Herodotus

“ Suffer me, therefore, to delay making my words good till the fourth month from this day.’ So the Milesians went away in sorrow, as men robbed of their possessions; but Glaucus journeyed to Delphi, to enquire of the oracle. When he asked the oracle whether he should swear and so ravish the money, the Pythian priestess threatened him in these verses:
Hear, Epicydes’ son: ’twere much to thy present advantage Couldst thou prevail by an oath and ravish the stranger’s possessions: Swear an thou wilt; death waits for the just no less than the unjust. ”

“ Hippias in the past night had seen a vision in his sleep, wherein he thought that he lay with his own mother; he interpreted this dream to signify that he should return to Athens and recover his power, and so die an old man in his own mother-country. Thus he interpreted the vision; for the nonce, being the Persians’ guide, he carried the slaves taken in Eretria to the island of the Styreans called Aeglea; moreover, it was he who made the ships to anchor when they had put in at Marathon, and who set the foreigners in array when they were landed. ”

“ Moreover the Lacedaemonians are like the Egyptians, in that their heralds and flute-players and cooks inherit the craft from their fathers, a flute-player’s son being a flute-player, and a cook’s son a cook, and a herald’s son a herald; no others usurp their places, making themselves heralds by loudness of voice; they ply their craft by right of birth. ”

“ Scythes the monarch of Zancle escaped from Inyx to Himera, and thence being arrived in Asia went up the country to king Darius. He was esteemed by Darius the most honest man of all who had come up to him from Hellas; for he returned by the king’s permission to Sicily and from Sicily back again to Darius; at the last he ended his life in Persia, full of years and of great possessions. Thus lightly did the Samians plant themselves in that most excellent city of Zancle, when they had escaped from the Medes. ”

“ We counsel you to put yourselves in the protection of the Athenians, who are your neighbours, and can defend you right well.” This counsel the Lacedaemonians gave not so much out of their goodwill to the Plataeans, as because they desired that the Athenians should bring trouble on themselves by making enemies of the Boeotians. The Lacedaemonians, then, gave them this counsel; the Plataeans obeyed it, and when the Athenians were sacrificing to the twelve gods they came as suppliants and sat them down by the altar, and so put themselves under protection. ”

“ When the Athenians learnt of this, they too marched out to Marathon. Ten generals led them, of whom the tenth was Miltiades, whose father, Cimon son of Stesagoras, had been, as fate would have it, banished from Athens by Pisistratus son of Hippocrates. Being an exile, he had the luck to win the prize for four-horse chariots at Olympia, by this victory gaining the same honour as his mother’s son Miltiades had won. ”

“ For a long time they fought at Marathon; and the foreigners overcame the middle part of the line, against which the Persians themselves and the Sacae were arrayed; here the foreigners prevailed and broke the Greeks, pursuing them inland. But on either wing the Athenians and Plataeans were victorious; and being so, they suffered the routed of their enemies to fly, and drew their wings together to fight against those that had broken the middle of their line; and here the Athenians had the victory, and followed after the Persians in their flight, hewing them down, till they came to the sea. ”

“ When Mardonius arrived at Ionia in his voyage by the coast of Asia, he did a thing which I here set down for the wonder of those Greeks who will not believe Otanes to have declared his opinion among the Seven that democracy was best for Persia: Mardonius deposed all the Ionian despots and setup democracies in their cities. This done, he made all speed for the Hellespont; and a great multitude of ships and a great army being there assembled, the Persians crossed the Hellespont on shipboard and marched through Europe, with Eretria and Athens for their goal. ”

“ Thus Athens and Aegina grappled together in war. But the Persian was going about his own business; for his servant was ever reminding him to remember the Athenians, and the Pisistratidae were at his elbow maligning the Athenians, and moreover Darius desired to take this pretext for subduing all the men of Hellas that had not given him earth and water. As for Mardonius, who had fared so ill with his armament, him he dismissed from his command, and appointed other generals to lead his armies against Athens and Eretria, Datis a Mede, and his own nephew Artaphrenes son of Artaphrenes ”

