(1) Herodotus is certainly under the impression that the Cypriote revolt took place about the same time as that of Caria.26

(2) Cyprus was so important to the revolt that, had the Phœnician fleet been in a position to threaten it at this time, the Ionians could hardly have ventured on an expedition to the Hellespontine region.

(3) The revolt in Cyprus had been in progress for many months before the Ionian fleet went thither.

It seems probable that Plutarch has preserved the record of an important incident in the history of this time, which Herodotus had either forgotten, or of which he had never heard. He refers to a victory gained by the Ionian fleet off the Pamphylian coast. This would account for the non-appearance of the Phœnician fleet in the Ægean in the campaign of 498.

It may be conjectured that the victory took place early in that year—that is, in the spring or early summer,—and that it was won over a fleet which was coming up to assist Artaphernes in the siege of Miletus. It would account also for the spirit shown by the Ionians in the bold venture of the attack on Sardes.

The rapid spread of the revolt in 497 makes it almost impossible to accept Herodotus’ version of the battle at Ephesus. If he is to be believed, the reverse there sustained more than compensated for any success won at Sardes. If that be so, the impetus given to the revolt by the burning of Sardes becomes inexplicable. It must be concluded that Ephesus was not the disaster which Herodotus represents it to have been.

The news of the revolt of the Ionians had thrown the Cypriote Greeks into a state of ferment. The island had been for many ages past divided between the Greek and Phœnician interests. The Greek section of the population seems to have hitherto adopted an attitude of passive or secretly active resistance to the Persian, while the Phœnician formed the Medic party. Persian and Phœnician interests in the island were mutual. The Persian communications were dependent on the Phœnician fleet, while the Phœnicians could only hold their ground against the preponderating numbers of the Greeks by means of Persian support. Salamis and Amathus (Hamath) were respectively the foremost towns of the Greek and Phœnician regions.

The leader of the movement in the island was Onesilos, the younger brother of Gorgos, the Greek king of Salamis. “He had frequently before this time advised his brother Gorgos to revolt from the king; but now, when he heard that even the Ionians had revolted, he was very urgent in his endeavours to induce him to do so.” Failing to persuade Gorgos, he seized the city during his temporary absence, and Gorgos fled to the Persians. The revolt spread to all the towns of the island except Amathus. Onesilos proceeded accordingly to besiege this place.

It is very difficult to assign a certain date to these events. One thing may, however, be confidently assumed, namely, that when Onesilos made his urgent representations to his brother, and, still more, when the revolt broke out, the Phœnician fleet was for the time being hors de combat. The absolutely indeterminate element in the matter is the length of time which intervened between the first urgent representation of Onesilos and the deposition of Gorgos. Certain facts stated in the subsequent story of the campaign render it probable that Onesilos’ representations were made after the battle off the Pamphylian coast, if not after the burning of Sardes, and that they must therefore be attributed to the autumn of 498; while the first step in revolt, the deposition of Gorgos, took place in the following winter, and the siege of Amathus began in the spring of 497.

The customs or necessities of campaigning in the fifth century rendered the winter the natural time for planning insurrection, and the summer the time for carrying it out.

This chronology of the prelude to the revolt in Cyprus is not merely in accord with calculations which may be made from Herodotus’ statements, but is also in agreement with his general assumption that the outbreak concurred with the similar outbreaks in the Hellespontine region and in Caria.

After mentioning the beginning of the siege of Amathus, Herodotus transfers the scene of his narrative to Susa, where he describes the reception by Darius of the news of the burning of Sardes by the Athenians and Ionians. The details of the story cannot be cited as serious history, but it contains the record of what are undeniably historical events. As is so often the case with famous stories, the historical matter has become involved in a mass of graphic detail which cannot be supposed to rest on anything but the slenderest foundation of fact.

There are two features of Herodotus’ version which, though not, it may be, historical, are of both interest and importance to the student of Herodotus’ history; they are (1) the prominence given to the Athenian participation in the opening campaign of the revolt; (2) an incidental reference to the Ionians.

The tale then passes on to a reported conversation with Histiæus.

The historical fact underlying this story amounts in all probability to no more than that Darius was both exasperated and alarmed at this first instance of an active interference of the European Greeks in his West Asian dominions. It was, indeed, the realization of a trouble which he seems to have foreseen.

