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
regal donation. "Have you, sire, done wisely," said he, "in
permitting this able and active Greek to erect a new city in Thrace?
Know you not that that favoured land, abounding in mines of silver,
possesses, also, every advantage for the construction and equipment of
ships; wild Greeks and roving barbarians are mingled there, ripe for
enterprise--ready to execute the commands of any resolute and aspiring
leader! Fear the possibility of a civil war--prevent the chances of
the ambition of Histiaeus,--have recourse to artifice rather than to
force, get him in your power, and prevent his return to Greece."
Darius followed the advice of his general, sent for Histiaeus, loaded
him with compliments, and, pretending that he could not live without
his counsels, carried him off from his Thracian settlement to the
Persian capital of Susa. His kinsman, Aristagoras, continued to
preside over the government of Miletus, then the most haughty and
flourishing of the Ionian states; but Naxos, beneath it in power,
surpassed it in wealth; the fertile soil of that fair isle--its
numerous population--its convenient site--its abundant resources,
attracted the cupidity of Aristagoras; he took advantage of a civil
commotion, in which many of the nobles were banished by the people--
received the exiles--and, under the pretence of restoring them,
meditated the design of annexing the largest of the Cyclades to the
tyranny of Miletus.
He persuaded the traitorous nobles to suffer him to treat with
Artaphernes--successfully represented to that satrap the advantages of
annexing the gem of the Cyclades to the Persian diadem--and Darius,
listening to the advice of his delegate, sent two hundred vessels to
the invasion of Naxos (B. C. 501), under the command of his kinsman,
Megabates. A quarrel ensued, however, between the Persian general and
the governor of Miletus. Megabates, not powerful enough to crush the
tyrant, secretly informed the Naxians of the meditated attack; and,
thus prepared for the assault, they so well maintained themselves in
their city, that, after a siege of four months, the pecuniary
resources, not only of Megabates, but of Aristagoras, were exhausted,
and the invaders were compelled to retreat from the island.
Aristagoras now saw that he had fallen into the pit he had digged for
others: his treasury was drained--he had incurred heavy debts with the
Persian government, which condemned him to reimburse the whole expense
of the enterprise--he feared the resentment of Megabates and the
disappointment of Artaphernes--and he foresaw that his ill success
might be a reasonable plea for removing him from the government of
Miletus. While he himself was meditating the desperate expedient of a
revolt, a secret messenger from Histiaeus suddenly arrived at Miletus.
That wily Greek, disgusted with his magnificent captivity, had had
recourse to a singular expedient: selecting the most faithful of his
slaves, he shaved his scull, wrote certain characters on the surface,
and, when the hair was again grown, dismissed this living letter to
Aristagoras [264]. The characters commanded the deputy to commence a
revolt; for Histiaeus imagined that the quiet of Miletus was the
sentence of his exile.
II. This seasonable advice, so accordant with his own views, charmed
Aristagoras: he summoned the Milesians, and, to engage their zealous
assistance, he divested himself of the tyranny, and established a
republic. It was a mighty epoch that, for the stir of thought!--
everywhere had awakened a desire for free government and equal laws;
and Aristagoras, desirous of conciliating the rest of Ionia, assisted
her various states in the establishment of republican institutions.
Coes, the tyrant of Mitylene, perished by the hands of the people; in
the rest of Ionia, the tyrants were punished but by exile. Thus a
spark kindled the universal train already prepared in thought, and the
selfish ambition of Aristagoras forwarded the march of a revolution in
favour of liberty that embraced all the cities of Ionia. But
Aristagoras, evidently a man of a profound, though tortuous policy,
was desirous of engaging not only the colonies of Greece, but the
mother country also, in the great and perilous attempt to resist the
Persian. High above all the states of the elder Greece soared the
military fame of Sparta; and that people the scheming Milesian
resolved first to persuade to his daring project.
