1. Herodotus, Histories, 1.65-1.66, 1.166-1.168, 2.2-2.5, 2.44, 2.52-2.53, 2.145-2.146, 3.139-3.149, 4.8-4.10, 5.30-5.32, 5.38-5.46, 5.49-5.68, 5.49.3, 5.70-5.97, 5.114, 6.36-6.38, 6.97-6.98, 6.118, 7.43, 7.117, 8.83 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
| 1.65. So Croesus learned that at that time such problems were oppressing the Athenians, but that the Lacedaemonians had escaped from the great evils and had mastered the Tegeans in war. In the kingship of Leon and Hegesicles at Sparta, the Lacedaemonians were successful in all their other wars but met disaster only against the Tegeans. ,Before this they had been the worst-governed of nearly all the Hellenes and had had no dealings with strangers, but they changed to good government in this way: Lycurgus, a man of reputation among the Spartans, went to the oracle at Delphi . As soon as he entered the hall, the priestess said in hexameter: , quote type="oracle" l met="dact"You have come to my rich temple, Lycurgus, /l lA man dear to Zeus and to all who have Olympian homes. /l lI am in doubt whether to pronounce you man or god, /l lBut I think rather you are a god, Lycurgus. /l /quote ,Some say that the Pythia also declared to him the constitution that now exists at Sparta, but the Lacedaemonians themselves say that Lycurgus brought it from Crete when he was guardian of his nephew Leobetes, the Spartan king. ,Once he became guardian, he changed all the laws and took care that no one transgressed the new ones. Lycurgus afterwards established their affairs of war: the sworn divisions, the bands of thirty, the common meals; also the ephors and the council of elders. 1.66. Thus they changed their bad laws to good ones, and when Lycurgus died they built him a temple and now worship him greatly. Since they had good land and many men, they immediately flourished and prospered. They were not content to live in peace, but, confident that they were stronger than the Arcadians, asked the oracle at Delphi about gaining all the Arcadian land. ,She replied in hexameter: quote type="oracle" l met="dact"You ask me for Arcadia ? You ask too much; I grant it not. /l lThere are many men in Arcadia, eaters of acorns, /l lWho will hinder you. But I grudge you not. /l lI will give you Tegea to beat with your feet in dancing, /l lAnd its fair plain to measure with a rope. /l /quote ,When the Lacedaemonians heard the oracle reported, they left the other Arcadians alone and marched on Tegea carrying chains, relying on the deceptive oracle. They were confident they would enslave the Tegeans, but they were defeated in battle. ,Those taken alive were bound in the very chains they had brought with them, and they measured the Tegean plain with a rope by working the fields. The chains in which they were bound were still preserved in my day, hanging up at the temple of Athena Alea. 1.166. And when they came to Cyrnus they lived there for five years as one community with those who had come first, and they founded temples there. But they harassed and plundered all their neighbors, as a result of which the Tyrrhenians and Carthaginians made common cause against them, and sailed to attack them with sixty ships each. ,The Phocaeans also manned their ships, sixty in number, and met the enemy in the sea called Sardonian. They engaged and the Phocaeans won, yet it was only a kind of Cadmean victory; for they lost forty of their ships, and the twenty that remained were useless, their rams twisted awry. ,Then sailing to Alalia they took their children and women and all of their possessions that their ships could hold on board, and leaving Cyrnus they sailed to Rhegium . 1.167. As for the crews of the disabled ships, the Carthaginians and Tyrrhenians drew lots for them, and of the Tyrrhenians the Agyllaioi were allotted by far the majority and these they led out and stoned to death. But afterwards, everything from Agylla that passed the place where the stoned Phocaeans lay, whether sheep or beasts of burden or men, became distorted and crippled and palsied. ,The Agyllaeans sent to Delphi, wanting to mend their offense; and the Pythian priestess told them to do what the people of Agylla do to this day: for they pay great honors to the Phocaeans, with religious rites and games and horse-races. ,Such was the end of this part of the Phocaeans. Those of them who fled to Rhegium set out from there and gained possession of that city in the Oenotrian country which is now called Hyele ; ,they founded this because they learned from a man of Posidonia that the Cyrnus whose establishment the Pythian priestess ordained was the hero, and not the island. 1.168. Thus, then, it went with the Ionian Phocaea. The Teians did the same things as the Phocaeans: when Harpagus had taken their walled city by building an earthwork, they all embarked aboard ship and sailed away for Thrace . There they founded a city, Abdera, which before this had been founded by Timesius of Clazomenae ; yet he got no profit of it, but was driven out by the Thracians. This Timesius is now honored as a hero by the Teians of Abdera . 2.2. Now before Psammetichus became king of Egypt, the Egyptians believed that they were the oldest people on earth. But ever since Psammetichus became king and wished to find out which people were the oldest, they have believed that the Phrygians were older than they, and they than everybody else. ,Psammetichus, when he was in no way able to learn by inquiry which people had first come into being, devised a plan by which he took two newborn children of the common people and gave them to a shepherd to bring up among his flocks. He gave instructions that no one was to speak a word in their hearing; they were to stay by themselves in a lonely hut, and in due time the shepherd was to bring goats and give the children their milk and do everything else necessary. ,Psammetichus did this, and gave these instructions, because he wanted to hear what speech would first come from the children, when they were past the age of indistinct babbling. And he had his wish; for one day, when the shepherd had done as he was told for two years, both children ran to him stretching out their hands and calling “Bekos!” as he opened the door and entered. ,When he first heard this, he kept quiet about it; but when, coming often and paying careful attention, he kept hearing this same word, he told his master at last and brought the children into the king's presence as required. Psammetichus then heard them himself, and asked to what language the word “Bekos” belonged; he found it to be a Phrygian word, signifying bread. ,Reasoning from this, the Egyptians acknowledged that the Phrygians were older than they. This is the story which I heard from the priests of Hephaestus' temple at Memphis ; the Greeks say among many foolish things that Psammetichus had the children reared by women whose tongues he had cut out. 2.3. Besides this story of the rearing of the children, I also heard other things at Memphis in conversation with the priests of Hephaestus; and I visited Thebes and Heliopolis, too, for this very purpose, because I wished to know if the people of those places would tell me the same story as the priests at Memphis ; for the people of Heliopolis are said to be the most learned of the Egyptians. ,Now, such stories as I heard about the gods I am not ready to relate, except their names, for I believe that all men are equally knowledgeable about them; and I shall say about them what I am constrained to say by the course of my history. 2.4. But as to human affairs, this was the account in which they all agreed: the Egyptians, they said, were the first men who reckoned by years and made the year consist of twelve divisions of the seasons. They discovered this from the stars (so they said). And their reckoning is, to my mind, a juster one than that of the Greeks; for the Greeks add an intercalary month every other year, so that the seasons agree; but the Egyptians, reckoning thirty days to each of the twelve months, add five days in every year over and above the total, and thus the completed circle of seasons is made to agree with the calendar. ,Furthermore, the Egyptians (they said) first used the names of twelve gods (which the Greeks afterwards borrowed from them); and it was they who first assigned to the several gods their altars and images and temples, and first carved figures on stone. Most of this they showed me in fact to be the case. The first human king of Egypt, they said, was Min. ,In his time all of Egypt except the Thebaic district was a marsh: all the country that we now see was then covered by water, north of lake Moeris, which is seven days' journey up the river from the sea. 2.5. And I think that their account of the country was true. For even if a man has not heard it before, he can readily see, if he has sense, that that Egypt to which the Greeks sail is land deposited for the Egyptians, the river's gift—not only the lower country, but even the land as far as three days' voyage above the lake, which is of the same nature as the other, although the priests did not say this, too. ,For this is the nature of the land of Egypt : in the first place, when you approach it from the sea and are still a day's sail from land, if you let down a sounding line you will bring up mud from a depth of eleven fathoms. This shows that the deposit from the land reaches this far. 2.44. Moreover, wishing to get clear information about this matter where it was possible so to do, I took ship for Tyre in Phoenicia, where I had learned by inquiry that there was a holy temple of Heracles. ,There I saw it, richly equipped with many other offerings, besides two pillars, one of refined gold, one of emerald: a great pillar that shone at night; and in conversation with the priests, I asked how long it was since their temple was built. ,I found that their account did not tally with the belief of the Greeks, either; for they said that the temple of the god was founded when Tyre first became a city, and that was two thousand three hundred years ago. At Tyre I saw yet another temple of the so-called Thasian Heracles. ,Then I went to Thasos, too, where I found a temple of Heracles built by the Phoenicians, who made a settlement there when they voyaged in search of Europe ; now they did so as much as five generations before the birth of Heracles the son of Amphitryon in Hellas . ,Therefore, what I have discovered by inquiry plainly shows that Heracles is an ancient god. And furthermore, those Greeks, I think, are most in the right, who have established and practise two worships of Heracles, sacrificing to one Heracles as to an immortal, and calling him the Olympian, but to the other bringing offerings as to a dead hero. 2.52. Formerly, in all their sacrifices, the Pelasgians called upon gods without giving name or appellation to any (I know this, because I was told at Dodona ); for as yet they had not heard of such. They called them gods from the fact that, besides setting everything in order, they maintained all the dispositions. ,Then, after a long while, first they learned the names of the rest of the gods, which came to them from Egypt, and, much later, the name of Dionysus; and presently they asked the oracle at Dodona about the names; for this place of divination, held to be the most ancient in Hellas, was at that time the only one. ,When the Pelasgians, then, asked at Dodona whether they should adopt the names that had come from foreign parts, the oracle told them to use the names. From that time onwards they used the names of the gods in their sacrifices; and the Greeks received these later from the Pelasgians. 