The Annals of the World
Ehe edict of Cyrus, for the re-building of the Temple, which was found at Acmethae, all. Ecbatan, in the province of the Medes; together with a second command, in favor of the Jews from Darius himself, was sent to Tatneis and his fellows; wherein it was given them in charge, that they should not only not hinder the work of the Lord's house, but also should, set it forward, by furnishing the expense thereof, out of the kings tribute; and moreover, to supply the necessary charge of the daily sacrifices, to be offered by the priests at Jerusalem, which command of the king, being forthwith put in excution, the Jews encouraged by the prophesies of Haggai and Zacharias went on roundly to the finishing of the work, [ Ez. 6. 1, 14.]
But I conceive that at this time, Artachshashta, whom Ezra 6. 14. joineth with Darius in this edict, as partaker with him in the power of the kingdom, was one of the 7 princes of Persia, which slew the Magus: to wit, he whom Eschilus, (in Persis) calls Artaphrenes. Hellanicus, (as his Scholiast terms him, Daphernes, Ctesias Artaphernes, and Herod. Intaphernes. He therefore, according to the privilege granted by Darius, coming upon a time to speak with Darius, without sending in, to tell him that he was there, was kept out by the door keeper, and groom of the bedchamber, who told him that the King was asleep with the Qu • en: But he, supposing that they lied unto him, drew his Cimitre, and cut off both their ears and noses; and tying the reigns of a horse about both their necks turned them going: But when they presently ran in to the king, showing him what they had suffered, and upon what occasion: the king eftsoons, sent for the rest of the Princes, severally, fearing that this might happily have been done by the common consent of them all: but finding it was not, he caused both Intaphernes and all his sons, save only the eldest, whom he spared at his mothers petition, to be put to death: Herodotus relateth this matter [ lib. 3. cap. 118, 119.] as a thing acted presently upon the execution done upon the Magi; but Valer. Max; following other Authors, [ lib. 9. cap. 2.] tells us, that finding himself curbed by these Princes, put them all to death by a new devised kind of punishment: For saith he, making a lower room, and filling it with cinders, and bearing up the room over it, with one post, and having feasted and filled them with meat and drink, he put them all into that upper room; and when they were all fast a sleep, taking away the post that bare it up, they all fell into the cinders, in the under room, and there perished.
Now though it be not very likely that they perished in this manner, yet is it very credible, that putting them from the government of the kingdom, he eased himself of that yoke, which hitherto lay so heavy on his neck.
And from that time forward, Darius was a free and absolute Monarch; and he it is, that we, in the Scripture, find called by the name of Ahasuerus. This Ahasuerus therefore, in the 3 year, reckoned from the beginning of his reign, as he sat in his throne, in his palace at Susa; to show the glory of his kingdom, and magnificence of his state, made a feast for all the Governors, and great men of his dominions, which lasted 180 days long, [ Est. 1. 2, 3, 4.] now this city of Susa, as Pliny, [ lib. 6. c. 27.] says, was built by this Darius; or rather as Elian, [ lib. 13. de animal. c. 59.] was embellisht with goodly and magnificent palaces by him, and Herod. [ lib. 5. c. 49.] tells us, that he made that the place of his residing and there kept all his treasure.
After this half years banquet was ended, [Year of the World 3486] there followed another of seven days long; whereunto were invited all the dwellers, and whoever else was then present at Susa, from the greatest to the least. The men sitting with the King, in the court of the garden of the kings house, and the women within the palace itself, with Vashti the Queen, (which to us, is Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus,) [ Esth. 1. 5. 9.]
Upon the last day of this feast; the king, being somewhat high flown with drink, would needs show the beauty of the Queen to the men, and sent for hir to come unto him: but she refused; and thereupon, by the advise of Memucan, one of the seven wise men, of the Medes and Persians, which knew the laws and statutes of those countries (for these were the kings Judges, which judged in all causes arising among the Persians, and resolved all cases in point of law; of whom, Herod. [ lib. 3. c. 14. 31.] and Plutarch in the life of Artaxerxes maketh mention,) divorced and put her away, making moreover a law, that every man thereafter, should be Master in his own house, [ Esth. 1. 10, 22.]
Hereupon, there was enquiry made after all the fair damsels that were to be found in Ahasuerus his dominions, to find out a fit consort for the king, to reign in the stead of Vashti, which was divorced, and among others, Hadassa, a damsel of the Jews, which was also called Esther; the daughter of Abichajile, a woman of Benjamin, was taken into consideration, [ Esth. 2. 1, 8.]
In the fourth year of Darius, [Year of the World 3487. a.] the fourth day of the ninth month, called Chisslu, when the Jews, by Sharezer, and Regem-melech, consulted with the Priests and Prophets, concerning the fast appointed to be held upon the day of the destruction of the City and Temple of Jerusalem, God answered them, that those fasts of the fifth and seventh months which they had observed for seventy years space, were no ways pleasing to him, and put them in mind of their obstinacy, and perseverance in their sins, which had brought that terrible desolation upon them, [ Zach. 7. 1, 14.] now from the said destruction, and the death of Gedalia (which gave occasion of that fast, held in the 7 month,) following two months after, to the very instant of this prophecy, we in our Chronology, gather, that there were 70 years.
