III. The venerable legislator was received with all the grateful

respect he deserved; but age had dimmed the brilliancy of his powers.

His voice could no longer penetrate the mighty crowds of the

market-place. New idols had sprung up--new passions were loosed--new

interests formed, and amid the roar and stir of the eternal movement,

it was in vain for the high-hearted old man to recall those rushing on

the future to the boundaries of the past. If unsuccessful in public,

he was not discouraged from applying in private to the leaders of the

several parties. Of all those rival nobles, none deferred to his

advice with so marked a respect as the smooth and plausible

Pisistratus. Perhaps, indeed, that remarkable man contemplated the

same objects as Solon himself,--although the one desired to effect by

the authority of the chief, the order and the energy which the other

would have trusted to the development of the people. But, masking his

more interested designs, Pisistratus outbid all competition in his

seeming zeal for the public welfare. The softness of his manners--his

profuse liberality--his generosity even to his foes--the splendid

qualities which induced Cicero to compare him to Julius Cesar [226],

charmed the imagination of the multitude, and concealed the

selfishness of his views. He was not a hypocrite, indeed, as to his

virtues--a dissembler only in his ambition. Even Solon, in

endeavouring to inspire him with a true patriotism, acknowledged his

talents and his excellences. “But for ambition,” said he, “Athens

possesses no citizen worthier than Pisistratus.” The time became ripe

for the aspiring projects of the chief of the democracy.

IV. The customary crowd was swarming in the market-place, when

suddenly in the midst of the assembly appeared the chariot of

Pisistratus. The mules were bleeding--Pisistratus himself was

wounded. In this condition the demagogue harangued the people. He

declared that he had just escaped from the enemies of himself and the

popular party, who (under the auspices of the Alcmaeonidae) had

attacked him in a country excursion. He reminded the crowd of his

services in war--his valour against the Megarians--his conquest of

Nisaea. He implored their protection. Indignant and inflamed, the

favouring audience shouted their sympathy with his wrongs. “Son of

Hippocrates,” said Solon, advancing to the spot, and with bitter wit,

“you are but a bad imitator of Ulysses. He wounded himself to delude

his enemies--you to deceive your countrymen.” [227] The sagacity of

the reproach was unheeded by the crowd. A special assembly of the

people was convened, and a partisan of the demagogue moved that a

body-guard of fifty men, armed but with clubs, should be assigned to

his protection. Despite the infirmities of his age, and the decrease

of his popular authority, Solon had the energy to oppose the motion,

and predict its results. The credulous love of the people swept away

all precaution--the guard was granted. Its number did not long

continue stationary; Pisistratus artfully increased the amount, till

it swelled to the force required by his designs. He then seized the

citadel--the antagonist faction of Megacles fled--and Pisistratus was

master of Athens. Amid the confusion and tumult of the city, Solon

retained his native courage. He appeared in public--harangued the

citizens--upbraided their blindness--invoked their courage. In his

speeches he bade them remember that if it be the more easy task to

prevent tyranny, it is the more glorious achievement to destroy it.

In his verses [228] he poured forth the indignant sentiment which a

thousand later bards have borrowed and enlarged; “Blame not Heaven for

your tyrants, blame yourselves.” The fears of some, the indifference

of others, rendered his exhortations fruitless! The brave old man

sorrowfully retreated to his house, hung up his weapons without his

door, and consoled himself with the melancholy boast that “he had done

all to save his country, and its laws.” This was his last public

effort against the usurper. He disdained flight; and, asked by his

friends to what he trusted for safety from the wrath of the victor,

replied, “To old age,”--a sad reflection, that so great a man should

find in infirmity that shelter which he claimed from glory.

V. The remaining days and the latter conduct of Solon are involved in

obscurity. According to Plutarch, he continued at Athens, Pisistratus

showing him the utmost respect, and listening to the counsel which

Solon condescended to bestow upon him: according to Diogenes Laertius,

he departed again from his native city [229], indignant at its

submission, and hopeless of its freedom, refusing all overtures from

Pisistratus, and alleging that, having established a free government,

he would not appear to sanction the success of a tyrant. Either

account is sufficiently probable. The wisdom of Solon might consent

to mitigate what he could not cure, or his patriotism might urge him

to avoid witnessing the changes he had no power to prevent. The

dispute is of little importance. At his advanced age he could not

have long survived the usurpation of Pisistratus, nor can we find any

authority for the date of his death so entitled to credit as that of

Phanias, who assigns it to the year following the usurpation of

Pisistratus. The bright race was already run. According to the grave

authority of Aristotle, the ashes of Solon were scattered over the

Isle of Salamis, which had been the scene of his earlier triumphs; and

Athens, retaining his immortal, boasted not his perishable remains.

VI. Pisistratus directed with admirable moderation the courses of the

revolution he had produced. Many causes of success were combined in

his favour. His enemies had been the supposed enemies of the people,

and the multitude doubtless beheld the flight of the Alcmaeonidae

(still odious in their eyes by the massacre of Cylon) as the defeat of

a foe, while the triumph of the popular chief was recognised as the

victory of the people. In all revolutions the man who has sided with

the people is permitted by the people the greatest extent of license.

It is easy to perceive, by the general desire which the Athenians had

expressed for the elevation of Solon to the supreme authority that the

notion of regal authority was not yet hateful to them, and that they

were scarcely prepared for the liberties with which they were

intrusted. But although they submitted thus patiently to the

ascendency of Pisistratus, it is evident that a less benevolent or

less artful tyrant would not have been equally successful. Raised

above the law, that subtle genius governed only by the law; nay, he

affected to consider its authority greater than his own. He assumed

no title--no attribute of sovereignty. He was accused of murder, and

he humbly appeared before the tribunal of the Areopagus--a proof not

more of the moderation of the usurper than of the influence of public

opinion. He enforced the laws of Solon, and compelled the unruly

tempers of his faction to subscribe to their wholesome rigour. The

one revolution did not, therefore, supplant, it confirmed, the other.

“By these means,” says Herodotus, “Pisistratus mastered Athens, and

yet his situation was far from secure.” [230]

VII. Although the heads of the more moderate party, under Megacles,

had been expelled from Athens, yet the faction, equally powerful and

equally hostile, headed by Lycurgus, and embraced by the bulk of the

nobles, still remained. For a time, extending perhaps to five or six

years, Pisistratus retained his power; but at length, Lycurgus,

uniting with the exiled Alcmaeonidae, succeeded in expelling him from

the city. But the union that had led to his expulsion ceased with

that event. The contests between the lowlanders and the coastmen were

only more inflamed by the defeat of the third party, which had

operated as a balance of power, and the broils of their several

leaders were fed by personal ambition as by hereditary animosities.

Megacles, therefore, unable to maintain equal ground with Lycurgus,

turned his thoughts towards the enemy he had subdued, and sent

proposals to Pisistratus, offering to unite their forces, and to

support him in his pretensions to the tyranny, upon condition that the

exiled chief should marry his daughter Coesyra. Pisistratus readily

acceded to the terms, and it was resolved by a theatrical pageant to

reconcile his return to the people. In one of the boroughs of the

city there was a woman named Phya, of singular beauty and lofty

stature. Clad in complete armour, and drawn in a chariot, this woman

was conducted with splendour and triumph towards the city. By her

side rode Pisistratus--heralds preceded their march, and proclaimed

her approach, crying aloud to the Athenians “to admit Pisistratus, the

favourite of Minerva, for that the goddess herself had come to earth

on his behalf.”