2.53. But whence each of the gods came to be, or whether all had always been, and how they appeared in form, they did not know until yesterday or the day before, so to speak; ,for I suppose Hesiod and Homer flourished not more than four hundred years earlier than I; and these are the ones who taught the Greeks the descent of the gods, and gave the gods their names, and determined their spheres and functions, and described their outward forms. ,But the poets who are said to have been earlier than these men were, in my opinion, later. The earlier part of all this is what the priestesses of Dodona tell; the later, that which concerns Hesiod and Homer, is what I myself say. 2.145. Among the Greeks, Heracles, Dionysus, and Pan are held to be the youngest of the gods. But in Egypt, Pan is the most ancient of these and is one of the eight gods who are said to be the earliest of all; Heracles belongs to the second dynasty (that of the so-called twelve gods); and Dionysus to the third, which came after the twelve. ,How many years there were between Heracles and the reign of Amasis, I have already shown; Pan is said to be earlier still; the years between Dionysus and Amasis are the fewest, and they are reckoned by the Egyptians at fifteen thousand. ,The Egyptians claim to be sure of all this, since they have reckoned the years and chronicled them in writing. ,Now the Dionysus who was called the son of Semele, daughter of Cadmus, was about sixteen hundred years before my time, and Heracles son of Alcmene about nine hundred years; and Pan the son of Penelope (for according to the Greeks Penelope and Hermes were the parents of Pan) was about eight hundred years before me, and thus of a later date than the Trojan war. 2.146. With regard to these two, Pan and Dionysus, one may follow whatever story one thinks most credible; but I give my own opinion concerning them here. Had Dionysus son of Semele and Pan son of Penelope appeared in Hellas and lived there to old age, like Heracles the son of Amphitryon, it might have been said that they too (like Heracles) were but men, named after the older Pan and Dionysus, the gods of antiquity; ,but as it is, the Greek story has it that no sooner was Dionysus born than Zeus sewed him up in his thigh and carried him away to Nysa in Ethiopia beyond Egypt ; and as for Pan, the Greeks do not know what became of him after his birth. It is therefore plain to me that the Greeks learned the names of these two gods later than the names of all the others, and trace the birth of both to the time when they gained the knowledge. 3.139. After this, King Darius conquered Samos, the greatest of all city states, Greek or barbarian, the reason for his conquest being this: when Cambyses, son of Cyrus, invaded Egypt, many Greeks came with the army, some to trade, as was natural, and some to see the country itself; among them was Syloson, son of Aeaces, who was Polycrates' brother and in exile from Samos . ,This Syloson had a stroke of good luck. He was in the market at Memphis wearing a red cloak, when Darius, at that time one of Cambyses' guard and as yet a man of no great importance, saw him, and coveting the cloak came and tried to buy it. ,When Syloson saw Darius' eagerness, by good luck he said, “I will not sell this for any money, but I give it to you free if you must have it so much.” Extolling this, Darius accepted the garment. 3.140. Syloson supposed that he had lost his cloak out of foolish good nature. But in time Cambyses died, the seven rebelled against the Magus, and Darius of the seven came to the throne; Syloson then learned that the successor to the royal power was the man to whom he had given the garment in Egypt ; so he went up to Susa and sat in the king's antechamber, saying that he was one of Darius' benefactors. ,When the doorkeeper brought word of this to the king, Darius asked “But to what Greek benefactor can I owe thanks? In the little time since I have been king hardly one of that nation has come to us, and I have, I may say, no use for any Greek. Nevertheless bring him in, so that I may know what he means.” ,The doorkeeper brought Syloson in and the interpreters asked him as he stood there who he was and what he had done to call himself the king's benefactor. Then Syloson told the story of the cloak, and said that it was he who had given it. ,“Most generous man,” said Darius, “it was you who gave me a present when I had as yet no power; and if it was a small one, I was none the less grateful then than I am now when I get a big one. In return, I give you gold and silver in abundance so you may never be sorry that you did Darius son of Hystaspes good.” ,Syloson answered, “Do not give me gold, O king, or silver, but Samos, my country, which our slave has now that my brother Polycrates has been killed by Oroetes; give me this without killing or enslaving.” 3.141. Having heard this, Darius sent an army and Otanes, one of the seven, to command it, instructing him to do whatever Syloson asked. So Otanes went down to the coast and got his army ready. 3.142. Now Samos was ruled by Maeandrius, son of Maeandrius, who had authority delegated by Polycrates. He wanted to be the justest of men, but that was impossible. ,For when he learned of Polycrates' death, first he set up an altar to Zeus the Liberator and marked out around it that sacred enclosure which is still to be seen in the suburb of the city; when this had been done, he called an assembly of all the citizens, and addressed them thus: ,“To me, as you know, have come Polycrates' scepter and all of his power, and it is in my power now to rule you. But I, so far as it lies in me, shall not do myself what I blame in my neighbor. I always disliked it that Polycrates or any other man should lord it over men like himself. Polycrates has fulfilled his destiny, and inviting you to share his power I proclaim equality. ,Only I claim for my own privilege that six talents of Polycrates' wealth be set apart for my use, and that I and my descendants keep the priesthood of Zeus the Liberator, whose temple I have founded, and now I give you freedom.” ,Such was Maeandrius' promise to the Samians. But one of them arose and answered: “But you are not even fit to rule us, low-born and vermin, but you had better give an account of the monies that you have handled.” 3.143. This was the speech of Telesarchus, a man of consequence among the citizens. But Maeandrius, realizing that if he let go of the sovereignty someone else would make himself sovereign instead, resolved not to let it go. Withdrawing into the acropolis, he sent for the citizens individually as if he would give an account of the money; then he seized and bound them. ,So they were imprisoned, and afterwards Maeandrius fell sick. His brother Lycaretus thought him likely to die, and, so that he might the more easily make himself master of Samos, he put all the prisoners to death. They had, it would seem, no desire to be free. 3.144. So when the Persians brought Syloson back to Samos, no one raised a hand against them, but Maeandrius and those of his faction offered to evacuate the island under a flag of truce; Otanes agreed to this, and after the treaty was made, the Persians of highest rank sat down on seats facing the acropolis. 3.145. Now Maeandrius the sovereign had a crazy brother named Charilaus, who lay bound in the dungeon for some offense; this man heard what was going on, and by peering through the dungeon window saw the Persians sitting there peaceably; ,whereupon he cried with a loud voice that he wanted to talk to Maeandrius. His brother, hearing him, had Charilaus loosed and brought before him. No sooner had he been brought than he attempted with reviling and abuse to persuade Maeandrius to attack the Persians. “Although I am your brother, you coward,” he said, “and did no wrong deserving of prison, you have bound and imprisoned me; but when you see the Persians throwing you out of house and home, you have no courage to avenge yourself, though you could so easily beat them? ,If you are yourself afraid of them, give me your foreign guards, and I will punish them for coming here; as for you, I will give you safe conduct out of the island.” 3.146. This was what Charilaus said; and Maeandrius took his advice, to my thinking not because he was so foolish as to suppose that he would be strong enough to defeat the king, but because he did not want Syloson to recover Samos safe and sound with no trouble. ,He wanted therefore by provoking the Persians to weaken Samos as much as he could before surrendering it, for he was well aware that if the Persians were hurt they would be furiously angry with the Samians. Besides, he knew that he could get himself safely off the island whenever he liked, having built a secret passage leading from the acropolis to the sea. ,Maeandrius then set sail from Samos ; but Charilaus armed all the guards, opened the acropolis' gates, and attacked the Persians. These supposed that a full agreement had been made, and were taken unawares; the guard fell upon them and killed the Persians of highest rank, those who were carried in litters. ,They were engaged in this when the rest of the Persian force came up in reinforcement, and, hard-pressed, the guards retreated into the acropolis. 3.147. The Persian captain Otanes, seeing how big a loss the Persians had suffered, deliberately forgot the command given him at his departure by Darius not to kill or enslave any Samian but to deliver the island intact to Syloson; and he commanded his army to kill everyone they took, men and boys alike. ,Then, while some of the Persians laid siege to the acropolis, the rest killed everyone they met, inside the temples and outside the temples alike. 3.148. Maeandrius sailed to Lacedaemon, escaping from Samos ; and after he arrived there and brought up the possessions with which he had left his country, it became his habit to make a display of silver and gold drinking cups; while his servants were cleaning these, he would converse with the king of Sparta, Cleomenes son of Anaxandrides, and would bring him to his house. As Cleomenes marvelled greatly at the cups whenever he saw them, Maeandrius would tell him to take as many as he liked. ,Maeandrius made this offer two or three times; Cleomenes showed his great integrity in that he would not accept; but realizing that there were others in Lacedaemon from whom Maeandrius would get help by offering them the cups, he went to the ephors and told them it would be best for Sparta if this Samian stranger quit the country, lest he persuade Cleomenes himself or some other Spartan to do evil. The ephors listened to his advice and banished Maeandrius by proclamation. 3.149. As for Samos, the Persians swept it clear and turned it over uninhabited to Syloson. But afterwards Otanes, the Persian general, helped to settle the land, prompted by a dream and a disease that he contracted in his genitals. 4.8. This is what the Scythians say about themselves and the country north of them. But the story told by the Greeks who live in Pontus is as follows. Heracles, driving the cattle of Geryones, came to this land, which was then desolate, but is now inhabited by the Scythians. ,Geryones lived west of the Pontus, settled in the island called by the Greeks Erythea, on the shore of Ocean near Gadira, outside the pillars of Heracles. As for Ocean, the Greeks say that it flows around the whole world from where the sun rises, but they cannot prove that this is so. ,Heracles came from there to the country now called Scythia, where, encountering wintry and frosty weather, he drew his lion's skin over him and fell asleep, and while he slept his mares, which were grazing yoked to the chariot, were spirited away by divine fortune. 