Cnoethus by name, who held a grudge against the Aeginetans for his former banishment from the island. When he learned that the Athenians were now set upon harming the Aeginetans, he agreed to betray Aegina to the Athenians, naming the day when he would make the attempt and when they must come to aid him.

Chapter 89

1Later Nicodromus, according to his agreement with the Athenians, took possession of the Old City, as it was called; but the Athenians were not there at the right time, for they did not have ships worthy to fight the Aeginetans. While they were asking the Corinthians to lend them ships, the affair was ruined. The Corinthians at that time were their close friends, so they consented to the Athenians' plea and gave them twenty ships, at a price of five drachmas apiece; 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, but they came a day later than the time agreed.

Chapter 90

1When the Athenians did not show up at the right time, Nicodromus took ship and escaped from Aegina. Other Aeginetans followed him, and the Athenians gave them Sunium to dwell in; setting out from there they harried the Aeginetans of the island.

Chapter 91

1But this happened later. The rich men of Aegina gained mastery over the people, who had risen against them with Nicodromus, then made them captive and led them out to be killed. Because of this a curse fell upon them, which despite all their efforts they could not get rid of by sacrifice, and they were driven out of their island before the goddess would be merciful to them.

2They had taken seven hundred of the people alive; 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. They could not tear him away by force, so they cut off his hands and carried him off, and those hands were left clinging fast to the door-handles.

Chapter 92

1Thus the Aeginetans dealt with each other. When the Athenians came, they fought them at sea with seventy ships; the Aeginetans were defeated in the sea-fight and asked for help from the Argives, as they had done before. But this time the Argives would not aid them, holding a grudge because ships of Aegina had been taken by force by Cleomenes and put in on the Argolid coast, where their crews landed with the Lacedaemonians; men from ships of Sicyon also took part in the same invasion.

2The Argives laid on them the payment of a fine of a thousand talents, five hundred each. The Sicyonians confessed that they had done wrong and agreed to go free with a payment of a hundred talents, but the Aeginetans made no such confession and remained stubborn. For this cause the Argive state sent no one to aid them at their request, but about a thousand came voluntarily, led by a captain whose name was Eurybates, a man who practiced the pentathlon.

3Most of these never returned, meeting their death at the hands of the Athenians in Aegina; Eurybates himself, their captain, fought in single combat and thus killed three men, but was slain by the fourth, Sophanes the son of Deceles.

Chapter 93

1The Aeginetan ships found the Athenians in disarray and attacked and overcame them, taking four Athenian ships and their crews.

Chapter 94

1Thus Athens and Aegina grappled together in war. The Persian was going about his own business, for his servant was constantly reminding him to remember the Athenians, and the Pisistratidae were at his elbow maligning the Athenians; moreover, Darius desired to take this pretext for subduing all the men of Hellas who had not given him earth and water.

2He dismissed from command Mardonius, who had fared so badly on his expedition, and appointed other generals to lead his armies against Athens and Eretria, Datis, a Mede by birth, and his own nephew Artaphrenes son of Artaphrenes; the order he gave them at their departure was to enslave Athens and Eretria and bring the slaves into his presence.

Chapter 95

1When these appointed generals on their way from the king reached the Aleian plain in Cilicia, bringing with them a great and well-furnished army, they camped there and were overtaken by all the fleet that was assigned to each; there also arrived the transports for horses, which in the previous year Darius had bidden his tributary subjects to make ready.

2Having loaded the horses into these, and embarked the land army in the ships, they sailed to Ionia with six hundred triremes. From there 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 around Athos, seeing that in the previous year they had come to great disaster by holding their course that way; moreover, Naxos was still unconquered and constrained them.

Chapter 96

1When they approached Naxos from the Icarian sea and came to land (for it was Naxos which the Persians intended to attack first), the Naxians, remembering what had happened before, fled away to the mountains instead of waiting for them. The Persians enslaved all of them that they caught, and burnt their temples and their city. After doing this, they set sail for the other islands.