The references to the Athenians and Ionians, though they cannot be regarded as historical, are undoubtedly made with intent to give a certain colouring to the history of the time. It is therefore important to try and form some judgment as to their significance. Whatever their origin, there can be no doubt that they give that colouring to events which Herodotus himself believed to be the true one.

His judgment as to the part played by Athens in the great events of the first twenty years of the century is a very striking one, and bears the impress of genuine conviction.

Of the attitude of that state in the great war of 480–479 he has nothing but good to say; but he is evidently convinced that Athens, and Athens alone, was really responsible for that war having taken place at all. This judgment of his must have been a purely personal one, formed upon his reading of the events of the period of which he wrote the history. It can be seen now that he was not wholly mistaken. His mistake consisted in assuming that what was only a contributory cause was the whole efficient cause of what occurred subsequent to the revolt. His attitude towards the Ionians cannot, on the other hand, be attributed to purely personal judgment. His sources for the history of the revolt, which had their origin largely, it may be, in those Dorian cities of Asia which had not taken part in it, were evidently of a nature to prejudice his mind against the Ionian Greek.27

The second part of the story which relates to Histiæus is probably a piece of Greek invention, describing what might well be supposed to have happened at Susa in consequence of the part which his near relative Aristagoras had played in the revolt. It served also to bring into relief the duplicity of this Ionian tyrant towards a master and a friend who trusted him but too implicitly.

But in the case of this story, as in the case of other similar stories in Herodotus, it is necessary to bear in mind that, though the story itself may be fiction, it is extremely likely to contain historical matter in the shape of chance disclosures of the views which its framers or their contemporaries held as to the events of the time. There is in this very story a remark which indicates that some contemporary opinion was not disposed to regard the revolt as the hurried creation of Aristagoras. “The Ionians seem,” Histiæus is represented to have said, “after losing sight of me, to have done what they long desired to do.”

Whatever persuasion Histiæus used, he succeeded in inducing Darius to let him go down to the coast.

It would be vain to attempt to deduce from the juxtaposition of these two imaginative tales any conclusion as to the time at which Histiæus started from Susa.

The only real indication of the date of his return is given in a subsequent chapter, where it is clearly implied that it was subsequent to the departure of Aristagoras from Miletus, if not to his death at Myrkinos.

From Susa the story shifts back to Cyprus. STRATEGIC VALUE OF CYPRUS. The siege of Amathus is still proceeding, and Onesilos has just received word of the coming of a Phœnician fleet with a large Persian force aboard of it, under the command of Artybios. He accordingly despatched messengers to Ionia to ask for help. Herodotus emphasizes the promptness with which the Ionian fleet was despatched to aid the Cypriotes.

It is plain that both sides recognized the crucial importance of the part which Cyprus had to play in the great struggle. The peculiar configuration of the neighbouring continent, which brings the only really practicable military line of communication between Asia Minor and the Euphrates valley into immediate contact with the shore of the Levant at that corner of the sea which is commanded by Cyprus, renders this island a strategical position of inestimable value either to a power assailing Asia Minor from the east, or to one defending it from the west. The Cypriote Greeks, backed by the Ionian fleet, would have been in a position to threaten at its weakest point the Persian line of communication with the Western satrapies. From it as a base also, the Ionian fleet might have made it impossible for the Phœnicians to sail to the Ægean. Cyprus was then, as it is now, the key of the Levant.

Of its value as a strategic position the Greek was, moreover, fully aware. The alacrity with which the Ionians accepted the invitation in the present instance was equalled by the eagerness with which, twenty years later, the Greeks on the fleet under Pausanias sought to seize it, even when the liberation of the Ægean coast was as yet in its initial stage. They knew that its possession would inevitably facilitate their task nearer home. Had not Kimon died so inopportunely, Athens might have realized the dream of its permanent acquisition.

But it was not merely its strategic position that rendered it so attractive in the eyes of the trading cities of Ionia. From a commercial point of view it would have supplied an ideal base for trade with the wealthy East, and would have placed the Greek trader in possession of a sea route of his own, instead of, on the one hand, a sea route on which he had to face the fierce Phœnician competition, and, on the other, a land route through Asia Minor, inconvenient alike from the expense of traffic along it, and from its passing through many alien peoples.

When it is considered that the Ionian fleet had already in this campaigning season brought about the revolt both of the Hellespontine region and of Caria, it cannot be supposed that the expedition to Cyprus was undertaken earlier than the late summer of this year 497.