The sagacity of the Athenians was already so acute, and the artifice

appeared to Herodotus so gross, that the simple Halicarnassean could

scarcely credit the authenticity of this tale. But it is possible

that the people viewed the procession as an ingenious allegory, to the

adaptation of which they were already disposed; and that, like the

populace of a later and yet more civilized people, they hailed the

goddess while they recognised the prostitute [231]. Be that as it

may, the son of Hippocrates recovered his authority, and fulfilled his

treaty with Megacles by a marriage with his daughter. Between the

commencement of his first tyranny and the date of his second return,

there was probably an interval of twelve years. His sons were already

adults. Partly from a desire not to increase his family, partly from

some superstitious disinclination to the blood of the Alcmaeonidae,

which the massacre of Cylon still stigmatized with contamination,

Pisistratus conducted himself towards the fair Coesyra with a chastity

either unwelcome to her affection, or afflicting to her pride. The

unwedded wife communicated the mortifying secret to her mother, from

whose lips it soon travelled to the father. He did not view the

purity of Pisistratus with charitable eyes. He thought it an affront

to his own person that that of his daughter should be so tranquilly

regarded. He entered into a league with his former opponents against

the usurper, and so great was the danger, that Pisistratus (despite

his habitual courage) betook himself hastily to flight:--a strange

instance of the caprice of human events, that a man could with a

greater impunity subdue the freedom of his country, than affront the

vanity of his wife! [232]

VIII. Pisistratus, his sons and partisans, retired to Eretria in

Euboea: there they deliberated as to their future proceedings--should

they submit to their exile, or attempt to retrieve, their power? The

councils of his son Hippias prevailed with Pisistratus; it was

resolved once more to attempt the sovereignty of Athens. The

neighbouring tribes assisted the exiles with forage and shelter. Many

cities accorded the celebrated noble large sums of money, and the

Thebans outdid the rest in pernicious liberality. A troop of Argive

adventurers came from the Peloponnesus to tender to the baffled

usurper the assistance of their swords, and Lygdamis, an individual of

Naxos, himself ambitious of the government of his native state,

increased his resources both by money and military force. At length,

though after a long and tedious period of no less than eleven years,

Pisistratus resolved to hazard the issue of open war. At the head of

a foreign force he advanced to Marathon, and pitched his tents upon

its immortal plain. Troops of the factious or discontented thronged

from Athens to his camp, while the bulk of the citizens, unaffected ay

such desertions, viewed his preparations with indifference. At

length, when they heard that Pisistratus had broken up his encampment,

and was on his march to the city, the Athenians awoke from their

apathy, and collected their forces to oppose him. He continued to

advance his troops, halted at the temple of Minerva, whose earthly

representative had once so benignly assisted him, and pitched his

tents opposite the fane. He took advantage of that time in which the

Athenians, during the heats of the day, were at their entertainments,

or indulging the noontide repose, still so grateful to the inhabitants

of a warmer climate, to commence his attack. He soon scattered the

foe, and ordered his sons to overtake them in their flight, to bid

them return peacefully to their employments, and fear nothing from his

vengeance. His clemency assisted the effect of his valour, and once

more the son of Hippocrates became the master of the Athenian

commonwealth.

IX. Pisistratus lost no time in strengthening himself by formidable

alliances. He retained many auxiliary troops, and provided large

pecuniary resources [233]. He spared the persons of his opponents,

but sent their children as hostages to Naxos, which he first reduced

and consigned to the tyranny of his auxiliary, Lygdamis. Many of his

inveterate enemies had perished on the field--many fled from the fear

of his revenge. He was undisturbed in the renewal of his sway, and

having no motive for violence, pursued the natural bent of a mild and

generous disposition, ruling as one who wishes men to forget the means

by which his power has been attained. Pisistratus had that passion

for letters which distinguished most of the more brilliant Athenians.

Although the poems of Homer were widely known and deeply venerated

long before his time, yet he appears, by a more accurate collection

and arrangement of them, and probably by bringing them into a more

general and active circulation in Athens, to have largely added to the

wonderful impetus to poetical emulation, which those immortal writings

were calculated to give.

When we consider how much, even in our own times, and with all the

advantages of the press, the diffused fame and intellectual influence

of Shakspeare and Milton have owed to the praise and criticism of

individuals, we may readily understand the kind of service rendered by

Pisistratus to Homer. The very example of so eminent a man would have

drawn upon the poet a less vague and more inquiring species of

admiration; the increased circulation of copies--the more frequent

public recitals--were advantages timed at that happy season when the

people who enjoyed them had grown up from wondering childhood to

imitative and studious youth. And certain it is, that from this

period we must date the marked and pervading influence of Homer upon

Athenian poetry; for the renown of a poet often precedes by many

generations the visible influence of his peculiar genius. It is

chiefly within the last seventy years that we may date the wonderful

effect that Shakspeare was destined to produce upon the universal

intellect of Europe. The literary obligations of Athens to

Pisistratus were not limited to his exertions on behalf of Homer: he

is said to have been the first in Greece who founded a public library,

rendering its treasures accessible to all. And these two benefits

united, justly entitle the fortunate usurper to the praise of first

calling into active existence that intellectual and literary spirit

which became diffused among the Athenian people, and originated the

models and masterpieces of the world. It was in harmony with this

part of his character that Pisistratus refitted the taste and

socialized the habits of the citizens, by the erection of buildings

dedicated to the public worship, or the public uses, and laid out the

stately gardens of the Lyceum--(in after-times the favourite haunt of

philosophy), by the banks of the river dedicated to song. Pisistratus

did thus more than continue the laws of Solon--he inculcated the

intellectual habits which the laws were designed to create. And as in

the circle of human events the faults of one man often confirm what

was begun by the virtues of another, so perhaps the usurpation of

Pisistratus was necessary to establish the institutions of Solon. It

is clear that the great lawgiver was not appreciated at the close of

his life; as his personal authority had ceased to have influence, so

possibly might have soon ceased the authority of his code. The

citizens required repose to examine, to feel, to estimate the

blessings of his laws--that repose they possessed under Pisistratus.

Amid the tumult of fierce and equipoised factions it might be

fortunate that a single individual was raised above the rest, who,

having the wisdom to appreciate the institutions of Solon, had the

authority to enforce them. Silently they grew up under his usurped

but benignant sway, pervading, penetrating, exalting the people, and

fitting them by degrees to the liberty those institutions were

intended to confer. If the disorders of the republic led to the

ascendency of Pisistratus, so the ascendency of Pisistratus paved the

way for the renewal of the republic. As Cromwell was the

representative of the very sentiments he appeared to subvert--as

Napoleon in his own person incorporated the principles of the

revolution of France, so the tyranny of Pisistratus concentrated and

imbodied the elements of that democracy he rather wielded than

overthrew.

X. At home, time and tranquillity cemented the new laws; poetry set

before the emulation of the Athenians its noblest monument in the

epics of Homer; and tragedy put forth its first unmellowed fruits in

the rude recitations of Thespis (B. C. 535). [234] Pisistratus sought

also to counterbalance the growing passion for commerce by peculiar

attention to agriculture, in which it is not unlikely that he was

considerably influenced by early prepossessions, for his party had

been the mountaineers attached to rural pursuits, and his adversaries

the coastmen engaged in traffic. As a politician of great sagacity,

he might also have been aware, that a people accustomed to

agricultural employments are ever less inclined to democratic

institutions than one addicted to commerce and manufactures; and if he

were the author of a law, which at all events he more rigidly

enforced, requiring every citizen to give an account of his mode of

livelihood, and affixing punishments to idleness, he could not have

taken wiser precautions against such seditions as are begot by poverty

upon indolence, or under a juster plea have established the

superintendence of a concealed police. We learn from Aristotle that

his policy consisted much in subjecting and humbling the pediaei, or

wealthy nobles of the lowlands. But his very affection to agriculture

must have tended to strengthen an aristocracy, and his humility to the

Areopagus was a proof of his desire to conciliate the least democratic

of the Athenian courts. He probably, therefore, acted only against

such individual chiefs as had incurred his resentment, or as menaced

his power; nor can we perceive in his measures the systematic and

deliberate policy, common with other Greek tyrants, to break up an

aristocracy and create a middle class.

XI. Abroad, the ambition of Pisistratus, though not extensive, was

successful. There was a town on the Hellespont called Sigeum, which

had long been a subject of contest between the Athenians and the

Mitylenaeans. Some years before the legislation of Solon, the

Athenian general, Phryno, had been slain in single combat by Pittacus,

one of the seven wise men, who had come into the field armed like the

Roman retiarius, with a net, a trident, and a dagger. This feud was

terminated by the arbitration of Periander, tyrant of Corinth, who

awarded Sigeum to the Athenians, which was then in their possession,

by a wise and plausible decree, that each party should keep what it

had got. This war was chiefly remarkable for an incident that

introduces us somewhat unfavourably to the most animated of the lyric

poets. Alcaeus, an eminent citizen of Mitylene, and, according to

ancient scandal, the unsuccessful lover of Sappho, conceived a passion

for military fame: in his first engagement he seems to have discovered

that his proper vocation was rather to sing of battles than to share

them. He fled from the field, leaving his arms behind him, which the

Athenians obtained, and suspended at Sigeum in the temple of Minerva.