Chapter 97

1While they did this, the Delians also left Delos and fled away to Tenos. As his expedition was sailing landwards, Datis went on ahead and bade his fleet anchor not off Delos, but across the water off Rhenaea. Learning where the Delians were, he sent a herald to them with this proclamation:

2“Holy men, why have you fled away, and so misjudged my intent? It is my own desire, and the king's command to me, to do no harm to the land where the two gods were born, neither to the land itself nor to its inhabitants. So return now to your homes and dwell on your island.” He made this proclamation to the Delians, and then piled up three hundred talents of frankincense on the altar and burnt it.

Chapter 98

1After doing this, Datis sailed with his army against Eretria first, taking with him Ionians and Aeolians; and after he had put out from there, Delos was shaken by an earthquake, 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.

2For in three generations, that is, in the time of Darius son of Hystaspes and Xerxes son of Darius and Artaxerxes son of Xerxes, more ills happened to Hellas than in twenty generations before Darius; some coming from the Persians, some from the wars for preeminence among the chief of the nations themselves.

3Thus it was no marvel that there should be an earthquake in Delos when there had been none before. Also there was an oracle concerning Delos, where it was written: I will shake Delos, though unshaken before. In the Greek language these names have the following meanings: Darius is the Doer, Xerxes the Warrior, Artaxerxes the Great Warrior. The Greeks would rightly call the kings thus in their language.

Chapter 99

1Launching out to sea from Delos, the foreigners put in at the islands and gathered an army from there, taking the sons of the islanders for hostages.

2When in their voyage about the islands they put in at Carystos, the Carystians gave them no hostages and refused to join them against neighboring cities, meaning Eretria and Athens; the Persians besieged them and laid waste their land, until the Carystians too came over to their side.

Chapter 100

1When the Eretrians learned that the Persian expedition was sailing to attack them, they asked for help from the Athenians. The Athenians did not refuse the aid, but gave them for defenders the four thousand tenant farmers who held the land of the Chalcidian horse-breeders. But it seems that all the plans of the Eretrians were unsound; they sent to the Athenians for aid, but their counsels were divided.

2Some of them planned to leave the city and make for the heights of Euboea; others plotted treason in hope of winning advantages from the Persians.

3When Aeschines son of Nothon, a leading man in Eretria, learned of both designs, he told the Athenians who had come how matters stood, and asked them to depart to their own country so they would not perish like the rest. The Athenians followed Aeschines' advice.

Chapter 101

1So they saved themselves by crossing over to Oropus; the Persians sailed holding their course for Temenos and Choereae and Aegilea, all in Eretrian territory. Landing at these places, they immediately unloaded their horses and made preparation to attack their enemies.

2The Eretrians had no intention of coming out and fighting; all their care was to guard their walls if they could, since it was the prevailing counsel not to leave the city. The walls were strongly 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.

3They 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.

Chapter 102

1After subduing Eretria, the Persians waited a few days and then sailed away to the land of Attica, pressing ahead in expectation of doing to the Athenians exactly what they had done to the Eretrians. Marathon was the place in Attica most suitable for riding horses and closest to Eretria, so Hippias son of Pisistratus led them there.

Chapter 103

1When the Athenians learned this, they too marched out to Marathon, with ten generals leading them. The tenth was Miltiades, and it had befallen his father Cimon son of Stesagoras to be banished from Athens by Pisistratus son of Hippocrates.

2While in exile he happened to take the Olympic prize in the four-horse chariot, and by taking this victory he won the same prize as his half-brother Miltiades. At the next Olympic games he won with the same horses but permitted Pisistratus to be proclaimed victor, and by resigning the victory to him he came back from exile to his own property under truce.

3After taking yet another Olympic prize with the same horses, he happened to be murdered by Pisistratus' sons, since Pisistratus was no longer living. They murdered him by placing men in ambush at night near the town-hall. Cimon was buried in front of the city, across the road called “Through the Hollow”, and buried opposite him are the mares who won the three Olympic prizes.

4The mares of Evagoras the Laconian did the same as these, but none others. Stesagoras, the elder of Cimon's sons, was then being brought up with his uncle Miltiades in the Chersonese. The younger was with Cimon at Athens, and he took the name Miltiades from Miltiades the founder of the Chersonese.

Chapter 104

1It was this Miltiades who was now the Athenian general, after coming from the Chersonese and escaping a two-fold death. The Phoenicians pursued him as far as Imbros, considering it of great importance to catch him and bring him to the king.

