BOOK VI
The intrigues of Histiaeus in Ionia. It is worth noticing that H., who elsewhere insists on the part played by Aristagoras (v. 28, 30 f., 98), here seems to regard the intrigues of Histiaeus as not merely the occasion (v. 35, 124 n.) but the cause of the revolt. Histiaeus was a man of wide ambitions (v. 23 n., 106), but his aims are obscure. Anxious to escape from his gilded captivity (v. 35), he has no policy but opportunist selfseeking. His earlier loyalty to Darius was interested (iv. 137 f.), and apparently he would even now have been willing to re-establish himself in Miletus (v. 106) as the great king's viceroy of Ionia. Hampered by the opposition of Artaphrenes and by his exclusion from Miletus, he escaped captivity or death in Chios by claiming to be the author of the national revolt. Eventually distrusted by both sides, he became a mere free-lance and perished miserably. For a more favourable view of him, resting largely on conjecture, cf. Klio ix. 341-51.
κακὸν τοσοῦτον. No Ionian would at the time have thus described their great struggle for freedom, undertaken of their own free will, but H., after the event, endorsed the shallow view that the revolt was a blunder, if not a crime (v. 28, 97 n., 124). αὐτοῖσι grammatically goes with ἐξέφαινε, but, as is shown by its position, also qualifies τὴν . . . αἰτίην, ‘what was the true cause that brought the revolt on them.’ This tale of intended transportation was a happy invention in view of the Persians' dealings with Barca (iv. 204), the Paeonians (v. 12 n., 14), and subsequently with the Eretrians (vi. 119) and the Milesians themselves (vi. 20), and of the hatred felt for the Ionians by the Phoenician traders, whom they had supplanted in the Levant and threatened in the West (i. 163; iv. 152). For Greek proposals to transplant the Ionians cf. i. 170; ix. 10 f.
These Persian traitors in Sardis are a puzzle. Could they be Lydians who still nourished national aspirations?
κατῆγον: reducebant (i. 60. 5); imperfect, because they failed; cf. § 2 ἔπειθε and ἔπεισε. Chios and Miletus were old friends (i. 18. 3), hence the former will not use force but only persuasion in favour of Histiaeus.
That merchant vessels from Ionia are meant is shown by ch. 26. 1. Miletus would suffer most from this blockade, as she traded largely with her colonies and factories on the Euxine. Histiaeus in grasping at power in the North-East Aegean showed at least a keen eye for a trade route.
The battle of Lade. The gathering of the fleets, and the secrei intrigues of the exiled tyrants (6-10). The attempt of Dionysius of Phocaea to train the Greeks (11, 12). The battle lost through the treachery of the Samians and others (13-17).
The four great naval powers of the Persian empire are combined against the Ionians. Phoenicia, Egypt, Cilicia, and Cyprus furnish Xerxes with 750 ships (vii. 89 f.).
προβούλους σφέων αὐτῶν. The genitive is objective; cf. vii. 172. 1 πρόβουλοι τῆς Ἑλλάδος. These deputies must not be confused with the standing committees appointed in some oligarchic states to examine measures before they were submitted to the people. Ar. Pol. 1299 b 31-8, &c., Thuc. viii. 1. Πανιώνιον: cf. i. 148 n.; v. 109. 3 n. The resolution shows that the Ionians realized the importance of their sea-power (i. 27; v. 109 n.) as their past history had taught them (i. 17). Lade protected the entrance to the harbour, and played an important part in the siege by Alexander (Arrian, Anab. i. 18 f.). Still an island in the days of Strabo (635), it has now been converted by the alluvial deposit into a hill in the plain of the Maeander.