Although this single action, which Alcaeus himself recorded, cannot be

fairly held a sufficient proof of the poet’s cowardice, yet his

character and patriotism are more equivocal than his genius. Of the

last we have ample testimony, though few remains save in the frigid

grace of the imitations of Horace. The subsequent weakness and civil

dissensions of Athens were not favourable to the maintenance of this

distant conquest--the Mitylenaeans regained Sigeum. Against this town

Pisistratus now directed his arms--wrested it from the Mitylenaeans--

and, instead of annexing it to the republic of Athens, assigned its

government to the tyranny of his natural son, Hegesistratus,--a stormy

dominion, which the valour of the bastard defended against repeated

assaults. [235]

XII. But one incident, the full importance of which the reader must

wait a while to perceive, I shall in this place relate. Among the

most powerful of the Athenians was a noble named Miltiades, son of

Cypselus. By original descent he was from the neighbouring island of

Aegina, and of the heroic race of Aeacus; but he dated the

establishment of his house in Athens from no less distant a founder

than the son of Ajax. Miltiades had added new lustre to his name by a

victory at the Olympic games. It was probably during the first

tyranny of Pisistratus [236] that an adventure, attended with vast

results to Greece, befell this noble. His family were among the

enemies of Pisistratus, and were regarded by that sagacious usurper

with a jealous apprehension which almost appears prophetic. Miltiades

was, therefore, uneasy under the government of Pisistratus, and

discontented with his position in Athens. One day, as he sat before

his door (such is the expression of the enchanting Herodotus,

unconscious of the patriarchal picture he suggests [237]), Miltiades

observed certain strangers pass by, whose garments and spears denoted

them to be foreigners. The sight touched the chief, and he offered

the strangers the use of his house, and the rites of hospitality.

They accepted his invitation, were charmed by his courtesy, and

revealed to him the secret of their travel. In that narrow territory

which, skirting the Hellespont, was called the Chersonesus, or

Peninsula, dwelt the Doloncians, a Thracian tribe. Engaged in an

obstinate war with the neighbouring Absinthians, the Doloncians had

sent to the oracle of Delphi to learn the result of the contest. The

Pythian recommended the messengers to persuade the first man who, on

their quitting the temple, should offer them the rites of hospitality,

to found a colony in their native land. Passing homeward through

Phocis and Boeotia, and receiving no such invitation by the way, the

messengers turned aside to Athens; Miltiades was the first who offered

them the hospitality they sought; they entreated him now to comply

with the oracle, and assist their countrymen; the discontented noble

was allured by the splendour of the prospect--he repaired in person to

Delphi--consulted the Pythian--received a propitious answer--and

collecting all such of the Athenians as his authority could enlist, or

their own ambition could decoy, he repaired to the Chersonesus

(probably B. C. 559). There he fortified a great part of the isthmus,

as a barrier to the attacks of the Absinthians: but shortly afterward,

in a feud with the people of Lampsacus, he was taken prisoner by the

enemy. Miltiades, however, had already secured the esteem and

protection of Croesus; and the Lydian monarch remonstrated with the

Lampsacenes in so formidable a tone of menace, that the Athenian

obtained his release, and regained his new principality. In the

meanwhile, his brother Cimon (who was chiefly remarkable for his

success at the Olympic games), sharing the political sentiments of his

house, had been driven into exile by Pisistratus. By a transfer to

the brilliant tyrant of a victory in the Olympic chariot-race, he,

however, propitiated Pisistratus, and returned to Athens.

VIII. Full of years, and in the serene enjoyment of power,

Pisistratus died (B. C. 527). His character may already be gathered

from his actions: crafty in the pursuit of power, but magnanimous in

its possession, we have only, with some qualification, to repeat the

eulogium on him ascribed to his greater kinsman, Solon--“That he was

the best of tyrants, and without a vice save that of ambition.”

CHAPTER III.

The Administration of Hippias.--The Conspiracy of Harmodius and

Aristogiton.--The Death of Hipparchus.--Cruelties of Hippias.--The

young Miltiades sent to the Chersonesus.--The Spartans Combine with

the Alcmaeonidae against Hippias.--The fall of the Tyranny.--The

Innovations of Clisthenes.--His Expulsion and Restoration.--Embassy to

the Satrap of Sardis.--Retrospective View of the Lydian, Medean, and

Persian Monarchies.--Result of the Athenian Embassy to Sardis.--

Conduct of Cleomenes.--Victory of the Athenians against the Boeotians

and Chalcidians.--Hippias arrives at Sparta.--The Speech of Sosicles

the Corinthian.--Hippias retires to Sardis.

I. Upon the death of Pisistratus, his three sons, Hipparchus,

Hippias, and Thessalus, succeeded to the government. Nor, though

Hippias was the eldest, does he seem to have exercised a more

prominent authority than the rest--since, in the time of Thucydides,

and long afterward, it was the popular error to consider Hipparchus

the first-born. Hippias was already of mature age; and, as we have

seen, it was he who had counselled his father not to despair, after

his expulsion from Athens. He was a man of courage and ability worthy

of his race. He governed with the same careful respect for the laws

which had distinguished and strengthened the authority of his

predecessor. He even rendered himself yet more popular than

Pisistratus by reducing one half the impost of a tithe on the produce

of the land, which that usurper had imposed. Notwithstanding this

relief, he was enabled, by a prudent economy, to flatter the national

vanity by new embellishments to the city. In the labours of his

government he was principally aided by his second brother, Hipparchus,

a man of a yet more accomplished and intellectual order of mind. But

although Hippias did not alter the laws, he chose his own creatures to

administer them. Besides, whatever share in the government was

intrusted to his brothers, Hipparchus and Thessalus, his son and

several of his family were enrolled among the archons of the city.

And they who by office were intended for the guardians of liberty were

the necessary servants of the tyrant.

II. If we might place unhesitating faith in the authenticity of the

dialogue attributed to Plato under the title of “Hipparchus,” we

should have, indeed, high authority in favour of the virtues and the

wisdom of that prince. And by whomsoever the dialogue was written, it

refers to facts, in the passage relative to the son of Pisistratus, in

a manner sufficiently positive to induce us to regard that portion of

it with some deference. According to the author, we learn that

Hipparchus, passionately attached to letters, brought Anacreon to

Athens, and lived familiarly with Simonides. He seems to have been

inspired with the ambition of a moralist, and distributed Hermae, or

stone busts of Mercury, about the city and the public roads, which,

while answering a similar purpose to our mile-stones, arrested the eye

of the passenger with pithy and laconic apothegms in verse; such as,

“Do not deceive your friend,” and “Persevere in affection to

justice;”--proofs rather of the simplicity than the wisdom of the

prince. It is not by writing the decalogue upon mile-stones that the

robber would be terrified, or the adulterer converted.

It seems that the apothegmatical Hipparchus did not associate with

Anacreon more from sympathy with his genius than inclination to the

subjects to which it was devoted. He was addicted to pleasure; nor

did he confine its pursuits to the more legitimate objects of sensual

affection. Harmodius, a young citizen of no exalted rank, but much

personal beauty, incurred the affront of his addresses [238].

Harmodius, in resentment, confided the overtures of the moralist to

his friend and preceptor, Aristogiton. While the two were brooding

over the outrage, Hipparchus, in revenge for the disdain of Harmodius,

put a public insult upon the sister of that citizen, a young maiden.

She received a summons to attend some public procession, as bearer of

one of the sacred vessels: on presenting herself she was abruptly

rejected, with the rude assertion that she never could have been

honoured with an invitation of which she was unworthy. This affront

rankled deeply in the heart of Harmodius, but still more in that of

the friendly Aristogiton, and they now finally resolved upon revenge.

At the solemn festival of Panathenaea, (in honour of Minerva), it was

the custom for many of the citizens to carry arms in the procession:

for this occasion they reserved the blow. They intrusted their

designs to few, believing that if once the attempt was begun the

people would catch the contagion, and rush spontaneously to the

assertion of their freedom. The festival arrived. Bent against the

elder tyrant, perhaps from nobler motives than those which urged them

against Hipparchus [239], each armed with a dagger concealed in the

sacred myrtle bough which was borne by those who joined the

procession, the conspirators advanced to the spot in the suburbs where

Hippias was directing the order of the ceremonial. To their dismay,

they perceived him conversing familiarly with one of their own

partisans, and immediately suspected that to be the treason of their

friend which in reality was the frankness of the affable prince.