2He escaped from them, but when he reached his own country and thought he was safe, then his enemies met him. They brought him to court and prosecuted him for tyranny in the Chersonese, but he was acquitted and appointed Athenian general, chosen by the people.

Chapter 105

1While still in the city, the generals first sent to Sparta the herald Philippides, an Athenian and a long-distance runner who made that his calling. As Philippides himself said when he brought the message to the Athenians, when he was in the Parthenian mountain above Tegea he encountered Pan.

2Pan called out Philippides' name and bade him ask the Athenians why they paid him no attention, though he was of goodwill to the Athenians, had often been of service to them, and would be in the future.

3The Athenians believed that these things were true, and when they became prosperous they established a sacred precinct of Pan beneath the Acropolis. Ever since that message they propitiate him with annual sacrifices and a torch-race.

Chapter 106

1This Philippides was in Sparta on the day after leaving the city of Athens, that time when he was sent by the generals and said that Pan had appeared to him. He came to the magistrates and said,

2“Lacedaemonians, the Athenians ask you to come to their aid and not allow the most ancient city among the Hellenes to fall into slavery at the hands of the foreigners. Even now Eretria has been enslaved, and Hellas has become weaker by an important city.”

3He told them what he had been ordered to say, and they resolved to send help to the Athenians, but they could not do this immediately, for they were unwilling to break the law. It was the ninth day of the rising month, and they said that on the ninth they could not go out to war until the moon's circle was full.

Chapter 107

1So they waited for the full moon, while the foreigners were guided to Marathon by Hippias son of Pisistratus. The previous night Hippias had a dream in which he slept with his mother.

2He supposed from the dream that he would return from exile to Athens, recover his rule, and end his days an old man in his own country. Thus he reckoned from the dream. Then as guide he unloaded the slaves from Eretria onto the island of the Styrians called Aegilia, and brought to anchor the ships that had put ashore at Marathon, then marshalled the foreigners who had disembarked onto land.

3As he was tending to this, he happened to sneeze and cough more violently than usual. Since he was an elderly man, most of his teeth were loose, and he lost one of them by the force of his cough. It fell into the sand and he expended much effort in looking for it, but the tooth could not be found.

4He groaned aloud and said to those standing by him: “This land is not ours and we will not be able to subdue it. My tooth holds whatever share of it was mine.”

Chapter 108

1Hippias supposed that the dream had in this way come true. As the Athenians were marshalled in the precinct of Heracles, the Plataeans came to help them in full force. The Plataeans had put themselves under the protection of the Athenians, and the Athenians had undergone many labors on their behalf. This is how they did it:

2when the Plataeans were pressed by the Thebans, they first tried to put themselves under the protection of Cleomenes son of Anaxandrides and the Lacedaemonians, who happened to be there. But they did not accept them, saying, “We live too far away, and our help would be cold comfort to you. You could be enslaved many times over before any of us heard about it.

3We advise you to put yourselves under the protection of the Athenians, since they are your neighbors and not bad men at giving help.” The Lacedaemonians gave this advice not so much out of goodwill toward the Plataeans as wishing to cause trouble for the Athenians with the Boeotians.

4So the Lacedaemonians gave this advice to the Plataeans, who did not disobey it. When the Athenians were making sacrifices to the twelve gods, they sat at the altar as suppliants and put themselves under protection. When the Thebans heard this, they marched against the Plataeans, but the Athenians came to their aid.

5As they were about to join battle, the Corinthians, who happened to be there, prevented them and brought about a reconciliation. Since both sides desired them to arbitrate, they fixed the boundaries of the country on condition that the Thebans leave alone those Boeotians who were unwilling to be enrolled as Boeotian. After rendering this decision, the Corinthians departed. The Boeotians attacked the Athenians as they were leaving but were defeated in battle.

6The Athenians went beyond the boundaries the Corinthians had made for the Plataeans, fixing the Asopus river as the boundary for the Thebans in the direction of Plataea and Hysiae. So the Plataeans had put themselves under the protection of the Athenians in the aforesaid manner, and now came to help at Marathon.