Trusting to no ambassador, but to his own powers of eloquence, he
arrived in person at Sparta. With a brazen chart of the world, as
then known, in his hand, he sought to inspire the ambition of
Cleomenes by pointing out the wide domains--the exhaustless treasures
of the Persian realm. He depreciated the valour of its people,
ridiculed their weapons, and urged him to the vast design of
establishing, by Spartan valour, the magnificent conquest of Asia.
The Spartans, always cold to the liberty of other states, were no less
indifferent to the glory of barren victories; and when Aristagoras too
honestly replied, in answer to a question of the king, that from the
Ionian sea to Susa, the Persian capital, was a journey of three
months, Cleomenes abruptly exclaimed, "Milesian, depart from Sparta
before sunset;--a march of three months from the sea!--the Spartans
will never listen to so frantic a proposal!" Aristagoras, not
defeated, sought a subsequent interview, in which he attempted to
bribe the king, who, more accustomed to bribe others than be bribed,
broke up the conference, and never afterward would renew it.
III. The patient and plotting Milesian departed thence to Athens
(B. C. 500): he arrived there just at the moment when the Athenian
ambassadors had returned from Sardis, charged with the haughty reply
of Artaphernes to the mission concerning Hippias. The citizens were
aroused, excited, inflamed; equally indignant at the insolence, and
fearful of the power, of the satrap. It was a favourable occasion for
Aristagoras!
To the imagination of the reader this passage in history presents a
striking picture. We may behold the great assembly of that lively,
high-souled, sensitive, and inflammable people. There is the Agora;
there the half-built temple to Aeacus;--above, the citadel, where yet
hang the chains of the captive enemy;--still linger in the ears of the
populace, already vain of their prowess, and haughty in their freedom,
the menace of the Persian--the words that threatened them with the
restoration of the exiled tyrant; and at this moment, and in this
concourse, we see the subtle Milesian, wise in the experience of
mankind, popular with all free states, from having restored freedom to
the colonies of Ionia--every advantage of foreign circumstance and
intrinsic ability in his favour,--about to address the breathless and
excited multitude. He rose: he painted, as he had done to Cleomenes,
in lively colours, the wealth of Asia, the effeminate habits of its
people--he described its armies fighting without spear or shield--he
invoked the valour of a nation already successful in war against hardy
and heroic foes--he appealed to old hereditary ties; the people of
Miletus had been an Athenian colony--should not the parent protect the
child in the greatest of all blessings--the right to liberty? Now he
entreats--now he promises,--the sympathy of the free, the enthusiasm
of the brave, are alike aroused. He succeeds: the people accede to
his views. "It is easier," says the homely Herodotus, "to gain (or
delude) a multitude than an individual; and the eloquence which had
failed with Cleomenes enlisted thirty thousand Athenians." [265]
IV. The Athenians agreed to send to the succour of their own
colonists, the Ionians, twenty vessels of war. Melanthius, a man of
amiable character and popular influence, was appointed the chief.
This was the true commencement of the great Persian war.
V. Thus successful, Aristagoras departed from Athens. Arriving at
Miletus, he endeavoured yet more to assist his design, by attempting
to arouse a certain colony in Phrygia, formed of Thracian captives
[266] taken by Megabazus, the Persian general. A great proportion of
these colonists seized the occasion to return to their native land--
baffled the pursuit of the Persian horse--reached the shore--and were
transported in Ionian vessels to their ancient home on the banks of
the Strymon. Meanwhile, the Athenian vessels arrived at Miletus,
joined by five ships, manned by Eretrians of Euboea, mindful of former
assistance from the Milesians in a war with their fellow-islanders,
the Chalcidians, nor conscious, perhaps, of the might of the enemy
they provoked.