And in the eighth chapter of the same Zechariah, God tells them, that he would restore Jerusalem, and put an end to all their former miseries, and that he would change their fasts; as well that of the fourth month, on the ninth day whereof, the City was taken, as that of the fifth month, upon the tenth whereof, the Temple was burnt, and of the seventh month, wherein the remnant of the people, upon the murder of Gedalia, was scattered among the Nations, and of the 10 month, upon the 10 day whereof, the City, under Sedechia, began to besieged by Nebuchadnesar, into mirth; and would send joy and gladness, and liberty unto his people.
In the 6 year of Darius, [Year of the World 3489] toward the later end thereof, on the 3 day of the 12 month, called Adar, was the structure of the Temple finished. The dedication whereof, the Israelites which returned out of the captivity, celebrated with great joy, and abundance of sacrifices, the Priests and Levites, everyone in his place and office attending in the ministry of the Temple, [ Ezra 6. 15, 18.]
And they also upon the 14 day of the first month, celebrated the first Passover in the second Temple; keeping also the feast of sweet-bread seven days, with great joy, for that God had turned the heart of the king of Assyria toward them, [ Ezra 6. 19. 22.] to wit of Darius, who having recovered Babylon, after 20 months liege, by the means of Zopyrus, was in full right, styled now king of the Assyrians, no less than of the Persians, [ Herod. lib. 3. in fin. ] and Justin in the end of his first book.
When Esther's turn came to be brought to the king Ahasuerus, [Year of the World 3490. b.] she was attended on, from the Seraiglia, to the kings chamber, by Hegaius the Eunuch, [ Esther 2. 12, 15.] 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , saith Herod. lib. 3. cap. 69. (i. e.) the women in Persia, come round in their turns, to their husbands beds.
But in the 7 year of Ahasuerus his reign, in the 10 month, called Tebeth; when Esther came unto the king, she found grace and favor in his eyes, above all the other damsels; insomuch, that he put the crown of the kingdom upon her head, and made her Queen in the stead of Vashty, [ Esth. 2. 16, 17.] whence I gather, that as Vashty was Atossa, so Esther was she, whom Herodotus, calls the Virgin Artystona, and whom he says, that Darius loved above all his wives, and whose statue, he caused to be made of solid gold, [ lib. 3. cap. 88. with cap. 69. lib. 7.] though I am not ignorant, that Hadassa, which was another name given to Esther, comes a great deal nearer to Atossa, and that Herodotus makes Artistona, to have been Cyrus his daugher, and Atossaes sister, whether we should say, that Herodotus was not so well skilled in the Persian genealogies, or that the Persians themselves, for very envy, concealed the name of Esther.
Ahasuerus in honor of his new spousals, made a most sumptuous feast for all his Princes and servants, and called it Esther's feast, wherein he eased the provinces of many taxes and tallages, and gave gifts answerable to the state and magnificence of so great a king, [ Esther. 2. 18.]
Jubile 19.
Hippias, [Year of the World 3491. a.] the Tyrant of Athens, in the fourth year before his banishment from thence, fearing what might fall, began to look about for some foreign support, and to that end, gave his daughter Archedice to Aeantides the son of Hippocles the Tyrant, of Lampsacus, the rather for that he perceived, that they were both gracious and in great esteem with Darius, [ Thucid. lib. 6.]
Haman, [Year of the World 3494. a.] the son of Amadetha, [The Julian Period. 4204] an Aggagite, of the race of the Amalekites, [Year before Christ 510] malicing Mordecaie a Jew, because he would not fall down and adore him as others did, resolved for his sake to be revenged of all his nation (which was ever indeed adverse to his, Deut. 25. 19.) and to root it out, for the executing of which purpose, that he might find out a successful time, on the first month Nisan, in the 12 year of king Ahasuerus, he caused pur, that is, lots to be cast before him; for the knowing of the day and the month, wherein the Jews should be destroyed: and the lot fell upon the 12 month Adar, the last of the whole year, [ Esther 3. 1, 7.]
Then pretending some specious reasons to Ahasuerus, with the offer of ten thousand talents of silver, (which yet the king would not accept) obtained a grant from him to root out all the generation of the Jews, [ Esther. 3. 7, 11.]
Upon the 13 day of the first month, the kings edict was published in Susa, and copies thereof were dispatched away by carryers into all the provinces of the kings dominions, that all Jews, without respect to sexorage; upon the 13 day of the 12 month Adar, should die the death, [ Esth. 3. 12, 15.] Hereupon Mordecai, Esther, and all the Jews, humbled themselves before the Lord, by fasting and prayer, [ ib. chap. 4.] and in memory thereof, their posterity to this day observe a solemn fast, upon the 13 day of the month Adar, which they term, Esther's fast.
Esther goes to the king, in gorgeous apparel, is graciously received by him; she invites the king once and again to a banquet, and Haman mean while is busy, in giving order for a gallows to be made, to hang Mordecai on, [ chap. 5. ib. ]
Ahasuerus, one night, when he could not sleep, would needs have some records red unto him, and among other things, it was there red unto him, how two of his servants, Bigthan and Teresh his door-keepers, had conspired his death, and that one Mordecai had revealed this conspiracy unto him, and thereupon gave order, that the author of this discovery should be highly honored, and this to be done publicly, and by whom? but by Haman himself his deadly enemy, [ Esth. 6.]
