ent a messenger to Myrkinos and said as follows:
"Hisiaios, king Dareios saith these things:--By taking thought I find
that there is no one more sincerely well disposed than thou art to me
and to my power; and this I know having learnt by deeds not words. Now
therefore, since I have it in my mind to accomplish great matters,
come hither to me by all means, that I may communicate them to thee."
Histiaios therefore, trusting to these sayings and at the same time
accounting it a great thing to become a counsellor of the king, came
to Sardis; and when he had come Dareios spoke to him as follows:
"Histiaios, I sent for thee for this reason, namely because when I had
returned from the Scythians and thou wert gone away out of the sight of
my eyes, never did I desire to see anything again within so short a time
as I desired then both to see thee and that thou shouldst come to speech
with me; since I perceived that the most valuable of all possessions is
a friend who is a man of understanding and also sincerely well-disposed,
both which qualities I know exist in thee, and I am able to bear witness
of them in regard to my affairs. Now therefore (for thou didst well in
that thou camest hither) this is that which I propose to thee:--leave
Miletos alone and also thy newly-founded city in Thracia, and coming
with me to Susa, have whatsoever things I have, eating at my table and
being my counseller."

25. Thus said Dareios, and having appointed Artaphrenes 12 his own
brother and the son of his father to be governor of Sardis, he marched
away to Susa taking with him Histiaios, after he had first named Otanes
to be commander of those who dwelt along the sea coasts. This man's
father Sisamnes, who had been made one of the Royal Judges, king
Cambyses slew, because he had judged a cause unjustly for money, and
flayed off all his skin: then after he had torn away the skin he cut
leathern thongs out of it and stretched them across the seat where
Sisamnes had been wont to sit to give judgment; and having stretched
them in the seat, Cambyses appointed the son of that Sisamnes whom he
had slain and flayed, to be judge instead of his father, enjoining him
to remember in what seat he was sitting to give judgment.

26. This Otanes then, who was made to sit in that seat, had now
become the successor of Megabazos in the command: and he conquered the
Byzantians and Calchedonians, and he conquered Antandros in the land
of Troas, and Lamponion; and ha