The Good Book (51 page)

31. As the fire raged, the Lydians and such Persians as were in the city, enclosed on every side by the flames and finding themselves unable to get out,

32. Came in crowds into the marketplace, and gathered on the banks of the Pactolus.

33. This stream, which comes down from Mount Timolus, and brings the Sardians a quantity of gold dust, runs directly through the marketplace.

34. So the Lydians and Persians, thus crowded together, were forced to stand on their defence;

35. And the Ionians, when they saw the enemy in part resisting, in part pouring towards them in dense crowds, took fright,

36. And retreating to the ridge called Timolus, went back to their ships when night came.

37. As soon as what had happened was known, all the Persians who were stationed west of the Halys drew together, and brought help to the Lydians.

38. Finding when they arrived that the Ionians had already withdrawn, they pursued them, and caught them at Ephesus.

39. The Ionians turned and fought, but suffered greatly the worse, great numbers of the Greeks being slain by the Persians.

40. The Athenians forsook the Ionians after this, and, though Aristagoras sent ambassadors begging further help, they refused.

41. Still the Ionians continued their efforts to wage war against Darius, which their recent conduct towards him now made unavoidable.

42. Sailing into the Hellespont, they brought Byzantium, and all the other cities in that quarter, under their sway.

43. They went to Caria, and won the greater part of the Carians to their side; while Caunus, which had formerly refused to join them, after the burning of Sardis came over likewise.  

44. Also Cyprus; all the Cyprians, excepting those of Amathus, joined the Ionian cause.

 

Chapter 49

  1. When Darius heard of the burning of Sardis by the Athenians and Ionians,

  2. And at the same time learnt that the author of the league was Aristagoras the Milesian, he no sooner understood what had happened,

  3. Than, laying aside all thought of the Ionians, who would, he was sure, pay dear for their rebellion, he asked, ‘Who are these Athenians?'

  4. And, being informed, called for his bow, and placing an arrow on the string, shot upward into the sky, saying, as he let fly the shaft,

  5. ‘This is my promise: to be revenged on the Athenians!'

  6. Thenceforth he ordered one of his servants, when his dinner was spread before him every day, to repeat these words to him three times: ‘Master, remember the Athenians.'

  7. Then Darius summoned Histiaeus of Miletus, whom he had kept at his court, and said, ‘Your lieutenant, to whom you gave Miletus in charge, has raised a rebellion.

  8. ‘He has brought men from Europe to contend with me, and, prevailing on the Ionians, whose conduct I shall know how to avenge, to join with this force, he has robbed me of Sardis.

  9. ‘Can this have been done without your knowledge and advice? Beware lest it be found out that you are to blame for this.'

10. Histiaeus answered, ‘If my lieutenant has done as you say, be sure he has done it out of his own ambition.

11. ‘But I cannot believe that he and the Milesians have done this! Yet if they really have rebelled, see how ill advised it was to remove me from the sea coast.

12. ‘The Ionians, it seems, have waited till I was no longer there, and then tried what they long desired to try;

13. ‘Whereas, if I had been there, not a single city would have stirred.

14. ‘Allow me therefore to go to Ionia, to restore matters to their former footing, and arrest Aristagoras, who has caused all the trouble.

15. ‘Having done that, I promise I will not put off the clothes in which I reach Ionia till I have made Sardinia, the biggest island in the world, your tributary.'  

16. So Histiaeus spoke, wishing to deceive the king; and Darius, persuaded by his words, let him go.

17. As these events were unfolding, matters were afoot in Cyprus.

18. Artybius, a Persian general, planned to invade Cyprus with a great army of infantry, while at the same time the Phoenicians were to attack Cyprus with their fleet.

19. Onesilus, chief among the princes of Cyprus, urgently sent heralds to all parts of Ionia asking for help.

20. At the same time the Persians crossed in their ships from Cilicia, and proceeded by land to attack Salamis;

21. While the Phoenicians, with the fleet, sailed round the promontory called ‘the Keys of Cyprus'.

22. Onesilus called together the captains of the Ionians who had come to help, and said,

23. ‘Men of Ionia, we Cyprians leave it to you to choose whether you will fight with the Persians or with the Phoenicians.

24. ‘If you wish to try your strength on land against the Persians, come on shore and ready yourselves for battle; we will take your ships and engage the Phoenicians.

25. ‘If, on the other hand, you prefer to encounter the Phoenicians, let that be your task:

26. ‘Only be sure, whichever you choose, acquit yourselves so that Ionia and Cyprus may preserve their freedom.'

27. The Ionians answered, ‘The commonwealth of Ionia sent us here to guard the sea, not to make over our ships to you.

28. ‘We will keep the post assigned to us. For your part, remember what you suffered when you were the slaves of the Medes, and behave like warriors.'

29. The Persians advanced into the plain before Salamis, and the Cyprians ranged themselves in order of battle against them,

30. Placing them so that the choicest troops were set to oppose the Persians, and Onesilus, of his own accord, took post opposite Artybius the general.

31. Now Artybius rode a horse which had been trained to rear up against foot soldiers, attacking with its forelegs and teeth.

32. Onesilus, informed of this, called to him his shield-bearer, who was a Carian, courageous and skilled in war; and asked him what was to be done about Artybius' horse.

33. ‘Have no fear of the horse's tricks,' said the Carian. ‘This is the last time he will perform them.'

34. The two hosts then joined battle both by sea and by land. The Ionians, who that day fought as they have never done before or since, defeated the Phoenicians.