Apart from the time spent in the actual operations at these two comparatively distant points, the ships of those days were not able to keep the sea for any prolonged period without a refit.

The Ionian fleet seems to have arrived at Cyprus at about the same time as the Persian expedition. The Phœnician fleet transhipped the Persian army from the Cilician coast to the north shore of the island, whence it marched overland towards Salamis. The fleet then rounded the islands called “the Keys,”28 and so sailed towards the same destination.

Herodotus describes an interview between the Cypriote tyrants and the Greek commanders, in which the former offer to embark their men on board the fleet and let the Ionians fight on land. The latter, however, replied that the Common Council of the Ionians had sent them to fight on board the fleet, and on board the fleet they intended to fight.

Of the battle by sea which ensued, Herodotus says but little, save that the Ionians fought well and beat the Phœnicians; and that, of the Ionians, the Samians fought best.

Whatever the measure of success attained, it was more than compensated for by the loss of the battle on land. There was grievous treachery in the Cypriote army. Stesenor, tyrant of Kourion, with a large band, deserted during the battle; and part, at least, of the Salaminian contingent followed his example. Onesilos and one of the Greek tyrants perished in the battle.

The Ionian fleet seems to have remained some time longer upon the coast, until, at any rate, the Persians began the siege of the various Greek cities. Then, finding itself powerless to effect anything, it sailed away home. CHRONOLOGICAL DISCREPANCY. One of the towns, Soli, held out for five months, but with its capture the revolt of Cyprus came to an end; and “thus,” says Herodotus “the Cyprians, after a year of freedom, were enslaved anew.”

Five months of siege would protract the revolt far into the winter of 497–96. It is noteworthy that the chronological details deducible from the account of the revolt in Cyprus are in reasonable agreement with the general statements as to its duration. This chapter of the history of the revolt as a whole is, indeed, conspicuous as being the only one in which chronological data can be said to be existent.

From the end of the revolt in Cyprus in the winter of 497–96 until the siege of Miletus in 494, the course of recorded events does not admit of any certain chronological arrangement, and, apart from this, the record is manifestly of a most fragmentary character.

It is now necessary to carry back the story to the Ægean coast. Earlier in the year the Ionian fleet had brought about the revolt of Caria and the district of the Propontis. These events can be attributed with some assurance to the spring and early summer of 497. But the chronology of the measures taken by the Persians to reduce these revolted regions to submission is so hopelessly involved that it is impossible to accept it.29

The greatness of the chronological discrepancy will be best appreciated when it is pointed out that Herodotus in one chapter ascribes the reduction of the revolt on the Hellespont and in Caria to a period which, H. v. 103. if the data of a previous chapter be correct, must have been from four to six months before the outbreak of the insurrection in those regions. Of the two series of chronological data the earlier one is by far the more trustworthy. It is connected with the outbreak of the revolt by a continuous chain of events whose dates can be fixed with reasonable probability. The later chronological series is not merely in disaccord with the previous one, but, if adhered to, renders the whole story of the revolt incomprehensible. The reader wanders amid a maze of circumstances without cause and without effect.

The main incidents attendant on the suppression of the revolt on the continent of Asia Minor seem, in so far as they are told, to be correctly told by Herodotus, in all save their chronological setting. The modern world has, at any rate, no other evidence on the subject. On the question of fact the position must be accepted. On the question of chronology, Herodotus must be corrected by his own chronological statements, and by the strong presumptive evidence of his own statements of fact. The direct evidence makes it quite clear that the measures undertaken by the Persians for the suppression of the widespread revolt were not undertaken at the time to which he attributes them. His statements of fact render it possible to form some conclusion as to when they were undertaken.

It is not possible to assign an earlier date than the summer of 497 to the despatch of the Ionian fleet to Cyprus. Herodotus himself says that the General Council of the Ionians were prompt in their decision to send it. It may reasonably be concluded that the circumstances of the insurrection on Asia Minor were at the time in a favourable condition. The lack of hesitation would be otherwise incomprehensible, inasmuch as the combination of the cities against attack was, from the vary nature of things, dependent upon the fleet.