And presently after this, Haman was himself hanged up, at the gibbet which he had provided for Mordecaie, [ chap. 7.] Haman's house was given to the Queen; and Mordecaie her cousin-germaine, and who had brought her up, had daily honors bestowed upon him, [ ca. 8. 1, 2, 15. ib. ]
Upon the 23 day of the month Sivan, there was an edict published at Susa, and copies thereof sent away speedily by carriers, into the 127. Provinces, that the Jews upon the 13 day of the month Adar, which was the day appointed for their massacre, should have leave to stand upon their own guard, and to defend themselves everywhere, and to kill all such as should offer to assault them, and should moreover, have the spoil of such men's goods: whereupon both in Susa, and in all the Provinces there was great rejoicing among them, and divers of the people in several countries joining themselves to their side, turned Jews, [ ib. cap. 8. 9, 17.]
Hippias (twenty years before the fight at Marathon, [Year of the World d.] in which he served on the Median party) being now grown an old man; was thrust out of Athens by the Lacedaemonians, and the faction of the Alcmaeonidae there: and taking a pass from the Athenians, went first to Sigaeum, and from thence sailed to Lampsacus, to his son in law Aeantides, and from thence got him away to Darius, [ Thucid. lib. 6.] Now Pisistratus, Hippias his father, had committed S • geum in Troas, to Hegesistratus his base son: and that was a receptacle now for Hippias, and afterward for others of the race of Pisistratus, in case of extremity to retire unto, [ Herod. lib. 5. ca. 65. 91, 94.]
Upon the 13 day of the 12 month Adar, [Year of the World 3495. b.] the Jews in all parts slew all those who were provided to slay them upon the same day, [The Julian Period. 4105] according to Haman's decree: [Year before Christ 509] In Susa itself, and the very Palace there, they slew 500. men, together with Haman's ten sons: and in the rest of the Provinces to the number of 75000. men: but meddled not with one penny of their goods, [ Esth. 9. 1, 16.]
Upon the 14 of the same month, the Jews in the Provinces ceased from killing, and made merry among themselves: But they which dwelt in Susa, having another day given them by the King, slew therein 300. men more of their enemies; and hung the carcasses of Haman's ten sons, upon the gibbet, [ ib. cap. 9. 13, 19.]
Upon the 15 day the Jews that dwelt in Susa made merry and feasted themselves, [ D. c. 9. 18.]
Mordecaie began the custom of keeping Holiday in remembrance of Purim, or Lots yearly, upon the 14 and 15 days of the month Adar: and this was established by Esther, [ ib. ca. 9. 23, 30.] And this is the Jews Shrovetide, wherein they read over the History of Esther: and so often as the name of Haman comes to be read, they rap and make a noise with their hands or mallets, upon the deskes or settles in their Synagogues.
In the Isle of Naxos, [Year of the World 3500] some of the richer sort were turned out by the meaner people; and they repaired to Aristagoras son of Molpagoras, and son in law, and cousin-germain by the mothers side, to Histiaeus, Tyrant of M • letus; and whom Histiaeus had left Governor there in his room, when Darius under a show of Honor, had taken himself along with him unto Susa: and Aristagoras imparting the matter to Artaphernes, son of Hystaspes, and brother to Darius, Governor of Ionia, residing at Sardes, persuaded him to possess himself of Naxos, and Paros, and Andros, and the rest of the Cyclades, all depending of Naxos, to the Kings use: which being well liked of by Darius at Susa; he furnished out the next Spring, 200. Ships for that service, [ Herod. lib. 5. cap. 30. 31, 32.]
Artaphernes, [Year of the World 3501. c.] making Megabates a Persian borne, [The Julian Period. 4211] Darius his, and his own, [Year before Christ 503] near kinsman, Commander in Chief of the Persian Army; gave him order with his Fleet of 200. sails, to go to Miletus, and there to take in Aristagoras and the Ionian Army, which he did; and sailed from thence to Chios: where a jar falling between Aristagoras and Artaphernes, when they had spent four months in the siege of Naxos to no purpose: each returned home, nothing done, [ Herod. ib. ca. 32. 33, 34.]
Here end the 70 years from the taking of Tyre, [Year of the World 3502. b.] by Nebuchadnesar, [The Julian Period. 4212] which is the just number of years of the bondage of that city, [Year before Christ 502] expressly foretold by the Prophet, [ Isaiah 33. 15, 17.] from which time, it seems they lived in freedom from any foreign subjection, till the time it was again taken afterward by Alex. the Great.
Aristagoras fearing what might befall him, because he had not been able to perform what he had undertaken to Artaphernes for the taking of Naxos, and had not wherewithal to pay his army; began to think of revolting from the Persians. And it fell out in the very nick, that there came a messenger from Histiaeus in Babylon, having his errand written in letters made with hot irons upon the flesh of his head, and now grown over with hair, by which Aristagoras was advised both himself to fall off from Darius, and also to put all Ionia in arms against him, if he could, [ Herod. lib. 5. c. 35. Polyae. Stratag. lib. 1.]
Aristagoras hereupon, having imparted this to his friends, persuaded them to side with him, though Hecataeus the Historian dissuaded them by all means from rising in arms against the King of Persia: but all in vain; for the conspirators dispatched away Iatrogaras to Myus to the army, which upon their return from Naxos, remained there, and by a stratagem, took all the principal Commanders of their Fleet. And Aristagoras, now openly revolting from Darius, made a fair show of a kind of liberty to the Milesians, and took away the tyrants that were in some cities of Ionia; and then went to the Lacedaemonians to pray an aide of them; but received a flat denial at their hands, [ Herod. lib. 3. ca. 36, 37, 38, 49, 50, 51.]