Chapter 109

1The Athenian generals were of divided opinion, some advocating not fighting because they were too few to attack the army of the Medes; others, including Miltiades, advocating fighting.

2Thus they were at odds, and the inferior plan prevailed. An eleventh man had a vote, chosen by lot to be polemarch of Athens, and by ancient custom the Athenians had made his vote of equal weight with the generals. Callimachus of Aphidnae was polemarch at this time. Miltiades approached him and said,

3“Callimachus, it is now in your hands to enslave Athens or make her free, and thereby leave behind for all posterity a memorial such as not even Harmodius and Aristogeiton left. Now the Athenians have come to their greatest danger since they first came into being, and, if we surrender, it is clear what we will suffer when handed over to Hippias. But if the city prevails, it will take first place among Hellenic cities.

4I will tell you how this can happen, and how the deciding voice on these matters has devolved upon you. The ten generals are of divided opinion, some urging to attack, others urging not to.

5If we do not attack now, I expect that great strife will fall upon and shake the spirit of the Athenians, leading them to medize. But if we attack now, before anything unsound corrupts the Athenians, we can win the battle, if the gods are fair.

6All this concerns and depends on you in this way: if you vote with me, your country will be free and your city the first in Hellas. But if you side with those eager to avoid battle, you will have the opposite to all the good things I enumerated.”

Chapter 110

1By saying this Miltiades won over Callimachus. The polemarch's vote was counted in, and the decision to attack was resolved upon. Thereafter the generals who had voted to fight turned the presidency over to Miltiades as each one's day came in turn. He accepted the office but did not make an attack until it was his own day to preside.

Chapter 111

1When the presidency came round to him, he arrayed the Athenians for battle, with the polemarch Callimachus commanding the right wing, since it was then the Athenian custom for the polemarch to hold the right wing. He led, and the other tribes were numbered out in succession next to each other. The Plataeans were marshalled last, holding the left wing.

2Ever since that battle, when the Athenians are conducting sacrifices at the festivals every fourth year, the Athenian herald prays for good things for the Athenians and Plataeans together.

3As the Athenians were marshalled at Marathon, it happened that their line of battle was as long as the line of the Medes. The center, where the line was weakest, was only a few ranks deep, but each wing was strong in numbers.

Chapter 112

1When they had been set in order and the sacrifices were favorable, the Athenians were sent forth and charged the foreigners at a run. The space between the armies was no less than eight stadia.

2The Persians saw them running to attack and prepared to receive them, thinking the Athenians absolutely crazy, since they saw how few of them there were and that they ran up so fast without either cavalry or archers.

3So the foreigners imagined, but when the Athenians all together fell upon the foreigners they fought in a way worthy of record. These are the first Hellenes whom we know of to use running against the enemy. They are also the first to endure looking at Median dress and men wearing it, for up until then just hearing the name of the Medes caused the Hellenes to panic.

Chapter 113

1They fought a long time at Marathon. In the center of the line the foreigners prevailed, where the Persians and Sacae were arrayed. The foreigners prevailed there and broke through in pursuit inland, but on each wing the Athenians and Plataeans prevailed.

2In victory they let the routed foreigners flee, and brought the wings together to fight those who had broken through the center. The Athenians prevailed, then followed the fleeing Persians and struck them down. When they reached the sea they demanded fire and laid hold of the Persian ships.

Chapter 114

1In this labor Callimachus the polemarch was slain, a brave man, and of the generals Stesilaus son of Thrasylaus died. Cynegirus son of Euphorion fell there, his hand cut off with an ax as he grabbed a ship's figurehead. Many other famous Athenians also fell there.

Chapter 115

1In this way the Athenians overpowered seven ships. The foreigners pushed off with the rest, picked up the Eretrian slaves from the island where they had left them, and sailed around Sunium hoping to reach the city before the Athenians. There was an accusation at Athens that they devised this by a plan of the Alcmaeonidae, who were said to have arranged to hold up a shield as a signal once the Persians were in their ships.