4.9. When Heracles awoke, he searched for them, visiting every part of the country, until at last he came to the land called the Woodland, and there he found in a cave a creature of double form that was half maiden and half serpent; above the buttocks she was a woman, below them a snake. ,When he saw her he was astonished, and asked her if she had seen his mares straying; she said that she had them, and would not return them to him before he had intercourse with her; Heracles did, in hope of this reward. ,But though he was anxious to take the horses and go, she delayed returning them, so that she might have Heracles with her for as long as possible; at last she gave them back, telling him, “These mares came, and I kept them safe here for you, and you have paid me for keeping them, for I have three sons by you. ,Now tell me what I am to do when they are grown up: shall I keep them here (since I am queen of this country), or shall I send them away to you?” Thus she inquired, and then (it is said) Heracles answered: ,“When you see the boys are grown up, do as follows and you will do rightly: whichever of them you see bending this bow and wearing this belt so, make him an inhabitant of this land; but whoever falls short of these accomplishments that I require, send him away out of the country. Do so and you shall yourself have comfort, and my will shall be done.” 4.10. So he drew one of his bows (for until then Heracles always carried two), and showed her the belt, and gave her the bow and the belt, that had a golden vessel on the end of its clasp; and, having given them, he departed. But when the sons born to her were grown men, she gave them names, calling one of them Agathyrsus and the next Gelonus and the youngest Scythes; furthermore, remembering the instructions, she did as she was told. ,Two of her sons, Agathyrsus and Gelonus, were cast out by their mother and left the country, unable to fulfill the requirements set; but Scythes, the youngest, fulfilled them and so stayed in the land. ,From Scythes son of Heracles comes the whole line of the kings of Scythia ; and it is because of the vessel that the Scythians carry vessels on their belts to this day. This alone his mother did for Scythes. This is what the Greek dwellers in Pontus say. 5.30. It was in this way that the Parians made peace in Miletus, but now these cities began to bring trouble upon Ionia. Certain men of substance who had been banished by the common people, went in exile to Miletus. ,Now it chanced that the deputy ruling Miletus was Aristagoras son of Molpagoras, son-in-law and cousin of that Histiaeus son of Lysagoras whom Darius kept with him at Susa. Histiaeus was tyrant of Miletus but was at Susa when the Naxians, who had been his guests and friends, arrived. ,When the Naxians came to Miletus, they asked Aristagoras if he could give them enough power to return to their own country. Believing that he would become ruler of Naxos if they were restored to their city with his help and using as a pretext their friendship with Histiaeus, he made them this proposal: ,“I myself do not have the authority to give you such power as will restore you against the will of the Naxians who hold your city, for I know that the Naxians have eight thousand men that bear shields, and many ships of war. Nevertheless, I will do everything I can to realize your request. ,This is my plan. Artaphrenes is my friend, and he is not only Hystaspes' son and brother to Darius the king but also governor of all the coastal peoples of Asia. He accordingly has a great army and many ships at his disposal. This man, then, will, I think, do whatever we desire.” ,Hearing this, the Naxians left the matter for Aristagoras to deal with as best he could, asking him to promise gifts and the costs of the army, for which they themselves would pay since they had great hope that when they should appear off Naxos, the Naxians would obey all their commands. The rest of the islanders, they expected, would do likewise since none of these Cycladic islands was as yet subject to Darius. 5.31. Aristagoras came to Sardis and told Artaphrenes that Naxos was indeed an island of no great size, but that it was otherwise a beautiful and noble island lying near Ionia. Furthermore it had a store of wealth and slaves. “Therefore send an army against that country,” he said, “ and bring back the men who have been banished from there. ,If you so do, I have a great sum of money at your disposal, over and above the costs of the force, for it is only fair that we, who bring you, should furnish that. Furthermore, you will win new dominions for the king, Naxos itself and the islands which are its dependents, Paros, Andros, and the rest of those that are called Cyclades. ,Making these your starting point, you will easily attack Euboea, which is a great and a wealthy island, no smaller than Cyprus and very easy to take. A hundred ships suffice for the conquest of all these.” ,“This plan which you set forth,” Artaphrenes answered, “is profitable for the king's house, and all your advice is good except as regards the number of the ships. Not one hundred but two hundred ships will be ready for you when the spring comes. The king too, however, must himself consent to this.” 5.32. When Aristagoras heard that, he went away to Miletus in great joy. Artaphrenes sent a messenger to Susa with the news of what Aristagoras said, and when Darius himself too had consented to the plan, he equipped two hundred triremes and a very great company of Persians and their allies in addition. For their general he appointed Megabates, a Persian of the Achaemenid family, cousin to himself and to Darius. This was he whose daughter (if indeed the tale is true) Pausanias the Lacedaemonian, son of Cleombrotus, at a later day betrothed to himself, since it was his wish to possess the sovereignty of Hellas. After appointing Megabates general, Artaphrenes sent his army away to Aristagoras. 5.41. After no long time the second wife gave birth to Cleomenes. She, then, gave the Spartans an heir to the royal power, and as luck would have it, the first wife, who had been barren before, conceived at that very time. ,When the friends of the new wife learned that the other woman was pregt, they began to make trouble for her. They said that she was making an empty boast, so that she might substitute a child. The Ephors were angry, and when her time drew near, they sat around to watch her in childbirth because of their skepticism. ,She gave birth first to Dorieus, then straightway to Leonidas, and right after him to Cleombrotus. Some, however, say that Cleombrotus and Leonidas were twins. As for the later wife, the mother of Cleomenes and the daughter of Prinetadas son of Demarmenus, she bore no more children. 5.42. Now Cleomenes, as the story goes, was not in his right mind and really quite mad, while Dorieus was first among all of his peers and fully believed that he would be made king for his manly worth. ,Since he was of this opinion, Dorieus was very angry when at Anaxandrides' death the Lacedaemonians followed their custom and made Cleomenes king by right of age. Since he would not tolerate being made subject to Cleomenes, he asked the Spartans for a group of people whom he took away as colonists. He neither inquired of the oracle at Delphi in what land he should establish his settlement, nor did anything else that was customary but set sail in great anger for Libya, with men of Thera to guide him. ,When he arrived there, he settled by the Cinyps river in the fairest part of Libya, but in the third year he was driven out by the Macae, the Libyans and the Carchedonians and returned to the Peloponnesus. 5.43. There Antichares, a man of Eleon, advised him, on the basis of the oracles of Laius, to plant a colony at Heraclea in Sicily, for Heracles himself, said Antichares, had won all the region of Eryx, which accordingly belonged to his descendants. When Dorieus heard that, he went away to Delphi to enquire of the oracle if he should seize the place to which he was preparing to go. The priestess responded that it should be so, and he took with him the company that he had led to Libya and went to Italy. 5.44. Now at this time, as the Sybarites say, they and their king Telys were making ready to march against Croton, and the men of Croton, who were very much afraid, entreated Dorieus to come to their aid. Their request was granted, and Dorieus marched with them to Sybaris helping them to take it. ,This is the story which the Sybarites tell of Dorieus and his companions, but the Crotoniats say that they were aided by no stranger in their war with Sybaris with the exception of Callias, an Elean diviner of the Iamid clan. About him there was a story that he had fled to Croton from Telys, the tyrant of Sybaris, because as he was sacrificing for victory over Croton, he could obtain no favorable omens. 5.45. This is their tale, and both cities have proof of the truth of what they say. The Sybarites point to a precinct and a temple beside the dry bed of the Crathis, which, they say, Dorieus founded in honor of Athena of Crathis after he had helped to take their city. and find their strongest proof in his death. He perished through doing more than the oracle bade him, for if he had accomplished no more than that which he set out to do, he would have taken and held the Erycine region without bringing about the death of himself and his army. ,The Crotoniats, on the other hand, show many plots of land which had been set apart for and given to Callias of Elis and on which Callias' posterity dwelt even to my time but show no gift to Dorieus and his descendants. They claim, however,that if Dorieus had aided them in their war with Sybaris, he would have received a reward many times greater than what was given to Callias. This, then is the evidence brought forward by each party, and each may side with that which seems to him to deserve more credence. 5.46. Other Spartans too sailed with Dorieus to found his colony, namely, Thessalus, Paraebates, Celees, and Euryleon. When these men had come to Sicily with all their company, they were all overcome and slain in battle by the Phoenicians and Egestans, all, that is, except Euryleon, who was the only settler that survived this disaster. ,He mustered the remt of his army and took Minoa, the colony from Selinus, and aided in freeing the people of Selinus from their monarch Pithagoras. After deposing this man, he himself attempted to become tyrant of Selinus but was monarch there for only a little while since the people of the place rose against him and slew him at the altar of Zeus of the marketplace, to which he had fled for refuge. 