It is not a mere assumption to say that the circumstances must have been favourable. The formidable character of the rising had been well-nigh quadrupled by the accession of the Hellespont, Caria, and Cyprus to the insurrection in the earlier half of the year 497. The forces which Artaphernes had at his disposal were sufficient to save the citadel of Sardes in 498, and to inflict some sort of reverse on the retreating Ionians at Ephesus; but were they sufficient to cope with the infinitely more dangerous situation in the early months of the following year?

The Persian Empire appears in history as a great military power because it only appears in extant records when engaged in warfare with the Greek. But it was not a military monarchy in any real sense of the word. It did not, relatively to the size of the empire, keep a large standing army on foot. It met military necessities by the calling forth of levies, the gathering of which must have demanded time. The Persian king, like the Roman emperor of later days, did not entrust the governors of distant provinces with the disposal of large bodies of troops, unless circumstances rendered such a step absolutely necessary.

The reverse suffered by the Greeks at Ephesus cannot have been serious; but it had clearly demonstrated the fact that, on land, Artaphernes was able to hold his own against the insurrection, so long as it was confined to Ionia. At sea the circumstances were not so promising. The defeat off Pamphylia had placed the Phœnician fleet hors de combat for the time being, and it is not difficult to imagine that at least a year would have to pass before the cities of the Syrian coast could turn out a fleet sufficiently powerful to cope with that of the Ionian Greeks. This second fleet would be that one which was defeated off Cyprus in 497. But in the course of that year the whole balance of military power on land had been completely changed by the spread of the revolt to Hellespont and Caria. This would necessitate the despatch of reinforcements from Susa to the Western satrapies, reinforcements which would, doubtless, have reached Sardes by the latter part of the summer of 497, had not the state of affairs in Cyprus rendered it necessary to divert them, as well as the new Phœnician fleet, to the suppression of the revolt in that island. That was an affair of some months; and these reinforcements cannot have reached Sardes until early in the year 496.

There is, and there must be, a certain arbitrariness in any scheme for the rearrangement of the confused chronology of those years. All that can be urged in favour of the one here set forth is that it is of a piece with Herodotus’ own chronology of the opening year of the revolt, and is in accord with the facts, other than chronological, stated by him.30

The arrival of these troops at Sardes in the late winter or early spring of 496 made it possible for the Persian generals to devise a scheme for the simultaneous suppression of the revolt in Hellespont and Cana. The events of 498 had shown that the Ionians were not formidable on land unless the Persians were taken by surprise.

The three chief commanders were Daurises, Hymeës, and Otanes, the last of whom had been the successor of Megabazos, nigh ten years before, in the command in Thrace.

Daurises began operations in the district of the Hellespont, and took Dardanos, Abydos, Perkote, Lampsakos and Paisos. These places he is reported to have taken with incredible rapidity.31 From these successes he was called away, so Herodotus says, by the revolt of Caria. Why Caria should have revolted at a time when the structure of revolt in the Hellespont was falling like a house of cards, and why, above all, the Common Council of the Ionians, after bringing about the revolt of both the Hellespont and Caria by means of its fleet, should have unhesitatingly despatched the fleet to Cyprus at a time when a large part of the one district had been resubjugated, and the other was on the point of being attacked, Herodotus does not explain. The chronological combination of events in these chapters is intended to heighten the impression of the hopelessness of the revolt which has been conveyed by the story of the disaster at Ephesus, and with that intent these events are brought into close juxtaposition with it. CAMPAIGN IN CARIA. When it is remembered that the defection of Thrace and Macedonia must have been closely linked with that of the Hellespontine region, it is impossible to suppose that the revolt in these parts was of so feeble a nature that it could be suppressed within what, if Herodotus’ second chronological series is to be accepted, cannot have amounted to more than a few weeks from its outbreak—so feeble, too, that a large number of the most prominent cities were captured with the utmost ease.

The campaign of Daurises in the Hellespont seems to have taken place in the spring of 496. It seems, moreover, to have been successful. The European shore was, indeed, left alone for the time being, but the revolt on the Asiatic side of the Hellespont must have been practically stamped out.

Herodotus represents Daurises as having been called away to Caria before his work in the Hellespontine region was done. It may be that he was called away from the north; but, even on Herodotus’ own evidence, he had done his work thoroughly on the Asiatic side of the Propontis.

The reconquest of Caria was a much more difficult matter. The Carians were not mere amateurs in the art of war, but numbered among them men who had seen fighting in many lands, the soldiers of fortune of their time. The race was infected with that strange fever which has at different periods driven members of some of the world’s most virile peoples to seek a livelihood in quarrels not their own.