In the 20 year of the reign of Darius, [Year of the World 3503. a.] 246. of Nabonassars aera, upon the 28 day of the month Epiphus, according to the Egyptian Calender, ( upon the 29. of our November ) ending about midnight, there was an Eclipse of the Moon observed at Babylon, [ Ptol. Mag. Syntax. lib. 4. ca. 9.]
Hippias the son of Pisistratus being sent for from Sigeum upon a vain hope given him of being restored to his Principality in Athens, by the Lacedaemonians, returned from thence into Asia, and accusing the Athenians of many things to Artaphernes, did what in him lay to bring Athens under the subjection of Darius, [ Herod. lib. 5. chap. 91. 96.]
The Athenians understanding that Hippias had defamed them to Artaphernes, sent their messengers to Sardes, to persuade the Persians there, not to give credit, nor to lend any ear, to those out-laws of the Athenians: But Artaphernes advised them, if they loved themselves, and their own safety, to call home, and receive Hippias again; But whiles they stood out, and refused to hearken to any such conditions, it fell out that Aristagoras the Milesian returning from Sparta, where he gat nothing but a denial, came to Athens, and there obtained of them 20 sails of Ships to aid the Ionians in their war against the Persians: whereof they made Melantho an eminent man in Athens Commander. [ Herod. lib. 3. ca. 96. 97.] Which Fleet, as [ Herod. ca. 98. ib. ] hath well noted, was the beginning of all mischief, both to the Grecians and Persians: for this was the beginning of all the wars which grew between the Grecians and the Persians, and which ended in the ruin of the Persian Empire.
Aristagoras, returning to Miletus, persuaded the Paeones, whom Megabazus the Governor of Thracia, had carried away from their own habitation upon the banks of the River Strymon into Phrygia, and by the command of Darius planted them there, to return into their own country; wherefore they taking with them their wives and children, gat away to the sea side, where some for fear, abode still: the rest putting over to Chios, from thence gat shipping, and came to Lesbos, and from thence to Doriscus: and from thence again, by land went away into their own country, [ Herod. lib. 5. ca. 98.]
The Athenian Fleet arrived at Miletus, [Year of the World 3504] and with them came also five tall Ships of the Eretrians, [The Julian Period. 4214] for the Athenians sake. [Year before Christ 500] There Aristagoras stayed himself, but sent his own brother Charopinus Commander over the Milesians, and Helmophantus Commander over the rest of the Ionians, against Sardes. The Ionians, in company with the Athenians and Eretrians, coming with their Fleet to Ephesus, left their Ships at Goresus, a Port of the Ephesians, and marched themselves in a body over-land to Sardes: and took and burnt it all, save the Castle which Artaphernes himself kept, not sparing the very temple of Cybele. But when the Lydians and Persians joining together, made good the Market-place, thorough the midst whereof ran the River Pactolus, and there defended themselves against them; the Ionians for very fear left the place, and retired to the Hill T • molus, thereto adjoining, and from thence by night fled away to their ships: whereupon the Persians dwelling on that side the River Halys, gathering into a body, pursued them, and overtaking them about Ephesus: fought with them, and routed them; killing many, and among them Enalcidas Captain of the Eretrians; a man who had borne away the garland in many of their games, and highly commended by Simonides the Poet in his verses. They which escaped out of the battle, dispersed themselves into their several cities: and the Athenians abandoning from thence forth the Ionian cause, though earnestly entreated thereto by Aristagoras, would no more appear in it, [ Herod. from ca. 99. to ca. 103.]
Onesilus, turning out his own elder brother Gorgus, King of the Salaminians, and forcing him to flee over to the Medes for succor, prevailed with the whole Isle of Cyprus to fall off from them; save only those of Amathusa: But while he was besieging that city, tidings came of the firing of Sardes by the Athenians, to Darius: who thereupon growing wrath with the Athenians, gave order to one of his attendants, that as often as ever he sat at meat, he should three times remember him of it, and say, Sir, Remember the Athenians: and then, very improvidently sent away Histiaeus, the brother of that Aristagoras, from Susa to Miletus as if of purpose to be afterward the ring-leader of the Ionian Rebels against himself, [ Herod. lib. 5. ca. 104. 105, 106.]
The Ionians entering into the Hellespont, took Byzantium, and other cities in those parts; and sailing from thence, drew over many of the cities of Caria to join with them in this war against the Persians; for the city Caunus, which hitherto stood off, and would not side with them, hearing now of the firing of Sardes, fell also to them, [ ib. ca. 103.]
At Clazomenae (which was of itself sometimes an Island, but now joined to the continent of Ionia, by a neck of land, as [ Strabo lib. 1.] showeth) was borne Anaxagoras the Philosopher, son of Hegesibulus, [ Olym. 70.] as Diogenes Laertius showeth in his life, out of Apollodorus his Chronicle.