5.49. It was in the reign of Cleomenes that Aristagoras the tyrant of Miletus came to Sparta. When he had an audience with the king, as the Lacedaemonians report, he brought with him a bronze tablet on which the map of all the earth was engraved, and all the sea and all the rivers. ,Having been admitted to converse with Cleomenes, Aristagoras spoke thus to him: “Do not wonder, Cleomenes, that I have been so eager to come here, for our present situation is such that the sons of the Ionians are slaves and not free men, which is shameful and grievous particularly to ourselves but also, of all others, to you, inasmuch as you are the leaders of Hellas. ,Now, therefore, we entreat you by the gods of Hellas to save your Ionian kinsmen from slavery. This is a thing which you can easily achieve, for the strangers are not valiant men while your valor in war is preeminent. As for their manner of fighting, they carry bows and short spears, and they go to battle with trousers on their legs and turbans on their heads. ,Accordingly, they are easy to overcome. Furthermore, the inhabitants of that continent have more good things than all other men together, gold first but also silver, bronze, colored cloth, beasts of burden, and slaves. All this you can have to your heart's desire. ,The lands in which they dwell lie next to each other, as I shall show: next to the Ionians are the Lydians, who inhabit a good land and have great store of silver.” (This he said pointing to the map of the earth which he had brought engraved on the tablet.) “Next to the Lydians,” said Aristagoras, “you see the Phrygians to the east, men that of all known to me are the richest in flocks and in the fruits of the earth. ,Close by them are the Cappadocians, whom we call Syrians, and their neighbors are the Cilicians, whose land reaches to the sea over there, in which you see the island of Cyprus lying. The yearly tribute which they pay to the king is five hundred talents. Next to the Cilicians, are the Armenians, another people rich in flocks, and after the Armenians, the Matieni, whose country I show you. ,Adjoining these you see the Cissian land, in which, on the Choaspes, lies that Susa where the great king lives and where the storehouses of his wealth are located. Take that city, and you need not fear to challenge Zeus for riches. ,You should suspend your war, then, for strips of land of no great worth—for that fight with with Messenians, who are matched in strength with you, and Arcadians and Argives, men who have nothing in the way of gold or silver (for which things many are spurred by zeal to fight and die). Yet when you can readily be masters of all Asia, will you refuse to attempt it?” ,Thus spoke Aristagoras, and Cleomenes replied: “Milesian, my guest, wait till the third day for my answer.” 5.49.3. Now, therefore, we entreat you by the gods of Hellas to save your Ionian kinsmen from slavery. This is a thing which you can easily achieve, for the strangers are not valiant men while your valor in war is preeminent. As for their manner of fighting, they carry bows and short spears, and they go to battle with trousers on their legs and turbans on their heads. 5.50. At that time, then, they got so far. When, on the day appointed for the answer, they came to the place upon which they had agreed, Cleomenes asked Aristagoras how many days' journey it was from the Ionian sea to the king. ,Till now, Aristagoras had been cunning and fooled the Spartan well, but here he made a false step. If he desired to take the Spartans away into Asia he should never have told the truth, but he did tell it, and said that it was a three months' journey inland. ,At that, Cleomenes cut short Aristagoras' account of the prospective journey. He then bade his Milesian guest depart from Sparta before sunset, for never, he said, would the Lacedaemonians listen to the plan, if Aristagoras desired to lead them a three months' journey from the sea. 5.51. Cleomenes went to his house after this exchange, but Aristagoras took a suppliant's garb and followed him there. Upon entering, he used a suppliant's right to beg Cleomenes to listen to him. He first asked Cleomenes to send away the child, his daughter Gorgo, who was standing by him. She was his only child, and was about eight or nine years of age. Cleomenes bade him say whatever he wanted and not let the child's presence hinder him. ,Then Aristagoras began to promise Cleomenes from ten talents upwards, if he would grant his request. When Cleomenes refused, Aristagoras offered him ever more and more. When he finally promised fifty talents the child cried out, “Father, the stranger will corrupt you, unless you leave him and go away.” ,Cleomenes was pleased with the child's counsel and went into another room while Aristagoras departed from Sparta, finding no further occasion for telling of the journey inland to the king's palace. 5.52. Now the nature of this road is as I will show. All along it are the king's road stations and very good resting places, and the whole of it passes through country that is inhabited and safe. Its course through Lydia and Phrygia is of the length of twenty stages, and ninety-four and a half parasangs. ,Next after Phrygia it comes to the river Halys, where there is both a defile which must be passed before the river can be crossed and a great fortress to guard it. After the passage into Cappadocia, the road in that land as far as the borders of Cilicia is of twenty-eight stages and one hundred and four parasangs. On this frontier you must ride through two defiles and pass two fortresses. ,Ride past these, and you will have a journey through Cilica of three stages and fifteen and a half parasangs. The boundary of Cilicia and Armenia is a navigable river, the name of which is the Euphrates. In Armenia there are fifteen resting-stages and fifty-six and a half parasangs. Here too there is a fortress. From Armenia the road enters the Matienian land, in which there are thirty-four stages and one hundred and thirty-seven parasangs. ,Through this land flow four navigable rivers which must be passed by ferries, first the Tigris, then a second and a third of the same name, yet not the same stream nor flowing from the same source. The first-mentioned of them flows from the Armenians and the second from the Matieni. ,The fourth river is called Gyndes, that Gyndes which Cyrus parted once into three hundred and sixty channels. ,When this country is passed, the road is in the Cissian land, where there are eleven stages and forty-two and a half parasangs, as far as yet another navigable river, the Choaspes, on the banks of which stands the city of Susa. 5.53. Thus the sum total of stages is one hundred and eleven. So many resting-stages, then, are there in the journey up from Sardis to Susa. If I have accurately counted the parasangs of the royal road, and the parasang is of thirty furlongs' length, which assuredly it is, then between Sardis and the king's abode called Memnonian there are thirteen thousand and five hundred furlongs, the number of parasangs being four hundred and fifty. If each day's journey is one hundred and fifty furlongs, then the sum of days spent is ninety, neither more nor less. 5.54. Aristagoras of Miletus accordingly spoke the truth to Cleomenes the Lacedaemonian when he said that the journey inland was three months long. If anyone should desire a more exact measurement, I will give him that too, for the journey from Ephesus to Sardis must be added to the rest. ,So, then, from the Greek sea to Susa, which is the city called Memnonian, it is a journey of fourteen thousand and forty stages, for there are five hundred and forty furlongs from Ephesus to Sardis. The three months' journey is accordingly made longer by three days. 5.55. When he was forced to leave Sparta, Aristagoras went to Athens, which had been freed from its ruling tyrants in the manner that I will show. First Hipparchus, son of Pisistratus and brother of the tyrant Hippias, had been slain by Aristogiton and Harmodius, men of Gephyraean descent. This was in fact an evil of which he had received a premonition in a dream. After this the Athenians were subject for four years to a tyranny not less but even more absolute than before. 5.56. Now this was the vision which Hipparchus saw in a dream: in the night before the datePanathenaea /date he thought that a tall and handsome man stood over him uttering these riddling verses: quote l met="dact"O lion, endure the unendurable with a lion's heart. /l lNo man on earth does wrong without paying the penalty. /l /quote ,As soon as it was day, he imparted this to the interpreters of dreams, and presently putting the vision from his mind, he led the procession in which he met his death. 5.57. Now the Gephyraean clan, of which the slayers of Hipparchus were members, claim to have come at first from Eretria, but my own enquiry shows that they were among the Phoenicians who came with Cadmus to the country now called Boeotia. In that country the lands of Tanagra were allotted to them, and this is where they settled. ,The Cadmeans had first been expelled from there by the Argives, and these Gephyraeans were forced to go to Athens after being expelled in turn by the Boeotians. The Athenians received them as citizens of their own on set terms, debarring them from many practices not deserving of mention here. 5.58. These Phoenicians who came with Cadmus and of whom the Gephyraeans were a part brought with them to Hellas, among many other kinds of learning, the alphabet, which had been unknown before this, I think, to the Greeks. As time went on the sound and the form of the letters were changed. ,At this time the Greeks who were settled around them were for the most part Ionians, and after being taught the letters by the Phoenicians, they used them with a few changes of form. In so doing, they gave to these characters the name of Phoenician, as was quite fair seeing that the Phoenicians had brought them into Greece. ,The Ionians have also from ancient times called sheets of papyrus skins, since they formerly used the skins of sheep and goats due to the lack of papyrus. Even to this day there are many foreigners who write on such skins. 5.59. I have myself seen Cadmean writing in the temple of Ismenian Apollo at Thebes of Boeotia engraved on certain tripods and for the most part looking like Ionian letters. On one of the tripods there is this inscription: quote type="inscription" l met="dact" Amphitryon dedicated me from the spoils of Teleboae. /l /quote This would date from about the time of Laius the son of Labdacus, grandson of Polydorus and great-grandson of Cadmus. 5.60. A second tripod says, in hexameter verse: quote type="inscription" l met="dact" Scaeus the boxer, victorious in the contest, /l lGave me to Apollo, the archer god, a lovely offering. /l /quote Scaeus the son of Hippocoon, if he is indeed the dedicator and not another of the same name, would have lived at the time of Oedipus son of Laius. 5.61. The third tripod says, in hexameter verse again: quote type="inscription" l met="dact" Laodamas, while he reigned, dedicated this cauldron /l lTo Apollo, the sure of aim, as a lovely offering. /l /quote ,During the rule of this Laodamas son of Eteocles, the Cadmeans were expelled by the Argives and went away to the Encheleis. The Gephyraeans were left behind but were later compelled by the Boeotians to withdraw to Athens. They have certain set forms of worship at Athens in which the rest of the Athenians take no part, particularly the rites and mysteries of Achaean Demeter. 5.62. I have told both of the vision of Hipparchus' dream and of the first origin of the Gephyreans, to whom the slayers of Hipparchus belonged. Now I must go further and return to the story which I began to tell, namely how the Athenians were freed from their tyrants. ,Hippias, their tyrant, was growing ever more bitter in enmity against the Athenians because of Hipparchus' death, and the Alcmeonidae, a family of Athenian stock banished by the sons of Pisistratus, attempted with the rest of the exiled Athenians to make their way back by force and free Athens. They were not successful in their return and suffered instead a great reverse. After fortifying Lipsydrium north of Paeonia, they, in their desire to use all devices against the sons of Pisistratus, hired themselves to the Amphictyons for the building of the temple at Delphi which exists now but was not there yet then. ,Since they were wealthy and like their fathers men of reputation, they made the temple more beautiful than the model showed. In particular, whereas they had agreed to build the temple of tufa, they made its front of Parian marble. 