Herodotus

“ Verily the heaven shall be beneath the earth and the earth aloft above the heaven, and men shall dwell in the sea and fishes where men did dwell before, now that you, Lacedaemonians! are destroying the rule of equals and making ready to bring back despotism into the cities—despotism, a thing as unrighteous and bloodthirsty as aught on this earth. For if indeed this seems to you to be a good thing, that the cities be ruled by despots, do you yourselves first set up a despot among yourselves and then seek to set up such for the rest ”

“ Thus grew the power of Athens; and it is proved not by one but by many instances that equality is a good thing; seeing that while they were under despotic rulers the Athenians were no better in war than any of their neighbours, yet once they got quit of despots they were far and away the first of all. This, then, shows that while they were oppressed they willed to be cravens, as men working for a master, but when they were freed each one was zealous to achieve for himself. ”

“ What! you must needs then fight for straitened strips of land of no great worth—fight for that with Messenians, who are as strong as you, and Arcadians and Argives, men that have nought 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 essay it? ”

“ You have given a clever and cunning Greek a city to build in Thrace, where are forests in plenty for ship-building, and much wood for oars, and mines of silver, and much people both Greek and foreign dwelling around, who when they have a champion to lead them will do all his behests by day or by night. ”

“ After that, the Athenians sent to bring back Cleisthenes and the seven hundred households banished by Cleomenes; then they despatched envoys to Sardis, desiring to make an alliance with the Persians; 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 dwell you, who desire alliance with the Persians?” ”

“ Among the rest of the Thracians, it is the custom to sell their children to be carried out of the country. They take no care of their maidens, allowing them to have intercourse with what men they will: but their wives they strictly guard, and buy them for a great price from the parents. To be tattooed is a sign of noble birth; to bear no such marks is for the baser sort. The idler is most honoured, the tiller of the soil most contemned; he is held in highest honour who lives by war and foray. ”

“ These men then, as the Athenians say, sat them down at Delphi and bribed the Pythian priestess, whenever any Spartans should come to enquire of her on a private or a public account, to bid them 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, albeit the Pisistratids were their close friends; for the gods’ will weighed with them more than the will of man. ”

“ The Aeginetans laying waste the seaboard of Attica, the Athenians were setting out to march against them; but there came to them an oracle from Delphi bidding them to hold their hands for thirty years after the wrong-doing of the Aeginetans, and in the thirty-first to mark out a precinct for Aeacus and begin the war with Aegina; thus should their purpose prosper; but if they sent an army against their enemies forthwith, they should indeed subdue them at the last, but in the meanwhile many should be their sufferings and many too their doings. ”

“ Truly it would seem 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, then, were over-persuaded, and voted the sending of twenty ships in aid of the Ionians, appointing for their admiral Melanthius, a citizen of Athens in all ways of good repute. These ships were the beginning of troubles for Greeks and foreigners. ”

“ Considering that if by his means they were restored to their city he would be ruler of Naxos, and making a pretext of their friendship with Histiaeus, he made them this proposal: “For myself, it lies not in my rights to give you such a power as will restore you, against the will of the Naxians who hold your city; for I am assured that the Naxians have eight thousand men that bear shields, and many ships of war; but I will use all diligence to contrive the matter. And this is my plan. Artaphrenes is my friend; now know, that Artaphrenes is Hystaspes’ son and brother to Darius the king ”

“ At Sparta, Anaxandrides the son of Leon, who had been king, was now no longer alive but was dead, and Cleomenes son of Anaxandrides held the royal power. This he had won not by manly merit but by right of birth. For Anaxandrides had to wife his own sister’s daughter, and he was well content with her; but no children were born to him. This being so, the Ephors called him to them, and said, “If you care not to provide for yourself, yet we cannot suffer it to come to pass that the house of Eurysthenes should perish. ”

“ They being thus minded, and the Persians hearing an evil report of them, at this moment Aristagoras the Milesian, driven from Sparta by Cleomenes the Lacedaemonian, came to Athens; for 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 bow the Persians in war were wont to carry neither shield nor spear and could easily be overcome. This he said, and added thereto, that the Milesians were settlers from Athens, and it was but right to save them, being a very wealthy people ”

“ This is the Athenian story of the matter; but the Aeginetans say that the Athenians came not in one ship only; “for,” they say, “even if we had had no ships of our own, we could right easily have defended ourselves against one ship, or a few more; but the truth is that they descended upon our coasts with many ships, and we yielded to them and made no fight of it at sea.” ”

“ When the Paeonians learnt that the Persians were coming against them, they gathered themselves together and marched away to the sea, thinking that the Persians would essay to attack them by that way. So the Paeonians were ready to stay the onset of Megabazus’ army; but the Persians, learning that the Paeonians had gathered their forces and were guarding the sea-coast way into their country, got them guides and marched instead by the highland road, whereby they took the Paeonians unawares and won entrance into their cities, which were left without men ”