For similar detailed catalogues compare those of Xerxes' army (vii. 61 f.) and fleet (vii. 89 f.), of the Greek fleets at Artemisium (viii. 1 f.) and at Salamis (viii. 43 f.), and of the Greek army at Plataea (ix. 28), as well as the catalogue of ships and men in the Iliad (Bk. II). The cities on the Hellespont had been reduced by Daurises (v. 117), the Aeolic cities in the Troad by Hymaees (v. 122); those in Aeolis proper probably shared the fate of Cyme (v. 123). Only the island power of Lesbos is left to represent the Aeolians. The Dorian cities are here and elsewhere in the Ionic revolt conspicuous by their absence. Of the twelve Ionic cities, Clazomenae was in Persian hands (v. 123), while Lebedus and Colophon, which lie on the route from Clazomenae to Miletus, may also have fallen. The men of Ephesus took little part in the revolt, for though they furnished guides for the march to Sardis (v. 100), they massacred the fugitive Chians (vi. 16). The small number of Phocaean ships (three) shows how much that city was reduced by the great emigration (i. 165-7); Samos, on the other hand, has quite recovered after its devastation twenty years before (iii. 149). The order is roughly geographical, but the Samians are posted on the wing as being the best sailors. The numbers of the contingents agree with the total and may well be authentic; for the ‘six hundred’ Persian ships cf. Appendix XIX, § 2.
τά περ, ‘which shall assuredly (revera, cf. iii. 68. 2) come upon them.’ The remark is not part of the message, but a parenthetical assurance that the threats are serious (cf. ch. 32). Βάκτρα: the city Balkh (ix. 113. 1), mentioned as the furthest limit of the Persian Empire (cf. iv. 204).
ἀγνωμοσύνῃ (cf. v. 83. 1). To stigmatize as obstinacy a refusal to listen to proposals of treachery shows a bias against the Ionians and for the Samians, which makes it likely that the story comes from a Samian source (cf. 13).
ἠγορόωντο. The word in this epic form may be ironically reminiscent of such passages as Il. iv. 1, viii. 230. Elaborate oratory, an Ionic failing (iii. 46), was certainly unseasonable, yet the campaign of Salamis too was conducted by discussion (viii. 49, 56 f.).
Ἐπὶ ξυροῦ, ‘balanced on a razor's edge.’ Cf. Il. x. 173.
ἐπὶ κέρας, ‘in column.’ Att. ἐπὶ κέρως (Thuc. ii. 90, &c.). For the accus. cf. vi. 111. 3; ix. 31. 2 ἐπὶ τάξις. ὅκως: not final ‘in order that’ (Krüger), but temporal ‘as often as’ (Stein, Macan). In sense co-ordinate with ἔχεσκε παρεῖχε τε. Cf. i. 17. 2. διέκπλοον. This manœuvre (cf. ch. 15. 2) is again mentioned at Artemisium (viii. 9), but was first used with effect by the Athenians in the Peloponnesian War (Thuc. ii. 83, 89, &c.), its absence in the battle of Sybota proving the inferior skill of the Corinthian and Corcyrean navies (Thuc. i. 49). It consisted in breaking through the enemy's line, and then turning rapidly to ram one of his ships on its defenceless side or stern. It demanded great skill in the coxswain and efficiency in the oarsmen. It was met by forming in a circle with prows outward (cf. viii. 11), a device which proved useless against Athenian daring and skill (Thuc. ii. 83), or by drawing up the ships on the wings in a double line (Xen. Hell. i. 6. 29-31), or by having a second line in reserve (v. 121 n.). If H. is not guilty of an anachronism, the Athenians only perfected a manœuvre practised by the Ionians. Sosylus even makes it a Phoenician device brilliantly met by Heraclides (v. 121 n.).
The grievance was that Dionysius kept the sailors on board practising manœuvres, and the marines under arms all day, in stead of letting them enjoy themselves ashore like an army in tents. ἐκπλώσαντες. For the metaphor, here strikingly appropriate, cf. iii. 155. 3.