Aristagoras remained at Miletus, and delegated to his brother the
command of the Milesian forces. The Greeks then sailed to Ephesus,
debarked at Coressus, in its vicinity, and, under the conduct of
Ephesian guides, marched along the winding valley of the Cayster--
whose rapid course, under a barbarous name, the traveller yet traces,
though the swans of the Grecian poets haunt its waves no more--passed
over the auriferous Mount of Tmolus, verdant with the vine, and
fragrant with the saffron--and arrived at the gates of the voluptuous
Sardis. They found Artaphernes unprepared for this sudden invasion--
they seized the city (B. C. 499).--the satrap and his troops retreated
to the citadel.
The houses of Sardis were chiefly built of reeds, and the same slight
and inflammable material thatched the roofs even of the few mansions
built of brick. A house was set on fire by a soldier--the flames
spread throughout the city. In the midst of the conflagration despair
gave valour to the besieged--the wrath of man was less fearful than
that of the element; the Lydians, and the Persians who were in the
garrison, rushed into the market-place, through which flowed the river
of Pactolus. There they resolved to encounter the enemy. The
invaders were seized with a sudden panic, possibly as much occasioned
by the rage of the conflagration as the desperation of the foe; and,
retiring to Mount Tmolus, took advantage of the night to retrace their
march along the valley of the Cayster.
VI. But the Ionians were not fated to return in safety: from the
borders of the river Halys a troop of Persians followed their retreat,
and overtaking them when the Ephesian territory was already gained,
defeated the Ionians with a great slaughter, amid which fell the
leader of the Eretrians.
The Athenians were naturally disappointed with the result of this
expedition. Returning home, they refused all the overtures of
Aristagoras to renew their incursions into Asia. The gallant Ionians
continued, however, the hostilities they had commenced against Darius.
They sailed to the Hellespont, and reduced Byzantium, with the
neighbouring cities. Their forces were joined by the Cyprians,
aroused against the Persian yoke by Onesilus, a bold usurper, who had
dethroned his brother, the prince of Salamis, in Cyprus; and the
conflagration of Sardis dazzling the Carians, hitherto lukewarm,
united to the Ionian cause the bulk of that hardy population. The
revolt now assumed a menacing and formidable aspect. Informed of
these events, Darius summoned Histiaeus: "The man," said he, "whom you
appointed to the government of Miletus has rebelled against me.
Assisted by the Ionians, whom I shall unquestionably chastise, he has
burnt Sardis. Had he your approbation? Without it would he have
dared such treason? Beware how you offend a second time against my
authority." Histiaeus artfully vindicated himself from the suspicions
of the king. He attributed the revolt of the Ionians to his own
absence, declared that if sent into Ionia he would soon restore its
inhabitants to their wonted submission, and even promised to render
the Island of Sardinia tributary to Persia.
VII. Deluded by these professions, Darius dismissed the tyrant of
Miletus, requiring only his return on the fulfilment of his promises.
Meanwhile, the generals of Darius pressed vigorously on the
insurgents. Against Onesilus, then engaged in reducing Amathus (the
single city in Cyprus opposed to him), Artybius, a Persian officer,
conducted a formidable fleet. The Ionians hastened to the succour of
their Cyprian ally--a battle ensued both by land and sea: in the
latter the Ionians defeated, after a severe contest, the Phoenician
auxiliaries of Persia--in the former, a treacherous desertion of some
of the Cyprian troops gave a victory to the Persian. The brave
Onesilus, who had set his fate upon the issue of the field, was among
the slain. The Persians proceeded to blockade, and ultimately to
regain, the Cyprian cities: of these, Soli, which withstood a siege of
five months, proffered the most obdurate resistance; with the
surrender of that gallant city, Cyprus once more, after a year of
liberty, was subjected to the dominion of the great king.