Struck with fear, they renounced their attempt upon Hippias, suddenly

retreated to the city, and, meeting with Hipparchus, rushed upon him,

wounded, and slew him. Aristogiton turned to fly--he escaped the

guards, but was afterward seized, and “not mildly treated” [240] by

the tyrant. Such is the phrase of Thucydides, which, if we may take

the interpretation of Justin and the later writers, means that,

contrary to the law, he was put to the torture [241]. Harmodius was

slain upon the spot. The news of his brother’s death was brought to

Hippias. With an admirable sagacity and presence of mind, he

repaired, not to the place of the assassination, but towards the

procession itself, rightly judging that the conspiracy had only broken

out in part. As yet the news of the death of Hipparchus had not

reached the more distant conspirators in the procession, and Hippias

betrayed not in the calmness of his countenance any signs of his

sorrow or his fears. He approached the procession, and with a

composed voice commanded them to deposite their arms, and file off

towards a place which he indicated. They obeyed the order, imagining

he had something to communicate to them. Then turning to his guards,

Hippias bade them seize the weapons thus deposited, and he himself

selected from the procession all whom he had reason to suspect, or on

whose persons a dagger was found, for it was only with the open

weapons of spear and shield that the procession was lawfully to be

made. Thus rose and thus terminated that conspiracy which gave to the

noblest verse and the most enduring veneration the names of Harmodius

and Aristogiton. [242]

III. The acutest sharpener of tyranny is an unsuccessful attempt to

destroy it--to arouse the suspicion of power is almost to compel it to

cruelty. Hitherto we have seen that Hippias had graced his authority

with beneficent moderation; the death of his brother filled him with

secret alarm; and the favour of the populace at the attempted escape

of Aristogiton--the ease with which, from a personal affront to an

obscure individual, a formidable conspiracy had sprung up into life,

convinced him that the arts of personal popularity are only to be

relied on when the constitution of the government itself is popular.

It is also said that, when submitted to the torture, Aristogiton, with

all the craft of revenge, asserted the firmest friends of Hippias to

have been his accomplices. Thus harassed by distrust, Hippias

resolved to guard by terror a power which clemency had failed to

render secure. He put several of the citizens to death. According to

the popular traditions of romance, one of the most obnoxious acts of

his severity was exercised upon a woman worthy to be the mistress of

Aristogiton. Leaena, a girl of humble birth, beloved by that

adventurous citizen, was sentenced to the torture, and, that the pain

might not wring from her any confession of the secrets of the

conspiracy, she bit out her tongue. The Athenians, on afterward

recovering their liberties, dedicated to the heroine a brazen lioness,

not inappropriately placed in the vicinity of a celebrated statue of

Venus [243]. No longer depending on the love of the citizens, Hippias

now looked abroad for the support of his power; he formed an alliance

with Hippoclus, the prince of Lampsacus, by marrying his daughter with

the son of that tyrant, who possessed considerable influence at the

Persian court, to which he already directed his eyes--whether as a

support in the authority of the present, or an asylum against the

reverses of the future. [244]

It was apparently about a year before the death of Hipparchus, that

Stesagoras, the nephew and successor of that Miltiades who departed

from Athens to found a colony in the Thracian Chersonesus, perished by

an assassin’s blow. Hippias, evidently deeming he had the right, as

sovereign of the parent country, to appoint the governor of the

colony, sent to the Chersonesus in that capacity the brother of the

deceased, a namesake of the first founder, whose father, Cimon, from

jealousy of his power or repute, had been murdered by the sons of

Pisistratus [245]. The new Miltiades was a man of consummate talents,

but one who scrupled little as to the means by which to accomplish his

objects. Arriving at his government, he affected a deep sorrow for

the loss of his brother; the principal nobles of the various cities of

the Chersonesus came in one public procession to condole with him; the

crafty chief seized and loaded them with irons, and, having thus

insnared the possible rivals of his power, or enemies of his designs,

he secured the undisputed possession of the whole Chersonesus, and

maintained his civil authority by a constant military force. A

marriage with Hegesipyle, a daughter of one of the Thracian princes,

at once enhanced the dignity and confirmed the sway of the young and

aspiring chief. Some years afterward, we shall see in this Miltiades

the most eminent warrior of his age--at present we leave him to an

unquiet and perilous power, and return to Hippias.

IV. A storm gathered rapidly on against the security and ambition of

the tyrant. The highborn and haughty family of the Alcmaeonids had

been expelled from Athens at the victorious return of Pisistratus--

their estates in Attica confiscated--their houses razed--their very

sepulchres destroyed. After fruitless attempts against the

oppressors, they had retired to Lipsydrium, a fortress on the heights

of Parnes, where they continued to cherish the hope of return and the

desire of revenge. Despite the confiscation of their Attic estates,

their wealth and resources, elsewhere secured, were enormous. The

temple of Delphi having been destroyed by fire, they agreed with the

Amphictyons to rebuild it, and performed the holy task with a

magnificent splendour far exceeding the conditions of the contract.

But in that religious land, wealth, thus lavished, was no unprofitable

investment. The priests of Delphi were not insensible of the

liberality of the exiles, and Clisthenes, the most eminent and able of

the Alcmaeonidae, was more than suspected of suborning the Pythian.

Sparta, the supporter of oligarchies, was the foe of tyrants, and

every Spartan who sought the oracle was solemnly involved to aid the

glorious enterprise of delivering the Eupatrids of Athens from the

yoke of the Pisistratidae.

The Spartans were at length moved by instances so repeatedly urged.

Policy could not but soften that jealous state to such appeals to her

superstition. Under the genius of the Pisistratidae, Athens had

rapidly advanced in power, and the restoration of the Alcmaeonidae

might have seemed to the Spartan sagacity but another term for the

establishment of that former oligarchy which had repressed the

intellect and exhausted the resources of an active and aspiring

people. Sparta aroused herself, then, at length, and “though in

violation.” says Herodotus, “of some ancient ties of hospitality,”

despatched a force by sea against the Prince of Athens. That alert

and able ruler lost no time in seeking assistance from his allies, the

Thessalians; and one of their powerful princes led a thousand horsemen

against the Spartans, who had debarked at Phalerum. Joined by these

allies, Hippias engaged and routed the enemy, and the Spartan leader

himself fell upon the field of battle. His tomb was long visible in

Cynosarges, near the gates of Athens--a place rendered afterward more

illustrious by giving name to the Cynic philosophers. [246]

Undismayed by their defeat, the Spartans now despatched a more

considerable force against the tyrant, under command of their king

Cleomenes. This army proceeded by land--entered Attica--encountered,

defeated, the Thessalian horse [247],--and marched towards the gates

of Athens, joined, as they proceeded, by all those Athenians who

hoped, in the downfall of Hippias, the resurrection of their

liberties. The Spartan troops hastened to besiege the Athenian prince

in the citadel, to which he retired with his forces. But Hippias had

provided his refuge with all the necessaries which might maintain him

in a stubborn and prolonged resistance. The Spartans were unprepared

for the siege--the blockade of a few days sufficed to dishearten them,

and they already meditated a retreat. A sudden incident opening to us

in the midst of violence one of those beautiful glimpses of human

affection which so often adorn and sanctify the darker pages of

history, unexpectedly secured the Spartan triumph. Hippias and his

friends, fearing the safety of their children in the citadel, resolved

to dismiss them privately to some place of greater security.

Unhappily, their care was frustrated, and the children fell into the

hands of the enemy. All the means of success within their reach (the

foe wearied--the garrison faithful), the parents yet resigned

themselves at once to the voluntary sacrifice of conquest and

ambition.

Upon the sole condition of recovering their children, Hippias and his

partisans consented to surrender the citadel, and quit the territories

of Attica within five days. Thus, in the fourth year from the death

of Hipparchus (B. C. 510), and about fifty years after the first

establishment of the tyranny under its brilliant founder, the dominion

of Athens passed away from the house of Pisistratus.

V. The party of Hippias, defeated, not by the swords of the enemy,

but by the soft impulses of nature, took their way across the stream

of the immemorial Scamander, and sought refuge at Sigeum, still under

the government of Hegesistratus, the natural brother of the exiled

prince.

The instant the pressure of one supreme power was removed, the two

parties imbodying the aristocratic and popular principles rose into

active life. The state was to be a republic, but of what

denomination? The nobles naturally aspired to the predominance--at

their head was the Eupatrid Isagoras; the strife of party always tends

to produce popular results, even from elements apparently the most

hostile. Clisthenes, the head of the Alcmaeonidae, was by birth even

yet more illustrious than Isagoras; for, among the nobles, the

Alcmaeonid family stood pre-eminent. But, unable to attain the sole

power of the government, Clisthenes and his party were unwilling to

yield to the more numerous faction of an equal. The exile and

sufferings of the Alcmaeonids had, no doubt, secured to them much of

the popular compassion; their gallant struggles against, their

ultimate victory over the usurper, obtained the popular enthusiasm;

thus it is probable, that an almost insensible sympathy had sprung up

between this high-born faction and the people at large; and when,

unable to cope with the party of the nobles, Clisthenes attached

himself to the movement of the commons, the enemy of the tyrant

appeared in his natural position--at the head of the democracy.