Anxious to insist on the cogency of the motives which led the Samians to betray the Ionian cause, H. thrusts the bare fact of their treachery between two attempts to excuse it, οἱ Σάμιοι resuming the οἱ στρατηγοὶ τῶν Σαμίων. His primary motive for insisting on the insubordination and effeminacy of the Ionians is to whitewash the Samians. But we can hardly doubt that he was also influenced by the facts and feelings of his own day. The contrast between Lade and Salamis (implicit in H. and explicitly drawn out by Grote, iv. 229) was surely made by men of the Periclean age, when Athenians justified their suzerainty over their Ionic kinsmen by boasting of superior courage and discipline (Thuc. i. 75, 99). Yet the Ionians had long been adventurous sailors, had already once beaten the king's fleet (v. 112), and owed their defeat at Lade to treachery. πενταπλήσιον: a gross exaggeration. The full force of Xerxes is 1207 ships (vii. 89), or without the Greek and Carian contingents 830.
For Syloson cf. iii. 139 f., for Aeaces iv. 138.
ἐπὶ κέρας implies an intention to use the διέκπλους. Cf. 12. 1, 15. 2. οὐκ ἔχω ἀτρεκέως συγγράψαι. The similar confession about Salamis (viii. 87. 1) and the reason here given, mutual recriminations, show how conflicting and untrustworthy were the traditions of the different states. On the other hand, they give us a little more confidence when H. by his silence implies that he is satisfied with the evidence at his command.
τὸ κοινόν. No doubt the eleven patriotic trierarchs were members of the Samian aristocracy (τοῖς τε ἔχουσι, ch. 22. 1), opposed to the philo-Persian partisans of the tyrant. Hence after Mycale and the liberation of Samos their conduct is commemorated by the Samian government, which remained aristocratic at least till 440 B. C. (Thuc. i. 115). H. must have seen the stele in Samos (Introduction, § 21, n. 1). πατρόθεν, ‘with the addition of their fathers names.’ For this honour cf. iii. 1. 4, viii. 90. 4; Il. x. 68; Thuc. vii. 69.
τεσσεράκοντα. The number on the Persian ships at Salamis was thirty beside the native troops; on the Athenian there are said to have been only eighteen (Plut. Them. 14); in the Peloponnesian war the number was reduced to ten (vii. 184. 2 n.). The large number of marines here would only be useful for boarding in the old-fashioned style (Thuc. i. 49); their presence makes it all the more likely that the ascription of the διέκπλους to the Ionians (§ 2; cf. 12. 1) is an anachronism.
Μυκάλην. The Chians, having broken the Persian line, could force their way through the channel past Trogilium, but the crippled ships had to be beached on Mycale and abandoned.
For the Thesmophoria cf. ii. 171 n., and for similar worships v. 61, 82, 83 n. οἱ Ἐφέσιοι. This extraordinary ignorance of the fight at Lade may be an excuse put forward when Ephesian abstention from all share in the struggle except this slaughter of the vanquished was accounted treason by patriotic Greeks. For a real outrage of the kind cf. ch. 138.
γαύλους: cf. iii. 136. 1 n. Σικελίην: where H. probably heard the story; cf. ch. 22; v. 46 n. ληιστής. The buccaneer was still respectable (Thuc. i. 5). To prey on the enemies of his country would no more seem wrong to Dionysius than to our own Elizabethan seamen (cf. i. 163. 2n.). By making first for Phoenicia he at once baffled pursuit, and surprised the enemy's convoys.
The fall of Miletus, with notes on her friendship with Sybaris and Athens.
ὑπορύσσοντες: cf. v. 115. 2 n. κατ᾽ ἄκρης, ‘from top to bottom’; ch. 82. 2. First in Homer, Il. xiii. 772; xv. 557 κατ᾽ ἄκρης ι Ἴλιον αἰπεινὴν ἑλέειν. In later writers it seems to imply citadel and all. Cf. Thuc. iv. 112. ἕκτῳ ἔτει: i. e. from the seizure of the other tyrants by Aristagoras (v. 37). On the chronology cf. v. 33 n. συμπεσεῖν: usually ‘coincide’ in time, here (cf. ii. 49. 2; vii. 151) ‘agree with, fulfil.’
The synchronism between the Ionic revolt and the Argive war is valuable (ch. 77 n.).
