to reduce the
Athenian republic to the Persian yoke [262]. The arrival and the
intrigues of this formidable guest at the court of Sardis soon reached
the ears of the vigilant Athenians; they sent to Artaphernes,
exhorting him not to place confidence in those whose offences had
banished them from Athens. "If you wish for peace," returned the
satrap, "recall Hippias." Rather than accede to this condition, that
brave people, in their petty share of the extremity of Greece, chose
to be deemed the enemies of the vast monarchy of Persia. [263]

CHAPTER IV.

Histiaeus, Tyrant of Miletus, removed to Persia.--The Government of
that City deputed to Aristagoras, who invades Naxos with the aid of
the Persians.--Ill Success of that Expedition.--Aristagoras resolves
upon Revolting from the Persians.--Repairs to Sparta and to Athens.--
The Athenians and Eretrians induced to assist the Ionians.--Burning of
Sardis.--The Ionian War.--The Fate of Aristagoras.--Naval Battle of
Lade.--Fall of Miletus.--Reduction of Ionia.--Miltiades.--His
Character.--Mardonius replaces Artaphernes in the Lydian Satrapy.--
Hostilities between Aegina and Athens.--Conduct of Cleomenes.--
Demaratus deposed.--Death of Cleomenes.--New Persian Expedition.

I. We have seen that Darius rewarded with a tributary command the
services of Grecian nobles during his Scythian expedition. The most
remarkable of these deputy tyrants was Histiaeus, the tyrant of
Miletus. Possessed of that dignity prior to his connexion with
Darius, he had received from the generosity of the monarch a tract of
land near the river Strymon, in Thrace, sufficing for the erection of
a city called Myrcinus. To his cousin, Aristagoras, he committed the
government of Miletus--repaired to his new possession, and employed
himself actively in the foundations of a colony which promised to be
one of the most powerful that Miletus had yet established. The site
of the infant city was selected with admirable judgment upon a
navigable river, in the vicinity of mines, and holding the key of
commercial communication between the long chain of Thracian tribes on
the one side, and the trading enterprise of Grecian cities on the
other. Histiaeus was describing the walls with which the ancient
cities were surrounded, when Megabazus, commander of the forces
intended to consummate the conquest of Thrace, had the sagacity to
warn the Persian king, then at Sardis, of the probable effects of the
reg