This success was increased by the reduction of several towns on the
Hellespont, and two signal defeats over the Carians (B. C. 498), in
the last of which, the Milesians, who had joined their ally, suffered
a prodigious loss. The Carians, however, were not subdued, and in a
subsequent engagement they effected a great slaughter among the
Persians, the glory of which was enhanced by the death of Daurises,
general of the barbarians, and son-in-law to Darius. But this action
was not sufficiently decisive to arrest the progress of the Persian
arms. Artaphernes, satrap of Sardis, and Otanes, the third general in
command, led their forces into Ionia and Aeolia:--the Ionian
Clazomenae, the Aeolian Cuma, were speedily reduced.
VIII. The capture of these places, with the general fortunes of the
war, disheartened even the patient and adventurous Aristagoras. He
could not but believe that all attempts against the crushing power of
Darius were in vain. He assembled the adherents yet faithful to his
arms, and painted to them the necessity of providing a new settlement.
Miletus was no longer secure, and the vengeance of Darius was
gathering rapidly around them. After some consultation they agreed to
repair to that town and territory in Thrace which had been given by
Darius to Histiaeus [267]. Miletus was intrusted to the charge of a
popular citizen named Pythagoras, and these hardy and restless
adventurers embarked for Thrace. Aristagoras was fortunate enough to
reach in safety the settlement which had seemed so formidable a
possession to the Persian general; but his usual scheming and bold
ambition, not contented with that domain, led him to the attack of a
town in its vicinity. The inhabitants agreed to resign it into his
hands, and, probably lulled into security by this concession, he was
suddenly, with his whole force, cut off by an incursion of the
Thracian foe. So perished (B. C. 497) the author of many subsequent
and mighty events, and who, the more we regard his craft, his courage,
his perseverance, and activity, the vastness of his ends, and the
perseverance with which he pursued them, must be regarded by the
historian as one of the most stirring and remarkable spirits of that
enterprising age.
IX. The people of Miletus had not, upon light grounds or with feeble
minds, embarked in the perilous attempt to recover their liberties.
Deep was the sentiment that inspired--solemn and stern the energy
which supported them. The Persian generals now collected in one body
their native and auxiliary force. The Cyprians, lately subdued (B. C.
496), were compelled to serve. Egypt and Cilicia swelled the
armament, and the skill of the Phoenicians rendered yet more
formidable a fleet of six hundred vessels. With this power the
barbarians advanced upon Miletus. Most, if not all, of the Ionian
states prepared themselves for the struggle--delegates met at the
Panionium--it was agreed to shun the Persians upon land--to leave to
the Milesians the defence of their city--to equip the utmost naval
force they could command--and, assembling in one fleet off the small
isle of Lade, opposite to Miletus, to hazard the battle upon the seas.
Three hundred and fifty triremes were provided, and met at the
appointed place. The discipline of the navy was not equal to the
valour of the enterprise; Dionysius, commander of the Phocaeans,
attempted, perhaps too rigorously, to enforce it;--jealousy and
disgust broke out among the troops--and the Samian leaders, whether
displeased with their allies, or tempted by the Persians, who, through
the medium of the exiled tyrants of Greece, serving with them,
maintained correspondence with the Ionians, secretly agreed to desert
in the midst of the ensuing battle. This compact made, the
Phoenicians commenced the attack, and the Ionians, unsuspicious of
treachery, met them with a contracted line. In the beginning of the
engagement, the Samians, excepting only eleven ships (whose captains
were afterward rewarded by a public column in their native
market-place), fulfilled their pledge, and sailed away to Samos. The
Lesbians, stationed next them, followed their example, and confusion
and flight became contagious. The Chians alone redeemed the character
of the allies, aided, indeed, by Dionysius the Phocaean, who, after
taking three of the enemy's ships, refused to retreat till the day was
gone, and then, sailing to Phoenicia, sunk several trading vessels,
enriched himself with their spoil, and eventually reaching Sicily,
became renowned as a pirate, formidable to the Carthaginian and
Tyrsenian families of the old Phoenician foe, but holding his Grecian
countrymen sacred from his depredations.
