Aristagoras was on the eve of throwing off the Persian authority when he received this communication. It at once decided him to proceed. He organized his forces and commenced his revolt. As soon as the news of this rebellion reached Susa, Histiæus feigned great indignation, and earnestly entreated Darius to commission him to go and suppress it. He was confident, he said, that he could do it in a very prompt and effectual manner. Darius was at first inclined to suspect that Histiæus was in some way or other implicated in the movement; but these suspicions were removed by the protestations which Histiæus made, and at length he gave him leave to proceed to Miletus, commanding him, however, to return to Susa again as soon as he should have suppressed the revolt.
When Histiæus arrived in Ionia he joined Aristagoras, and the two generals, leaguing with them various princes and states of Greece, organized a very extended and dangerous rebellion, which it gave the troops of Darius infinite trouble to subdue. We can not here give an account of the incidents and particulars of this war. For a time the rebels prospered, and their cause seemed likely to succeed; but at length the tide turned against them. Their towns were captured, their ships were taken and destroyed, their armies cut to pieces. Histiæus retreated from place to place, a wretched fugitive, growing more and more distressed and destitute every day. At length, as he was flying from a battle field, he arrested the arm of a Persian, who was pursuing him with his weapon upraised, by crying out that he was Histiæus the Milesian. The Persian, hearing this, spared his life, but took him prisoner, and delivered him to Artaphernes. Histiæus begged very earnestly that Artaphernes would send him to Darius alive, in hopes that Darius would pardon him in consideration of his former services at the bridge of the Danube. This was, however, exactly what Artaphernes wished to prevent; so he crucified the wretched Histiæus at Sardis, and then packed his head in salt and sent it to Darius.
[Illustration: GRECIAN EMPIRE.]
CHAPTER XI. THE INVASION OF GREECE AND THE BATTLE OF MARATHON.
B.C. 512-490
Great battles.-Progress of the Persian empire.-Condition of the Persian empire.-Plans of Darius.-Persian power in Thrace.-Attempted negotiation with Macedon.-The seven commissioners.-Their rudeness at the feast.-Stratagem of Amyntas's son.-The commissioners killed.-Artifice of the prince.-Darius's anger against the Athenians.-Civil dissensions in Greece.-The tyrants.-Periander.-His message to a neighboring potentate.-Periander's intolerable tyranny.-His wife Melissa.-The ghost of Melissa.-A great sacrifice.-The reason of Periander's rudeness to the assembly of females.-Labda the cripple.-Prediction in respect to her progeny.-Conspiracy to destroy Labda's child.-Its failure.-The child secreted.-Fulfillment of the oracle.-Hippias of Athens.-His barbarous cruelty.-Hippias among the Persians.-Wars between the Grecian states.-Quarrel between Athens and Ægina.-The two wooden statues.-Incursion of the Æginetans.-They carry off the statues.-Attempt to recover the statues.-They fall upon their knees.-The Athenian fugitive.-He is murdered by the women.-The Persian army.-Its commander, Datis.-Sailing of the fleet.-Various conquests.-Landing of the Persians.-State of Athens.-The Greek army.-Miltiades and his colleagues.-Position of the armies.-Miltiades's plan of attack.-Onset of the Greeks.-Rout of the Persians.-Results of the battle.-Numbers slain.-The field of Marathon.-The mound.-Song of the Greek.
In the history of a great military conqueror, there seems to be often some one great battle which in importance and renown eclipses all the rest. In the case of Hannibal it was the battle of Cannæ, in that of Alexander the battle of Arbela. Cæsar's great conflict was at Pharsalia, Napoleon's at Waterloo. Marathon was, in some respects, Darius's Waterloo. The place is a beautiful plain, about twelve miles north of the great city of Athens. The battle was the great final contest between Darius and the Greeks, which, both on account of the awful magnitude of the conflict, and the very extraordinary circumstances which attended it, has always been greatly celebrated among mankind.
