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XXV. There is a legend that the news of the battle on the river Sagra in Italy against the natives was carried the same day into Peloponnesus, and that of the battle of Mykale against the Medes was so carried to Plataea. The victory of the Romans over the Latins under the exiled Tarquins was reported at Rome a little after it took place, by two men, tall and fair, who came from the army.
However the mention of a few remarkable instances is germane to the matter of which we are treating. Again, the Persians were beaten by the Greeks on the sixth of Boedromion at Marathon, and on the third they were beaten both at Plataea and at Mykale, and at Arbela on the twenty-fifth of the same month.
And the Maionians were commanded of Mesthles and Antiphos, Talaimenes' two sons, whose mother was the Gygaian mere. So these led the Maionians, whose birthplace was under Tmolos. But Nastes led the Karians, uncouth of speech, that possessed Miletos and the mountain of Phthires, of leafage numberless, and the streams of Maiandros and the steep crest of Mykale.
By the time that concerns us most the Earth-Shaker is a sea-god, specially important to the sea-peoples of Athens and Ionia. He is the father of Neleus, the ancestor of the Ionian kings. His temple at Cape Mykale is the scene of the Panionia, and second only to Delos as a religious centre of the Ionian tribes. He has intimate relations with Attica too.
Among them that dwell in Crete, and the people of Athens, and isle AEgina, and Euboea famed for fleets, and AEgae and Peiresiae, and Peparethus by the sea-strand, and Thracian Athos, and the tall crests of Pelion, and Thracian Samos, and the shadowy mountains of Ida, Scyros, and Phocaea, and the mountain wall of Aigocane, and stablished Imbros, and inhospitable Lemnos, and goodly Lesbos, the seat of Makar son of AEolus, and Chios, brightest of all islands of the deep, and craggy Mimas, and the steep crests of Mykale, and gleaming Claros, and the high hills of AEsagee, and watery Samos, and tall ridges of Mycale, and Miletus, and Cos, a city of Meropian men, and steep Cnidos, and windy Carpathus, Naxos and Paros, and rocky Rheneia so far in travail with the Archer God went Leto, seeking if perchance any land would build a house for her son.
His father, Xanthippus, defeated the Persian generals at Mykalé, while his mother, Agariste, was a descendant of Kleisthenes, who drove the sons of Peisistratus out of Athens, put an end to their despotic rule, and established a new constitution admirably calculated to reconcile all parties and save the country.
On the same day as the battle of Platæa was fought, another great battle was fought at Mykale, near Miletus, by the Ionian Greeks of Asia, assisted by Athenians and Spartans. It set Miletus free from the Persians, and was the first step backwards of their great power.
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