περὶ σωτηρίης. Bury (Klio ii. 14 f.) shows that the only occasion on which this epicene oracle is probable is during the visit of Aristagoras to Greece. The Argives, threatened by a Spartan attack (ch. 77), consulted the oracle περὶ σωτηρίης τῆς πόλιος τῆς σφετέρης, yet the answer given concerns Miletus as much as Argos, though Miletus had not sent to inquire of Delphi. The answer of the oracle is only explicable on the assumption that the Milesians had asked Argos for help, and Argos had agreed to consult Delphi. We may be sure that Aristagoras sought aid at other places besides Sparta and Athens. Eretria sent five ships (v. 99), doubtless at his request. What more natural than that, rebuffed at Sparta, he should turn to Sparta's rival? But Argos may well have regarded the risk as too great, and not have gone beyond a promise to inquire of the oracle whether it would be safe for their city to send help to Ionia. Cf., however, the doubts as to the oracle raised by Wells, J.H.S. xxv. 194-5. Delphi now, as later (vii. 140 f.), may have thought the Great King invincible, as did Aristagoras (v. 124) and the Samians (vi. 13), and have foreshadowed, if it did not originate, the historian's opinion that the authors of the revolt merely brought evil on their country (v. 28, 97 n.). Probably, too, the proposed confiscation of the treasures at Branchidae (v. 36), which the priests at Branchidae and Delphi must have known was only too likely to be carried out under the hard pressure of war, prejudiced Delphi against Miletus.
Περσέων ... κομητέων, ‘as may be seen in the sculptures of Persepolis,’ &c.; hence βαθυχαιτήεις Μῆδος, Aesch. ap. Athen. 627 a. ἱρόν: the whole precinct with all its contents (iv. 108. 2). The actual temple (νηός) and the oracle seem to have occupied different parts of it (Strabo 634). Διδύμοισι. The word is borrowed from the oracle. Elsewhere (i. 46. 2, 157 f.) H. calls it Branchidae. H. clearly ascribes the ruin of this and other Greek temples in Asia (25, 32) to Darius. Hence, unless we suppose the work was done twice over, Strabo (634) can hardly be right in attributing the sack of Branchidae and the others, except that of Ephesus, to Xerxes in 479 B. C. Strabo's account seems to depend on the story that the Branchidae themselves betrayed the temple and its treasures, a crime for which their descendants in Sogdiana were said to have been punished by Alexander (Strabo 518; Plut. Mor. 557 B; Q. Curtius, vii. 23). The story may come from Callisthenes (Strabo 814), but is discredited by the silence of Arrian, though accepted by Grote, xii. 25. πολλάκις: explicitly twice, i. 92. 2; v. 36. 3; but cf. also i. 46. 2, 157 f.; ii. 159. 3.
For such transplantations cf. iv. 204 n.; vi. 3 n. The expatriation of the Milesians can hardly have been complete, since Milesians destroy the fugitive Persians after Mycale (ix. 99, 104). Yet Miletus, though again prosperous under Athens, never recovered her old position. Ἐρυθρῇ: cf. i. 1 n.; iii. 93. 2; iv. 37. Καρσὶ Πηδασεῦσι. For the two places cf. v. 121 n. We cannot tell which is here meant, nor is it obvious why Carians, who had also revolted, should be rewarded at the expense of Miletus. Perhaps it was the Persian policy to set the native races against the Greek and so to hold both in subjection.
