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Updated: June 26, 2025
Baseness of the Pæonian chiefs. Their stratagem. The Pæonian maiden. Multiplicity of her avocations. Darius and the maiden. He determines to make the Pæonians slaves. Capture of the Pæonians. Megabyzus discovers Histiæus's city. Histiæus sent for. Darius revokes his gift. Histiæus goes to Susa. Artaphernes. Island of Naxos. Civil war there. Action of Aristagoras. Co-operation of Artaphernes.
Thus a spark kindled the universal train already prepared in thought, and the selfish ambition of Aristagoras forwarded the march of a revolution in favour of liberty that embraced all the cities of Ionia.
Darius left his brother Artaphernes as governor of all the cities in Western Asia Minor. They applied for aid to Aristagoras, the tyrant of Miletus, the largest of the Ionian cities, who persuaded the Persian satrap to send an expedition against the island.
But Aristagoras, evidently a man of a profound, though tortuous policy, was desirous of engaging not only the colonies of Greece, but the mother country also, in the great and perilous attempt to resist the Persian. High above all the states of the elder Greece soared the military fame of Sparta; and that people the scheming Milesian resolved first to persuade to his daring project.
Perhaps Megabyzus would not have been so easily satisfied had it not been that the great Ionian rebellion, under Aristagoras and Histiæus, as described in the last chapter, broke out soon after, and demanded his attention in another quarter of the realm.
Aristagoras was to accompany the expedition as its general leader, while an officer named Megabates, appointed by Artaphernes for this purpose, was to take command of the fleet as a sort of admiral. Thus there were two commanders an arrangement which almost always, in such cases, leads to a quarrel. It is a maxim in war that one bad general is better than two good ones.
All the Ionian Greeks on the coast of Asia Minor hated the Persian rule, and Histiæus hoped that if they revolted he should be wanted there, so he sent a letter to his friend Aristagoras, at Miletus, in a most curious way.
The book ends with the flight of Aristagoras to Myrcinus and his death in battle against the Thracians in 496. The next book opens with the famous accusation of Histiaeus by Artaphernes: "Thou hast stitched this boot and Aristagoras hath put it on."
We must suppose that the operations on the part of Aristagoras for the purpose of completing the cure consisted, probably, in pricking in more ink, so as to confuse and obliterate the writing. Aristagoras was on the eve of throwing off the Persian authority when he received this communication. It at once decided him to proceed. He organized his forces and commenced his revolt.
The expedition failed, which ruined the credit of Aristagoras, son-in-law to Histiæus, who was himself incensed at his detention in Susa, and who sent a trusty slave with a message urging the Ionians to revolt. Aristagoras, as a means of success, conciliated popular favor throughout Asiatic Greece, by putting down the various tyrants—the instruments of Persian ascendency.
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