Whiles Onesilus, lay with his army before Amathusa, news came to him, that Artybius, a Captain of the Persians was making toward Cyprus, with a very numerous army, whereupon he sent to crave aide of the Ionians, and they out of hand advanced toward Cyprus, with a great fleet. But the Persians putting over out of Silicia, into Cyprus, landed there, their men, and marched by land to the city of Salamis, sending about the Phaenians with the ships, to double the point of a Promontory in that Island, called, Claves Cyprus, (i. e.) the keys of Cyprus, and anon after, there followed a fight between the parties, both at land, and sea. And at sea, the Ionians, behaved themselves all very bravely that day, especially the Samians, and had the better of the Phoenicians. But at land, while the rest were busy in fight, first Stesenor, Tyrant of the Curii, betrayed his fellows: and then presently the men of Salamis, who fought in chariots, did the like; whereupon the whole army of the Cypriots being routed, many of them were put to the sword; and among them Onesilus, the author of this war, and with him, Aristocyprus, king of the Solians, son of that Philocyphrus, whom Solon, at his being in Cyprus, so much extolled above all other Tyrants, in his verses. The Ionians hearing that Onesilus was slain, and the rest of the cities of that Isle besieged, and that Salamis itself had opened her gates to Gorgus, their old king, returned into Ionia, with all the haste they could make. But among all the cities of Cyprus, that of Solos stood it out longest, yet at seven months end, the Persians having undermined the wall round about, took it; and so the Cypriots paid dearly for their one years liberty, and were reduced to their former estate of slavery, [ Herod. lib. 5. from cap. 108. to 116.]
The Persian Lord's at Sardes, [Year of the World 3505] who had married Darius his daughters, [The Julian Period. 4215] as Daurises, [Year before Christ 499] Hymees, and Otanes, pursuing the Ionians, who had been in the service against Sardes, after they had routed them near unto Ephesus, and driven them aboard their ships, parted the rest of the work among themselves, and took each of them, in hand what cities of theirs, they would subdue, [ Herod. ib. 116.] Daurises for his part, undertook the parts joining upon the Hellespont; and there took Dardanus, Abydus, Percotes, Lampsacus, and Paeson, every day a city: but as he was on his way from thence, to the city Parios, he understood that all Caria had revolted from the king, and joined with the Ionians, wherefore he gave off that purpose, and marched away with all his army into Caria, [ c. 117.] Hymees undertook the parts about Propontis, and coming thither, was Cios in Mysia. But then hearing that Daurises was marched out of Hellespont into Caria, he left Propontis, and marched into Hellespont, [ ib. cap. 122.] But Artaphernes, the Governor of Sardes, and Otanes the third of those undertakers, went against Ionia itself, and the country of Aeolia, adjoining thereunto. In Ionia they took Clazomenae, and in Aeolia, the city Cuma, [ Ib. cap. 123.] which being so taken, Anaxagoras with his companions, consulted together, whither they might fly, in which counsel, Hecatous the Historian advised, first to transport into the Isle of Leros, and there to fortify for the present; and dwell till occasion were offered to return to Miletus. But Aristagoras his opinion was, to sails rather to a place called Myrcinus, a city among the Edons, (who dwelt upon the bank of the river Strimon) which his own Brother Histiaeus had formerly built: wherefore committing the charge of Miletus to Pythagoras himself, with such Volunteers, as he could get, sailed from thence into Thrace, and possessed himself of the place, which he intended, [ Ib, c. 124, 125, 126.]
Histiaeus, the Tyrant of Miletus, dismissed from Susa by Darius, came to Sardes: where being upon his very first arrival, hotly charged by Artaphernes, as the author of all the rebellion in Ionia; he got away the night following to the sea side, and there finding a sh • p ready, sailed over into Chios; where the people supposing that he had been sent thither by Darius, of purpose to solicit them against the Grecians, laid him in irons; but understanding shortly after, that he came in a contrary errand, they quickly set him at liberty: and he forthwith dispatched away letters to Sardes, by Hermippus, of Atarne, to persuade some Persians there, to a revolt. But Artaphernes having gotten knowledge of th •• practice, by the discovery of the messenger, put those Persians to death, wherefore Histiaens, failing of this purpose, obtained of them of Chios, to grant him a convoy back to Miletus. But the Milesians, as they were glad to be rid of Aristagoras, so they would by no means hear of taking another Tyrant in his room; insomuch, that when Histiaeus, assayed to get privilie into the city by night, he received a wound in the thigh, given him by a Milesian; and so being cast out thence, he returned again to Chios, [ Herod. lib. 6. in the beginning of it.
Daurises the Persian, [Year of the World 3506] leading his army against the Carians, [The Julian Period. 4216] they met together, [Year before Christ 498] and made a body, at a place called Columnae Albae, (i. e.) the white Pillars, near the river Marsyas, where Pixodorus the son of Mausolus, a man of Cyndya, who had married the daughter of Siencses the king of Silicia, gave them advice to pass over the river Maeander; and that having that river at the back of them, they should there abide the coming of the enemy, and fight with him, upon that advantage: but the contrary opinion carried it, that they should put the Persians to have the river at their backs, and force them to figh at that disadvantage, to the end, said they, that if they fled, having that river at their back, they should not be able to get away. At last therefore, the Carians and Persians came to a battle, near the river Marsyas, which was a very sharp one, and lasted long, and in which the Persians lost two thousand men, and the Carians ten thousand. But when the Carians fled at last to a place called Labranda to the Temple, of Jupiter the warlike, and were there in consultation what to do, whether to submit to the Persian, or to abandon Asia, the Milesians with their partakers, came to aide them: whereupon they took fresh courage, and fought again with the Persians which invaded them, and after a fight longer than the former, they fled again; in which they lost very many men, especially of the Milesians: after which great losses; yet the Carians, upon a new supply, fought with them a third time; for hearing that the Persians, went about now to sack and ransack their cities, they lay in ambush for them upon their way, as they were marching to Mylassa, following therein the advice, of Heraclides Inabolius, a man of Mylassa, into which ambushment, the Persians falling by night, were all cut off, with their commanders, Daurisces, and Amorges, and Sismaces, and with the rest Myrses also the son of Gyges, was there slain, [ Herodotus, lib. 5. from cap. 118. to 121.]
