ait the Persians. After enduring great privations and
sufferings Darius and his army at length reached the Danube and crossed
the bridge in safety. Thus the selfishness of these Grecian despots
threw away the most favourable opportunity that ever presented itself
of delivering their native cities from the Persian yoke. To reward the
services of Histiaeus, Darius gave him the town of Myrainus, near the
Strymon. Darius, on his return to Asia, left Megabazus in Europe with
an army of 80,000 men to complete the subjugation of Thrace and of the
Greek cities upon the Hellespont. Megabazus not only subdued the
Thracians, but crossed the Strymon, conquered the Paeonians, and
penetrated as far as the frontiers of Macedonia. He then sent heralds
into the latter country to demand earth and water, the customary
symbols of submission. These were immediately granted by Amyntas, the
reigning monarch (B.C. 510); and thus the Persian dominions were
extended to the borders of Thessaly. Megabazus, on his return to
Sardis, where Darius awaited him, informed the Persian monarch that
Histiaeus was collecting the elements of a power which might hereafter
prove formidable to the Persian sovereignty, since Myrcinus commanded
the navigation of the Strymon, and consequently the commerce with the
interior of Thrace. Darius, perceiving that the apprehensions of his
general were not without foundation, summoned Histiaeus to his
presence, and, under the pretext that he could not bear to be deprived
of the company of his friend, carried him with the rest of the court to
Susa. This apparently trivial circumstance was attended with important
consequences to the Persian empire and to the whole Grecian race.

For the next few years everything remained quiet in the Greek cities of
Asia; but about B.C. 502 a revolution in Naxos, one of the islands in
the AEgean Sea, first disturbed the general repose, and occasioned the
war between Greece and Asia. The aristocratical exiles, who had been
driven out of Naxos by a rising of the people, applied for aid to
Aristagoras, the tyrant of Miletus and the son-in-law of Histiaeus.
Aristagoras readily promised his assistance, knowing that, if they were
restored by his means, he should become master of the island. He
obtained the co-operation of Artaphernes, the satrap of western Asia by
holding out to him the prospect of annexing not only Naxos, but all the
islands of the AEgean sea, to the Persian empire. H