Clisthenes was, however, rather the statesman of a party than the

legislator for a people--it was his object permanently to break up the

power of the great proprietors, not as enemies of the commonwealth,

but as rivals to his faction. The surest way to diminish the

influence of property in elections is so to alter the constituencies

as to remove the electors from the immediate control of individual

proprietors. Under the old Ionic and hereditary divisions of four

tribes, many ancient associations and ties between the poorer and the

nobler classes were necessarily formed. By one bold innovation, the

whole importance of which was not immediately apparent, Clisthenes

abolished these venerable divisions, and, by a new geographical

survey, created ten tribes instead of the former four. These were

again subdivided into districts, or demes; the number seems to have

varied, but at the earliest period they were not less than one

hundred--at a later period they exceeded one hundred and seventy. To

these demes were transferred all the political rights and privileges

of the divisions they supplanted. Each had a local magistrate and

local assemblies. Like corporations, these petty courts of

legislature ripened the moral spirit of democracy while fitting men

for the exercise of the larger rights they demanded. A consequence of

the alteration of the number of the tribes was an increase in the

number that composed the senate, which now rose from four to five

hundred members.

Clisthenes did not limit himself to this change in the constituent

bodies--he increased the total number of the constituents; new

citizens were made--aliens were admitted--and it is supposed by some,

though upon rather vague authorities, that several slaves were

enfranchised. It was not enough, however, to augment the number of

the people, it was equally necessary to prevent the ascension of a

single man. Encouraged by the example in other states of Greece,

forewarned by the tyranny of Pisistratus, Clisthenes introduced the

institution of the Ostracism [248]. Probably about the same period,

the mode of election to public office generally was altered from the

public vote to the secret lot [249]. It is evident that these

changes, whether salutary or pernicious, were not wanton or uncalled

for. The previous constitution had not sufficed to protect the

republic from a tyranny: something deficient in the machinery of

Solon’s legislation had for half a century frustrated its practical

intentions. A change was, therefore, necessary to the existence of

the free state; and the care with which that change was directed

towards the diminution of the aristocratic influence, is in itself a

proof that such influence had been the shelter of the defeated

tyranny. The Athenians themselves always considered the innovations

of Clisthenes but as the natural development of the popular

institutions of Solon; and that decisive and energetic noble seems

indeed to have been one of those rude but serviceable instruments by

which a more practical and perfect action is often wrought out from

the incompleted theories of greater statesmen.

VI. Meanwhile, Isagoras, thus defeated by his rival, had the mean

ambition to appeal to the Spartan sword. Ancient scandal attributes

to Cleomenes, king of Sparta, an improper connexion with the wife of

Isagoras, and every one knows that the fondest friend of the cuckold

is invariably the adulterer;--the national policy of founding

aristocracies was doubtless, however, a graver motive with the Spartan

king than his desire to assist Isagoras. Cleomenes by a public herald

proclaimed the expulsion of Clisthenes, upon a frivolous pretence that

the Alcmaeonidae were still polluted by the hereditary sacrilege of

Cylon. Clisthenes privately retired from the city, and the Spartan

king, at the head of an inconsiderable troop, re-entered Athens--

expelled, at the instance of Isagoras, seven hundred Athenian

families, as inculpated in the pretended pollution of Clisthenes--

dissolved the senate--and committed all the offices of the state to an

oligarchy of three hundred (a number and a council founded upon the

Dorian habits), each of whom was the creature of Isagoras. But the

noble assembly he had thus violently dissolved refused obedience to

his commands; they appealed to the people, whom the valour of liberty

simultaneously aroused, and the citadel, of which Isagoras and the

Spartans instantly possessed themselves, was besieged by the whole

power of Athens. The conspirators held out only two days; on the

third, they accepted the conditions of the besiegers, and departed

peaceably from the city. Some of the Athenians, who had shared the

treason without participating in the flight, were justly executed.

Clisthenes, with the families expelled by Cleomenes, was recalled, and

the republic of Athens was thus happily re-established.

VII. But the iron vengeance of that nation of soldiers, thus far

successfully braved, was not to be foreboded without alarm by the

Athenians. They felt that Cleomenes had only abandoned his designs to

return to them more prepared for contest; and Athens was not yet in a

condition to brave the determined and never-sparing energies of

Sparta. The Athenians looked around the states of Greece--many in

alliance with Lacedaemon--some governed by tyrants--others distracted

with their own civil dissensions; there were none from whom the new

commonwealth could hope for a sufficient assistance against the

revenge of Cleomenes. In this dilemma, they resorted to the only aid

which suggested itself, and sought, across the boundaries of Greece,

the alliance of the barbarians. They adventured a formal embassy to

Artaphernes, satrap of Sardis, to engage the succour of Darius, king

of Persia.

Accompanying the Athenians in this mission, full of interest, for it

was the first public transaction between that republic and the throne

of Persia, I pause to take a rapid survey of the origin of that mighty

empire, whose destinies became thenceforth involved in the history of

Grecian misfortunes and Grecian fame. That survey commences with the

foundation of the Lydian monarchy.

VIII. Amid the Grecian colonies of Asia whose rise we have

commemorated, around and above a hill commanding spacious and fertile

plains watered by the streams of the Cayster and Maeander; an ancient

Pelasgic tribe called the Maeonians had established their abode.

According to Herodotus, these settlers early obtained the name of

Lydians, from Lydus, the son of Atys. The Dorian revolution did not

spare these delightful seats, and an Heraclid dynasty is said to have

reigned five hundred years over the Maeonians; these in their turn

were supplanted by a race known to us as the Mermnadae, the founder of

whom, Gyges, murdered and dethroned the last of the Heraclidae; and

with a new dynasty seems to have commenced a new and less Asiatic

policy. Gyges, supported by the oracle of Delphi, was the first

barbarian, except one of the many Phrygian kings claiming the name of

Midas, who made votive offerings to that Grecian shrine. From his

time this motley tribe, the link between Hellas and the East, came

into frequent collision with the Grecian colonies. Gyges himself made

war with Miletus and Smyrna, and even captured Colophon. With

Miletus, indeed, the hostility of the Lydians became hereditary, and

was renewed with various success by the descendants of Gyges, until,

in the time of his great-grandson Alyattes, a war of twelve years with

that splendid colony was terminated by a solemn peace and a strict

alliance. Meanwhile, the petty but warlike monarchy founded by Gyges

had preserved the Asiatic Greeks from dangers yet more formidable than

its own ambition. From a remote period, savage and ferocious tribes,

among which are pre-eminent the Treres and Cimmerians, had often

ravaged the inland plains--now for plunder, now for settlement.

Magnesia had been entirely destroyed by the Treres--even Sardis, the

capital of the Mermnadae, had been taken, save the citadel, by the

Cimmerians. It was reserved for Alyattes to terminate these

formidable irruptions, and Asia was finally delivered by his arms from

a people in whom modern erudition has too fondly traced the ancestors

of the Cymry, or ancient Britons [250]. To this enterprising and able

king succeeded a yet more illustrious monarch, who ought to have found

in his genius the fame he has derived from his misfortunes. At the

age of thirty-five Croesus ascended the Lydian throne. Before

associated in the government with his father, he had rendered himself

distinguished in military service; and, wise, accomplished, but

grasping and ambitious, this remarkable monarch now completed the

designs of his predecessors. Commencing with Ephesus, he succeeded in

rendering tributary every Grecian colony on the western coast of Asia;

and, leaving to each state its previous institutions, he kept by

moderation what he obtained by force.

Croesus was about to construct a fleet for the purpose of adding to

his dominions the isles of the Aegaean, but is said to have been

dissuaded from his purpose by a profound witticism of one of the seven

wise men of Greece. “The islanders,” said the sage, “are about to

storm you in your capital of Sardis, with ten thousand cavalry.”--

“Nothing could gratify me more,” said the king, “than to see the

islanders invading the Lydian continent with horsemen.”--“Right,”

replied the wise man, “and it will give the islanders equal

satisfaction to find the Lydians attacking them by a fleet. To

revenge their disasters on the land, the Greeks desire nothing better

than to meet you on the ocean.” The answer enlightened the king, and,

instead of fitting out his fleet, he entered into amicable alliance

with the Ionians of the isles [251]. But his ambition was only

thwarted in one direction to strike its roots in another; and he

turned his invading arms against his neighbours on the continent,

until he had progressively subdued nearly all the nations, save the

Lycians and Cilicians, westward to the Halys. And thus rapidly and

majestically rose from the scanty tribe and limited territory of the

old Maeonians the monarchy of Asia Minor.