Hymees the Persian which led his army into the country of Hellespont, took in all the Aeoles, which inhabited near the cost of old Troy, and the Gergithes, the remainder of those ancient Teucrians, and having done all, deceased himself, of a sickness at Troas, [ Ib. cap. 122.]
Histiaeus the Milesian, when he could not prevail with the men of Chios, to let him have away their shipping, put over to Mitilene; where the Lesbyans by his persuasion, let him have eight tall men of war, well and fully furnished, in which they • ailed with him to Byzantium, and staying there, they intercepted certain ships of loading, of the Ionians, which came out of Pontus, all, except such as professed themselves willing and ready to serve Histiaeus, [ Herod. lib. 6. cap. 5. and 26.]
Aristagoras, Histiaeus his brother, lying with his army at the siege of Mircinus, a city of the Edones, was there slain with all his men by the Thracians, after they had taken his word, for their own safe passage, and leaving of the place, as Herodotus, in the very end of his fifth book delivers. But Thucydides, [ lib. 4.] reckons from hence, 61 years, to the carrying of a colony of the Athenians, by Agnon the son of Nicias, and planting it in Amphiposis, which Diod. Sic. in his 12 book, says, was done in the 85 Olympiad, to which period of times, we have here conformed our relation of the six years (ending the year following) of the rebellion of the Ionians against the Persians.
There was now a huge preparation making against the city of Miletus, [Year of the World 3507] by land and sea, [The Julian Period. 4217] for the Persian Commanders, [Year before Christ 497] of all those parts, uniting their forces, set up their rest, to carry that place, what ever became of the rest. Among the Seamen their Phoenicians, were the forwardest of all others, and with them were joined the Cypriots, lately subdued by the Persians, and the Cilicians, and Egyptians, [ Herod. lib. 6. cap. 6,] of which danger thus hanging over their heads, mention seems to be made in those letters, which are attributed to Anaximines the Milesian, written to Pythagoras living then in Crotona, by Diogenes Laertius in his life: where, when he had spent 20 year, he went to Metapontus, and there ended his days, as Justin reports out of Trogus, [ lib. 20. cap. 4.] to wit in the fourth year of the 78 Olympiad, [ as Euseb. hath it in his Chron. ] which takes up part of this, and part of the year following.
The Ionian fleet consisted of 363 ships; the Persian of 600. Aeaces the son of Solyson, the Tyrant of Samos and other Tyrants of Ionia, which having been thrust out by Aristagoras, were now in the Persian army, labored what they could to draw over every man his country-men, and acquaintance from the Ionian to the Persian side. In a sea fight at Lada, which is a little Island lying over against Miletus, between the Phoenicians, and the Ionians, of 60 ships that came from the Isle of Samos, and fifty slunk out of the fight, and returned home, so did 70 more of the Lesbian ships; and sundry other of the Ionians in like manner, only there were 100 sails of the Isle of Chios, which fought it out very manfully, till at length having taken many of the enemies ships, and lost many of their own with what they had left, they returned home, some of which yet being hardly pursued by the enemy, ran themselves on ground, at the promontory of Mycale, and there gat to land, and travelling all night on foot, came safe to Ephesus, whiles the women there were celebrating their feast and sacrifices called Thesmophoria, to wit, in honor of their goddess Ceres: whereupon the men of the city, supposing the Chians to have been theevs, come to spoil them at that time, fell suddenly upon them, and slew them. But Dionysius, captain of three ships of the Phocaeans, having taken three ships of the enemies, carried them, not into Phocaea, which he knew well enough was ere this seized on, and possessed by the enemies, with the rest of the Ionian territories, but furnished as he was, sailed directly into Phoenicia; where lighting upon some ships of loading, and having taken out of them a great booty of monies, and other things, he set sail, and came away for Sicily, [ Herodotus lib. 6. from cap. 7. to 17.]
The Persians having thus mastered the Ionians at sea, fell presently to beleaguer Miletus, both by sea and land: and undermining the walls thereof with all kind of engines, they utterly overthrew and razed it to the ground in the sixth year after Aristagoras began his rebellion against the King of Persia, [ Herod. lib. 6. ca. 18.] Some of the Milesians which escaped the fury of the sword with certain of the Samians, carried a colony of them that were left into Sicily, [ ib. ca. 22.] the rest were carried away to Susa: upon whom Darius inflicted no punishment more, than that he placed them in the City of Ampa, seated upon the Sea called the Red-Sea, where the River Tigris running under the walls thereof, falleth into the Ocean. The champion and low grounds lying near the city of Miletus, the Persians took to themselves, but the mountainous parts, they gave to the Carians of Pedasus to possess, [ ca. 20. ib. ]
Upon the taking of Miletus, the Carians all were quickly taken in; some readily yielding themselves, others upon compulsion, [ ib. ca. 25.] Histiaeus the Milesian, hearing what was become of his city Miletus, sailed presently with those Lesbians which were with him to Chios; which he easily subdued, being sorely weakened with that great loss which they had lately suffered at Lada: from thence with a strong party of Ionians and Eolians, he went to Thasus: but whiles he was besieging of Thasus, news was brought him, that the Persians were fallen upon the rest of Ionia; wherefore raising his siege from before Thasus, he sailed forthwith to Lesbos, with all his forces. And from thence, because he saw his men a little doubtful, he set sails again and came into the Province of of Atarnis: as if he meant only to forage as well there, as in the country lying upon the River Caicus, in the Province of Mysia. Harpagus the Persian then lay in those parts with a very considerable army: who setting upon Histiaeus, as he came out of his ships, at a place called Malena, took him alive, and destroyed the greater part of his men. When Histiaeus was brought prisoner to Sardes, Artaphernes, took and crucified him, and sent his head to Darius at Susa. Darius blamed them for their labor, in that they had not brought him alive unto him: and gave order that his head should be enterred, as a man well deserving of him and the Persian nation, [ Herod. ib. ca. 27. 28, 29.]
