The Good Book (52 page)

  8. Thereafter the Persians proceeded to the Hellespont, and took all the towns which lie on the left shore as one sails into the straits.

  9. For the cities on the right bank had already been reduced by the land force of the Persians.

10. The places which border the Hellespont on the European side are the Chersonese, which contains a number of cities,

11. Perinthus, the forts in Thrace, Selybria and Byzantium.

12. The Byzantines at this time, and their opposite neighbours, the Chalcedonians, instead of awaiting the coming of the Phoenicians,

13. Quitted their country, and sailing into the Euxine, took up their abode at the city of Mesembria.

14. The Phoenicians, after burning all the places above mentioned, proceeded to Proconnesus and Artaca, which they likewise burned;

15. This done, they returned to the Chersonese, being minded to reduce those cities which they had not ravaged in their former cruise.

16. They left Cyzicus alone, because its inhabitants had made terms with Oebares son of Megabazus, the satrap of Dascyleium, and had submitted themselves to the king.

17. In the Chersonese the Phoenicians subdued all the cities, excepting Cardia.

18. And now Darius put into execution his plan to capture the cities of Greece, and in particular Athens, the mother of Miletus, about which he had made his promise by firing an arrow into the sky.

19. He appointed Mardonius son of Gobryas, one of the seven who had freed Persia from the Magus, to lead a great invasion force by land and sea,

20. To cross the Hellespont and proceed against Eretria and Athens. It was however an unlucky expedition.

21. First Mardonius captured Thasos, for the Thasians did not even lift a hand in their defence, and were quickly reduced by the sea force.

22. On land the army added the Macedonians to the slaves of the king. From Thasos the fleet stood across to the mainland, and sailed along the shore to Acanthus, from where an attempt was made to double Mount Athos.

23. But here a violent north wind sprang up, against which nothing could contend, shattering a large number of the ships and driving them aground.

24. Nearly three hundred ships were destroyed, and more than twenty thousand men were lost,

25. Some dashed violently against the rocks, some dying of cold, most drowning.

26. While this happened to the fleet, on land Mardonius and his army were attacked by night in their camp by the Brygi, a tribe of Thracians;

27. And great numbers of Persians were slain, even Mardonius himself receiving a wound.

28. The Brygi, nevertheless, did not succeed in maintaining their freedom, for Mardonius would not leave the country till he had made them subjects of Persia.

29. Still, though he brought them under the yoke, the blow they had given his army, and the destruction of the fleet, forced him to retreat;

30. And so this armament, having failed, returned to Asia. This was the second unsuccessful sortie into Europe by Persia.

 

Chapter 52

  1. After this Darius resolved to make better preparation for conquering the Greeks,

  2. And first he investigated which of them were inclined to resist him and which to make their submission.

  3. He therefore sent heralds all round Greece, with orders to demand everywhere earth and water as marks of submission.

  4. At the same time he sent other heralds to the various coastal towns which paid him tribute, and required them to provide ships of war and horse-transports.

  5. These cities accordingly began their preparations. The heralds who had been sent into Greece obtained what the king demanded from a large number of states,

  6. And likewise from all the islanders they visited. Among these last were the Eginetans, who, equally with the rest, consented to give earth and water.

  7. When the Athenians heard what the Eginetans had done, believing that it was from enmity to themselves that they had submitted to Darius,

  8. And that the Eginetans intended to join Darius in his attack on Athens, they immediately took the matter in hand.

  9. In truth it rejoiced them to have such a good pretext; and accordingly they sent embassies to Sparta, making it a charge against the Eginetans that their conduct proved them traitors to Greece.

10. Accordingly Cleomenes, the son of Anaxandridas, who was then one of the two kings of Sparta, went in person to Egina, intending to arrest those whose guilt was the greatest.

11. But a number of the Eginetans resisted; a certain Crius, son of Polycritus, being the foremost. This person told Cleomenes he should not carry off a single Eginetan without it costing him dear; saying,

12. ‘The Athenians have bribed Cleomenes to make this attack, for which he has no warrant from his own government, otherwise both the Spartan kings would have come together.'

13. Hereupon Cleomenes, finding that he must quit Egina, asked Crius his name; and when Crius told him he said,

14. ‘Get your horns tipped with brass as quickly as possible, O Crius! For you will soon have to face great danger.'

15. Meanwhile in Sparta the other king, Demaratus son of Ariston, was bringing charges against Cleomenes,

16. Moved not so much by love of the Eginetans as by jealousy and hatred of his colleague.

17. Cleomenes therefore was no sooner returned from Egina than he pondered how he might unseat Demaratus.

18. He used an old story that Demaratus was not the true son of his father, and hence not entitled to the Spartan throne;

19. Once persuading the Spartans that this was so, Cleomenes was able to substitute Leotychides for him, and reduce Demaratus to the rank of a magistrate.

20. Then Cleomenes and Leotychides attacked the Eginetans, who quickly surrendered; and the Spartans took the ten wealthiest and noblest men of the city as hostages,

21. And gave them to the Athenians to hold, for the Athenians were the greatest enemies of Egina.

22. Now it was not long after this that Cleomenes went mad and had to be restrained, and while under restraint committed suicide;

23. So then the Eginetans sent ambassadors to Sparta to complain about the hostages kept by Athens,

24. The Lacedaemons assembled a court of justice and gave sentence, saying that Leotychides had grossly affronted the people of Egina,

25. And should be handed to the ambassadors, to be led away in place of the men whom the Athenians held hostage.

26. The ambassadors were about to lead Leotychides away when Theasides the son of Leoprepes, a man greatly esteemed in Sparta, intervened and said:

27. ‘What are you minded to do, men of Egina? To lead away the king of the Spartans, whom his countrymen have given into your hands?