35. Meanwhile as the two armies engaged in a sharp struggle on land, Artybius charged his horse at Onesilus;

36. The horse reared and kicked, but as he did so the Carian cut at him with a reaping hook, severing the front legs from the body.

37. The horse fell upon the spot, and Onesilus killed Artybius as he fell with him.

38. In the thick of the fight Stesanor, tyrant of Curium, who commanded a large body of troops, defected to the Persians.

39. At this the Curians also defected; whereupon victory went to the Persians.

40. The Cyprian army was routed, vast numbers were slain, among them Onesilus, and Aristocyprus, king of the Solians, son of Philocyprus whom Solon the Athenian, when he visited Cyprus, praised in his poems beyond all other sovereigns.

41. Thus, after enjoying a short period of freedom, the Cyprians were again enslaved.

42. As for the Ionians who had won the sea fight, when they found that Onesilus had lost they left Cyprus, and sailed home.

43. But Daurises, who was married to one of the daughters of Darius, together with Hymeas, Otanes and other Persian captains, who were likewise married to daughters of the king,

44. Pursued the Ionian fleet, defeated them, and by forcing them to divide their efforts among their various cities, proceeded in succession to take and sack each one of them.

 

Chapter 50

  1. As the cities fell one after another, Aristagoras the Milesian, in truth a man of little courage, began to seek ways to escape.

  2. Now convinced that it was vain to fight Darius, he called his comrades together, and with them made a plan to conquer Thrace and there make a refuge.

  3. They set out to do so, but were killed in the attempt. So ended the life of Aristagoras.

  4. Meanwhile Histiaeus, tyrant of Miletus, who had been allowed by Darius to leave Susa, arrived at Sardis.

  5. The Sardian satrap Artaphernes asked him why Ionia had rebelled; he answered that he did not know,

  6. And that it had astonished him greatly, pretending to be unaware of the whole business.

  7. Artaphernes, however, who saw that he was dealing dishonestly, and who had in fact full know­ledge of the outbreak, said to him,

  8. ‘Histiaeus: this shoe is of your stitching; Aristagoras has merely been the wearer.'

  9. Histiaeus, alarmed at this, fled away to the coast as soon as night fell.

10. Thus he forfeited his word to Darius, and betrayed his deceit.

11. Crossing to Chios, he was there arrested by the inhabitants, who accused him of intending some mischief against them on Darius' behalf.

12. But when the truth was laid before them, and they found that Histiaeus was in reality Darius' foe, they set him free again.

13. But his efforts were to no avail. He was rejected by the people of Miletus, who had tasted their freedom by the revolt, and did not want a tyrant back again.

14. Histiaeus therefore went to the Hellespont, and began gathering an army and a fleet, principally of men of Lesbos,

15. Together with those he impressed into service who sailed from the Euxine and fell into his hands.

16. But though he captured Chios and made it his headquarters, and even before he met his end in battle with the Persian general Harpagus, his cause was already hopeless,

17. For the Ionians had once again been defeated and enslaved by Persia, after Darius sent a great army and fleet against Miletus.

18. At the battle for Miletus the Ionians assembled a fleet of many ships from their allies, under the command of a Phocaean named Dionysius.

19. He attempted to drill and train the sailors to make them effective for battle, but they complained under the work he imposed,

20. And when the Phoenicians sailed against them in the seas around Miletus, the Samians sailed away rather than fight, and the Lesbians also, and after them the greater part of the Ionians.

21. Of those who stayed to fight the greatest sufferers were the brave Chians, who lost nearly half their hundred ships.

22. When Dionysius saw that all was lost he likewise fled, and became a pirate in Sicily, plundering Carthaginians and Tyrrhenians.

23. When they had defeated the Ionians at sea the Persians besieged Miletus, driving mines under the walls and using every device and stratagem,

24. Until the city fell, six years from the time that the revolt broke out under Aristagoras.

25. All the citizens were enslaved; those whose lives were spared were moved to the city of Ampe at the mouth of the Tigris River,

26. And Miletus was kept by the Persians for themselves, and the hill-country nearby given to the Carians of Pedasus.

27. Those who mourned the downfall of Miletus most were the Athenians, for Miletus had been founded by them in earlier times.

28. They showed their affliction in many ways, and not least by their treatment of the poet Phrynichus,

29. For when his play
The Capture of Miletus
was staged, the whole theatre burst into tears,

30. And the people sentenced him to a fine of a thousand drachmas for reminding them of the misfortunes of their kin.

31. They likewise passed a law that his play should never again be staged.

32. Samos too ceased to be a Greek city, but not because its citizens were removed by the Persians;

33. Instead, the Samians chose to quit their city and start a new life in Sicily rather than become slaves to Darius.

34. At first they proposed to settle at Kale-Acte; but opportunity offered to capture the beautiful city of Zancle, which they did, and lived there thereafter.

 

Chapter 51

  1. Having recaptured Miletus, the Persians proceeded to attack the islands off the coast, Chios, Lesbos and Tenedos, which were reduced without difficulty.

  2. Whenever they became masters of an island, the barbarians, in every single instance, netted the inhabitants.

  3. Netting is the practice in which men join hands so as to form a line across from the north coast to the south, and then march through the island hunting out every inhabitant.

  4. The Persians also took all the Ionian towns on the mainland.

  5. And now the Persian generals made good all the threats with which they had menaced the Ionians before the battle.

  6. For no sooner did they get possession of the towns than they picked out the best-favoured boys and made them eunuchs,

  7. While the most beautiful girls they tore from their homes and sent as presents to the king, at the same time burning the cities themselves.