The Persian Sea-forces, [Year of the World 3508] wintering about Miletus, [The Julian Period 3218] went to take in the Islands bordering upon the continent, [Year before Christ 496] and in less than two years, took in and subdued Chios, Lesbos, Tenedus, and the rest, [ Herod. lib. 6. ca. 31.]
After the Islands, the Persian Captains took in also, the Cities of the Continent of Ionia; and having them in their power, they chose out of them the most beautiful boys and maids among them, and sent them to Darius; but set fire on the Cities with the Temples in them: And so the Ionians were thrice brought into bondage; once by the Lydians, and now twice by the Persians, [ ib. ca. 31. 32.]
Those of Byzantium, as also of Chalcedon, which lies over against it, before the Phoenician Fleet came near them, left every man his habitation, and fled up into the remoter parts of the the Euxin Sea, and there built them a city, which they named, Mesembria, [ib. ca. 33.]
The Phoenician Fleet sailing from Ionia, [Year of the World 3509] subdued all that lay on the left hand of them as you go into the Hellespont: [The Julian Period. 4219] for what lay on the right hand in Asia side, [Year before Christ 405] was already subdued by the Persians in the Continent. Then went the Fleet and took in Chersonesus, and the cities thereof, all save the city Cardia: where till then, Miltiades the son of Cimon, had been tyrant, [ ib. ca. 33. 34.] But when Miltiades sailed from Cardia with five tall men of War for Athens, the Phoenicians pursued him, and took one of his ships, wherein was his son Metiochus: who being sent prisoner to Darius, was by him honourably received; Darius also bestowed on him, both house and lands, and gave him a Persian woman to wife, by whom he had also many children, [ ib. ca. 41.]
Artaphernes Governor of Sardes, finding the Ionians at wars one with another; sent for some of each party to come before him, and made them friends upon certain covenants and conditions, and willed them upon failer thereof to go to law, and try out the right that way rather, than to spoil and butcher one another as they did, [ ib. ca. 42.]
When Artaphernes had brought them to this, then laid he out all their country by Parasanges: for so the Persians call every division, containing 30 furlongs: and laid a certain tribute upon every such division, which they were to pay yearly to the King, much after the rate of what formerly was paid, saith [ Herodotus lib. 6. cap. 42.] meaning that rate, which (as he had formerly written) Darius, when he came first to the crown, had imposed throughout all his Dominions, [ lib. 3. cap. 89. 90.] and before▪ he was Master of the Islands, [ cap. 96.] In the narration whereof we may observe, that however, for the more easy levying of tributes, the 127. Provinces mentioned in Esther, were now by Darius reduced to 20 Governments, yet the bounds of that Empire were still the same; namely, India, and Ethiopia, whereof the one was of Cambyses his acquest, and the other of Darius himself: of whose revenue out of India, Herodotus speaking, saith in this wise. The Indians as they are a most populous nation, above all other men living that we know, so they pay tribute far more than any other nation doth, to wit, 360. talents of gold dust; and this is the twentieth part, or a Satrapie. But for as much, as we find that Darius at his first coming to the crown, was not possessed of the country of India, as may appear even by Herodotus himself, [ lib. 4. c. 44.] it is therefore most likely, that at what time this book of rates upon lands was made by Artaphernes in Ionia, the like was done all over the kingdom, by the Governors of the several provinces.
It would be considered then, whether that which is said in [ Esther 10.] After this the king Ahasuerus imposed a tribute upon the firm land, and Isles of the sea; or, as it is in the vulgar latin edition, Rex vero Ahasuerus omnem terram, & omnes maris Insulas fecit tributarias, (i. e. ) But king Ahasuerus made all the earth, and all the Islands of the sea tributary; hath not reference to this very time. For as Thucydides, [lib. 1.] tells us, (and Plato in his Menexenus confirms as much) that Darius, by the means of his Phaenician fleet, subdued all the Islands lying in the Egean sea, so doth Diodorus Siculus, [ lib. 12.] teach us, that they were all lost again by his son Xerxes, immediately upon his overthrow in Greece; and before the 12 year of his reign, after which it was, that the Scripture tells us, that Ahasuerus imposed this Tribute upon the Isles. For that in Xerxes his war against Greece, all the Islands which lay between the Cyanean Isles, and the two fore-lands, that of Triopium in Cnidia, and that other of Sumium in Attica, did send him in shipping; the same Diodotus Siculus in his said 12 book, testifieth; And that his successors, held none of them all, save Clazomene, (which was at that time, but a poor little Isle, as Thucididides, [lib. 8.] teacheth us) and Cyprus, is manifest by the tenor of Antalcidas his peace, recorded by Xenophon, [lib. 5. Hellenic. ] Which to me seemeth a great argument, that Ahasuerus mentioned in Esther, can be none other than this Darius, whom for this, and other such like impositions laid upon the people, the Persians used to call 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ( i. e. ) a crafty Merchant or Huckster, as Herodotus observeth of him: Because that under Cyrus and Cambyses, his two Predecessors there was no talk of any tribute charged upon the subject: only they brought the king presents, [ Herod. lib. 3. cap. 89.] To which purpose it is also, that we read in the 15 book of the Epitome of Strabo: The first, saith he, that ever brought up paying of tribute, was Darius Longimanus: (mistaking the surname of Artaxerxes the grandchild, and giving it to the grandfather) for before him, men paid their kings, out of that which every country yielded, as corn, horses, &c. And Polyenus, Stratagem. lib. 7.] Darius, saith he, was the first that ever imposed a tribute upon the people; nevertheless, to make it the better to digest with them; he put his officers to rate it: which when they had laid on very heavily, he took off one half thereof; which they willingly paid, and took it for a great favor too, at the kings hand, which story is touched upon also, by Plutarch in his Apothegmes of kings and Emperors.