The Persian armament now bent all its vengeance on Miletus; they
besieged it both by land and by sea--every species of military machine
then known was directed against its walls, and, in the sixth year
after the revolt of Aristagoras, Miletus fell (B. C. 494)--Miletus,
the capital of Ionia--the mother of a hundred colonies! Pittacus,
Thales, Arctinus, were among the great names she gave to science and
to song. Worthy of her renown, she fell amid the ruins of that
freedom which she showed how nobly she could have continued to adorn
by proving how sternly she could defend. The greater part of the
citizens were slain--those who remained, with the women and the
children, were borne into slavery by the victors. Their valour and
renown touched the heart of Darius, and he established the captives in
a city by that part of the Erythraean Sea which receives the waters of
the Barbarian Tigris. Their ancient territories were portioned out
between the Persians and the Carians of Pedasa.
X. The Athenians received the news of this fatal siege with the
deepest sorrow, and Herodotus records an anecdote illustrative of the
character of that impassioned people, and interesting to the history
of their early letters. Phrynichus, a disciple of Thespis,
represented on the stage the capture of Miletus, and the whole
audience burst into tears. The art of the poet was considered
criminal in thus forcibly reminding the Athenians of a calamity which
was deemed their own: he was fined a thousand drachmae, and the
repetition of the piece forbidden--a punishment that was but a
glorious homage to the genius of the poet and the sensibility of the
people.
After innumerable adventures, in which he exhibited considerable but
perverted abilities, Histiaeus fell into the hands of Artaphernes, and
died upon the cross. Darius rebuked the zeal of the satrap, and
lamented the death of a man, whose situation, perhaps, excused his
artifices.
And now the cloud swept onward--one after one the Ionian cities were
reduced--the islands of Chios, Lesbos, Tenedos, depopulated; and all
Ionia subjugated and enslaved. The Persian fleet proceeded to subdue
all the towns and territories to the left of the Hellespont. At this
time their success in the Chersonesus drove from that troubled isthmus
a chief, whose acute and dauntless faculties made him subsequently the
scourge of Persia and the deliverer of Greece.
XI. We have seen Miltiades, nephew to the first of that name, arrive
at the Chersonesus--by a stroke of dexterous perfidy, seize the
persons of the neighbouring chieftains--attain the sovereignty of that
peninsula, and marry the daughter of a Thracian prince. In his
character was united, with much of the intellect, all the duplicity of
the Greek. During the war between Darius and the Scythians, while
affecting to follow the Persian army, he had held traitorous
intercourse with the foe. And proposed to the Grecian chiefs to
destroy the bridge of boats across the Danube confided to their
charge; so that, what with the force of the Scythians and the pressure
of famine, the army of Darius would have perished among the Scythian
wastes, and a mighty enemy have been lost to Greece--a scheme that,
but for wickedness, would have been wise. With all his wiles, and all
his dishonesty, Miltiades had the art, not only of rendering authority
firm, but popular. Driven from his state by the Scythian Nomades, he
was voluntarily recalled by the very subjects over whom he had
established an armed sovereignty--a rare occurrence in that era of
republics. Surrounded by fierce and restless foes, and exercised in
constant, if petty warfare, Miltiades had acquired as much the
experience of camps as the subtleties of Grecian diplomacy; yet, like
many of the wise of small states, he seems to have been more crafty
than rash--the first for flight wherever flight was the better policy
--but the first for battle if battle were the more prudent. He had in
him none of the inconsiderate enthusiasm of the hero--none of the
blind but noble subservience to honour. Valour seems to have been for
his profound intellect but the summation of chances, and when we
afterward find him the most daring soldier, it is only because he was
the acutest calculator.
