revolutionary general laid an ambush, into which the eager troops of Persia irretrievably fell; they were nearly all cut to pieces, and Daurisēs, Amorgēs, and Sisimaces, their leaders, perished. The Carian towns now enjoyed a considerable respite, nor were they reduced till subsequent to the fall of Milētus. Notwithstanding this temporary gleam of good fortune, the general affairs of the Ionians were becoming desperate; and Aristagoras, in consequence, convoked the chiefs of the revolution. Aristagoras His object was to secure some place of refuge, and the island of Sar- convokes the dinia, or Myrcinus, in Thrace, were the two places proposed. The chiefs. latter was the post chosen by the chiefs of the convention, though, in proposing it, Aristagoras must have been conscious that on the re-establishment of the Persian power in Asia Minor, every post near the Strymon, of which Myrcinus was one, must fall into their hands. Disastrous Notwithstanding, the scheme was adopted, and Aristagoras set sail for expedition Myrcinus. The expedition was disastrous in the extreme, for Arista- B. c. 497. goras himself, and nearly the whole of the emigrants, perished in the assault of a Thracian town, not long after landing. to Myrius. Miletus. Byzantium. Soon after the departure of Aristagoras, Histiæus, his father-in-law, Histiaus made his appearance at Milētus: his arrival gained no welcome from arrives at the citizens. In an attempt to force his way into the town by night, he was repulsed, and wounded in the thigh. Actuated by his usual intrigue and restlessness, he now repaired to Chios on a piratical mission in this he failed, but proved more successful with the Lesbians, from whom he obtained eight triremes. With this force he took up a position at Byzantium, seizing and mercilessly pillaging Piracies of the Ionic merchantren as they entered or returned from the Euxine. Histius at Here this dastardly traitor continued his piracies towards his countrymen till the fall of Milētus. He now sailed with his Lesbian flotilla to Chios, where, being refused admittance, he completely vanquished Plunders the Chians and plundered the island. His career of reckless devastation the island was, however, fast drawing to a close. He had lately been engaged in a marauding expedition to Thasos, but hearing that the Phoenician fleet had quitted Milētus to reduce other Ionic cities, he sailed with his piratical band to the defence of Lesbos. Here he could find no sub- Sails to the sistence for his followers, and being compelled to pass over to the defence of Asiatic continent, to reap the standing crops in the plains of Mysia, he was surprised by a Persian force under Harpagus, by whom he was Is taken routed, taken prisoner, and carried to Sardis. His punishment was speedy and ignominious. Artaphernēs, the satrap, at once condemned him to crucifixion, and the head of Histiæus was embalmed and despatched to Susa. of Chios. Lesbos. prisoner and crucified. We must now return to Milētus, the chief focus of the Ionic insurrection, where an immense force was being concentrated under the command of Artaphernēs. This active satrap had combined his whole Military compower for the capture of this important city. By sea, a Phoenician fleet of 600 ships was acting in co-operation with the army of Asia Minor, the Egypto-Cilician troops, and new levies from the vanquished binations of Artaphernes Naval resources and defence of the lonians. Valour and discipline of the Phocæan Dionysius. advice. Cypriots. This was a force with which the Ionians could not cope by navy, the their upon a force which, if rightly directed, might bid fair to obtain the mastery But, unfortunately, the want of energetic leaders of the Ionian seas. and of sound discipline proved the ruin of the enterprise. Amongst the various contingents which composed this formidable fleet, there was but one man of sterling vigour and resolution. Dionysius, of Phocæa, almost the sole representative of the ancient maritime renown of the early colonists of Gaul, was the commander of three ships only. Full of noble enterprise, tempered by calm reflection, he perceived the peril of a conflict with the Persian navy in their present His excellent undisciplined state. "Men of Ionia,” exclaimed he, our fate hangs on the razor's edge, either to be freemen or slaves, and slaves, too, caught after running away: if, therefore, you are now willing to endure hardship, toil will be yours for the present; but when you have vanquished the enemy, you will be enabled to enjoy freedom." In such a gallant strain did Dionysius continue to address the Ionians. The result was a temporary display of energetic alacrity; but the native Impatience unsteadiness of the Ionian character, and its impatience under persevering toil, soon became manifest. Scarcely had seven days been spent in the practice of nautical evolutions, and the exercise of the crews and the Hoplitai, when the whole force broke out into open mutiny against Dionysius. "Which of the gods," exclaimed they, "have we offended, to bring upon ourselves such retribution as this? madmen as we are, to give ourselves up to this bragging Phocæan, who has furnished but three ships;" and they unanimously declined his orders, and repaired to the enjoyment of their tents on shore. and unsteadiness of the Ionians. They desert their discipline and ships. Treachery of the Samians. Their camp now became a scene of irregularity and confusion: perfectly reckless of the important results at stake, they became entirely unmanageable. Meanwhile, treason was busy in their camp. Eaces, their expelled tyrant, was privately tampering with the Samians, who promised to desert on the first favourable opportunity. Accordingly, at the fatal battle of Lade, which soon afterwards followed, sixty of their ships sailed off, eleven only excepted, whose commanders scorned such treachery. The ships of Chios, in a compact body occupying the centre, displayed a brilliant example of courage and discipline, but all their efforts could not repair the effects of