Herodotus makes no attempt to place the striking events of this war in Caria in a chronological setting. Three great battles take place, of which the first two are great Persian victories, while the last is a tremendous disaster to their arms. There is no means of judging of the interval between the victories and the disaster; though, from the way in which the narrative is told, it might be supposed that the Carians recovered almost instantaneously from two serious and successive defeats.

On the general question of the campaign it may be said that it seems to have been part of a great design planned at Sardes in the winter of 497–96, to be carried out so soon as reinforcements came up from the east.

The Carians were not caught unprepared. The insurgents of the Ægean coast must have spent a winter of anxious expectation as to what would happen when the Persian reinforcements arrived. The Ionian fleet had in the autumn brought back news of the disastrous failure of the revolt in Cyprus; and from that time it was a question where the next blow would fall, and how it could best be parried. The danger of the situation arose from the fact that by the end of the year 497 the opportunity for a vigorous offensive on land in the west had, for the time being, vanished. The absence of the Ionian fleet in Cyprus in the late summer of that year would prevent any combined movement of the insurgents at a time when the available fighting strength of Persia in the satrapy of Sardes can hardly have been sufficient to cope with the force which might have been collected had the fleet been there. The Ionian towns, the moral and geographical centre of the revolt, had for the moment staked their all on success in Cyprus, and had despatched thither their fleet, the sole means by which the concentration necessary for a formidable combined movement could be brought about. So the revolted were reduced to a passive state of expectancy, confined to a defensive, which, inasmuch as Persia held the inner line in Western Asia Minor, was most disadvantageous to them from a strategical point of view. The Persian council of war saw this weakness. The revolted regions could be taken in detail.

The plan adopted seems to have been to deal with the Hellespont, the Ionian towns, and Caria, as three areas of operations, and to take a vigorous offensive in one region at a time, while threatening the other two with a number of troops sufficient to prevent their sending any substantial help to the region attacked. With the reduction of one region, the troops which had been employed in it would be largely available for the second attack.

The Hellespont, certainly the weakest of the three, was first invaded and reduced, while Ionia and Caria were merely threatened. This accomplished, a twofold force was directed against Caria, while Ionia was watched; and, finally, the combined armies fell upon the land which formed the heart, the life-centre of the revolt.

The first step in this design seems to have succeeded. The second proved a harder task.

Forewarned, and therefore forearmed, the Carians collected their forces at a place called “the White Pillars,” near a river named Marsyas,32 a tributary of the Mæander, with the intention of meeting the Persian invasion at that point. Arrived there, a discussion arose among the commanders as to whether it would be better to fight with the river at their backs, and so animate their men with the courage of despair, or to retire somewhat from the river and make the Persians, as the assailants, take up a position which, in case of their defeat, would be infinitely disastrous to them.33

The second of these alternatives was wisely chosen. There must have been many experienced soldiers in the Carian army who would be well aware of the error which the first proposal involved. The fact that it was made, and the stated reason for its being made, suggests, however, the difficulty under which the insurgents laboured, in that they had to meet the Persian levies with armies which must have been composed for the most part of untrained men. The period of subjection to Persia was now half a century old, and, during that time, the subject population must have been afforded the minimum of opportunity for anything resembling military training. Persia did not call out levies except under stress of necessity; and it is quite certain that she would never have allowed any subject race to practise its people in arms.

The battle on the Marsyas was fiercely contested. No details of it are given, except that the Carians were finally overpowered by numbers, and sustained a loss of 10,000 men, whereas the Persian loss was only 2000.

The fugitives took refuge in the temple and sacred precinct of Zeus Stratios at Labraunda, Strabo, 659. a village on the mountain pass between Alabanda and Mylassa, about seven miles from the latter. They seem to have regarded their position as a desperate one; for they are reported to have debated the question of leaving Asia altogether.

This place was, however, near Miletus, and the Milesians and their allies, presumably Greeks from the smaller towns near Miletus,34 H. v. 120. sent help to the Carians. This put new heart into them. Instead of capitulating or deserting their post, they resisted the Persian attack, only, however, to sustain a defeat worse than that at the Marsyas river, a disaster in which their Milesian allies suffered severely.