On seeing the Phoenician fleet, raider Persia, arrive off the Isle of
Tenedos, which is opposite the Chersonesus, Miltiades resolved not to
wait the issue of a battle: as before he had fled the Scythian, so
now, without a struggle, he succumbed to the Phoenician sword. He
loaded five vessels with his property--with four he eluded the hostile
fleet--the fifth, commanded by his eldest son, was pursued and taken
[268]. In triumphant safety the chief of the Chersonesus arrived at
Athens. He arrived at that free state to lose the dignity of a
Thracian prince, and suddenly to be reminded that he was an Athenian
citizen. He was immediately prosecuted for the crime of tyranny. His
influence or his art, admiration of his genius, or compassion of his
reverses, however, procured him an acquittal. We may well suppose
that, high-born and wealthy, he lost no occasion of cementing his
popularity in his native state.
XII. Meanwhile, the Persians suspended for that year all further
hostilities against the Ionians. Artaphernes endeavoured to
conciliate the subdued colonies by useful laws, impartial taxes, and
benign recommendations to order and to peace. The next year, however,
that satrap was recalled (B. C. 492), and Mardonius, a very young
noble, the son-in-law of Darius, was appointed, at the head of a
considerable naval and military force, to the administration of the
affairs in that part of the Persian empire. Entering Ionia, he
executed a novel, a daring, but no unstatesman-like stroke of policy.
He removed all the Ionian tyrants, and everywhere restored republican
forms of government; deeming, unquestionably, that he is the securest
master of distant provinces who establishes among them the
institutions which they best love. Then proceeding to the Hellespont,
Mardonius collected his mighty fleets and powerful army, and passed
through Europe towards the avowed objects of the Persian vengeance--
the cities of Eretria and Athens.
From the time that the Athenians had assisted the forces of Miletus
and long in the destruction of Sardis, their offence had rankled in
the bosom of Darius. Like most monarchs, he viewed as more heinous
offenders the foreign abetters of rebellion, than the rebels
themselves. Religion, no doubt, conspired to augment his indignation.
In the conflagration of Sardis the temple of the great Persian deity
had perished, and the inexpiated sacrilege made a duty of revenge. So
keenly, indeed, did Darius resent the share that the remote Athenians
had taken in the destruction of his Lydian capital, that, on receiving
the intelligence, he is said to have called for his bow, and, shooting
an arrow in the air, to have prayed for vengeance against the
offenders; and three times every day, as he sat at table, his
attendants were commanded to repeat to him, "Sir, remember the
Athenians."
XIII. But the design of Mardonius was not only directed against the
Athenians and the state of Eretria, it extended also to the rest of
Greece: preparations so vast were not meant to be wasted upon foes
apparently insignificant, but rather to consolidate the Persian
conquests on the Asiatic coasts, and to impress on the neighbouring
continent of Europe adequate conceptions of the power of the great
king. By sea, Mardonius subdued the islanders of Thasus, wealthy in
its gold-mines; by land he added to the Persian dependances in Thrace
and Macedonia. But losses, both by storm and battle, drove him back
to Asia, and delayed for a season the deliberate and organized
invasion of Greece.
In the following year (B. C. 491), while the tributary cities
Mardonius had subdued were employed in constructing vessels of war and
transports for cavalry, ambassadors were despatched by Darius to the
various states of Greece, demanding the homage of earth and water--a
preliminary calculated to ascertain who would resist, who submit to,
his power--and certain to afford a pretext, in the one case for
empire, in the other for invasion. Many of the cities of the
continent, and all the islands visited by the ambassadors, had the
timidity to comply with the terms proposed. Sparta and Athens,
hitherto at variance, united at once in a haughty and indignant
refusal. To so great a height was the popular rage in either state
aroused by the very demand, that the Spartans threw the ambassadors
into their wells, and the Athenians, into their pit of punishment,
bidding them thence get their earth and water; a singular coincidence
of excess in the two states--to be justified by no pretence--to be
extenuated only by the reflection, that liberty ever becomes a species
of noble madness when menaced by foreign danger. [269]
XIV. With the rest of the islanders, the people of Aegina, less
resolute than their near neighbours and ancient foes, the Athenians,
acceded to the proposal of tribute. This, more than the pusillanimity
of the other states, alarmed and inflamed the Athenians; they
suspected that the aeginetans had formed some hostile alliance against
them with the Persians, and hastened to accuse them to Sparta of
betraying the liberties of Greece. Nor was there slight ground for
the suspicions of the Athenians against Aegina. The people of that
island had hereditary and bitter feuds with the Athenians, dating
almost from their independence of their parent state of Epidaurus;
mercantile jealousies were added to ancestral enmity, and the wares of
Athens were forbidden all application to sacred uses in Aegina. We
have seen the recent occasion on which Attica was invaded by these
hostile neighbours, then allied with Thebes: and at that period the
naval force of gins was such as to exceed the unconscious and untried
resources of the Athenians. The latter had thus cause at once to hate
and to dread a rival placed by nature in so immediate a vicinity to
themselves, that the submission of Aegina to the Persian seemed in
itself sufficient for the destruction of Athens.