5.63. These men, as the Athenians say, established themselves at Delphi and bribed the Pythian priestess to bid any Spartans who should come to inquire of her on a private or a public account to set Athens free. ,Then the Lacedaemonians, when the same command was ever revealed to them, sent Anchimolius the son of Aster, a citizen of repute, to drive out the sons of Pisistratus with an army despite the fact that the Pisistratidae were their close friends, for the god's will weighed with them more than the will of man. ,They sent these men by sea on shipboard. Anchimolius put in at Phalerum and disembarked his army there. The sons of Pisistratus, however, had received word of the plan already, and sent to ask help from the Thessalians with whom they had an alliance. The Thessalians, at their entreaty, joined together and sent their own king, Cineas of Conium, with a thousand horsemen. When the Pisistratidae got these allies, they devised the following plan. ,First they laid waste the plain of Phalerum so that all that land could be ridden over and then launched their cavalry against the enemy's army. Then the horsemen charged and slew Anchimolius and many more of the Lacedaemonians, and drove those that survived to their ships. Accordingly, the first Lacedaemonian army drew off, and Anchimolius' tomb is at Alopecae in Attica, near to the Heracleum in Cynosarges. 5.64. After this the Lacedaemonians sent out a greater army to attack Athens, appointing as its general their king Cleomenes son of Anaxandrides. This army they sent not by sea but by land. ,When they broke into Attica, the Thessalian horsemen were the first to meet them. They were routed after only a short time, and more than forty men were slain. Those who were left alive made off for Thessaly by the nearest way they could. Then Cleomenes, when he and the Athenians who desired freedom came into the city, drove the tyrants' family within the Pelasgic wall and besieged them there. 5.65. The Lacedaemonians would never have taken the Pisistratid stronghold. First of all they had no intention to blockade it, and secondly the Pisistratidae were well furnished with food and drink. The Lacedaemonians would only have besieged the place for a few days and then returned to Sparta. As it was, however, there was a turn of fortune which harmed the one party and helped the other, for the sons of the Pisistratid family were taken as they were being secretly carried out of the country. ,When this happened, all their plans were confounded, and they agreed to depart from Attica within five days on the terms prescribed to them by the Athenians in return for the recovery of their children. ,Afterwards they departed to Sigeum on the Scamander. They had ruled the Athenians for thirty-six years and were in lineage of the house of Pylos and Neleus, born of the same ancestors as the families of Codrus and Melanthus, who had formerly come from foreign parts to be kings of Athens. ,It was for this reason that Hippocrates gave his son the name Pisistratus as a remembrance, calling him after Pisistratus the son of Nestor. ,This is the way, then, that the Athenians got rid of their tyrants. As regards all the noteworthy things which they did or endured after they were freed and before Ionia revolted from Darius and Aristagoras of Miletus came to Athens to ask help of its people, of these I will first give an account. 5.66. Athens, which had been great before, now grew even greater when her tyrants had been removed. The two principal holders of power were Cleisthenes an Alcmaeonid, who was reputed to have bribed the Pythian priestess, and Isagoras son of Tisandrus, a man of a notable house but his lineage I cannot say. His kinsfolk, at any rate, sacrifice to Zeus of Caria. ,These men with their factions fell to contending for power, Cleisthenes was getting the worst of it in this dispute and took the commons into his party. Presently he divided the Athenians into ten tribes instead of four as formerly. He called none after the names of the sons of Ion—Geleon, Aegicores, Argades, and Hoples—but invented for them names taken from other heroes, all native to the country except Aias. Him he added despite the fact that he was a stranger because he was a neighbor and an ally. 5.67. In doing this, to my thinking, this Cleisthenes was imitating his own mother's father, Cleisthenes the tyrant of Sicyon, for Cleisthenes, after going to war with the Argives, made an end of minstrels' contests at Sicyon by reason of the Homeric poems, in which it is the Argives and Argos which are primarily the theme of the songs. Furthermore, he conceived the desire to cast out from the land Adrastus son of Talaus, the hero whose shrine stood then as now in the very marketplace of Sicyon because he was an Argive. ,He went then to Delphi, and asked the oracle if he should cast Adrastus out, but the priestess said in response: “Adrastus is king of Sicyon, and you but a stone thrower.” When the god would not permit him to do as he wished in this matter, he returned home and attempted to devise some plan which might rid him of Adrastus. When he thought he had found one, he sent to Boeotian Thebes saying that he would gladly bring Melanippus son of Astacus into his country, and the Thebans handed him over. ,When Cleisthenes had brought him in, he consecrated a sanctuary for him in the government house itself, where he was established in the greatest possible security. Now the reason why Cleisthenes brought in Melanippus, a thing which I must relate, was that Melanippus was Adrastus' deadliest enemy, for Adrastus had slain his brother Mecisteus and his son-in-law Tydeus. ,Having then designated the precinct for him, Cleisthenes took away all Adrastus' sacrifices and festivals and gave them to Melanippus. The Sicyonians had been accustomed to pay very great honor to Adrastus because the country had once belonged to Polybus, his maternal grandfather, who died without an heir and bequeathed the kingship to him. ,Besides other honors paid to Adrastus by the Sicyonians, they celebrated his lamentable fate with tragic choruses in honor not of Dionysus but of Adrastus. Cleisthenes, however, gave the choruses back to Dionysus and the rest of the worship to Melanippus. 5.68. This, then, is what he did regarding Adrastus, but as for the tribes of the Dorians, he changed their names so that these tribes should not be shared by Sicyonians and Argives. In this especially he made a laughing-stock of the Sicyonians, for he gave the tribes names derived from the words ‘donkey’ and ‘pig’ changing only the endings. The name of his own tribe, however, he did not change in this way, but rather gave it a name indicating his own rule, calling it Archelaoi, rulers of the people. The rest were Swinites, Assites and Porkites. ,These were the names of the tribes which the Sicyonians used under Cleisthenes' rule and for sixty years more after his death. Afterwards, however, they took counsel together and both changed the names of three to Hylleis, Pamphyli, and Dymanatae, and added a fourth which they called Aegialeis after Aegialeus son of Adrastus. 5.70. Isagoras, who was on the losing side, devised a counter-plot, and invited the aid of Cleomenes, who had been his friend since the besieging of the Pisistratidae. It was even said of Cleomenes that he regularly went to see Isagoras' wife. ,Then Cleomenes first sent a herald to Athens demanding the banishment of Cleisthenes and many other Athenians with him, the Accursed, as he called them. This he said in his message by Isagoras' instruction, for the Alcmeonidae and their faction were held to be guilty of that bloody deed while Isagoras and his friends had no part in it. 5.71. How the Accursed at Athens had received their name, I will now relate. There was an Athenian named Cylon, who had been a winner at Olympia. This man put on the air of one who aimed at tyranny, and gathering a company of men of like age, he attempted to seize the citadel. When he could not win it, he took sanctuary by the goddess' statue. ,He and his men were then removed from their position by the presidents of the naval boards, the rulers of Athens at that time. Although they were subject to any penalty save death, they were slain, and their death was attributed to the Alcmaeonidae. All this took place before the time of Pisistratus. 5.72. When Cleomenes had sent for and demanded the banishment of Cleisthenes and the Accursed, Cleisthenes himself secretly departed. Afterwards, however, Cleomenes appeared in Athens with no great force. Upon his arrival, he, in order to take away the curse, banished seven hundred Athenian families named for him by Isagoras. Having so done he next attempted to dissolve the Council, entrusting the offices of government to Isagoras' faction. ,The Council, however, resisted him, whereupon Cleomenes and Isagoras and his partisans seized the acropolis. The rest of the Athenians united and besieged them for two days. On the third day as many of them as were Lacedaemonians left the country under truce. ,The prophetic voice that Cleomenes heard accordingly had its fulfillment, for when he went up to the acropolis with the intention of taking possession of it, he approached the shrine of the goddess to address himself to her. The priestess rose up from her seat, and before he had passed through the door-way, she said, “Go back, Lacedaemonian stranger, and do not enter the holy place since it is not lawful that Dorians should pass in here. “My lady,” he answered, “I am not a Dorian, but an Achaean.” ,So without taking heed of the omen, he tried to do as he pleased and was, as I have said, then again cast out together with his Lacedaemonians. As for the rest, the Athenians imprisoned them under sentence of death. Among the prisoners was Timesitheus the Delphian, whose achievements of strength and courage were quite formidable. 5.73. These men, then, were bound and put to death. After that, the Athenians sent to bring back Cleisthenes and the seven hundred households banished by Cleomenes. Then, desiring to make an alliance with the Persians, they despatched envoys to Sardis, for they knew that they had provoked the Lacedaemonians and Cleomenes to war. ,When the envoys came to Sardis and spoke as they had been bidden, Artaphrenes son of Hystaspes, viceroy of Sardis, asked them, “What men are you and where do you live, who desire alliance with the Persians?” When he had received the information he wanted from the envoys, he gave them an answer the substance of which was that if the Athenians gave king Darius earth and water, then he would make an alliance with them, but if not, his command was that they should depart. ,The envoys consulted together, and in their desire to make the alliance, they consented to give what was asked. They then returned to their own country and were there greatly blamed for what they had done. 5.74. Cleomenes, however, fully aware that the Athenians had done him wrong in word and deed, mustered an army from the whole of the Peloponnesus. He did not declare the purpose for which he mustered it, namely to avenge himself on the Athenian people and set up Isagoras, who had come with him out of the acropolis, as tyrant. ,Cleomenes broke in as far as Eleusis with a great host, and the Boeotians, by a concerted plan, took Oenoe and Hysiae, districts on the borders of Attica, while the Chalcidians attacked on another side and raided lands in Attica. The Athenians, who were now caught in a ring of foes, decided to oppose the Spartans at Eleusis and to deal with the Boeotians and Chalcidians later. 