“But after this disaster the Carians recovered and fought once more,” says Herodotus. When it is remembered that their first defeat had reduced these Carians to a state bordering on despair, and that their second defeat is expressly said to have been still more serious than their first, this statement is difficult to understand. It may reasonably be suggested that, if the account of the previous operations be the whole truth, it is incomprehensible that the Carians should have had time to recover from such disasters before the Persians followed up their successes. The question may even arise whether Herodotus is relating the events of the same campaign as that in which the two defeats took place. It is impossible to pretend that the available evidence is in any way conclusive on this point. The only detail which tends to throw light upon the question is a geographical one. By the time that the events next recorded took place, the Persians had certainly advanced beyond Labraunda; and this fact would tend to the conclusion that they did actually occur in the same campaign. Herodotus recounts them as follows:⁠—

The scene of this terrible defeat is on the road which would be taken by an army advancing from Labraunda southward into Caria.

What had really happened can only be a subject for conjecture. The Persians must have suffered so severely in the battles on the Marsyas and at Labraunda, that further advance was delayed until reinforcements could come up. During this delay the Carians rallied, and then inflicted on the invaders the most crushing defeat of the whole war.

In this campaigning season of the year 496, the operations in the Hellespont region which Daurises had left in an all but complete stage, were continued by Hymeës, who had been campaigning in the Mysian district. But little can have remained for him to do. His army accomplished the task, though he himself died before it was actually completed.

A little light is also thrown upon the doings of the army which, under the command of Artaphernes and Otanes, had occupied the attention of the Ionians during the campaign in Caria. It captured the towns of Klazomenæ and Kyme.

The outlook towards the close of the summer, before the great Persian defeat in Caria took place, must have been a gloomy one for the insurgents. Cyprus was lost. The prospects of the revolt in Caria seemed desperate. The Hellespont region had been reduced, though that of the Bosphorus was as yet untouched; and even two of the Greek coast towns of the Ægean had fallen.

It is not strange if Aristagoras began to despair of the future. Herodotus is consistent in placing his conduct in the very worst light: he was a coward at heart: he had thrown Ionia into confusion: he had stirred up a mighty business; and now he planned flight.

As a preface to a story of a selfish attempt on the part of Aristagoras to provide for his own safety, regardless of the fate of his fellow-conspirators, such bitter condemnation of the man would have been justified. But the tale which follows is singularly inconsistent with the preface. So far from stealing away from Miletus, and seeking to save his own life alone, he called the conspirators together, and, in view of the desperate position of the revolt, he pointed out to them that it would be well to secure some place of retreat, in case they were driven forth from Miletus, by establishing a colony either in Sardinia or at Myrkinos, “which Histiæus had proceeded to fortify after receiving it as a gift from Darius.” Hecatæus is reported to have opposed the plan, and to have suggested the futile alternative of fortifying the small island of Leros, off Miletus, and of using it as a base for the recovery of that town.35 The majority of the meeting voted in favour of Aristagoras’ design. Accordingly, leaving Miletus in charge of a prominent citizen named Pythagoras, Aristagoras sailed for Myrkinos, presumably late in the year 496, taking with him all who volunteered to go. They all perished in an attack on a Thracian town, whose name Herodotus does not mention, but which seems, Th. iv. 102. from what Thucydides says, to have been on the site of the later Amphipolis.

Herodotus’ story of this last scene in Aristagoras’ life cannot be said to support the bitter language of the judgment passed on him. He went out to secure a refuge for his fellow citizens, and died in so doing. He never returned, because he could not return. Had he remained indefinitely at Myrkinos; had he looked on while his native city and the men who had joined him in the great venture were destroyed, without making one effort to return and take part in the last struggle for life and liberty, he might with justice have been branded with the cowardice of desertion. Herodotus’ account of the man and all that he did, fails, when examined, to support the picture of his character which the historian has drawn.

It was about the time of Aristagoras’ death that Histiæus, having come down from Susa, arrived at Sardes. There he met the satrap Artaphernes. The brief account of their meeting given by Herodotus is a dramatic scene.

It has been assumed by modern historians of Greece that Artaphernes’ language is a direct reference to the man with the tattooed head. The assumption involves, however, certain difficulties.