“ For Leutychides said in those disputes, that you had a son in you by your first husband when you came to Ariston; and others there are that have a yet more random tale, saying that you consorted with one of the household that was the ass-keeper, and that it is his son that I am. Therefore I entreat you by the gods to tell me the truth; for if you have done aught such as they say of you, not you only but many other women have done the like; and it is currently reported at Sparta that Ariston had it not in him to be a father, else would his former wives have borne him children. ”

“ We have gone clean daft and launched out into folly, committing ourselves into the hands of this Phocaean braggart, who brings but three ships; and having got us he afflicts us with afflictions incurable, whereby many of us have fallen sick already and many are like so to do; better than these ills it were for us to endure any and every lot, and abide this coming slavery whatsoever it be, rather than be oppressed by that which is now upon us. ”

“ After the fight at sea for Miletus, the Phoenicians at the Persians’ bidding brought Aeaces, son of Syloson, back to Samos, for the high worth of his service to them, and his great achievements; and by reason of the desertion of their ships in the sea-fight the Samians were the only rebel people whose city was not burnt, nor their temples. Miletus being taken, the Persians thereby at once gained possession of Caria, some of the towns submitting themselves of their own accord and others being subdued perforce. ”

“ But Cleomenes alleged (whether falsely or truly, I cannot rightly say; but this he alleged in his speech) that he had supposed the god’s oracle to be fulfilled by his taking of the temple of Argus; wherefore, he had thought it best not to make any assay on the city before he should have enquired by sacrifice and learnt whether the god would deliver it to him or withstand him; and while he took omens in Here’s temple a flame of fire had shone forth from the breast of the image, whereby he had learnt the truth of the matter, that Argos was not for his taking. ”

“ Thus the Aeginetans dealt with each other; when the Athenians had come, they fought with them at sea with seventy ships, and being worsted in the sea-fight they asked help of the Argives, as they had done before. But this time the Argives would not aid them, for a grudge that they bore the Aeginetans; since ships of Aegina had been taken perforce by Cleomenes and put in on the Argolid coast, where their crews landed with the Lacedaemonians; and there were men too from ships of Sicyon that took part in this same onfall ”

“ The Athenians, by their own showing, dealt so much more rightly than the Pelasgians, that when they might have killed them, caught plotting as they were, they would not so do but bade them depart out of the country. ”

“ But at the time whereof I speak, while Cleomenes was in Aegina, there working for what should be afterwards the common advantage of Hellas, Demaratus spread ill reports of him, less because he cared for the Aeginetans, than out of jealousy and malice. When Cleomenes returned back from Aegina, he planned to depose Demaratus from his kingship; for what cause he thus assailed him I will now show. Ariston, king of Sparta, had married two wives, but no children were born to him. Believing that he himself was not in fault, he married a third wife ”

“ Better endureth the line of the man that sweareth not falsely. When Glaucus heard that, he entreated the god to pardon him for what he had said. But the priestess answered, that to tempt the god and to do the deed were of like effect. Glaucus, then, sent for the Milesian strangers and restored them their money; but hear now, Athenians! why I began to tell you this story. There is at this day no descendant of Glaucus, nor any household that bears Glaucus’ name; he and his have been utterly uprooted out of Sparta. ”

“ So when this is done, two free persons from each house, a man and a woman, must needs put on the signs of defilement, or incur heavy penalties if they fail so to do. The Lacedaemonians have the same custom at the deaths of their kings as have the foreign people of Asia; for the most of the foreigners use the same custom at their kings’ deaths. For when a king of the Lacedaemonians is dead, from all Lacedaemon, besides the Spartans, such and such a number of their subject neighbours must perforce come to the funeral. ”

“ But there were none at Athens that were of better repute or more honoured than they; wherefore plain reason forbids to believe that they of all men could have held the shield aloft for any such cause. ”

“ Now these, too, being come to the Milesian shore, and all their land power being there, the Persian generals, when they learnt the number of the Ionian ships, began to fear lest they should be too weak to overcome the Greeks, and thereby, if they had not the mastery of the sea, should fail of taking Miletus and peradventure be evilly entreated by Darius. Having this in mind, they assembled the despots of the Ionians, who had been deposed from their governments by Aristagoras of Miletus and had fled to the Medes, and were now as it chanced with the army that was led against Miletus ”