5.75. When the armies were about to join battle, the Corinthians, coming to the conclusion that they were acting wrongly, changed their minds and departed. Later Demaratus son of Ariston, the other king of Sparta, did likewise, despite the fact that he had come with Cleomenes from Lacedaemon in joint command of the army and had not till now been at variance with him. ,As a result of this dissension, a law was made at Sparta that when an army was despatched, both kings would not be permitted to go with it. Until that time they had both gone together, but now one of the kings was released from service and one of the sons of Tyndarus too could be left at home. Before that time, both of these also were asked to give aid and went with the army. ,So now at Eleusis, when the rest of the allies saw that the Lacedaemonian kings were not of one mind and that the Corinthians had left their host, they too went off. 5.76. This was the fourth time that Dorians had come into Attica. They had come twice as invaders in war and twice as helpers of the Athenian people. The first time was when they planted a settlement at Megara (this expedition may rightly be said to have been in the reign of Codrus), the second and third when they set out from Sparta to drive out the sons of Pisistratus, and the fourth was now, when Cleomenes broke in as far as Eleusis with his following of Peloponnesians. This was accordingly the fourth Dorian invasion of Athens. 5.77. When this force then had been ingloriously scattered, the Athenians first marched against the Chalcidians to punish them. The Boeotians came to the Euripus to help the Chalcidians and as soon as the Athenians saw these allies, they resolved to attack the Boeotians before the Chalcidians. ,When they met the Boeotians in battle, they won a great victory, slaying very many and taking seven hundred of them prisoner. On that same day the Athenians crossed to Euboea where they met the Chalcidians too in battle, and after overcoming them as well, they left four thousand tet farmers on the lands of the horse-breeders. ,Horse-breeders was the name given to the men of substance among the Chalcidians. They fettered as many of these as they took alive and kept them imprisoned with the captive Boeotians. In time, however, they set them free, each for an assessed ransom of two minae. The fetters in which the prisoners had been bound they hung up in the acropolis, where they could still be seen in my time hanging from walls which the Persians' fire had charred, opposite the temple which faces west. ,Moreover, they made a dedication of a tenth part of the ransom, and this money was used for the making of a four-horse chariot which stands on the left hand of the entrance into the outer porch of the acropolis and bears this inscription: quote type="inscription" l met="dact" Athens with Chalcis and Boeotia fought, /l lBound them in chains and brought their pride to naught. /l lPrison was grief, and ransom cost them dear- /l lOne tenth to Pallas raised this chariot here. /l /quote 5.78. So the Athenians grew in power and proved, not in one respect only but in all, that equality is a good thing. Evidence for this is the fact that while they were under tyrannical rulers, the Athenians were no better in war than any of their neighbors, yet once they got rid of their tyrants, they were by far the best of all. This, then, shows that while they were oppressed, they were, as men working for a master, cowardly, but when they were freed, each one was eager to achieve for himself. 5.79. This, then, is the course of action which the Athenians took, and the Thebans, desiring vengeance on Athens, afterwards appealed to Delphi for advice. The Pythian priestess said that the Thebans themselves would not be able to obtain the vengeance they wanted and that they should lay the matter before the “many-voiced” and entreat their “nearest.” ,Upon the return of the envoys, an assembly was called and the oracle put before it. When the Thebans heard that they must entreat their “nearest,” they said, “If this is so, our nearest neighbors are the men of Tanagra and Coronea and Thespiae. These are always our comrades in battle and zealously wage our wars. What need, then, is there to entreat them? Perhaps this is the meaning of the oracle.” 5.80. They reasoned in this way, till at last one understood, and said: “I think that I perceive what the oracle is trying to tell us. Thebe and Aegina, it is said, were daughters of Asopus and sisters. The god's answer is, I think, that we should ask the Aeginetans to be our avengers.” ,Seeing that there seemed to be no better opinion before them than this, they sent straightaway to entreat the Aeginetans and invite their aid, since this was the oracle's bidding, and the Aeginetans were their nearest. These replied to their demand that they were sending the Sons of Aeacus in aid. 5.81. The Thebans took the field on the strength of their alliance with that family but were soundly beaten by the Athenians. Thereupon they sent a second message to Aegina, giving back the sons of Aeacus and asking for some men instead. ,The Aeginetans, who were enjoying great prosperity and remembered their old feud with Athens, accordingly made war on the Athenians at the entreaty of the Thebans without sending a herald. ,While the Athenians were busy with the Boeotians, they descended on Attica in ships of war, and ravaged Phaleron and many other seaboard townships. By so doing they dealt the Athenians a very shrewd blow. 5.82. This was the beginning of the Aeginetans' long-standing debt of enmity against the Athenians. The Epidaurians' land bore no produce. For this reason they inquired at Delphi concerning this calamity, and the priestess bade them set up images of Damia and Auxesia, saying that if they so did their luck would be better. The Epidaurians then asked in addition whether they should make the images of bronze or of stone, and the priestess bade them do neither, but make them of the wood of the cultivated olive. ,So the men of Epidaurus asked the Athenians to permit them to cut down some olive trees, supposing the olives there to be the holiest. Indeed it is said that at that time there were no olives anywhere save at Athens. ,The Athenians consented to give the trees, if the Epidaurians would pay yearly sacred dues to Athena, the city's goddess, and to Erechtheus. The Epidaurians agreed to this condition, and their request was granted. When they set up images made of these olive trees, their land brought forth fruit, and they fulfilled their agreement with the Athenians. 5.83. Now at this time, as before it, the Aeginetans were in all matters still subject to the Epidaurians and even crossed to Epidaurus for the hearing of their own private lawsuits. From this time, however, they began to build ships, and stubbornly revolted from the Epidaurians. ,In the course of this struggle, they did the Epidaurians much damage and stole their images of Damia and Auxesia. These they took away and set them up in the middle of their own country at a place called Oea, about twenty furlongs distant from their city. ,Having set them up in this place they sought their favor with sacrifices and female choruses in the satirical and abusive mode. Ten men were appointed providers of a chorus for each of the deities, and the choruses aimed their raillery not at any men but at the women of the country. The Epidaurians too had the same rites, and they have certain secret rites as well. 5.84. When these images were stolen, the Epidaurians ceased from fulfilling their agreement with the Athenians. Then the Athenians sent an angry message to the Epidaurians who pleaded in turn that they were doing no wrong. “For as long,” they said, “as we had the images in our country, we fulfilled our agreement. Now that we are deprived of them, it is not just that we should still be paying. Ask your dues of the men of Aegina, who have the images.” ,The Athenians therefore sent to Aegina and demanded that the images be restored, but the Aeginetans answered that they had nothing to do with the Athenians. 5.85. The Athenians report that after making this demand, they despatched one trireme with certain of their citizens who, coming in the name of the whole people to Aegina, attempted to tear the images, as being made of Attic wood, from their bases so that they might carry them away. ,When they could not obtain possession of them in this manner, they tied cords around the images with which they could be dragged. While they were attempting to drag them off, they were overtaken both by a thunderstorm and an earthquake. This drove the trireme's crew to such utter madness that they began to slay each other as if they were enemies. At last only one of all was left, who returned by himself to Phalerum. 5.86. This is the Athenian version of the matter, but the Aeginetans say that the Athenians came not in one ship only, for they could easily have kept off a single ship, or several, for that matter, even if they had no navy themselves. The truth was, they said, that the Athenians descended upon their coasts with many ships and that they yielded to them without making a fight of it at sea. ,They are not able to determine clearly whether it was because they admitted to being weaker at sea-fighting that they yielded, or because they were planning what they then actually did. ,When, as the Aeginetans say, no man came out to fight with them, the Athenians disembarked from their ships and turned their attention to the images. Unable to drag them from the bases, they fastened cords on them and dragged them until they both—this I cannot believe, but another might—fell on their knees. Both have remained in this position ever since. ,This is what the Athenians did, but the Aeginetans say that they discovered that the Athenians were about to make war upon them and therefore assured themselves of help from the Argives. So when the Athenians disembarked on the land of Aegina, the Argives came to aid the Aeginetans, crossing over from Epidaurus to the island secretly. They then fell upon the Athenians unaware and cut them off from their ships. It was at this moment that the thunderstorm and earthquake came upon them 5.87. This, then, is the story told by the Argives and Aeginetans, and the Athenians too acknowledge that only one man of their number returned safely to Attica. ,The Argives, however, say that he escaped after they had destroyed the rest of the Athenian force, while the Athenians claim that the whole thing was to be attributed to divine power. This one man did not survive but perished in the following manner. It would seem that he made his way to Athens and told of the mishap. When the wives of the men who had gone to attack Aegina heard this, they were very angry that he alone should be safe. They gathered round him and stabbed him with the brooch-pins of their garments, each asking him where her husband was. ,This is how this man met his end, and the Athenians found the action of their women to be more