tter Alcaios composed a song and sent it to
Mytilene, reporting therein his misadventure to one Melanippos, who was
his friend. Finally Periander the son of Kypselos made peace between the
Athenians and the Mytilenians, 87 for to him they referred the matter
as arbitrator; and he made peace between them on the condition that each
should continue to occupy that territory which they then possessed.

96. Sigeion then in this matter had come under the rule of the
Athenians. And when Hippias had returned to Asia from Lacedemon, he
set everything in motion, stirring up enmity between the Athenians and
Artaphrenes, and using every means to secure that Athens should come
under the rule of himself and of Dareios. Hippias, I say, was thus
engaged; and the Athenians meanwhile hearing of these things sent envoys
to Sardis, and endeavoured to prevent the Persians from following the
suggestions of the exiled Athenians. Artaphrenes however commanded
them, if they desired to be preserved from ruin, to receive Hippias back
again. This proposal the Athenians were not by any means disposed to
accept when it was reported; and as they did not accept this, it became
at once a commonly received opinion among them that they were enemies of
the Persians.

97. While they had these thoughts and had been set at enmity with the
Persians, at this very time Aristagoras the Milesian, ordered away from
Sparta by Cleomenes the Lacedemonian, arrived at Athens; for this
was the city which had most power of all the rest besides Sparta. And
Aristagoras came forward before the assembly of the people and said the
same things as he had said at Sparta about the wealth which there was in
Asia, and about the Persian manner of making war, how they used neither
shield nor spear and were easy to overcome. Thus I say he said, and
also he added this, namely that the Milesians were colonists from the
Athenians, and that it was reasonable that the Athenians should rescue
them, since they had such great power; and there was nothing which he
did not promise, being very urgent in his request, until at last he
persuaded them: for it would seem that it is easier to deceive many than
one, seeing that, though he did not prove able to deceive Cleomenes the
Lacedemonian by himself, yet he did this to thirty thousand Athenians.
The Athenians then, I say, being persuaded, voted a resolution to
despatch twenty ships to help the Ionians, and appointed to command them
Melanthios one