28. ‘Though now in anger they have passed this sentence, yet the time will come when they will punish you, if you do this, by destroying your country.'

29. On hearing this the Eginetans changed their plan, and, instead of taking Leotychides away captive, agreed with him that he should come with them to Athens, and get back their men.  

30. The Athenians refused, and sent Leotychides and the Eginetans away. In revenge the latter captured an Athenian ship and imprisoned the noble youths who were aboard;

31. So the Athenians mustered a fleet and attacked Egina, defeating it in a sea battle.

32. This strife among the Greeks encouraged Darius in his plans.

33. Still every day a servant repeated three times, ‘Remember the Athenians',

34. And about his court were a number of Greek exiles, not least among them the Pisistraditae, descendents of that Pisistratus who had once been tyrant of Athens,

35. Who had been driven out, and were always accusing their countrymen.

36. Darius now appointed Datis and Artaphernes to the head of his armed forces, and instructed them to reduce Eretria and Athens, and bring their citizens captive to Susa in chains.

 

Chapter 53

  1. The new commanders took the army to Cilicia to meet the fleet and horse transports. Once embarkation was complete the fleet, consisting of six hundred triremes, sailed for Ionia.

  2. Instead of proceeding along the shore to the Hellespont and Thrace, the fleet loosed from Samos and traversed the Icarian Sea through the islands,

  3. Mainly because they feared the danger of doubling Mount Athos, where the year before their prede­cessors had suffered so grievously.

  4. But another reason was their earlier failure to take Naxos, which they now planned to capture.

  5. The Naxians, seeing their danger, fled into the hills. Some were captured by the Persians and put to death, and the city itself was looted and burned.

  6. This done, the Persians sailed to the other islands. When they approached Delos they found that the citizens had fled as the Naxians had done.

  7. Datis sent them a message saying, ‘Why have you fled? Why do you judge us so harshly?

  8. ‘I have enough sense to spare you, even if the king had not already ordered me to do so; come back to your dwellings in safety.'

  9. Then he sailed against Eretria, taking with him both Ionians and Aeolians.

10. After he left, the Delians returned home, thinking that the Persians were not so bad after all. Little did they guess the evils about to fall on them.

11. For in the three generations of Darius, Xerxes the son of Darius, and Artaxerxes the son of Xerxes (Xerxes means ‘Warrior', and Artaxerxes means ‘Great Warrior'), more woes befell Greece than in the twenty generations preceding Darius;

12. Woes caused in part by the Persians, but in part arising from the contentions among the Greeks' own chief men concerning the supreme power.

13. After loosing from Delos the Persians proceeded to touch at other islands, taking troops from each, and carrying off a number of the children as hostages.

14. In this way they came at last to Carystus; but here the Carystians refused to give hostages, and refused to bear arms against their neighbours, meaning Athens and Eretria.

15. So the Persians laid siege to Carystus, and wasted the country round, until at length the inhabitants were forced to submit.

16. Meanwhile the Eretrians, understanding that the Persian forces were coming against them, asked the Athenians for assistance.

17. Athens readily assigned four thousand men, landholders to whom they had allotted the estates of the Chalcidean Hippobatae.

18. At Eretria, however, things were in no healthy state; for though they had aid from Athens, yet they could not agree among themselves how to act.

19. Some wished to leave the city and take refuge in the heights of Euboea; others, hoping for rewards from the Persians, were getting ready to betray their country.

20. When these things came to the ears of Aeschines, the son of Nothon, one of the first men in Eretria,

21. He made known the whole state of affairs to the Athenians who had already arrived, advising them to return home to their own land and not perish with his countrymen.

22. The Athenians listened to his counsel, and, crossing over to Oropus, escaped the danger.

23. The Persian fleet now drew near and anchored on the coast of Eretria.

24. They proceeded to disembark their horses and make ready to attack. But the Eretrians were not minded to offer battle;

25. Their only care, after they had decided not to quit the city, was to defend their walls.

26. And now their fortress was assaulted in good earnest, and for six days great numbers died on both sides.

27. But on the seventh day two of the citizens betrayed the city to the Persians.

28. These no sooner entered than they plundered and burnt everything, and carried away all the inhabitants as slaves.

29. The Persians, having thus subjected Eretria, set sail for Attica, planning to deal with the Athenians as they had dealt with the Eretrians.

30. And, because there was no place in Attica so convenient for their horse as Marathon,

31. And Marathon lay moreover quite close to Eretria, Hippias, son of Pisistratus, took them there.

32. When news of this reached the Athenians, they likewise marched their troops to Marathon, and there stood on the defensive,

33. Having at their head ten generals, of whom one was Miltiades.

 

 

Chapter 54

  1. Now Miltiades' father, Cimon, son of Stesagoras, had been banished from Athens by the tyrant Pisistratus.

  2. During his banishment he had won the four-horse chariot race at Olympia, whereby he gained the very same honour which had before been carried off by his half-brother on his mother's side, also called Miltiades.

  3. At the next Olympiad Cimon won the prize again with the same mares; upon which he caused Pisistratus to be proclaimed the winner,