dreadful than their own misfortune. They could find, it is said, no other way to punish the women than changing their dress to the Ionian fashion. Until then the Athenian women had worn Dorian dress, which is very like the Corinthian. It was changed, therefore, to the linen tunic, so that they might have no brooch-pins to use. 5.88. The truth of the matter, however, is that this form of dress is not in its origin Ionian, but Carian, for in ancient times all women in Greece wore the costume now known as Dorian. ,As for the Argives and Aeginetans, this was the reason of their passing a law in both their countries that brooch-pins should be made half as long as they used to be and that brooches should be the principal things offered by women in the shrines of these two goddesses. Furthermore, nothing else Attic should be brought to the temple, not even pottery, and from that time on only drinking vessels made in the country should be used. 5.89. Ever since that day even to my time the women of Argos and Aegina wore brooch-pins longer than before, by reason of the feud with the Athenians. The enmity of the Athenians against the Aeginetans began as I have told, and now at the Thebans' call the Aeginetans came readily to the aid of the Boeotians, remembering the matter of the images. ,While the Aeginetans were laying waste to the seaboard of Attica, the Athenians were setting out to march against them, but an oracle from Delphi came to them bidding them to restrain themselves for thirty years after the wrongdoing of the Aeginetans, and in the thirty-first to mark out a precinct for Aeacus and begin the war with Aegina. In this way their purpose would prosper. If, however, they sent an army against their enemies straightaway, they would indeed subdue them in the end but would in the meantime both suffer and do many things. ,When the Athenians heard this reported to them, they marked out for Aeacus that precinct which is now set in their marketplace, but they could not stomach the order that they must hold their hand for thirty years, seeing that the Aeginetans had dealt them a foul blow. 5.90. As they were making ready for vengeance, a matter which took its rise in Lacedaemon hindered them, for when the Lacedaemonians learned of the plot of the Alcmaeonids with the Pythian priestess and of her plot against themselves and the Pisistratidae, they were very angry for two reasons, namely that they had driven their own guests and friends from the country they dwelt in, and that the Athenians showed them no gratitude for their doing so. ,Furthermore, they were spurred on by the oracles which foretold that many deeds of enmity would be perpetrated against them by the Athenians. Previously they had had no knowledge of these oracles but now Cleomenes brought them to Sparta, and the Lacedaemonians learned their contents. It was from the Athenian acropolis that Cleomenes took the oracles, which had been in the possession of the Pisistratidae earlier. When they were exiled, they left them in the temple from where they were retrieved by Cleomenes. 5.91. Now the Lacedaemonians, when they regained the oracles and saw the Athenians increasing in power and in no way inclined to obey them, realized that if the Athenians remained free, they would be equal in power with themselves, but that if they were held down under tyranny, they would be weak and ready to serve a master. Perceiving all this, they sent to bring Pisistratus' son Hippias from Sigeum on the Hellespont, the Pisistratidae's place of refuge. ,When Hippias arrived, the Spartans sent for envoys from the rest of their allies and spoke to them as follows: “Sirs, our allies, we do acknowledge that we have acted wrongly, for, led astray by lying divinations, we drove from their native land men who were our close friends and promised to make Athens subject to us. Then we handed that city over to a thankless people which had no sooner lifted up its head in the freedom which we gave it, than it insolently cast out us and our king. Now it has bred such a spirit of pride and is growing so much in power, that its neighbors in Boeotia and Chalcis have really noticed it, and others too will soon recognize their error. ,Since we erred in doing what we did, we will now attempt with your aid to avenge ourselves on them. It is on this account and no other that we have sent for Hippias, whom you see, and have brought you from your cities, namely that uniting our counsels and our power, we may bring him to Athens and restore that which we took away.” 5.92. These were the words of the Lacedaemonians, but their words were ill-received by the greater part of their allies. The rest then keeping silence, Socles, a Corinthian, said, ,“In truth heaven will be beneath the earth and the earth aloft above the heaven, and men will dwell in the sea and fishes where men dwelt before, now that you, Lacedaemonians, are destroying the rule of equals and making ready to bring back tyranny into the cities, tyranny, a thing more unrighteous and bloodthirsty than anything else on this earth. ,If indeed it seems to you to be a good thing that the cities be ruled by tyrants, set up a tyrant among yourselves first and then seek to set up such for the rest. As it is, however, you, who have never made trial of tyrants and take the greatest precautions that none will arise at Sparta, deal wrongfully with your allies. If you had such experience of that thing as we have, you would be more prudent advisers concerning it than you are now.” ,The Corinthian state was ordered in such manner as I will show.There was an oligarchy, and this group of men, called the Bacchiadae, held sway in the city, marrying and giving in marriage among themselves. Now Amphion, one of these men, had a crippled daughter, whose name was Labda. Since none of the Bacchiadae would marry her, she was wedded to Eetion son of Echecrates, of the township of Petra, a Lapith by lineage and of the posterity of Caeneus. ,When no sons were born to him by this wife or any other, he set out to Delphi to enquire concerning the matter of acquiring offspring. As soon as he entered, the Pythian priestess spoke these verses to him: quote type="oracle" l met="dact" Eetion,worthy of honor, no man honors you. /l l Labda is with child, and her child will be a millstone /l lWhich will fall upon the rulers and will bring justice to Corinth. /l /quote ,This oracle which was given to Eetion was in some way made known to the Bacchiadae. The earlier oracle sent to Corinth had not been understood by them, despite the fact that its meaning was the same as the meaning of the oracle of Eetion, and it read as follows: quote type="oracle" l met="dact"An eagle in the rocks has conceived, and will bring forth a lion, /l lStrong and fierce. The knees of many will it loose. /l lThis consider well, Corinthians, /l lYou who dwell by lovely Pirene and the overhanging heights of Corinth. /l /quote ,This earlier prophecy had been unintelligible to the Bacchiadae, but as soon as they heard the one which was given to Eetion, they understood it at once, recognizing its similarity with the oracle of Eetion. Now understanding both oracles, they kept quiet but resolved to do away with the offspring of Eetion. Then, as soon as his wife had given birth, they sent ten men of their clan to the township where Eetion dwelt to kill the child. ,These men came to Petra and passing into Eetion's courtyard, asked for the child. Labda, knowing nothing of the purpose of their coming and thinking that they wished to see the baby out of affection for its father, brought it and placed it into the hands of one of them. Now they had planned on their way that the first of them who received the child should dash it to the ground. ,When, however, Labda brought and handed over the child, by divine chance it smiled at the man who took it. This he saw, and compassion prevented him from killing it. Filled with pity, he handed it to a second, and this man again to a third.In fact it passed from hand to hand to each of the ten, for none would make an end of it. ,They then gave the child back to its mother, and after going out, they stood before the door reproaching and upbraiding one another, but chiefly him who had first received it since he had not acted in accordance with their agreement. Finally they resolved to go in again and all have a hand in the killing. ,Fate, however, had decreed that Eetion's offspring should be the source of ills for Corinth, for Labda, standing close to this door, heard all this. Fearing that they would change their minds and that they would take and actually kill the child, she took it away and hid it where she thought it would be hardest to find, in a chest, for she knew that if they returned and set about searching they would seek in every place—which in fact they did. ,They came and searched, but when they did not find it, they resolved to go off and say to those who had sent them that they had carried out their orders. They then went away and said this. ,Eetion's son, however, grew up, and because of his escape from that danger, he was called Cypselus, after the chest. When he had reached manhood and was seeking a divination, an oracle of double meaning was given him at Delphi. Putting faith in this, he made an attempt on Corinth and won it. ,The oracle was as follows: quote type="oracle" l met="dact"That man is fortunate who steps into my house, /l l Cypselus, son of Eetion, the king of noble Corinth, /l lHe himself and his children, but not the sons of his sons. /l /quote Such was the oracle. Cypselus, however, when he had gained the tyranny, conducted himself in this way: many of the Corinthians he drove into exile, many he deprived of their wealth, and by far the most he had killed. ,After a reign of thirty years, he died in the height of prosperity, and was succeeded by his son Periander. Now Periander was to begin with milder than his father, but after he had held converse by messenger with Thrasybulus the tyrant of Miletus, he became much more bloodthirsty than Cypselus. ,He had sent a herald to Thrasybulus and inquired in what way he would best and most safely govern his city. Thrasybulus led the man who had come from Periander outside the town, and entered into a sown field. As he walked through the corn, continually asking why the messenger had come to him from Corinth, he kept cutting off all the tallest ears of wheat which he could see, and throwing them away, until he had destroyed the best and richest part of the crop. ,Then, after passing through the place and speaking no word of counsel, he sent the herald away. When the herald returned to Corinth, Periander desired to hear what counsel he brought, but the man said that Thrasybulus had given him none. The herald added that it was a strange man to whom he had been sent, a madman and a destroyer of his own possessions, telling Periander what he had seen Thrasybulus do. ,Periander, however, understood what had been done, and perceived that Thrasybulus had counselled him to slay those of his townsmen who were outstanding in influence or ability; with that he began to deal with his citizens in an evil manner. Whatever act of slaughter or banishment Cypselus had left undone, that Periander brought to accomplishment. In a single day he stripped all the women of Corinth naked, because of his own wife Melissa. ,Periander had sent messengers to the Oracle of the Dead on the river Acheron in Thesprotia to enquire concerning a deposit that a friend had left, but Melissa, in an apparition, said that she would tell him nothing, nor reveal where the deposit lay, for she was cold and naked. The garments, she said, with which Periander had buried with her had never been burnt, and were of no use to her. Then, as evidence for her husband that she spoke the truth, she added that Periander had put his loaves into a cold oven. ,When this message was brought back to Periander (for he had had intercourse with the dead body of Melissa and knew her token for true), immediately after the message he made a proclamation that all the Corinthian women should come out into the temple of Hera. They then came out as to a festival, wearing their most beautiful garments, and Periander set his guards there and stripped them all alike, ladies and serving-women, and heaped all the clothes in a pit, where, as he prayed to Melissa, he burnt them. ,When he had done this and sent a second message, the ghost of Melissa told him where the deposit of the friend had been laid. “This, then, Lacedaimonians, is the nature of tyranny, and such are its deeds. ,We Corinthians marvelled greatly when we saw that you were sending for Hippias, and now we marvel yet more at your words to us. We entreat you earnestly in the name of the gods of Hellas not to establish tyranny in the cities, but if you do not cease from so doing and unrighteously attempt to bring Hippias back, be assured that you are proceeding without the Corinthians' consent.” 