XV. The Athenian ambassadors met with the most favourable reception
at Sparta. The sense of their common danger, and sympathy in their
mutual courage, united at once these rival states; even the rash and
hitherto unrelenting Cleomenes eagerly sought a reconciliation with
his former foe. That prince went in person to Aegina, determined to
ascertain the authors of the suspected treachery;--with that
characteristic violence which he never provided the means to support,
and which so invariably stamps this unable and headstrong Spartan, as
one who would have been a fool, if he had not been a madman--Cleomenes
endeavoured to seize the persons of the accused. He was stoutly
resisted, and disgracefully baffled, in this impotent rashness; and
his fellow-king, Demaratus, whom we remember to have suddenly deserted
Cleomenes at Eleusis, secretly connived with the Aeginetans in their
opposition to his colleague, and furnished them with an excuse, by
insinuating that Cleomenes had been corrupted by the Athenians. But
Demaratus was little aware of the dark and deadly passions which
Cleomenes combined with his constitutional insanity. Revenge made a
great component of his character, and the Grecian history records few
instances of a nature more vehemently vindictive.
There had been various rumours at Sparta respecting the legitimacy of
Demaratus. Cleomenes entered into a secret intrigue with a kinsman of
his colleague, named Leotychides, who cherished an equal hatred
against Demaratus [270]; the conditions between them were, that
Cleomenes should assist in raising Leotychides to the throne of
Demaratus, and Leotychides should assist Cleomenes in his vengeance
against Aegina. No sooner was this conspiracy agreed upon than
Leotychides propagated everywhere the report that the birth of
Demaratus was spurious. The Spartans attached the greatest value to
legitimacy,--they sent to consult the Pythian--and Cleomenes, through
the aid of Colon, a powerful citizen of Delphi, bribed the oracle to
assert the illegitimacy of his foe. Demaratus was deposed. Sinking
at once into the rank of a private citizen, he was elected to some
inferior office. His enemy, Leotychides, now upon his throne, sent
him, by way of insult, a message to demand which he preferred--his
past or his present dignity. Demaratus was stung, and answered, that
the question might fix the date of much weal or much wo to Sparta;
saying this, he veiled his head--sought his home--sacrificed to
Jupiter--and solemnly adjured his mother to enlighten him as to his
legitimacy. The parental answer was far from unequivocal, and the
matron appeared desirous of imputing the distinction of his birth to
the shade of an ancient Spartan hero, Astrobachus, rather than to the
earthly embrace of her husband. Demaratus heard, and formed his
decision: he escaped from Sparta, baffled his pursuers, and fled into
Asia, where he was honourably received and largely endowed by the
beneficent Darius.