Chapter 116

1They sailed around Sunium, but the Athenians marched back to defend the city as fast as their feet could carry them and got there ahead of the foreigners. Coming from the sacred precinct of Heracles in Marathon, they pitched camp in the sacred precinct of Heracles in Cynosarges. The foreigners lay at anchor off Phalerum, the Athenian naval port at that time. After riding anchor there, they sailed their ships back to Asia.

Chapter 117

1In the battle at Marathon about six thousand four hundred men of the foreigners were killed, and one hundred and ninety-two Athenians; that many fell on each side.

2The following marvel happened there: an Athenian, Epizelus son of Couphagoras, was fighting as a brave man in the battle when he was deprived of his sight, though struck or hit nowhere on his body, and from that time on he spent the rest of his life in blindness.

3I have heard that he tells this story about his misfortune: he saw opposing him a tall armed man, whose beard overshadowed his shield, but the phantom passed him by and killed the man next to him. I learned by inquiry that this is the story Epizelus tells.

Chapter 118

1Datis journeyed with his army to Asia, and when he arrived at Myconos he saw a vision in his sleep. What that vision was is not told, but as soon as day broke Datis made a search of his ships. He found in a Phoenician ship a gilded image of Apollo, and asked where this plunder had been taken. Learning from what temple it had come, he sailed in his own ship to Delos.

2The Delians had now returned to their island, and Datis set the image in the temple, instructing the Delians to carry it away to Theban Delium, on the coast opposite Chalcis.

3Datis gave this order and sailed away, but the Delians never carried that statue away; twenty years later the Thebans brought it to Delium by command of an oracle.

Chapter 119

1When Datis and Artaphrenes reached Asia in their voyage, they carried the enslaved Eretrians inland to Susa.

2Before the Eretrians were taken captive, king Darius had been terribly angry with them for doing him unprovoked wrong; but when he saw them brought before him and subject to him, he did them no harm, but settled them in a domain of his own called Ardericca in the Cissian land; this place is two hundred and ten stadia distant from Susa, and forty from the well that is of three kinds.

3Asphalt and salt and oil are drawn from it in the following way: a windlass is used in the drawing, with half a skin tied to it in place of a bucket; this is dipped into the well and then poured into a tank; then what is drawn is poured into another tank and goes three ways: the asphalt and the salt congeal immediately; the oil, which the Persians call rhadinace, is dark and evil-smelling.

4There king Darius settled the Eretrians, and they dwelt in that place until my time, keeping their ancient language. Such was the fate of the Eretrians.

Chapter 120

1After the full moon two thousand Lacedaemonians came to Athens, making such great haste to reach it that they were in Attica on the third day after leaving Sparta. Although they came too late for the battle, they desired to see the Medes, so they went to Marathon and saw them. Then they departed again, praising the Athenians and their achievement.

Chapter 121

1It is a wonder to me, and I do not believe the story, that the Alcmeonidae would ever have agreed to hold up a shield as a sign for the Persians out of a desire to make Athens subject to foreigners and to Hippias; for it is plain to see that they were tyrant-haters as much as Callias (son of Phaenippus and father of Hipponicus), or even more so.

2Callias was the only Athenian who dared to buy Pisistratus' possessions when they were put up for sale by the state after Pisistratus' banishment from Athens; and he devised other acts of bitter hatred against him.

Chapter 122

1[This Callias is worthy of all men's remembrance for many reasons: first, because he so excellently freed his country, as I have said; second, for what he did at Olympia, where he won a horserace, and was second in a four-horse chariot, after already winning a Pythian prize, and was the cynosure of all Hellas for the lavishness of his spending;

2and third, for his behavior regarding his three daughters. When they were of marriageable age, he gave them a most splendid gift and one very pleasant to them, promising that each would wed that man whom she chose for herself from all the Athenians.]

Chapter 123

1The Alcmeonidae were tyrant-haters as much as Callias, or not less so. Therefore I find it a strange and unbelievable accusation that they of all men should have held up a shield; at all times they shunned tyrants, and it was by their contrivance that the sons of Pisistratus were deposed from their tyranny.

2Thus in my judgment it was they who freed Athens much more than did Harmodius and Aristogeiton. These only enraged the remaining sons of Pisistratus by killing Hipparchus, and did nothing to end the tyranny of the rest of them; but the Alcmeonidae plainly liberated their country, if they truly were the ones who persuaded the Pythian priestess to signify to the Lacedaemonians that they should free Athens, as I have previously shown.