IX. The renown of Croesus established, his capital of Sardis became

the resort of the wise and the adventurous, whether of Asia or of

Greece. In many respects the Lydians so closely resembled the Greeks

as to suggest the affinity which historical evidence scarcely suffices

to permit us absolutely to affirm. The manners and the customs of

either people did not greatly differ, save that with the Lydians, as

still throughout the East, but little consideration was attached to

women;--they were alike in their cultivation of the arts, and their

respect for the oracles of religion--and Delphi, in especial, was

inordinately enriched by the prodigal superstition of the Lydian

kings.

The tradition which ascribes to the Lydians the invention of coined

money is a proof of their commercial habits. The neighbouring Tmolus

teemed with gold, which the waters of the Pactolus bore into the very

streets of the city. Their industry was exercised in the manufacture

of articles of luxury rather than those of necessity. Their purple

garments.-their skill in the workmanship of metals--their marts for

slaves and eunuchs--their export trade of unwrought gold--are

sufficient evidence both of the extent and the character of their

civilization. Yet the nature of the oriental government did not fail

to operate injuriously on the more homely and useful directions of

their energy. They appear never to have worked the gold-mines, whose

particles were borne to them by the careless bounty of the Pactolus.

Their early traditional colonies were wafted on Grecian vessels. The

gorgeous presents with which they enriched the Hellenic temples seem

to have been fabricated by Grecian art, and even the advantages of

commerce they seem rather to have suffered than to have sought. But

what a people so suddenly risen into splendour, governed by a wise

prince, and stimulated perhaps to eventual liberty by the example of

the European Greeks, ought to have become, it is impossible to

conjecture; perhaps the Hellenes of the East.

At this period, however, of such power--and such promise, the fall of

the Lydian empire was decreed. Far from the fertile fields and

gorgeous capital of Lydia, amid steril mountains, inhabited by a

simple and hardy race, rose the portentous star of the Persian Cyrus.

X. A victim to that luxury which confirms a free but destroys a

despotic state, the vast foundations of the Assyrian empire were

crumbling into decay, when a new monarchy, destined to become its

successor, sprung up among one of its subject nations. Divided into

various tribes, each dependant upon the Assyrian sceptre, was a

warlike, wandering, and primitive race, known to us under the name of

Medes. Deioces, a chief of one of the tribes, succeeded in uniting

these scattered sections into a single people, built a city, and

founded an independent throne. His son, Phraortes, reduced the

Persians to his yoke--overran Asia--advanced to Nineveh--and

ultimately perished in battle with a considerable portion of his army.

Succeeded by his son Cyaxares, that monarch consummated the ambitious

designs of his predecessors. He organized the miscellaneous hordes

that compose an oriental army into efficient and formidable

discipline, vanquished the Assyrians, and besieged Nineveh, when a

mighty irruption of the Scythian hordes called his attention homeward.

A defeat, which at one blow robbed this great king of the dominion of

Asia, was ultimately recovered by a treacherous massacre of the

Scythian leaders (B. C. 606). The Medes regained their power and

prosecuted their conquests--Nineveh fell--and through the whole

Assyrian realm, Babylon alone remained unsubjugated by the Mede. To

this new-built and wide-spread empire succeeded Astyages, son of the

fortunate Cyaxares. But it is the usual character of a conquering

tribe to adopt the habits and be corrupted by the vices of the subdued

nations among which the invaders settle; and the peaceful reign of

Astyages sufficed to enervate that vigilant and warlike spirit in the

victor race, by which alone the vast empires of the East can be

preserved from their natural tendency to decay. The Persians, subdued

by the grandsire of Astyages, seized the occasion to revolt. Among

them rose up a native hero, the Gengis-khan of the ancient world.

Through the fables which obscure his history we may be allowed to

conjecture, that Cyrus, or Khosroo, was perhaps connected by blood

with Astyages, and, more probably, that he was intrusted with command

among the Persians by that weak and slothful monarch. Be that as it

may, he succeeded in uniting under his banners a martial and

uncorrupted population, overthrew the Median monarchy, and transferred

to a dynasty, already worn out with premature old age, the vigorous

and aspiring youth of a mountain race. Such was the formidable foe

that now menaced the rising glories of the Lydian king.

XI. Croesus was allied by blood with the dethroned Astyages, and

individual resentment at the overthrow of his relation co-operated

with his anxious fears of the ambition of the victor. A less

sagacious prince might easily have foreseen that the Persians would

scarcely be secure in their new possessions, ere the wealth and

domains of Lydia would tempt the restless cupidity of their chief.

After much deliberation as to the course to be pursued, Croesus

resorted for advice to the most celebrated oracles of Greece, and even

to that of the Libyan Ammon. The answer he received from Delphi

flattered, more fatally than the rest, the inclinations of the king.

He was informed “that if he prosecuted a war with Persia a mighty

empire would be overthrown, and he was advised to seek the alliance of

the most powerful states of Greece.” Overjoyed with a response to

which his hopes gave but one interpretation, the king prodigalized

fresh presents on the Delphians, and received from them in return, for

his people and himself, the honour of priority above all other nations

in consulting the oracle, a distinguished seat in the temple, and the

right of the citizenship of Delphi. Once more the fated monarch

sought the oracle, and demanded if his power should ever fail. Thus

replied the Pythian: “When a mule shall sit enthroned over the Medes,

fly, soft Lydian, across the pebbly waters of the Hermus.” The

ingenuity of Croesus could discover in this reply no reason for alarm,

confident that a mule could never be the sovereign of the Medes. Thus

animated, and led on, the son of Alyattes prepared to oppose, while it

was yet time, the progress of the Persian arms. He collected all the

force he could summon from his provinces--crossed the Halys--entered

Cappadocia--devastated the surrounding country--destroyed several

towns--and finally met on the plains of Pteria the Persian army. The

victory was undecided; but Croesus, not satisfied with the force he

led, which was inferior to that of Cyrus, returned to Sardis,

despatched envoys for succour into Egypt and to Babylon, and

disbanded, for the present, the disciplined mercenaries whom he had

conducted into Cappadocia. But Cyrus was aware of the movements of

the enemy, and by forced and rapid marches arrived at Sardis, and

encamped before its walls. His army dismissed--his allies scarcely

reached by his embassadors--Croesus yet showed himself equal to the

peril of his fortune. His Lydians were among the most valiant of the

Asiatic nations--dexterous in their national weapon, the spear, and

renowned for the skill and prowess of their cavalry.

XII. In a wide plain, in the very neighbourhood of the royal Sardis,

and watered “by the pebbly stream of the Hermus,” the cavalry of Lydia

met, and were routed by the force of Cyrus. The city was besieged and

taken, and the wisest and wealthiest of the Eastern kings sunk

thenceforth into a petty vassal, consigned as guest or prisoner to a

Median city near Ecbatana [252]. The prophecy was fulfilled, and a

mighty empire overthrown. [253]

The Grecian colonies of Asia, during the Lydian war, had resisted the

overtures of Cyrus, and continued faithful to Croesus; they had now

cause to dread the vengeance of the conqueror. The Ionians and

Aeolians sent to demand the assistance of Lacedaemon, pledged equally

with themselves to the Lydian cause. But the Spartans, yet more

cautious than courageous, saw but little profit in so unequal an

alliance. They peremptorily refused the offer of the colonists, but,

after their departure, warily sent a vessel of fifty oars to watch the

proceedings of Cyrus, and finally deputed Latrines, a Spartan of

distinction, to inform the monarch of the Persian, Median, and Lydian

empires, that any injury to the Grecian cities would be resented by

the Spartans. Cyrus asked with polite astonishment of the Greeks

about him, “Who these Spartans were?” and having ascertained as much

as he could comprehend concerning their military force and their

social habits, replied, “That men who had a large space in the middle

of their city for the purpose of cheating one another, could not be to

him an object of terror:” so little respect had the hardy warrior for

the decent frauds of oratory and of trade. Meanwhile, he obligingly

added, “that if he continued in health, their concern for the Ionian

troubles might possibly be merged in the greatness of their own.”

Soon afterward Cyrus swept onwards in the prosecution of his vast

designs, overrunning Assyria, and rushing through the channels of

Euphrates into the palaces of Babylon, and the halls of the scriptural

Belshazzar. His son, Cambyses, added the mystic Egypt to the vast

conquests of Cyrus--and a stranger to the blood of the great victor,

by means of superstitious accident or political intrigue, ascended the

throne of Asia, known to European history under the name of Darius.