Λᾶόν τε καὶ Σκίδρον. Originally dependent colonies of Sybaris, which, after the destruction of that city in 510 B. C. (cf. v. 44), probably received the exiles. Both lay on the west coast of Italy, probably not far apart. Laus was on the river still called Lao, the boundary of Lucania (Strabo 253), four hundred stades from Velia. ἐξεινώθησαν. Cf. Athen. xii. 519 b ἐφόρουν δ᾽ οἱ Συβαρῖται καὶ ἱμάτια Μιλησίων ἐρίων πεποιημένα: ἀφ᾽ ὧν δὴ καὶ αἱ φιλίαι ταῖς πόλεσιν ἐγένοντο, ὡς ὁ Τιμαῖος ἱστορεῖ. ἠγάπων γὰρ τῶν μὲν ἐξ Ἰταλίας Τυρρηνούς, τῶν δ̓ ἔξωθεν τοὺς Ἴωνας. These friendships of Sybaris with Miletus and Etruria were doubtless commercial. Sybaris was the dépôt to which the wares of Asia and Egypt were brought by Milesian ships (cf. v. 99 n.). Thence they were carried overland to Laus, and there reshipped for Etruria. The control of this land-route was all the more important, as foes of Miletus, Chalcis, and her allies (v. 99 n.) commanded the Straits of Messina. The friendship of the Etruscans with Sybaris is in marked contrast with their hostility to other Greeks in the Tyrrhene seas (cf. i. 166). Further proof of the importance of this overland route may be found in the alliance coins (Pais, Ancient Italy, p. 83) of Siris and Pyxus (before 510 B. C.), and later of New Sybaris and Posidonia (circ. 450), Croton and Temesa, &c. (Hill, G. and R. C., pp. 104, 115), and in the frequent occurrence of Greek vases in Campanian and Etruscan tombs (Lenormant, La Grande Grèce, i. 263 f.). The colony of Thurii may have been an attempt to revive this old trade, Athens here, as elsewhere, figuring as the heir of Miletus (v. 97. 2 n.). Themistocles would seem to have originated the idea of a colony in that district (viii. 62; Plut. Them. 32), afterwards imperfectly realized by Pericles.
οὐδὲν ὁμοίως. For asyndeton in such appended notes, which may be later additions by the author, cf. i. 20; vii. 54. 3, 111. 2, &c. ‘In this they (the Sybarites) were quite unlike the Athenians.’ Phrynichus was an elder contemporary of Aeschylus. Of his drama on the fall of Miletus no fragment has survived. It was probably the first attempt to treat in tragedy an event of the day, an attempt repeated by Phrynichus in his Phoenissae (476 B. C.), which, like the Persae of Aeschylus, represented the defeat of Xerxes. His earlier drama may have contained reproaches of Athens for the desertion of Miletus (οἰκήια κακά), and have been intended to awaken the national spirit and inspire resistance to Persia, perhaps by sea, since Themistocles, choragus for Phrynichus in 476 B. C. (Plut. Them. 5), is said to have begun the building of Piraeus as archon in 493 B. C. (vii. 143 n.). For his manifesto the author was punished, probably by those responsible for the withdrawal from Ionia (v. 103 n.; cf. Meyer, iii, § 182-3). Cf. the prosecution of Miltiades (ch. 104) on his return from the Chersonese. διδάξαντι: the term for the teaching of actors and chorus by the author (i. 23) = ‘putting on the stage’.
The exiled Samians in the West. Treacherous seizure of Zancle. Submission of Samos and Caria.
Καλὴν ἀκτήν. A Sicel city, important under the native prince Ducetius, circ. 445 B. C. (Freeman, S. ii. 109 f.). This is another abortive attempt to spread Hellenism in the West. On the north coast of Sicily, which is almost harbourless, because the hills run right down to the sea, there was no Greek colony between Tyndaris and Himera. Hence the importance of Καλὴ Ἀκτή which faced πρὸς Τυρσηνίην. Cf. the communistic Cnidian settlement on the Lipari islands (Thuc. iii. 88; Diod. v. 9; Paus. x. 11. 4, with Frazer). Originally perhaps a military brotherhood like the knights of St. John at Rhodes, it became a nest of pirates (Liv. v. 28). The Samians as friends of Chalcis (v. 99 n.) were on good terms with her colonists in the West. Zancle was a joint colony from Euboic Chalcis and Campanian Cumae (Thuc. vi. 4), but seems at this time to have been a dependency of Dorian Gela. Μιλησίων οἱ ἐκπεφευγότες: i. e. from Lade (ch. 8). Thuc. vi. 4 says more vaguely (