Chapter 124

1Perhaps out of some grudge against the Athenian people they betrayed their country. But there were no others at Athens more esteemed or more honored than they;

2therefore plain reason forbids believing that they of all men could have held up the shield for any such cause. A shield was held up; this cannot be denied, for it happened; but who did it I do not know, and I can say no further.

Chapter 125

1The Alcmeonidae had been men of renown at Athens even in the old days, and from the time of Alcmeon and then Megacles their renown increased.

2When the Lydians from Sardis came from Croesus to the Delphic oracle, Alcmeon son of Megacles worked with them and zealously aided them; when Croesus heard from the Lydians who visited the oracle of Alcmeon's benefits to him, he summoned Alcmeon to Sardis, and there made him a gift of as much gold as he could carry away at one time on his person.

3Considering the nature of the gift, Alcmeon planned and employed this device: he donned a wide tunic, leaving a deep fold in it, and put on the most spacious boots that he could find, then went into the treasury to which they led him.

4Falling upon a heap of gold-dust, first he packed next to his legs as much gold as his boots would contain; then he filled all the fold of his tunic with gold and strewed the dust among the hair of his head, and took more of it into his mouth; when he came out of the treasury, hardly dragging the weight of his boots, he was like anything rather than a human being, with his mouth crammed full and all his body swollen.

5Croesus burst out laughing at the sight and gave him all the gold he already had and that much more again. Thus the family grew very rich; Alcmeon came to keep four-horse chariots and won with them at Olympia.

Chapter 126

1In the next generation Cleisthenes the tyrant of Sicyon raised that house still higher, so that it grew much more famous in Hellas than it had formerly been. Cleisthenes son of Aristonymus son of Myron son of Andreas had one daughter, whose name was Agariste. He desired to wed her to the best man he could find in Hellas.

2It was the time of the Olympian games, and when he was victor there with a four-horse chariot, Cleisthenes made a proclamation that whichever Greek thought himself worthy to be his son-in-law should come on the sixtieth day from then or earlier to Sicyon, and Cleisthenes would make good his promise of marriage in a year from that sixtieth day.

3Then all the Greeks who were proud of themselves and their country came as suitors, and to that end Cleisthenes had them compete in running and wrestling contests.

Chapter 127

1From 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.

2These came from Italy; from the Ionian Gulf, Amphimnestus son of Epistrophus, an Epidamnian; he was from the Ionian Gulf. From Aetolia came Males, the brother of that Titormus who surpassed all the Greeks in strength, and fled from the sight of men to the farthest parts of the Aetolian land.

3From the Peloponnese came Leocedes, son of Phidon the tyrant of Argos, that Phidon who made weights and measures for the Peloponnesians and acted more arrogantly than any other Greek; he drove out the Elean contest-directors and held 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 ever since kept open house for all men; and Onomastus from Elis, son of Agaeus.

4These came from the Peloponnese itself; from Athens Megacles, son of that Alcmeon who visited Croesus, and also Hippocleides son of Tisandrus, who surpassed the Athenians in wealth and looks. From Eretria, which at that time was prosperous, came Lysanias; he was the only man from Euboea. From Thessaly came a Scopad, Diactorides of Crannon; and from the Molossians, Alcon.

Chapter 128

1These were the suitors. When they arrived on the appointed day, Cleisthenes first inquired the country and lineage of each; then he kept them with him for a year, testing their manliness 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 demeanor at the common meal; for as long as he kept them with him, he did everything for them and entertained them with magnificence.

2The suitors that most pleased him were the ones who had come from Athens, and of these Hippocleides son of Tisandrus was judged foremost, both for his manliness and because in ancestry he was related to the Cypselids of Corinth.

Chapter 129

1When the appointed day came for the marriage feast and for Cleisthenes' declaration of whom he had chosen out of them all, Cleisthenes sacrificed a hundred oxen and gave a feast to the suitors and to the whole of Sicyon.