The whole progress of the Persian empire, from the time of the first accession of Cyrus to the throne, was toward the westward, till it reached the confines of Asia on the shores of the Ægean Sea. All the shores and islands of this sea were occupied by the states and the cities of Greece. The population of the whole region, both on the European and Asiatic shores, spoke the same language, and possessed the same vigorous, intellectual, and elevated character. Those on the Asiatic side had been conquered by Cyrus, and their countries had been annexed to the Persian empire. Darius had wished very strongly, at the commencement of his reign, to go on in this work of annexation, and had sent his party of commissioners to explore the ground, as is related in a preceding chapter. He had, however, postponed the execution of his plans, in order first to conquer the Scythian countries north of Greece, thinking, probably, that this would make the subsequent conquest of Greece itself more easy. By getting a firm foothold in Scythia, he would, as it were, turn the flank of the Grecian territories, which would tend to make his final descent upon them more effectual and sure.
This plan, however, failed; and yet, on his retreat from Scythia, Darius did not withdraw his armies wholly from the European side of the water. He kept a large force in Thrace, and his generals there were gradually extending and strengthening their power, and preparing for still greater conquests. They attempted to extend their dominion, sometimes by negotiations, and sometimes by force, and they were successful and unsuccessful by turns, whichever mode they employed.
One very extraordinary story is told of an attempted negotiation with Macedon, made with a view of bringing that kingdom, if possible, under the Persian dominion, without the necessity of a resort to force. The commanding general of Darius's armies in Thrace, whose name, as was stated in the last chapter, was Megabyzus, sent seven Persian officers into Macedon, not exactly to summon the Macedonians, in a peremptory manner, to surrender to the Persians, nor, on the other hand, to propose a voluntary alliance, but for something between the two. The communication was to be in the form of a proposal, and yet it was to be made in the domineering and overbearing manner with which the tyrannical and the strong often make proposals to the weak and defenseless.
The seven Persians went to Macedon, which, as will be seen from the map, was west of Thrace, and to the northward of the other Grecian countries. Amyntas, the king of Macedon, gave them a very honorable reception. At length, one day, at a feast to which they were invited in the palace of Amyntas, they became somewhat excited with wine, and asked to have the ladies of the court brought into the apartment. They wished "to see them," they said. Amyntas replied that such a procedure was entirely contrary to the usages and customs of their court; but still, as he stood somewhat in awe of his visitors, or, rather, of the terrible power which the delegation represented, and wished by every possible means to avoid provoking a quarrel with them, he consented to comply with their request. The ladies were sent for. They came in, reluctant and blushing, their minds excited by mingled feelings of indignation and shame.
The Persians, becoming more and more excited and imperious under the increasing influence of the wine, soon began to praise the beauty of these new guests in a coarse and free manner, which overwhelmed the ladies with confusion, and then to accost them familiarly and rudely, and to behave toward them, in other respects, with so much impropriety as to produce great alarm and indignation among all the king's household. The king himself was much distressed, but he was afraid to act decidedly. His son, a young man of great energy and spirit, approached his father with a countenance and manner expressive of high excitement, and begged him to retire from the feast, and leave him, the son, to manage the affair. Amyntas reluctantly allowed himself to be persuaded to go, giving his son many charges, as he went away, to do nothing rashly or violently. As soon as the king was gone, the prince made an excuse for having the ladies retire for a short time, saying that they should soon return. The prince conducted them to their apartment, and then selecting an equal number of tall and smooth-faced boys, he disguised them to represent the ladies, and gave each one a dagger, directing him to conceal it beneath his robe. These counterfeit females were then introduced to the assembly in the place of those who had retired. The Persians did not detect the deception. It was evening, and, besides, their faculties were confused with the effects of the wine. They approached the supposed ladies as they had done before, with rude familiarity; and the boys, at a signal made by the prince when the Persians were wholly off their guard, stabbed and killed every one of them on the spot.