Unless Artaphernes’ information with regard to the part played by Histiæus was a recent acquisition at the time at which the latter arrived at Sardes, it is incomprehensible that Histiæus should ever have been allowed to leave Susa. The great Persian officials would certainly not conceal such information from Darius. They loathed Histiæus, and would have been but too glad to do him a bad turn. Furthermore, Darius himself had taken the precaution of removing Histiæus to Susa for reasons which would have seemed as nothing compared with an allegation that he had been a prime mover in the great revolt.

The “truth about the revolt” which Artaphernes knew in so far as Histiæus was concerned, can have amounted to little more than the suspicion that, at the time when he was fortifying Myrkinos, he had had designs against the peace of the empire. The remarkable persistence with which Histiæus and Aristagoras pursued their designs upon Myrkinos suggests that behind the direct design lay a larger one, which is only incidentally mentioned by Herodotus.37

Whatever may have been the grounds for Artaphernes’ suspicions, Histiæus saw clearly that it would be dangerous to remain at Sardes, and so fled by night to the sea, H. vi. 2. “having deceived King Darius: for he, having undertaken to subdue Sardinia, the greatest of islands, sought to assume the leadership of the Ionians in the war with Darius.” He went to Chios first, where he was imprisoned upon suspicion of being engaged in evil designs at Darius’ instigation. “But the Chians, learning the whole story, that he was an enemy to the king, released him.”

It is a strange tale this tale of Histiæus. He had certainly been playing a double game for years past, but it is very difficult to say what the two sides of the game actually were. His reception by the Chians shows that some of the insurgents, at any rate, were unaware that he had played any part in bringing about the revolt. He had, moreover, been able to persuade Darius of his honesty of purpose. Probably his purpose was dishonest to both sides, and what he aimed at was the leadership of the Asiatic Greeks, which should, if he could make it so, be independent of Persia. Failing that, he was prepared to serve the king as an Ionian satrap, but not as an underling of Artaphernes, or any other Persian governor. The great Persian officials were, accordingly, his irreconcilable opponents.

The words reported in the tale of his conversation with Darius at Susa show that the author of that story had some reason for suggesting that Histiæus had long been privy to a conspiracy of revolt. H. v. 106. His action at Myrkinos had been interpreted by Megabazos as aiming at the setting up of a great power hostile to Persian interests. May not all this mean that this man, a schemer to his very fingers’ ends, had, before he was taken up to Susa, planned the conspiracy which ended in the revolt, and that his original design had been to overturn the Persian power in Asia with the aid of the Thracian tribes, who were at the time of his settlement in Myrkinos smarting under the recent attempt of Darius to subjugate them,—an attempt which had certainly not turned out a success? THE SITUATION IN B.C. 495 Is it not this which Megabazos hinted at but could not prove to Darius? Is it not of these plans of twelve years before that Histiæus spoke to the Chians, and so persuaded them to release him? Had not Aristagoras been, in a sense, an heir to these designs in virtue of that strange testament tattooed on the head of the slave? But was that testament of so late a date as Herodotus supposed?

It was either late in 496 or early in 495 that Histiæus came down to the coast. The revolt had not, indeed, prospered, but it was far from crushed. Aristagoras had gone to Myrkinos, if not to Hades. He had left Miletus, in all probability, before the great Persian disaster on the Pedasos road. That disaster, in which the greatest of the armies, if not the major part of the whole Persian force in Western Asia, had been wiped out of existence, now put a wholly different complexion upon affairs; and the satraps seem to have found themselves once more, in 495, in the position in which they had been in 497,—able to maintain the existing status, but without the means necessary for taking further offensive, for the time being. Hence the gap in this part of Herodotus’ story of the war. There is nothing recorded, because there was nothing remarkable to record. The side which had suffered most severely in the last round of the great fight had managed at the last moment to get in a smashing blow; and during the next round both sides were too weak to attempt a vigorous attack.

In one respect the circumstances were favourable to Histiæus. They afforded him time for intrigue. If Herodotus’ story is to be believed, he had to face the bitter reproaches of the Ionians at Chios for having brought about the revolt. It is doubtless the case that the Ionians were dispirited at the way in which matters had gone in the last campaign; but, apart from the inconsistency of this attitude of the Chians with their previous treatment of Histiæus, the story serves to point the moral of the hopelessness of the revolt, and, so doing, is not above suspicion. Histiæus is related to have defended himself by saying that he sent the message because he had discovered that Darius entertained a design of removing the Ionians to Phœnicia and the Phœnicians to Ionia. The intense rivalry between these two great commercial peoples may well have rendered such an allegation a commonplace with agitators on the Asiatic side of the Ægean; but there is no reason for supposing that it had any foundation in fact.