XVI. Leotychides, elected to the regal dignity, accompanied Cleomenes
to Aegina: the people of that isle yielded to the authority they could
not effectually resist; and ten of their most affluent citizens were
surrendered as hostages to Athens. But, in the meanwhile, the
collusion of Cleomenes with the oracle was discovered--the priestess
was solemnly deposed--and Cleomenes dreaded the just indignation of
his countrymen. He fled to Thessaly, and thence passing among the
Arcadians, he endeavoured to bind that people by the darkest oaths to
take arms against his native city--so far could hatred stimulate a man
consistent only in his ruling passion of revenge. But the mighty
power of Persia now lowering over Lacedaemon, the Spartan citizens
resolved to sacrifice even justice to discretion: it was not a time to
distract their forces by new foes, and they invited Cleomenes back to
Sparta, with the offer of his former station. He returned, but his
violent career, happily for all, was now closed; his constitutional
madness, no longer confined to doubtful extravagance, burst forth into
incontrollable excess. He was put under confinement, and obtaining a
sword from a Helot, who feared to disobey his commands, he
deliberately destroyed himself--not by one wound, but slowly gashing
the flesh from his limbs until he gradually ascended to the nobler and
more mortal parts. This ferocious suicide excited universal horror,
and it was generally deemed the divine penalty of his numerous and
sacrilegious crimes: the only dispute among the Greeks was, to which
of his black offences the wrath of Heaven was the most justly due.
[271]
XVII. No sooner did the news of his suicide reach the Aeginetans than
those proud and wealthy islanders sought, by an embassy to Sparta, to
regain their hostages yet detained at Athens. With the death of
Cleomenes, the anger of Sparta against Aegina suddenly ceased--or,
rather, we must suppose that a new party, in fellowship with the
Aeginetan oligarchy, came into power. The Spartans blamed Leotychides
for his co-operation with Cleomenes; they even offered to give him up
to the Aeginetans--and it was finally agreed that he should accompany
the ambassadors of Aegina to Athens, and insist on the surrender of
the hostages. But the Athenians had now arrived at that spirit of
independence, when nor the deadly blows of Persia, nor the iron sword
of Sparta, nor the treacherous hostilities of their nearest neighbour,
could quell their courage or subdue their pride. They disregarded the
presence and the orations of Leotychides, and peremptorily refused
to surrender their hostages. Hostilities between Aegina and Athens
were immediately renewed. The Aeginetans captured (B. C. 494) the
sacred vessel then stationed at Sunium, in which several of the most
eminent Athenians were embarked for the festival of Apollo; nor could
the sanctity of the voyage preserve the captives from the ignominy of
irons. The Athenians resolved upon revenge, and a civil dissension in
Aegina placed it in their power. An Aeginetan traitor, named
Nicodromus, offered them his assistance, and, aided by the popular
party opposed to the oligarchical government, he seized the citadel.
With twenty ships from Corinth, and fifty of their own, the Athenians
invaded Aegina; but, having been delayed in making the adequate
preparations, they arrived a day later than had been stipulated.
Nicodromus fled; the oligarchy restored, took signal and barbarous
vengeance upon such of their insurgent countrymen as fell into their
hands. Meanwhile, the Athenian fleet obtained a victory at sea, and
the war still continued.
XVIII. While, seemingly unconscious of greater dangers, Athens thus
practised her rising energies against the little island of Aegina,
thrice every day the servants of the Persian king continued to
exclaim, "Sir, remember the Athenians!" [272] The traitor, Hippias,
constantly about the person of the courteous monarch, never failed to
stimulate still further his vengeance by appealing to his ambition.
At length, Darius resolved no longer to delay the accomplishment of
his designs. He recalled Mardonius, whose energy, indeed, had not
been proportioned to his powers, and appointed two other generals--
Datis, a native of the warlike Media, and Artaphernes, his own nephew,
son to the former satrap of that name. These were expressly ordered
to march at once against Eretria and Athens. And Hippias, now broken
in frame, advanced in age [273], and after an exile of twenty years,
accompanied the Persian army--sanguine of success, and grasping, at
the verge of life the shadow of his former sceptre.