2After dinner the suitors vied with each other in music and in anecdotes for all to hear. As they sat late drinking, Hippocleides, now far outdoing the rest, ordered the flute-player to play him a dance-tune; the flute-player obeyed and he began to dance. I suppose he pleased himself with his dancing, but Cleisthenes saw the whole business with much disfavor.

3Hippocleides then stopped for a while and ordered a table to be brought in; when the table arrived, he danced Laconian figures on it first, and then Attic; last of all he rested his head on the table and made gestures with his legs in the air.

4Now Cleisthenes at the first and the second bout of dancing could no more bear to think of Hippocleides as his son-in-law, because of his dancing and his shamelessness, but he had held himself in check, not wanting to explode at Hippocleides; but when he saw him making gestures with his legs, he could no longer keep silence and said, “son of Tisandrus, you have danced away your marriage.” Hippocleides said in answer, “It does not matter to Hippocleides!” Since then this is proverbial.

Chapter 130

1Then Cleisthenes bade them all be silent and spoke to the company at large: “Suitors for my daughter's hand, I thank you one and all; if it were possible I would grant each of you his wish, neither choosing out one to set him above another nor disparaging the rest.

2But since I have but one maiden 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, by the laws of the Athenians.” Megacles accepted the betrothal, and Cleisthenes brought the marriage to pass.

Chapter 131

1Such is the tale of the choice among the suitors; and thus the fame of the Alcmeonidae resounded throughout Hellas. From this marriage was born that Cleisthenes, named after his mother's father from Sicyon, who gave the Athenians their tribes and their democracy;

2he and Hippocrates were born to Megacles; Hippocrates was father of another Megacles and another Agariste, called after Agariste who was Cleisthenes' daughter. She was married to Xanthippus son of Ariphron, and when she was pregnant she saw in her sleep a vision in which she thought she gave birth to a lion. In a few days she bore Xanthippus a son, Pericles.

Chapter 132

1After the Persian disaster at Marathon, the reputation of Miltiades, already great at Athens, very much increased. He asked the Athenians for seventy ships, an army, and money, not revealing against what country he would lead them, but saying that he would make them rich if they followed him; he would bring them to a country from which they could easily carry away an abundance of gold; so he said when he asked for the ships. The Athenians were induced by these promises and granted his request.

Chapter 133

1Miltiades 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 of his argument, but he had a grudge against the Parians because Lysagoras son of Tisias, a man of Parian descent, had slandered him to Hydarnes the Persian.

2When he reached his voyage's destination, Miltiades with his army drove the Parians inside their walls and besieged them; he sent in a herald and demanded a hundred talents, saying that if they did not give it to him, his army would not return home before it had stormed their city.

3The Parians had no intention of giving Miltiades any money at all, and they contrived how to defend their city. They did this by building their wall at night to double its former height where it was most assailable, and also by other devices.

Chapter 134

1All the Greeks tell the same story up to this point; after this the Parians themselves say that the following happened: as Miltiades was in a quandary, a captive woman named Timo, Parian by birth and an under-priestess of the goddesses of the dead, came to talk with him.

2Coming before Miltiades, she advised him, if taking Paros was very important to him, to do whatever she suggested. Then, following her advice, he passed through to the hill in front of the city and jumped over the fence of the precinct of Demeter the Lawgiver, since he was unable to open the door. After leaping over, he went to the shrine, whether to move something that should not be moved, or with some other intention. When he was right at the doors, he was immediately seized with panic and hurried back by the same route; leaping down from the wall he twisted his thigh, but some say he hit his knee.

Chapter 135

1So Miltiades sailed back home in a sorry condition, neither bringing money for the Athenians nor having won Paros; he had besieged the town for twenty-six days and ravaged the island.

2The Parians learned that Timo the under-priestess of the goddesses had been Miltiades' guide and desired to punish her for this. Since they now had respite from the siege, they sent messengers to Delphi to ask if they should put the under-priestess to death for guiding their enemies to the capture of her native country, and for revealing to Miltiades the rites that no male should know.

3But the Pythian priestess forbade them, saying that Timo was not responsible: Miltiades was doomed to make a bad end, and an apparition had led him in these evils.

Chapter 136

1Such was the priestess' reply to the Parians. The Athenians had much to say about Miltiades on his return from Paros, especially Xanthippus son of Ariphron, who prosecuted Miltiades before the people for deceiving the Athenians and called for the death penalty.