Histiæus now proceeded with his schemes. He was evidently convinced that the revolt could not succeed without external support of some kind. Upon Thrace he could not now reckon, since the news that Aristagoras had embroiled himself with the Thracians on the Strymon must have reached him by that time. H. vi. 4. He had, however, discovered that there was at Sardes a Persian party hostile to Artaphernes, with which he had previously conferred “about revolt.” With it he now sought to establish communications. He was unfortunate in his messenger—a certain Hermippos of Atarneus,—who carried the letters straight to Artaphernes. The latter directed him to take them to those to whom they were sent, and to bring back the answers. As might be expected, the recipients were executed.

So the plan miscarried.

Histiæus now persuaded the Chians to convey him to his old seat of tyranny, Miletus. Its citizens, who, says Herodotus, had been glad to get rid of Aristagoras, were not in a mood to receive him. He made an ineffectual attempt to force an entrance into the town, and was wounded in so doing. He accordingly returned to Chios and tried to persuade the Chians to give him ships,—on what excuse or for what purpose is not stated. As they refused, he went across to Mytilene and persuaded the Lesbians to give him eight triremes. With these he went to Byzantion, and, “settling there, they proceeded to seize vessels sailing out of the Pontus, except such as professed to be ready to obey Histiæus.”

Before making any attempt to explain the policy pursued by Histiæus and the Mytilenians at Byzantion, it is necessary to arrive at some conclusion as to when he and his allies went thither. Except for the narrative of the adventures of Histiæus, the history of the fourth year of the revolt (495) appears to be a blank. HISTIÆUS AT BYZANTION. No event seems to have occurred of a sufficiently striking nature to find a place in a record such as Herodotus set himself to write. For the time matters seem to have been at a standstill in so far as large operations are concerned. Either side had sufficient strength to keep the other in check, but neither was strong enough to inflict a serious blow. The war continued; but it was, doubtless, of a desultory character, unmarked by decisive success or failure. The Persians were waiting for reinforcements; the insurgents were too exhausted to do aught but wait for the renewal of the real struggle.

The great defeat in Caria seems, indeed, to have taken place in the autumn of 496; and it may therefore appear strange that a power like Persia should not have been able to supply the losses in time, at any rate, to strike a decisive blow before the next campaigning season ended. Had the losses been of an ordinary character, such would, no doubt, have been the case; but the reparation of a great defeat in those days of slow communications, and in a monarchy which did not keep a large standing army, was essentially a work of time. It was necessary to communicate with Susa. Susa had to communicate with the provinces from which the new levies had to be drawn. The levies had to be collected and drilled, and then had to be despatched on their long, long march to the Western satrapies. It is not strange, if more than a year elapsed before Persia was ready, after the campaign in Caria, to resume a real offensive in the west.

If this be so, the exploits of Histiæus constitute the sole record of events for the year 495, and his departure to Byzantion may be attributed to the late summer or to the autumn of that year.

What was his design in going to Byzantion? It has been assumed that he went there to commit the acts of piracy to which Herodotus is supposed to refer. But is it certain that this is the only interpretation which can be put upon Herodotus’ language? Even if it is, is it possible to credit such a story?

Were the Mytilenians in the slightest degree likely to allow their ships to be used for the mere purpose of plundering their allies, for to them a large number of the vessels engaged in the Pontus trade must have belonged? Was it for this that Histiæus had come down to the coast?

But Herodotus’ language is inconsistent with this interpretation of Histiæus’ acts. He is described as treating the passing vessels in different ways, according as they did or did not “obey” him. No explanation is given of what this means, but it does not seem possible to interpret it as a reference to piracy.

Was he bringing pressure to bear on the Greek cities of the Asian coast,—such as, for instance, Ephesus,—which were beginning to waver in their determination, by interfering with their trade at an important point? The Mytilenians might have supported him in this. They might, too, have supported him in a design to make the revolt more active in these parts, for it is a noteworthy fact that Byzantion is not recorded to have taken any active part in it. Was Byzantion wavering? Did it require watching? Its loss would have been a serious blow, for it would have meant the loss of the command of that route on which the insurgents must have been peculiarly dependent for food supplies, amid the destruction, stress, and turmoil of the war.