5.93. These were the words of Socles, the envoy from Corinth, and Hippias answered, calling the same gods as Socles had invoked to witness, that the Corinthians would be the first to wish the Pisistratidae back, when the time appointed should come for them to be vexed by the Athenians. ,Hippias made this answer, inasmuch as he had more exact knowledge of the oracles than any man, but the rest of the allies, who had till now kept silence, spoke out when they heard the free speech of Socles and sided with the opinion of the Corinthians, entreating the Lacedaemonians not to harm a Greek city. 5.94. His plan, then, came to nothing, and Hippias was forced to depart. Amyntas king of the Macedonians offered him Anthemus, and the Thessalians Iolcus, but he would have neither. He withdrew to Sigeum, which Pisistratus had taken at the spear's point from the Mytilenaeans and where he then established as tyrant Hegesistratus, his own bastard son by an Argive woman. Hegesistratus, however, could not keep what Pisistratus had given him without fighting, ,for there was constant war over a long period of time between the Athenians at Sigeum and the Mytilenaeans at Achilleum. The Mytilenaeans were demanding the place back, and the Athenians, bringing proof to show that the Aeolians had no more part or lot in the land of Ilium than they themselves and all the other Greeks who had aided Menelaus to avenge the rape of Helen, would not consent. 5.95. Among the various incidents of this war, one in particular is worth mention; In the course of a battle in which the Athenians had the upper hand, Alcaeus the poet took to flight and escaped, but his armor was taken by the Athenians and hung up in the temple of Athena at Sigeum. ,Alcaeus wrote a poem about this and sent it to Mytilene. In it he relates his own misfortune to his friend Melanippus. As for the Mytilenaeans and Athenians, however, peace was made between them by Periander son of Cypselus, to whose arbitration they committed the matter, and the terms of peace were that each party should keep what it had. 5.97. It was when the Athenians had made their decision and were already on bad terms with Persia, that Aristagoras the Milesian, driven from Sparta by Cleomenes the Lacedaemonian, came to Athens, since that city was more powerful than any of the rest. Coming before the people, Aristagoras spoke to the same effect as at Sparta, of the good things of Asia, and how the Persians carried neither shield nor spear in war and could easily be overcome. ,This he said adding that the Milesians were settlers from Athens, whom it was only right to save seeing that they themselves were a very powerful people. There was nothing which he did not promise in the earnestness of his entreaty, till at last he prevailed upon them. It seems, then, that it is easier to deceive many than one, for he could not deceive Cleomenes of Lacedaemon, one single man, but thirty thousand Athenians he could. ,The Athenians, now persuaded, voted to send twenty ships to aid the Ionians, appointing for their admiral Melanthius, a citizen of Athens who had an unblemished reputation. These ships were the beginning of troubles for both Greeks and foreigners. 5.114. As for Onesilus, the Amathusians cut off his head and brought it to Amathus, where they hung it above their gates, because he had besieged their city. When this head became hollow, a swarm of bees entered it and filled it with their honeycomb. ,In consequence of this the Amathusians, who had inquired concerning the matter, received an oracle which stated that they should take the head down and bury it, and offer yearly sacrifice to Onesilus as to a hero. If they did this, things would go better for them. 6.36. The Pythia also bade him do so. Then Miltiades son of Cypselus, previously an Olympic victor in the four-horse chariot, recruited any Athenian who wanted to take part in the expedition, sailed off with the Dolonci, and took possession of their land. Those who brought him appointed him tyrant. ,His first act was to wall off the isthmus of the Chersonese from the city of Cardia across to Pactye, so that the Apsinthians would not be able to harm them by invading their land. The isthmus is thirty-six stadia across, and to the south of the isthmus the Chersonese is four hundred and twenty stadia in length. 6.37. After Miltiades had pushed away the Apsinthians by walling off the neck of the Chersonese, he made war first on the people of Lampsacus, but the Lampsacenes laid an ambush and took him prisoner. However, Miltiades stood high in the opinion of Croesus the Lydian, and when Croesus heard what had happened, he sent to the Lampsacenes and commanded them to release Miltiades. If they did not do so, he threatened to cut them down like a pine tree. ,The Lampsacenes went astray in their counsels as to what the utterance meant which Croesus had threatened them with, saying he would devastate them like a pine tree, until at last one of the elders understood and said what it was: the pine is the only tree that once cut down never sends out any shoots; it is utterly destroyed. So out of fear of Croesus the Lampsacenes released Miltiades and let him go. 6.38. So he escaped by the intervention of Croesus, but he later died childless and left his rule and possessions to Stesagoras, the son of his half-brother Cimon. Since his death, the people of the Chersonese offer sacrifices to him as their founder in the customary manner, instituting a contest of horse races and gymnastics. No one from Lampsacus is allowed to compete. ,But in the war against the Lampsacenes Stesagoras too met his end and died childless; he was struck on the head with an axe in the town-hall by a man who pretended to be a deserter but in truth was an enemy and a man of violence. 6.97. While they did this, the Delians also left Delos and fled away to Tenos. As his expedition was sailing landwards, Datis went on ahead and bade his fleet anchor not off Delos, but across the water off Rhenaea. Learning where the Delians were, he sent a herald to them with this proclamation: ,“Holy men, why have you fled away, and so misjudged my intent? It is my own desire, and the king's command to me, to do no harm to the land where the two gods were born, neither to the land itself nor to its inhabitants. So return now to your homes and dwell on your island.” He made this proclamation to the Delians, and then piled up three hundred talents of frankincense on the altar and burnt it. 6.98. After doing this, Datis sailed with his army against Eretria first, taking with him Ionians and Aeolians; and after he had put out from there, Delos was shaken by an earthquake, the first and last, as the Delians say, before my time. This portent was sent by heaven, as I suppose, to be an omen of the ills that were coming on the world. ,For in three generations, that is, in the time of Darius son of Hystaspes and Xerxes son of Darius and Artaxerxes son of Xerxes, more ills happened to Hellas than in twenty generations before Darius; some coming from the Persians, some from the wars for preeminence among the chief of the nations themselves. ,Thus it was no marvel that there should be an earthquake in Delos when there had been none before. Also there was an oracle concerning Delos, where it was written: quote type="oracle" l met="dact"I will shake Delos, though unshaken before. /l /quote In the Greek language these names have the following meanings: Darius is the Doer, Xerxes the Warrior, Artaxerxes the Great Warrior. The Greeks would rightly call the kings thus in their language. 6.118. Datis journeyed with his army to Asia, and when he arrived at Myconos he saw a vision in his sleep. What that vision was is not told, but as soon as day broke Datis made a search of his ships. He found in a Phoenician ship a gilded image of Apollo, and asked where this plunder had been taken. Learning from what temple it had come, he sailed in his own ship to Delos. ,The Delians had now returned to their island, and Datis set the image in the temple, instructing the Delians to carry it away to Theban Delium, on the coast opposite Chalcis. ,Datis gave this order and sailed away, but the Delians never carried that statue away; twenty years later the Thebans brought it to Delium by command of an oracle. 7.43. When the army had come to the river Scamander, which was the first river after the beginning of their march from Sardis that fell short of their needs and was not sufficient for the army and the cattle to drink—arriving at this river, Xerxes ascended to the citadel of Priam, having a desire to see it. ,After he saw it and asked about everything there, he sacrificed a thousand cattle to Athena of Ilium, and the Magi offered libations to the heroes. After they did this, a panic fell upon the camp in the night. When it was day they journeyed on from there, keeping on their left the cities of Rhoetium and Ophryneum and Dardanus, which borders Abydos, and on their right the Teucrian Gergithae. 7.117. While Xerxes was at Acanthus, it happened that Artachaees, overseer of the digging of the canal, died of an illness. He was high in Xerxes' favor, an Achaemenid by lineage, and the tallest man in Persia, lacking four finger-breadths of five royal cubits in stature, and his voice was the loudest on earth. For this reason Xerxes mourned him greatly and gave him a funeral and burial of great pomp, and the whole army poured libations on his tomb. ,The Acanthians hold Artachaees a hero, and sacrifice to him, calling upon his name. This they do at the command of an oracle. 8.83. When they found the words of the Tenians worthy of belief, the Hellenes prepared to fight at sea. As dawn glimmered, they held an assembly of the fighting men, and Themistocles gave the best address among the others. His entire speech involved comparing the better and lesser elements in human nature and the human condition. ,He concluded his speech by advising them to choose the better of these, then gave the command to mount the ships. Just as they embarked, the trireme which had gone after the sons of Aeacus arrived from Aegina. |
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