United States or Romania ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
This attack was successful, partly in consequence of the revolt of the Ionians in the Persian camp, although the Persians fought with great bravery. The battle of Mycale was as complete as that of Platæa and Marathon, and the remnants of the Persian army retired to Sardis.
A more abundant supply of provisions than they had yet experienced tempted the army to excesses, to which many fell victims. The rest arrived at Sardis with Xerxes, whence he afterward returned to his more distant capital.
He formed a hearty and cordial alliance with Lysander, the Spartan admiral, and the most eminent man, after Brasidas, whom the Lacedæmonians had produced during the war. He was a man of severe Spartan discipline and virtue, but ambitious and cruel. He visited Cyrus at Sardis, was welcomed with every mark of favor, and induced Cyrus to grant additional pay to every Spartan seaman.
Eretria, the confederate of Athens in the bold march against Sardis nine years before, had fallen in the last few days; and the Athenian generals could discern from the heights the island of AEgilia, in which the Persians had deposited their Eretrian prisoners, whom they had reserved to be led away captives into Upper Asia, there to hear their doom from the lips of King Darius himself.
I wish to have Oretes, the governor of Sardis, brought to me, dead or alive. He has perpetrated innumerable crimes, and now, in addition to all his other deeds of treacherous violence, he has had the intolerable insolence to put to death one of my messengers. Which of you will volunteer to bring him, dead or alive, to me?"
I served as a poor captain under the great Cyrus. At the taking of your father's city, Sardis, the soldiers were at first allowed to plunder freely; but on your wise father's representing to Cyrus that to plunder a city already taken was an injury to the present, and not to the former, possessor, they were commanded on pain of death to deliver up their booty to their captains, and the latter to cause everything of worth, when brought to them, to be collected in the market-place.
At last, when Polycrates went to Sardis, as is related in the last chapter, to receive the treasures of Oretes, and concert with him the plans for their proposed campaigns, Democedes accompanied him as usual; and when Polycrates was slain, and his attendants and followers were made captive by Oretes, the unfortunate physician was among the number.
Pactyas, a Lydian, who had been entrusted with the duty of conveying the treasures of Croesus and his more wealthy subjects to Ecbatana, revolted against Tabalus, the Persian commandant of the town, and being joined by the native population and numerous mercenaries, principally Greeks, whom he hired with the treasure that was in his hands, made himself master of Sardis, and besieged Tabalus in the citadel.
Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes of Miletus, Bias of Priene, Solon of Athens, Pittakus of Lesbos, the most celebrated Hellenic philosophers, had in former and happier days been guests at the court of Croesus in Sardis. His full clear voice sounded like pure song when compared with the shrill tones of Amasis.
"Did you hear what the stout man was saying about Verus?" "The lictor wanted to take him up, but nothing is to be done with them by violence. If they had to pay only a sesterce for every venomous word, I tell you Pontius, the city would be impoverished and our treasury would soon be fuller than that of Gyges at Sardis."
Word Of The Day