2Miltiades was present but could not speak in his own defense, since his thigh was festering; he was laid before the court on a couch, and his friends spoke for him, often mentioning the fight at Marathon and the conquest of Lemnos: how Miltiades had punished the Pelasgians and taken Lemnos, delivering it to the Athenians.

3The people took his side as far as not condemning him to death, but they fined him fifty talents for his wrongdoing. Miltiades later died of gangrene and rot in his thigh, and the fifty talents were paid by his son Cimon.

Chapter 137

1Miltiades son of Cimon took possession of Lemnos in this way: When the Pelasgians were driven out of Attica by the Athenians, whether justly or unjustly I cannot say, beyond what is told; namely, that Hecataeus the son of Hegesandrus declares in his history that the act was unjust;

2for when the Athenians saw the land under Hymettus, formerly theirs, which they had given to the Pelasgians as a dwelling-place in reward for the wall that had once been built around the acropolis—when the Athenians saw how well this place was tilled which previously had been bad and worthless, they were envious 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.

3The Pelasgians set out from their settlement at the foot of Hymettus and wronged the Athenians in this way: Neither the Athenians nor any other Hellenes had servants yet at that time, and their sons and daughters used to go to the Nine Wells for water; and whenever they came, the Pelasgians maltreated them out of mere arrogance and pride. And this was not enough for them; finally they were caught in the act of planning to attack Athens.

4The Athenians were much better men than the Pelasgians, since when they could have killed them, caught plotting as they were, they would not so do, but ordered them out of the country. The Pelasgians departed and took possession of Lemnos, besides other places. This is the Athenian story; the other is told by Hecataeus.

Chapter 138

1These Pelasgians dwelt at that time in Lemnos and desired vengeance on the Athenians. Since they well knew the time of the Athenian festivals, they acquired fifty-oared ships and set an ambush for the Athenian women celebrating the festival of Artemis at Brauron. They seized many of the women, then sailed away with them and brought them to Lemnos to be their concubines.

2These women bore more and more children, and they taught their sons the speech of Attica and Athenian manners. These boys would not mix with the sons of the Pelasgian women; if one of them was beaten by one of the others, they would all run to his aid and help each other; these boys even claimed to rule the others, and were much stronger.

3When the Pelasgians perceived this, they took counsel together; it troubled them much in their deliberations to think what the boys would do when they grew to manhood, if they were resolved to help each other against the sons of the lawful wives and attempted to rule them already.

4Thereupon the Pelasgians resolved to kill the sons of the Attic women; they did this, and then killed the boys' mothers also. From this deed and the earlier one which was done by the women when they killed their own husbands who were Thoas' companions, a “Lemnian crime” has been a proverb in Hellas for any deed of cruelty.

Chapter 139

1But when the Pelasgians had murdered their own sons and women, their land brought forth no fruit, nor did their wives and their flocks and herds bear offspring as before. Crushed by hunger and childlessness, they sent to Delphi to ask for some release from their present ills.

2The Pythian priestess ordered them to pay the Athenians whatever penalty the Athenians themselves judged. The Pelasgians went to Athens and offered to pay the penalty for all their wrongdoing.

3The Athenians set in their town-hall a couch adorned as finely as possible, and placed beside it a table covered with all manner of good things, then ordered the Pelasgians to deliver their land to them in the same condition.

4The Pelasgians answered, “We will deliver it when a ship with a north wind accomplishes the voyage from your country to ours in one day”; they supposed that this was impossible, since Attica is far to the south of Lemnos.

Chapter 140

1At the time that was all. But a great many years later, when the Chersonese on the Hellespont was made subject to Athens, Miltiades son of Cimon accomplished the voyage from Elaeus on the Chersonese to Lemnos with the Etesian winds then constantly blowing; he proclaimed that the Pelasgians must leave their island, reminding them of the oracle which the Pelasgians thought would never be fulfilled.

2The Hephaestians obeyed, but the Myrinaeans would not agree that the Chersonese was Attica and were besieged, until they too submitted. Thus did Miltiades and the Athenians take possession of Lemnos.