5. Herodotus, Histories, 1.64, 1.67-1.68, 1.131-1.132, 1.147, 1.164-1.168, 1.171, 2.48-2.49, 2.81, 2.170-2.171, 2.182, 4.5, 4.59, 4.127, 5.38-5.47, 5.49-5.65, 5.66.2, 5.67-5.97, 5.119, 6.66-6.67, 6.75, 6.105, 6.123, 7.94, 8.44, 8.109, 8.143 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
| 1.64. The Athenians did, and by this means Pisistratus gained Athens for the third time, rooting his sovereignty in a strong guard and revenue collected both from Athens and from the district of the river Strymon, and he took hostage the sons of the Athenians who remained and did not leave the city at once, and placed these in Naxos . ,(He had conquered Naxos too and put Lygdamis in charge.) And besides this, he purified the island of Delos as a result of oracles, and this is how he did it: he removed all the dead that were buried in ground within sight of the temple and conveyed them to another part of Delos . ,So Pisistratus was sovereign of Athens : and as for the Athenians, some had fallen in the battle, and some, with the Alcmeonids, were exiles from their native land. 1.67. In the previous war the Lacedaemonians continually fought unsuccessfully against the Tegeans, but in the time of Croesus and the kingship of Anaxandrides and Ariston in Lacedaemon the Spartans had gained the upper hand. This is how: ,when they kept being defeated by the Tegeans, they sent ambassadors to Delphi to ask which god they should propitiate to prevail against the Tegeans in war. The Pythia responded that they should bring back the bones of Orestes, son of Agamemnon. ,When they were unable to discover Orestes' tomb, they sent once more to the god to ask where he was buried. The Pythia responded in hexameter to the messengers: , quote type="oracle" l met="dact"There is a place Tegea in the smooth plain of Arcadia, /l lWhere two winds blow under strong compulsion. /l lBlow lies upon blow, woe upon woe. /l lThere the life-giving earth covers the son of Agamemnon. /l lBring him back, and you shall be lord of Tegea . /l /quote ,When the Lacedaemonians heard this, they were no closer to discovery, though they looked everywhere. Finally it was found by Lichas, who was one of the Spartans who are called “doers of good deeds.”. These men are those citizens who retire from the knights, the five oldest each year. They have to spend the year in which they retire from the knights being sent here and there by the Spartan state, never resting in their efforts. 1.68. It was Lichas, one of these men, who found the tomb in Tegea by a combination of luck and skill. At that time there was free access to Tegea, so he went into a blacksmith's shop and watched iron being forged, standing there in amazement at what he saw done. ,The smith perceived that he was amazed, so he stopped what he was doing and said, “My Laconian guest, if you had seen what I saw, then you would really be amazed, since you marvel so at ironworking. ,I wanted to dig a well in the courtyard here, and in my digging I hit upon a coffin twelve feet long. I could not believe that there had ever been men taller than now, so I opened it and saw that the corpse was just as long as the coffin. I measured it and then reburied it.” So the smith told what he had seen, and Lichas thought about what was said and reckoned that this was Orestes, according to the oracle. ,In the smith's two bellows he found the winds, hammer and anvil were blow upon blow, and the forging of iron was woe upon woe, since he figured that iron was discovered as an evil for the human race. ,After reasoning this out, he went back to Sparta and told the Lacedaemonians everything. They made a pretence of bringing a charge against him and banishing him. Coming to Tegea, he explained his misfortune to the smith and tried to rent the courtyard, but the smith did not want to lease it. ,Finally he persuaded him and set up residence there. He dug up the grave and collected the bones, then hurried off to Sparta with them. Ever since then the Spartans were far superior to the Tegeans whenever they met each other in battle. By the time of Croesus' inquiry, the Spartans had subdued most of the Peloponnese . 1.131. As to the customs of the Persians, I know them to be these. It is not their custom to make and set up statues and temples and altars, but those who do such things they think foolish, because, I suppose, they have never believed the gods to be like men, as the Greeks do; ,but they call the whole circuit of heaven Zeus, and to him they sacrifice on the highest peaks of the mountains; they sacrifice also to the sun and moon and earth and fire and water and winds. ,From the beginning, these are the only gods to whom they have ever sacrificed; they learned later to sacrifice to the “heavenly” Aphrodite from the Assyrians and Arabians. She is called by the Assyrians Mylitta, by the Arabians Alilat, by the Persians Mitra. 1.132. And this is their method of sacrifice to the aforesaid gods: when about to sacrifice, they do not build altars or kindle fire, employ libations, or music, or fillets, or barley meal: when a man wishes to sacrifice to one of the gods, he leads a beast to an open space and then, wearing a wreath on his tiara, of myrtle usually, calls on the god. ,To pray for blessings for himself alone is not lawful for the sacrificer; rather, he prays that the king and all the Persians be well; for he reckons himself among them. He then cuts the victim limb from limb into portions, and, after boiling the flesh, spreads the softest grass, trefoil usually, and places all of it on this. ,When he has so arranged it, a Magus comes near and chants over it the song of the birth of the gods, as the Persian tradition relates it; for no sacrifice can be offered without a Magus. Then after a little while the sacrificer carries away the flesh and uses it as he pleases. 