“ After the Persian disaster at Marathon, the fame of Miltiades, which had before been great at Athens, was increased. He asked of the Athenians seventy ships and an army and money, not telling them against what country he would lead them, but saying that he would make them rich men if they followed him; for he would bring them to a country whence they should easily carry away abundance of gold ”

“ Launching out to sea from Delos, the foreigners put in at the islands, and gathered an army thence and took the sons of the islanders for hostages. When in their voyage about the islands they came to Carystos, the Carystians gave them no hostages and refused to join with them against neighbouring cities, whereby they signified Eretria and Athens; wherefore the Persians besieged them and laid waste their land, till the Carystians too came over to their side. ”

“ There the Argives had no fear of fair fighting, but rather of being worsted by guile; for it was that which was signified by the oracle which the Pythian priestess gave to the Argives and Milesians in common, which ran thus:
Woe for the day when a woman shall vanquish a man in the battle, Driving him far from the field and winning her glory in Argos: Many an Argive dame her cheeks shall be rending in sorrow. ”

“ But when the Pelasgians had slain their own sons and the women, their land brought forth no fruit, nor did their wives and their flocks and herds bear offspring as before. Under stress of hunger and childlessness they sent to Delphi to ask for some way of release from their present ills; and the Pythian priestess bidding them pay the Athenians whatsoever penalty the Athenians themselves should adjudge, the Pelasgians went to Athens and offered to pay the penalty for all their wrong-doing. ”

“ The Athenians were arrayed in the precinct of Heracles, and now the whole power of the Plataeans came to their aid; for the Plataeans had put themselves under the protection of Athens, and the Athenians had taken upon them many labours for their sake. The manner of the Plataeans’ so doing was this:—Being hard pressed by the Thebans, they had offered themselves to the first comers, Cleomenes son of Anaxandrides and the Lacedaemonians; but these would not accept them, and said: “We dwell afar off, and such aid as ours would be found but cold comfort to you ”

“ These then and the helots and the Spartans themselves being assembled in one place to the number of many thousands, together with the women, they zealously smite their foreheads and make long and loud lamentation, calling that king that is lateliest dead, whoever he be, the best of all their kings. ”

“ Marry, let us obey him no longer!” Thus they said; and from that day no man would obey: they built them booths on the island (as though they had been an army) wherein they lived sheltered from the sun, and never would embark in their ships nor exercise themselves therein.
13. But when the generals of the Samians learnt of this that the Ionians did, they bethought them of that message which Aeaces son of Syloson had already sent them at the Persians’ bidding, entreating them to desert the Ionian alliance ”

“ But at the beginning of spring, the other generals being now deposed by the king from their offices, Mardonius son of Gobryas, a man young in years and lately wedded to Darius’ daughter Artozostre, came down to the coast at the head of a very great army and fleet; with which when Mardonius was come to Cilicia, he himself embarked on shipboard and sailed with the rest of his ships, while the land army was led by other captains to the Hellespont. ”

“ As the boy grew, Ariston repented him of what he had said; for he believed Demaratus to be in very truth his son. He called him Demaratus, because ere this the whole “people” of the Spartans had “prayed” that Ariston might have a son, he being held in greater honour than any king of Sparta.
64. For that cause the name Demaratus was given to the boy; and as time went on Ariston died, and Demaratus obtained his kingship. But fate (it would seem) willed that these matters should be discovered and lose Demaratus his kingship for some such reason as this. ”

“ Nay, do you take my word, and entrust yourselves to me; and I promise you that (if heaven deal fairly with us) either our enemies shall not meet us in battle, or if they so do they shall be utterly vanquished.”
12. When the Ionians heard this, they put themselves in Dionysius’ hands. He then ever put out to sea with ships in column, and having used the rowers to pierce each other’s line of ships, and armed the fighting men on board, he would for the rest of the day keep the fleet at anchor; all day he made the Ionians work. ”