cowardice and treachery in Total defeat the remainder of the Ionian navy: its defeat was total and irretrievable. Dionysius, the hero who evinced enterprising valour commensurate with the soundness of his judgment, behaved nobly in the action, taking with his three ships a similar number of the Phoenicians; and, still formidable after the Ionian defeat, sailed to the coast of Phoenicia, and daringly seized on several Phoenician merchantmen; then, setting sail for Sicily, he commenced a cruise against the Tyrrhenians and Carthaginians, uniformly sparing all Greek vessels. of the Ionians. The result of the victory of Lade was the attack of Milētus by land and sea; the walls were undermined, the engines of attack brought up, and the siege prosecuted with the utmost vigour. The city was speedily taken by storm, the male population slain, and the few who Miletus were spared were despatched with the women and children to the stormed. court at Susa. To these Darius appointed a residence at Ampē, near the mouth of the Tigris. B. C. 494. subdued by Thus fell Milētus, in the sixth year of the revolt. In the ensuing Islands summer, Chios, Lesbos, and Tenedos-Artake and Proconnesus, in and towns the Propontis-the towns of the Chersonese-Selymbria and Perinthus, the Persians. in Thrace-fell under the power of the Persian fleet. The whole seaboard of Ionia was now swept from north to south, and mercilessly Destruction ravaged; the most beautiful Greeks of either sex were distributed Ionian amongst the Persian grandees, and their buildings, sacred and profane, power. given up to the flames. of the Mardonius CHAPTER IX. THE PERSIAN WAR. B. C. 490 TO B. C. 469. UNDER this head we shall place the Biographies of the great men who conducted the Persian war with so brilliant a result, the men who reaped imperishable renown at Marathon, at Thermopyla, at Salamis, at Platea: the great names of Miltiades, Aristīdēs, Themistocles, Leonidas, Pausanias. The story to be told in this chapter is one of the grandest in the history of the human race. INVASION OF GREECE BY COMMAND OF DARIUS, KING OF PERSIA. We have already given, in the history of the Peisistratidæ, a sketch of the Persian invasion of Greece; but a thorough comprehension of the subject requires the citation of a few other particulars. When Darius had been informed of certain events of the Ionic revolt, he desired to know who the Athenians were. On being told, he called for his bow, and shooting an arrow in the air, exclaimed, "Suffer me, O Jupiter! to be revenged on these Athenians." He afterwards directed one of his attendants to repeat to him, three times every day, when he sat down to table, "Sir, remember the Athenians." 1 In the twenty-eighth year of his reign, Darius engaged with peculiar marches into ardour in his project for the conquest of Greece. The conduct of the Greece. 1 Herod. b. v. c. 5. Persian forces he committed solely to Mardonius, a very young man, who had recently married a daughter of the king. Mardonius, according to Herodotus, collected at the Hellespont "a numerous fleet and a powerful army," with which he "proceeded towards Eretria and Athens,” to revenge the burning of Sardis. On his arrival in Macedonia, that country presently submitted. But the Thracians, availing themselves of His defeat. his insecure encampment, surprised his army in the night, destroyed a great number of his soldiers, and wounded Mardonius himself. His fleet, in the mean time, while doubling the Cape of Mount Athos, now Capo Santo, encountered a storm, in which there perished three hundred of his ships and 20,000 men. Thus disabled, Mardonius returned into Asia with the wreck of this mighty armament, when Darius, too late, regretted the confidence he had rashly placed in his youth and inexperience. The king, who still had the resources of immense treasure and a vast population at his command, could not be diverted from his ambitious project. He sent heralds into Greece to demand submission, in the customary form, by the presentation of earth and water. The dread of the Persian power prevailed over the people of Ægina and many of the Grecian cities; at Athens and Sparta they were otherwise received. "The Athenians," says Herodotus, "threw the heralds of Darius into their pit of punishment, and the Lacedæmonians, into wells, telling them to procure the earth and water there, and carry it to their king." Artaphernes. Darius now hastened the departure of Datis the Mede, and Arta- Succeeded by phernes, his own nephew, son of the governor of Sardis, whom he had Datis and appointed generals in the place of Mardonius. They received special orders from the king to plunder and burn Eretria and Athens. On reaching the coasts of Ionia, they collected an army of 300,000 men, and a fleet of six hundred ships. In the ensuing spring they assembled their whole fleet at Samos. Having taken Naxos, and all the neighbouring islands, they besieged Eretria. The disunion among the citizens, the retirement of the Athenian succours, hopeless of serving such selfdevoted allies, and the treachery by which the city was at length betrayed to the Persians, we have already narrated. To execute the royal vengeance, Eretria was pillaged, the temples were destroyed, in revenge for those burned at Sardis, and the inhabitants were sent captives to Susa. There, according to the caprice so often discovered in the exercise of despotic power, Darius treated them kindly, and allowed them a settlement, in which their descendants were found in after ages. Marathon. Passing over to Attica, the Persians were led by Hippias to the Battle of plain of Marathon, ten miles from Athens. Their army, according to Cornelius Nepos, consisted of 200,000 foot, and 10,000 horse. The forces which the Athenians could oppose to such a formidable hostility were only 10,000 foot, (including 1,000 Plateans,) for they had no cavalry. The particulars of this almost incredible battle; the choice of Miltiades for general, by the disinterested patriotism of Aris1 B. vii, c. xxxiii, 2 Life of Miltiadēs. |