1.147. And as kings, some of them chose Lycian descendants of Glaucus son of Hippolochus, and some Caucones of Pylus, descendants of Codrus son of Melanthus, and some both. Yet since they set more store by the name than the rest of the Ionians, let it be granted that those of pure birth are Ionians; ,and all are Ionians who are of Athenian descent and keep the feast dateApaturia /date. All do keep it, except the men of Ephesus and Colophon ; these are the only Ionians who do not keep it, and these because, they say, of a certain pretext of murder. 1.164. In such a manner the Phocaeans' wall was built. Harpagus marched against the city and besieged it, but he made overtures, and said that it would suffice him if the Phocaeans would demolish one rampart of the wall and dedicate one house. ,But the Phocaeans, very indigt at the thought of slavery, said they wanted to deliberate for a day, and then they would answer; but while they were deliberating, Harpagus must withdraw his army from the walls, they said. Harpagus said that he well knew what they intended to do, but that nevertheless he would allow them to deliberate. ,So when Harpagus withdrew his army from the walls, the Phocaeans launched their fifty-oared ships, embarked their children and women and all their movable goods, besides the statues from the temples and everything dedicated in them except bronze or stonework or painting, and then embarked themselves and set sail for Chios ; and the Persians took Phocaea, left thus uninhabited. 1.165. The Phocaeans would have bought the islands called Oenussae from the Chians; but the Chians would not sell them, because they feared that the islands would become a market and so their own island be cut off from trade: so the Phocaeans prepared to sail to Cyrnus, where at the command of an oracle they had built a city called Alalia twenty years before. ,Arganthonius was by this time dead. While getting ready for their voyage, they first sailed to Phocaea, where they destroyed the Persian guard to whom Harpagus had entrusted the defense of the city; and when this was done, they called down mighty curses on any one of them who should stay behind when the rest sailed. ,Not only this, but they sank a mass of iron in the sea, and swore never to return to Phocaea before the iron should appear again. But while they prepared to sail to Cyrnus, more than half of the citizens were overcome with longing and pitiful sorrow for the city and the life of their land, and they broke their oath and sailed back to Phocaea . Those of them who kept the oath put out to sea from the Oenussae. 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 . 1.171. Harpagus, after subjugating Ionia, made an expedition against the Carians, Caunians, and Lycians, taking Ionians and Aeolians with him. ,of these, the Carians have come to the mainland from the islands; for in the past they were islanders, called Leleges and under the rule of Minos, not (as far as I can learn by report) paying tribute, but manning ships for him when he needed them. ,Since Minos had subjected a good deal of territory for himself and was victorious in war, this made the Carians too at that time by far the most respected of all nations. ,They invented three things in which they were followed by the Greeks: it was the Carians who originated wearing crests on their helmets and devices on their shields, and who first made grips for their shields; until then all who used shields carried them without these grips, and guided them with leather belts which they slung round the neck and over the left shoulder. ,Then, a long time afterwards, the Carians were driven from the islands by Dorians and Ionians and so came to the mainland. This is the Cretan story about the Carians; but the Carians themselves do not subscribe to it, but believe that they are aboriginal inhabitants of the mainland and always bore the name which they bear now; ,and they point to an ancient shrine of Carian Zeus at Mylasa, to which Mysians and Lydians, as brethren of the Carians (for Lydus and Mysus, they say, were brothers of Car), are admitted, but not those who spoke the same language as the Carians but were of another people. 2.48. To Dionysus, on the evening of his festival, everyone offers a piglet which he kills before his door and then gives to the swineherd who has sold it, for him to take away. ,The rest of the festival of Dionysus is observed by the Egyptians much as it is by the Greeks, except for the dances; but in place of the phallus, they have invented the use of puppets two feet high moved by strings, the male member nodding and nearly as big as the rest of the body, which are carried about the villages by women; a flute-player goes ahead, the women follow behind singing of Dionysus. ,Why the male member is so large and is the only part of the body that moves, there is a sacred legend that explains. 