The generals of Cyrus had reduced to the Persian yoke the Ionian

colonies; the Isle of Samos (the first of the isles subjected) was

afterward conquered by a satrap of Sardis, and Darius, who, impelled

by the ambition of his predecessors, had led with no similar success a

vast armament against the wandering Scythians, added, on his return,

Lesbos, Chios, and other isles in the Aegaean, to the new monarchy of

the world. As, in the often analogous history of Italian republics,

we find in every incursion of the German emperor that some crafty

noble of a free state joined the banner of a Frederick or a Henry in

the hope of receiving from the imperial favour the tyranny of his own

city--so there had not been wanting in the Grecian colonies men of

boldness and ambition, who flocked to the Persian standard, and, in

gratitude for their services against the Scythian, were rewarded with

the supreme government of their native cities. Thus was raised Coes,

a private citizen, to the tyranny of Mitylene--and thus Histiaeus,

already possessing, was confirmed by Darius in, that of Miletus.

Meanwhile Megabazus, a general of the Persian monarch, at the head of

an army of eighty thousand men, subdued Thrace, and made Macedonia

tributary to the Persian throne. Having now established, as he deemed

securely, the affairs of the empire in Asia Minor, Darius placed his

brother Artaphernes in the powerful satrapy of Sardis, and returned to

his capital of Susa.

XIII. To this satrap, brother of that mighty monarch, came the

ambassadors of Athens. Let us cast our eyes along the map of the

ancient world--and survey the vast circumference of the Persian realm,

stretching almost over the civilized globe. To the east no boundary

was visible before the Indus. To the north the empire extended to the

Caspian and the Euxine seas, with that steep Caucasian range, never

passed even by the most daring of the early Asiatic conquerors.

Eastward of the Caspian, the rivers of Oxus and Iaxartes divided the

subjects of the great king from the ravages of the Tartar; the Arabian

peninsula interposed its burning sands, a barrier to the south--while

the western territories of the empire, including Syria, Phoenicia, the

fertile satrapies of Asia Minor, were washed by the Mediterranean

seas. Suddenly turning from this immense empire, let us next

endeavour to discover those dominions from which the Athenian

ambassadors were deputed: far down in a remote corner of the earth we

perceive at last the scarce visible nook of Attica, with its capital

of Athens--a domain that in its extremest length measured sixty

geographical miles! We may now judge of the condescending wonder with

which the brother of Darius listened to the ambassadors of a people,

by whose glory alone his name is transmitted to posterity. Yet was

there nothing unnatural or unduly arrogant in his reply. “Send

Darius,” said the satrap, affably, “earth and water (the accustomed

symbols of homage), and he will accept your alliance.” The ambassadors

deliberated, and, impressed by the might of Persia, and the sense of

their own unfriended condition, they accepted the proposals.

If, fresh from our survey of the immeasurable disparity of power

between the two states, we cannot but allow the answer of the satrap

was such as might be expected, it is not without a thrill of sympathy

and admiration we learn, that no sooner had the ambassadors returned

to Athens, than they received from the handful of its citizens a

severe reprimand for their submission. Indignant at the proposal of

the satrap, that brave people recurred no more to the thought of the

alliance. In haughty patience, unassisted and alone, they awaited the

burst of the tempest which they foresaw.

XIV. Meanwhile, Cleomenes, chafed at the failure of his attempt on

the Athenian liberties, and conceiving, in the true spirit of

injustice, that he had been rather the aggrieved than the aggressor,

levied forces in different parts of the Peloponnesus, but without

divulging the object he had in view [254]. That object was twofold--

vengeance upon Athens, and the restoration of Isagoras. At length he

threw off the mask, and at the head of a considerable force seized

upon the holy city of Eleusis. Simultaneously, and in concert with

the Spartan, the Boeotians forcibly took possession of Oenoe and

Hysix--two towns on the extremity of Attica while from Chalcis (the

principal city of the Isle of Euboea which fronted the Attic coast) a

formidable band ravaged the Athenian territories. Threatened by this

threefold invasion, the measures of the Athenians were prompt and

vigorous. They left for the present unavenged the incursions of the

Boeotians and Chalcidians, and marched with all the force they could

collect against Cleomenes at Eleusis. The two armies were prepared

for battle, when a sudden revolution in the Spartan camp delivered the

Athenians from the most powerful of their foes. The Corinthians,

insnared by Cleomenes into measures, of the object of which they had

first been ignorant, abruptly retired from the field. Immediately

afterward a dissension broke out between Cleomenes and Demaratus, the

other king of Sparta, who had hitherto supported his colleague in all

his designs, and Demaratus hastily quitted Eleusis, and returned to

Lacedaemon. At this disunion between the kings of Sparta,

accompanied, as it was, by the secession of the Corinthians, the other

confederates broke up the camp, returned home, and left Cleomenes with

so scanty a force that he was compelled to forego his resentment and

his vengeance, and retreat from the sacred city. The Athenians now

turned their arms against the Chalcidians, who had retired to Euboea;

but, encountering the Boeotians, who were on their march to assist

their island ally, they engaged and defeated them with a considerable

slaughter. Flushed by their victory, the Athenians rested not upon

their arms--on the same day they crossed that narrow strait which

divided them from Euboea, and obtained a second and equally signal

victory over the Chalcidians. There they confirmed their conquest by

the establishment of four thousand colonists [255] in the fertile

meadows of Euboea, which had been dedicated by the islanders to the

pasturage of their horses. The Athenians returned in triumph to their

city. At the price of two minae each, their numerous prisoners were

ransomed, and the captive chains suspended from the walls of the

citadel. A tenth part of the general ransom was consecrated, and

applied to the purchase of a brazen chariot, placed in the entrance of

the citadel, with an inscription which dedicated it to the tutelary

goddess of Athens.

“Not from the example of the Athenians only,” proceeds the father of

history, “but from universal experience, do we learn that an equal

form of government is the best. While in subjection to tyrants the

Athenians excelled in war none of their neighbours--delivered from the

oppressor, they excelled them all; an evident proof that, controlled

by one man they exerted themselves feebly, because exertion was for a

master; regaining liberty, each man was made zealous, because his zeal

was for himself, and his individual interest was the common weal.”

[256] Venerable praise and accurate distinction! [257]

XV. The Boeotians, resentful of their defeat, sent to the Pythian

oracle to demand the best means of obtaining revenge. The Pythian

recommended an alliance with their nearest neighbours. The Boeotians,

who, although the inspiring Helicon hallowed their domain, were

esteemed but a dull and obtuse race, interpreted this response in

favour of the people of the rocky island of Aegina--certainly not

their nearest neighbours, if the question were to be settled by

geographers. The wealthy inhabitants of that illustrious isle, which,

rising above that part of the Aegean called Sinus Saronicus, we may

yet behold in a clear sky from the heights of Phyle,--had long

entertained a hatred against the Athenians. They willingly embraced

the proffered alliance of the Boeotians, and the two states ravaged in

concert the coast of Attica. While the Athenians were preparing to

avenge the aggression, they received a warning from the Delphic

oracle, enjoining them to refrain from all hostilities with the people

of Aegina for thirty years, at the termination of which period they

were to erect a fane to Aeacus (the son of Jupiter, from whom,

according to tradition, the island had received its name), and then

they might commence war with success. The Athenians, on hearing the

response, forestalled the time specified by the oracle by erecting at

once a temple to Aeacus in their forum. After-circumstances did not

allow them to delay to the end of thirty years the prosecution of the

war. Meanwhile the unsleeping wrath of their old enemy, Cleomenes,

demanded their full attention. In the character of that fierce and

restless Spartan, we recognise from the commencement of his career the

taint of that insanity to which he subsequently fell a victim [258].

In his earlier life, in a war with the Argives, he had burnt five

thousand fugitives by setting fire to the grove whither they had fled

--an act of flagrant impiety, no less than of ferocious cruelty,

according to the tender superstition of the Greeks. During his

occupation of Eleusis, he wantonly violated the mysterious sanctuary

of Orgas--the place above all others most consecrated to the

Eleusinian gods. His actions and enterprises were invariably

inconsistent and vague. He enters Athens to restore her liberties--

joins with Isagoras to destroy them; engages in an attempt to

revolutionize that energetic state without any adequate preparation--

seizes the citadel to-day to quit it disgracefully to-morrow; invades

Eleusis with an army he cannot keep together, and, in the ludicrous

cunning common to the insane, disguises from his allies the very enemy

against whom they are to fight, in order, as common sense might have

expected, to be deserted by them in the instant of battle. And now,

prosecuting still further the contradictory tenour of his conduct, he

who had driven Hippias from Athens persuades the Spartan assembly to

restore the very tyrant the Spartan arms had expelled. In order to

stimulate the fears of his countrymen, Cleomenes [259] asserted, that

he had discovered in the Athenian citadel certain oracular

predictions, till then unknown, foreboding to the Spartans many dark

and strange calamities from the hands of the Athenians [260]. The

astute people whom the king addressed were more moved by political

interests than religious warnings. They observed, that when oppressed

by tyranny, the Athenians had been weak and servile, but, if admitted

to the advantages of liberty, would soon grow to a power equal to

their own [261]: and in the restoration of a tyrant, their sagacity

foreboded the depression of a rival.

