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Within the thicket I found the pearls that Cimon has displayed to you. Clear, then, is it that this man lies clear that the Persians must have fled already although Gongylus declares that on his return to the citadel he visited them in their prison. Explain this, Eretrian!"
The twenty ships soon crossed the Ægean, and were joined by five Eretrian ships coming to the succor of Miletus. An unsuccessful attempt of Aristagoras on Sardis disgusted the Athenians, who abandoned the alliance. But the accidental burning of the city, including the temple of the goddess Cybele, encouraged the revolters, and incensed the Persians.
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.
=Phliasian=: from Phliûs, a city of Peloponnesus. =Troad=: the plain around Troy, the scene of the famous Trojan war, celebrated in Homer's Iliad. =Pergamus=: a city noted for its library of over 200,000 manuscript rolls, which were eventually removed to Alexandria, Egypt. Parchment, a name derived from this place, was invented here. =Eretrian=: pertaining to Eretria, a city of Ionia, Asia Minor.
"There is something in this," said Xanthippus, "which requires at least examination. May it please you, Pausanias, to summon Gongylus hither?" A momentary shade passed over the brow of the conspirator, but the eyes of the Greeks were on him; and to refuse were as dangerous as to comply. He turned to one of his Spartans, and ordered him to summon the Eretrian. "You have spoken well, Xanthippus.
"The barbarians," say he, "retiring back with the rest of their ships, and taking the Eretrian slaves out of the island, where they had left them, doubled the point of Sunium, desiring to prevent the Athenians before they could gain the city.
With unbleached cheek, with haughty eyes, he met the gaze of the assembly; and then waving his hand as if that gesture sufficed to restrain and awe them, he said "In the name of all Greece, whose chief I yet am, whose protector I have once been, I command ye to resume your seats, and listen to the Eretrian. Spartans, fall back. Governor of Byzantium, pursue your tale."
Such of their number as took refuge in Eretria, which they presumed to be friendly to them, found their fate in that city, being butchered by the inhabitants; while those who fled to the Athenian fort in the Eretrian territory, and the vessels which got to Chalcis, were saved. When the news of what had happened in Euboea reached Athens, a panic ensued such as they had never before known.
The tone of Pausanias, and his severe look, pleased and re-assured all the Greeks, except the wiser Cimon. who, though his suspicions were a little shaken, continued to fix his eyes rather on Pausanias than on the Eretrian. "Pausanias," replied Gongylus, drawing up his lean frame, as with the dignity of conscious innocence, "that suspicion could fall upon me, I find it difficult to suppose.
"I leave thee, kingly slave of the rocky Sparta, to prepare the way for thee, as Satrap of half the East." So saying he quitted the awning, and motioned three Egyptian sailors who lay on the deck without. A boat was lowered, and the sound of its oars woke Pausanias from the reverie into which the parting words of the Eretrian had plunged his mind. Leg. i. p. 633.
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