2.49. Now then, it seems to me that Melampus son of Amytheon was not ignorant of but was familiar with this sacrifice. For Melampus was the one who taught the Greeks the name of Dionysus and the way of sacrificing to him and the phallic procession; he did not exactly unveil the subject taking all its details into consideration, for the teachers who came after him made a fuller revelation; but it was from him that the Greeks learned to bear the phallus along in honor of Dionysus, and they got their present practice from his teaching. ,I say, then, that Melampus acquired the prophetic art, being a discerning man, and that, besides many other things which he learned from Egypt, he also taught the Greeks things concerning Dionysus, altering few of them; for I will not say that what is done in Egypt in connection with the god and what is done among the Greeks originated independently: for they would then be of an Hellenic character and not recently introduced. ,Nor again will I say that the Egyptians took either this or any other custom from the Greeks. But I believe that Melampus learned the worship of Dionysus chiefly from Cadmus of Tyre and those who came with Cadmus from Phoenicia to the land now called Boeotia . 2.81. They wear linen tunics with fringes hanging about the legs, called “calasiris,” and loose white woolen mantles over these. But nothing woolen is brought into temples, or buried with them: that is impious. ,They agree in this with practices called Orphic and Bacchic, but in fact Egyptian and Pythagorean: for it is impious, too, for one partaking of these rites to be buried in woolen wrappings. There is a sacred legend about this. 2.170. There is also at Saïs the burial-place of one whose name I think it impious to mention in speaking of such a matter; it is in the temple of Athena, behind and close to the length of the wall of the shrine. ,Moreover, great stone obelisks stand in the precinct; and there is a lake nearby, adorned with a stone margin and made in a complete circle; it is, as it seemed to me, the size of the lake at Delos which they call the Round Pond. 2.171. On this lake they enact by night the story of the god's sufferings, a rite which the Egyptians call the Mysteries. I could say more about this, for I know the truth, but let me preserve a discreet silence. ,Let me preserve a discreet silence, too, concerning that rite of Demeter which the Greeks call dateThesmophoria /date , except as much of it as I am not forbidden to mention. ,The daughters of Danaus were those who brought this rite out of Egypt and taught it to the Pelasgian women; afterwards, when the people of the Peloponnese were driven out by the Dorians, it was lost, except in so far as it was preserved by the Arcadians, the Peloponnesian people which was not driven out but left in its home. 2.182. Moreover, Amasis dedicated offerings in Hellas . He gave to Cyrene a gilt image of Athena and a painted picture of himself; to Athena of Lindus, two stone images and a marvellous linen breast-plate; and to Hera in Samos, two wooden statues of himself that were still standing in my time behind the doors in the great shrine. ,The offerings in Samos were dedicated because of the friendship between Amasis and Polycrates, son of Aeaces; what he gave to Lindus was not out of friendship for anyone, but because the temple of Athena in Lindus is said to have been founded by the daughters of Danaus, when they landed there in their flight from the sons of Egyptus. Such were Amasis' offerings. Moreover, he was the first conqueror of Cyprus, which he made tributary to himself. 4.5. The Scythians say that their nation is the youngest in the world, and that it came into being in this way. A man whose name was Targitaüs appeared in this country, which was then desolate. They say that his parents were Zeus and a daughter of the Borysthenes river (I do not believe the story, but it is told). ,Such was Targitaüs' lineage; and he had three sons: Lipoxaïs, Arpoxaïs, and Colaxaïs, youngest of the three. ,In the time of their rule (the story goes) certain implements—namely, a plough, a yoke, a sword, and a flask, all of gold—fell down from the sky into Scythia . The eldest of them, seeing these, approached them meaning to take them; but the gold began to burn as he neared, and he stopped. ,Then the second approached, and the gold did as before. When these two had been driven back by the burning gold, the youngest brother approached and the burning stopped, and he took the gold to his own house. In view of this, the elder brothers agreed to give all the royal power to the youngest. 4.59. The most important things are thus provided them. It remains now to show the customs which are established among them. The only gods whom they propitiate are these: Hestia in particular, and secondly Zeus and Earth, whom they believe to be the wife of Zeus; after these, Apollo, and the Heavenly Aphrodite, and Heracles, and Ares. All the Scythians worship these as gods; the Scythians called Royal sacrifice to Poseidon also. ,In the Scythian tongue, Hestia is called Tabiti; Zeus (in my judgment most correctly so called) Papaeus; Earth is Apia; Apollo Goetosyrus; the Heavenly Aphrodite Argimpasa; Poseidon Thagimasadas. It is their practice to make images and altars and shrines for Ares, but for no other god. 4.127. Idanthyrsus the Scythian king replied: “It is like this with me, Persian: I never ran from any man before out of fear, and I am not running from you now; I am not doing any differently now than I am used to doing in time of peace, too. ,As to why I do not fight with you at once, I will tell you why. We Scythians have no towns or cultivated land, out of fear for which, that the one might be taken or the other wasted, we would engage you sooner in battle. But if all you want is to come to that quickly, we have the graves of our fathers. ,Come on, find these and try to destroy them: you shall know then whether we will fight you for the graves or whether we will not fight. Until then, unless we have reason, we will not engage with you. ,As to fighting, enough; as to masters, I acknowledge Zeus my forefather and Hestia queen of the Scythians only. As for you, instead of gifts of earth and water I shall send such as ought to come to you; and for your boast that you are my master, I say ‘Weep!’” Such is the proverbial “Scythian speech.” 