“ The Thessalians at their entreaty joined together and sent their own king, Cineas of Conium, with a thousand horsemen. When the Pisistratids got these allies, they devised a plan whereby they laid the plain of Phalerum waste, so that all that land could be ridden over, and then launched their cavalry against the enemy’s army; the horsemen charged and slew Anchimolius and many more of the Lacedaemonians, and drove those that survived to their ships. Thus faring, the first Lacedaemonian armament drew off; and Anchimolius’ tomb is at Alopecae in Attica, near to the Heracleum in Cynosarges. ”

“ They give fish for fodder to their horses and beasts of burden; and of fish there is such abundance, that a man opens his trap-door and lets an empty basket down by a line into the lake, and it is no long time before he draws it up full of fish. There are two kinds of these, some called “paprakes,” some “tilones.”
17. So those of the Paeonians who were taken were carried into Asia. Then Megabazus, having made the Paeonians captive, sent as messengers into Macedonia the seven Persians who (after himself) were the most honourable in his army ”

“ Aristagoras came to Sardis and told Artaphrenes that Naxos was indeed an island of no great size, but for the rest a fair and a good land and near to Ionia, with much wealth withal and many slaves therein. “Do you therefore send an armament against that country, bringing back the men who have been banished thence. ”

“ Wherefore I bid you beware, ye Corinthian folk, that inhabit Nigh Pirene fair and the heights o’erhanging of Corinth. This oracle, formerly given to the Bacchiadae, was past their interpretation; but now, when they learnt of that one which was given to Eetion, straightway they understood that the former accorded with the oracle of Eetion; and understanding this prophecy too they sat still, purposing to destroy whatever should be born to Eetion. Then, as soon as his wife was delivered, they sent ten men of their clan to the township where Eetion dwelt, to kill the child. ”

“ But Eetion’s son presently grew, and for his escape from that danger he was called Cypselus, after the chest. When he had come to man’s estate, and was seeking a divination, there was given him at Delphi an oracle of double meaning, trusting wherein he grasped at Corinth and won it. This was the oracle:
Happy I ween is the man who cometh adown to my temple, Cypselus Eetides, great king of Corinth renownèd, Happy himself and his sons; yet his son’s sons shall not be happy. Such was the oracle. ”

“ As for Aristagoras, when the Athenians came with their twenty ships, bringing with them five triremes of the Eretrians (who came to the war to please not the Athenians but the Milesians themselves, thereby repaying their debt; for ere now the Milesians had been the allies of the Eretrians in the war against Chalcis, when the Samians came to aid the Chalcidians against the Eretrians and Milesians) —when these, then, and the rest of the allies had all come, Aristagoras planned a march against Sardis. ”

“ Thus for the nonce they fared in their fighting. But presently the Athenians wholly separated themselves from the Ionians and refused to aid them, though Aristagoras sent messages of earnest entreaty; yet the Ionians, though bereft of their Athenian allies, did none the less busily carry forward their war against the king, so heavily they stood committed by what they had done to Darius. They sailed to the Hellespont and made Byzantium subject to them, and all the other cities of that region; then sailing out from the Hellespont they gained to their cause the greater part of Caria ”

“ For Cleisthenes, after going to war with the Argives, made an end of minstrels’ contests at Sicyon by reason of the Homeric poems, because wellnigh everywhere in these it is Argives and Argos that are the theme of song; furthermore, he conceived the desire to cast out from the land (as being an Argive) Adrastus son of Talaus, the hero whose shrine stood then as now in the very market-place of Sicyon. He went then to Delphi, and enquired of the oracle if he should cast Adrastus out; but the priestess in answer said: “Adrastus is king of Sicyon, and thou but a common slayer.” ”

“ Both cities bring proof of the truth of what they say: the Sybarites show a precinct and a temple beside the dry bed of the Crathis, which, they say, Dorieus founded in honour of Athene of Crathis, after he had helped to take their city; and moreover they find their strongest proof in his death, because he perished in the doing of more than the oracle bade him; for had he done that for which he set out and nought beyond it, he would have taken and held the Erycine region, and so neither he nor his army would have perished. ”

“ Bethink you then and tell me straightway which you will watch and smite, Artybius himself or his horse.” To this his henchman answered, “O King, ready am I to do either or both, and whatever your bidding be, that to do; yet I will tell you what I judge to accord best with your state. To my mind, it is right that king and general should by king and general be encountered. For if you lay low a man that is a general, you have achieved a great feat; and failing that, if he lay you low (as I pray he may not) , it is but half the misfortune to be slain by a noble foe ”

“ The Cadmeans having been first expelled thence by the Argives, these Gephyraeans were in turn expelled by the Boeotians and betook themselves to Athens. The Athenians received them as citizens of their own on set terms, debarring them from many practices not here deserving mention.
58. These Phoenicians who came with Cadmus (of whom the Gephyraeans were a part) at their settlement in this country, among many other kinds of learning, brought into Hellas the alphabet, which had hitherto been unknown, as I think, to the Greeks ”