XVI. Hippias, who had hitherto resided with his half-brother at

Sigeum, was invited to Lacedaemon. He arrived--the Spartans assembled

the ambassadors of their various tribes--and in full council thus

spoke the policy of Sparta.

“Friends and allies, we acknowledge that we have erred; misled by

deceiving oracles, we have banished from Athens men united to us by

ancient hospitality. We restored a republican government to an

ungrateful people, who, forgetful that to us they owed their liberty,

expelled from among them our subjects and our king. Every day they

exhibit a fiercer spirit--proofs of which have been already

experienced by the Boeotians, the Chalcidians, and may speedily extend

to others, unless they take in time wise and salutary precautions. We

have erred--we are prepared to atone for our fault, and to aid you in

the chastisement of the Athenians. With this intention we have

summoned Hippias and yourselves, that by common counsel and united

arms we may restore to the son of Pisistratus the dominion and the

dignity of which we have deprived him.”

The sentiments of the Spartans received but little favour in the

assembly. After a dead and chilling silence, up rose Sosicles, the

ambassador for Corinth, whose noble reply reveals to us the true cause

of the secession of the Corinthians at Eleusis.

“We may expect,” said he, with indignant eloquence, “to see the earth

take the place of heaven, since you, oh Spartans, meditate the

subversion of equal laws and the restoration of tyrannical

governments--a design than which nothing can be more unjust, nothing

more wicked. If you think it well that states should be governed by

tyrants, Spartans, before you establish tyranny for others, establish

it among yourselves! You act unworthily with your allies. You, who

so carefully guard against the intrusion of tyranny in Sparta--had you

known it as we have done, you would be better sensible of the

calamities it entails: listen to some of its effects.” (Here the

ambassador related at length the cruelties of Periander, the tyrant of

Corinth.) “Such,” said he, in conclusion, “such is a tyrannical

government--such its effects. Great was our marvel when we learned

that it was you, oh Spartans, who had sent for Hippias,--at your

sentiments we marvel more. Oh! by the gods, the celestial guardians

of Greece, we adjure you not to build up tyrannies in our cities. If

you persevere in your purpose--if, against all justice, you attempt

the restoration of Hippias, know, at least, that the Corinthians will

never sanction your designs.”

It was in vain that Hippias, despite his own ability, despite the

approval of the Spartans, endeavoured to counteract the impression of

this stern harangue,--in vain he relied on the declarations of the

oracles,--in vain appealed to the jealousy of the Corinthians, and

assured them of the ambition of Athens. The confederates with one

accord sympathized with the sentiments of Sosicles, and adjured the

Spartans to sanction no innovations prejudicial to the liberties of a

single city of Greece.

XVII. The failure of propositions so openly made is a fresh proof of

the rash and unthinking character of Cleomenes--eager as usual for

all designs, and prepared for none. The Spartans abandoned their

design, and Hippias, discomfited but not dispirited, quitted the

Lacedaemonian capital. Some of the chiefs of Thessaly, as well as the

prince of Macedon, offered him an honourable retreat in their

dominions. But it was not an asylum, it was an ally, that the

unyielding ambition of Hippias desired to secure. He regained Sigeum,

and thence, departing to Sardis, sought the assistance of the satrap,

Artaphernes. He who in prosperity was the tyrant, became, in

adversity, the traitor of his country; and the son of Pisistratus

exerted every effort of his hereditary talent of persuasion to induce

the satrap not so much to restore the usurper as 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

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.

CHAPTER V.

The Persian Generals enter Europe.--Invasion of Naxos, Carystus,

Eretria.--The Athenians Demand the Aid of Sparta.--The Result of their

Mission and the Adventure of their Messenger.--The Persians advance to

Marathon.--The Plain Described.--Division of Opinion in the Athenian

Camp.--The Advice of Miltiades prevails.--The Dream of Hippias.--The

Battle of Marathon.

I. On the Cilician coast the Persian armament encamped--thence, in a

fleet of six hundred triremes, it sailed to Samos (B. C. 490)--passed

through the midst of the clustering Cyclades, and along that part of

the Aegaean Sea called “the Icarian,” from the legendary fate of the

son of Daedalus--invaded Naxos--burnt her town and temples, and

sparing the sacred Delos, in which the Median Datis reverenced the

traditionary birthplace of two deities analogous to those most

honoured in the Persian creed [274]--awed into subjection the various

isles, until it arrived at Euboea, divided but by a strait from

Attica, and containing the city of the Eretrians. The fleet first

assailed Carystus, whose generous citizens refused both to aid against

their neighbours, and to give hostages for their conduct. Closely

besieged, and their lands wasted, they were compelled, however, to

surrender to the Persians. Thence the victorious armament passed to

Eretria. The Athenians had sent to the relief of that city the four

thousand colonists whom they had established in the island--but fear,

jealousy, division, were within the walls. Ruin seemed certain, and a

chief of the Eretrians urged the colonists to quit a city which they

were unable to save. They complied with the advice, and reached

Attica in safety. Eretria, however, withstood a siege of six days; on

the seventh the city was betrayed to the barbarians by two of that

fatal oligarchical party, who in every Grecian city seem to have

considered no enemy so detestable as the majority of their own

citizens; the place was pillaged--the temples burnt--the inhabitants

enslaved. Here the Persians rested for a few days ere they embarked

for Attica.

II. Unsupported and alone, the Athenians were not dismayed. A

swift-footed messenger was despatched to Sparta, to implore its prompt

assistance. On the day after his departure from Athens, he reached

his destination, went straight to the assembled magistrates, and thus

addressed them:

“Men of Lacedaemon, the Athenians supplicate your aid; suffer not the

most ancient of the Grecian cities to be enslaved by the barbarian.

Already Eretria is subjected to their yoke, and all Greece is

diminished by the loss of that illustrious city.”

The resource the Athenians had so much right to expect failed them.

The Spartans, indeed, resolved to assist Athens, but not until

assistance would have come too late. They declared that their

religion forbade them to commence a march till the moon was at her

full, and this was only the ninth day of the month [275]. With this

unsatisfying reply, the messenger returned to Athens. But, employed

in this arduous enterprise--his imagination inflamed by the greatness

of the danger--and its workings yet more kindled by the loneliness of

his adventure and the mountain stillness of the places through which

he passed, the Athenian messenger related, on his return, a vision

less probably the creation of his invention than of his excited fancy.

Passing over the Mount Parthenius, amid whose wild recesses gloomed

the antique grove dedicated to Telephus, the son of Hercules [276],

the Athenian heard a voice call to him aloud, and started to behold

that mystic god to whom, above the rest of earth, were dedicated the

hills and woods of Arcady--the Pelasgic Pan. The god bade him “ask at

Athens why the Athenians forgot his worship--he who loved them well--

and might yet assist them at their need.”

Such was the tale of the messenger. The lively credulities of the

people believed its truth, and in calmer times dedicated a temple to

the deity, venerated him with annual sacrifices, and the race of

torches.

III. While the Athenians listened to the dreams of this poetical

superstition, the mighty thousands of the Mede and Persian landed on

the Attic coast, and, conducted by Hippias among their leaders,

marched to the plain of Marathon, which the traveller still beholds

stretching wide and level, amid hills and marshes, at the distance of

only ten miles from the gates of Athens. Along the shore the plain

extends to the length of six miles--inland it exceeds two. He who

surveys it now looks over a dreary waste, whose meager and arid

herbage is relieved but by the scanty foliage of unfrequent shrubs or

pear-trees, and a few dwarf pines drooping towards the sea. Here and

there may be seen the grazing buffalo, or the peasant bending at his

plough:--a distant roof, a ruined chapel, are not sufficient evidences

of the living to interpose between the imagination of the spectator

and the dead. Such is the present Marathon--we are summoned back to

the past.

IV. It will be remembered that the Athenians were divided into ten

tribes at the instigation of Clisthenes. Each of these tribes

nominated a general; there were therefore ten leaders to the Athenian

army. Among them was Miltiades, who had succeeded in ingratiating

himself with the Athenian people, and obtained from their suffrages a

command. [277]