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. 5.47. Philippus of Croton, son of Butacides, was among those who followed Dorieus and were slain with him. He had been betrothed to the daughter of Telys of Sybaris but was banished from Croton. Cheated out of his marriage, he sailed away to Cyrene, from where he set forth and followed Dorieus, bringing his own trireme and covering all expenses for his men. This Philippus was a victor at Olympia and the fairest Greek of his day. ,For his physical beauty he received from the Egestans honors accorded to no one else. They built a hero's shrine by his grave and offer him sacrifices of propitiation. 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.” 5.50. 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. 5.66.2. 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. 5.69. This is what the Sicyonian Cleisthenes had done, and the Athenian Cleisthenes, following the lead of his grandfather and namesake, decided out of contempt, I imagine, for the Ionians, that his tribes should not be the same as theirs. ,When he had drawn into his own party the Athenian people, which was then debarred from all rights, he gave the tribes new names and increased their number, making ten tribe-wardens in place of four, and assigning ten districts to each tribe. When he had won over the people, he was stronger by far than the rival faction. 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. 5.119. Presently, when the Persians had come and had crossed the Maeander, they and the Carians joined battle by the river Marsyas. The Carians fought obstinately and for a long time, but at the last they were overcome by the odds. of the Persians, as many as two thousand men fell, and of the Carians ten thousand. ,Those of them who escaped were driven into the precinct of Zeus of Armies at Labraunda, a large and a holy grove of plane-trees. (The Carians are the only people whom we know who offer sacrifices to Zeus by this name.) When they had been driven there, they deliberated how best to save themselves, whether it would be better for them to surrender to the Persians or to depart from Asia. 6.66. Disputes arose over it, so the Spartans resolved to ask the oracle at Delphi if Demaratus was the son of Ariston. ,At Cleomenes' instigation this was revealed to the Pythia. He had won over a man of great influence among the Delphians, Cobon son of Aristophantus, and Cobon persuaded the priestess, Periallus, to say what Cleomenes wanted her to. ,When the ambassadors asked if Demaratus was the son of Ariston, the Pythia gave judgment that he was not. All this came to light later; Cobon was exiled from Delphi, and Periallus was deposed from her position. 6.67. So it was concerning Demaratus' loss of the kingship, and from Sparta he went into exile among the Medes because of the following reproach: after he was deposed from the kingship, he was elected to office. ,When it was the time of the dateGymnopaidia /date, Leotychides, now king in his place, saw him in the audience and, as a joke and an insult, sent a messenger to him to ask what it was like to hold office after being king. ,He was grieved by the question and said that he had experience of both, while Leotychides did not, and that this question would be the beginning for Sparta of either immense evil or immense good fortune. He said this, covered his head, left the theater, and went home, where he immediately made preparations and sacrificed an ox to Zeus. Then he summoned his mother. 6.75. When the Lacedaemonians learned that Cleomenes was doing this, they took fright and brought him back to Sparta to rule on the same terms as before. Cleomenes had already been not entirely in his right mind, and on his return from exile a mad sickness fell upon him: any Spartan that he happened to meet he would hit in the face with his staff. ,For doing this, and because he was out of his mind, his relatives bound him in the stocks. When he was in the stocks and saw that his guard was left alone, he demanded a dagger; the guard at first refused to give it, but Cleomenes threatened what he would do to him when he was freed, until the guard, who was a helot, was frightened by the threats and gave him the dagger. ,Cleomenes took the weapon and set about slashing himself from his shins upwards; from the shin to the thigh he cut his flesh lengthways, then from the thigh to the hip and the sides, until he reached the belly, and cut it into strips; thus he died, as most of the Greeks say, because he persuaded the Pythian priestess to tell the tale of Demaratus. The Athenians alone say it was because he invaded Eleusis and laid waste the