mised to comply with these desires, and gave his
orders to Otanes accordingly.

Notwithstanding this, however, the expedition resulted in the almost
total destruction of the Samian population, in the following manner.
There was a citadel at Samos, to which the inhabitants retired when
they learned that Otanes had embarked his troops in ships on the
coast, and was advancing toward the island. Maeandrius was vexed and
angry at the prospect of being deprived of his possessions and his
power; and, as the people hated him on account of his extortion and
tyranny, he hated them in return, and cared not how much suffering his
measures might be the means of bringing upon them. He had a
subterranean and secret passage from the citadel to the shore of the
sea, where, in a secluded cove, were boats or vessels ready to take
him away. Having made these arrangements to secure his own safety, he
proceeded to take such a course and adopt such measures as should tend
most effectually to exasperate and offend the Persians, intending to
escape, himself, at the last moment, by this subterranean retreat,
and to leave the inhabitants of the island at the mercy of their
infuriated enemies.

He had a brother whom he had shut up in a dungeon, and whose mind,
naturally depraved, and irritated by his injuries, was in a state of
malignant and furious despair. Maeandrius had pretended to be willing
to give up the island to the Persians. He had entered into
negotiations with them for this purpose, and the Persians considered
the treaty as in fact concluded. The leaders and officers of the army
had assembled, accordingly, before the citadel in a peaceful attitude,
waiting merely for the completion of the forms of surrender, when
Charilaus, Maeandrius's captive brother, saw them, by looking out
between the bars of his window, in the tower in which he was confined.
He sent an urgent message to Maeandrius, requesting to speak to him.
Maeandrius ordered the prisoner to be brought before him. The haggard
and wretched-looking captive, rendered half insane by the combined
influence of the confinement he had endured, and of the wild
excitement produced by the universal panic and confusion which reigned
around him, broke forth against his brother in the boldest and most
violent invectives. He reproached him in the most bitter terms for
being willing to yield so ingloriously, and without a struggle, to an
invading foe, whom he might easily repel. "You have co