precinct of the gods. The Argives say it was because when Argives had taken refuge after the battle in their temple of Argus he brought them out and cut them down, then paid no heed to the sacred grove and set it on fire. 6.105. While still in the city, the generals first sent to Sparta the herald Philippides, an Athenian and a long-distance runner who made that his calling. As Philippides himself said when he brought the message to the Athenians, when he was in the Parthenian mountain above Tegea he encountered Pan. ,Pan called out Philippides' name and bade him ask the Athenians why they paid him no attention, though he was of goodwill to the Athenians, had often been of service to them, and would be in the future. ,The Athenians believed that these things were true, and when they became prosperous they established a sacred precinct of Pan beneath the Acropolis. Ever since that message they propitiate him with annual sacrifices and a torch-race. 6.123. The Alcmeonidae were tyrant-haters as much as Callias, or not less so. Therefore I find it a strange and unbelievable accusation that they of all men should have held up a shield; at all times they shunned tyrants, and it was by their contrivance that the sons of Pisistratus were deposed from their tyranny. ,Thus in my judgment it was they who freed Athens much more than did Harmodius and Aristogeiton. These only enraged the remaining sons of Pisistratus by killing Hipparchus, and did nothing to end the tyranny of the rest of them; but the Alcmeonidae plainly liberated their country, if they truly were the ones who persuaded the Pythian priestess to signify to the Lacedaemonians that they should free Athens, as I have previously shown. 7.94. The Ionians furnished a hundred ships; their equipment was like the Greek. These Ionians, as long as they were in the Peloponnese, dwelt in what is now called Achaia, and before Danaus and Xuthus came to the Peloponnese, as the Greeks say, they were called Aegialian Pelasgians. They were named Ionians after Ion the son of Xuthus. 8.44. These, then, were the Peloponnesians who took part in the war. From the mainland outside the Peloponnese came the following: the Athenians provided more than all the rest, one hundred and eighty ships. They provided these alone, since the Plataeans did not fight with the Athenians at Salamis for this reason: when the Hellenes departed from Artemisium and were off Chalcis, the Plataeans landed on the opposite shore of Boeotia and attended to the removal of their households. In bringing these to safety they were left behind. ,The Athenians, while the Pelasgians ruled what is now called Hellas, were Pelasgians, bearing the name of Cranai. When Cecrops was their king they were called Cecropidae, and when Erechtheus succeeded to the rule, they changed their name and became Athenians. When, however, Ion son of Xuthus was commander of the Athenian army, they were called after him Ionians. 8.109. When Themistocles perceived that he could not persuade the greater part of them to sail to the Hellespont, he turned to the Athenians (for they were the angriest at the Persians' escape, and they were minded to sail to the Hellespont even by themselves, if the rest would not) and addressed them as follows: ,“This I have often seen with my eyes and heard yet more often, namely that beaten men, when they be driven to bay, will rally and retrieve their former mishap. Therefore I say to you,—as it is to a fortunate chance that we owe ourselves and Hellas, and have driven away so mighty a band of enemies—let us not pursue men who flee, ,for it is not we who have won this victory, but the gods and the heroes, who deemed Asia and Europe too great a realm for one man to rule, and that a wicked man and an impious one who dealt alike with temples and bones, burning and overthrowing the images of the gods,—yes, and one who scourged the sea and threw fetters into it. ,But as it is well with us for the moment, let us abide now in Hellas and take thought for ourselves and our households. Let us build our houses again and be diligent in sowing, when we have driven the foreigner completely away. Then when the next spring comes, let us set sail for the Hellespont and Ionia.” ,This he said with intent to have something to his credit with the Persian, so that he might have a place of refuge if ever (as might chance) he should suffer anything at the hands of the Athenians—and just that did in fact happen. 8.143. But to Alexander the Athenians replied as follows: “We know of ourselves that the power of the Mede is many times greater than ours. There is no need to taunt us with that. Nevertheless in our zeal for freedom we will defend ourselves to the best of our ability. But as regards agreements with the barbarian, do not attempt to persuade us to enter into them, nor will we consent. ,Now carry this answer back to Mardonius from the Athenians, that as long as the sun holds the course by which he now goes, we will make no agreement with Xerxes. We will fight against him without ceasing, trusting in the aid of the gods and the heroes whom he has disregarded and burnt their houses and their adornments. ,Come no more to Athenians with such a plea, nor under the semblance of rendering us a service, counsel us to act wickedly. For we do not want those who are our friends and protectors to suffer any harm at Athenian hands.” |
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