In the beginning of this spring, [Year of the World 3510] the king taking off all other commanders, [The Julian Period. 4220] sent Mardonius, [Year before Christ 494] the son of Gobryas, a young gentleman, and newly married to the kings daughter Artozostra: who coming to the sea side, in Silicia, with a vast army, and provision accordingly, both by sea and land, sent away the rest of his forces, over land to Hellespont, but he with the navy, came into the parts of Ionia; and putting down the Tyrants, in the several Cities, restored to them everywhere their popular governments: He shortly after subdued the Thasy by his fleet, and the Macedonians, by his land army. His navy sailing from Thasus to Acanthus, and loosing from thence, whiles they sought to double the cape of the mount Athos, was afflicted by a mighty tempest; wherein he lost 300 of his ships, and upward of 20000 men: But whiles Mardonius with his land army kept in Macedonia, the Thracians, called the Brygi, fell upon his camp by night; in which on-set, they slew many of his men, and withal wounded Mardonius himself: but having subdued Macedonia, he left it, and returned into Asia.
In the year following, [Year of the World 3511] Darius commanded the inhabitants of Thasus, [Year before Christ 422] who had been accused to him, [Year before Christ 493] for intending a rebellion against him, to demolish the walls of their City, and to send away all their shipping to Abdera: and then, to try whether the Grecians, would indeed stand it out, or come in and submit to him, he sent Ambassadors into Greece, with order to demand Earth and Water of them, giving order nevertheless to his tributary towns upon the sea cost, to prepare and furnish our fighting ships, and others, to transport horses in: many therefore, as well of the continent of Greece, as of the Isles thereunto adjoining, gave him Earth and Water, and among them the inhabitants of the Island of Egina, and that with the first, [ Herod. ib. c. 46. 46, 49.]
The Eginetae therefore, [Year of the World 3512] as Traitors to Greece, [The Julian Period. 4222] were presently set upon, [Year before Christ 492] by Cleomenes, king of the Spartans; between whom and Demaratus his collegue in the kingdom, a strife arising, put Demaratus out of his place; who thereupon fled into Asia; and betook himself to Darius: by whom he was magnificently entertained, and had Cities, and territories bestowed on him, [ Herod. lib. 6. cap. 49, 50. 61, 67, 70.]
In the 31 year of Darius, [Year of the World 3513] 257 of Nabonasar, [The Julian Period. 4223] the 3 day of the month Tybi (25 day of our April ) half an hour before midnight, [Year before Christ 491] there was an eclipse of the moon, observed at Babylon, [ Ptol. mag. Syntax. lib. 4. cap. 9.] Darius removed Mardonius from his charge, as a man that had not ordered matters well at sea, and sent others to take charge of the war against the Eretrians and Athenians, to wit, Datys, a Median born, and Artaphernes, whom the Scholiast of Aristophanes calls Artabazus) Commander of the horse, the son of his brother Artaphernes. To these, as they lay encamped in a plain of Silicia, near the sea, repaired all the sea forces, with their ships, as well for fight, as for transportation of horses; which the tributary Cities had provided and furnished according to order given: into which having put their foot and horse, they set sail, and went for Ionia, [ Her. l. 6. c. 94, 95.] with a fleet of 600 ships. Yet Plato in his Menexenus, counteth only 300 ships, and 500 thousand land soldiers: which number Lysias also holds to, in the Epitaph which he made, upon the Corinthian Auxiliaries; but Emilius Probus, in the life of Miltiades, says, there were in that fleet, 500 ships; 200000 foot, and 10000 horse.
The Persians, [Year of the World 3514 c.] setting sails from Samos, [The Julian Period. 4224] came to Naxos, and set fire on all their houses, [Year before Christ 490] and Temples: But sparing Delos, they went to other Islands, from whence they took away both men to serve them, and also their children for hostages; which when the Carystii refused to deliver; they endured a siege, till at last they also were fain to surrender their City, and give up themselves to their enemies discretion, [ Herod. lib. 6. cap. 95, 96, 99.]
The Persians, having taken Eretria, after seven days siege, and spent some few days in settling things there, sailed thence to the land of Attica, and wasted a great part thereof: and came at last, by the guidance of Hippias the son of Pisistratus into the field of Marathon; where they were all defeated by the men of Athens, and of Platea, under the conduct of Miltiades, who had gotten the sovereignty, or command of the Chersonesus, in Thracia: of their part were slain, 192 men: of the Persians, 6400. [ Herod. l. 6. c. 101, 102. 112. 117.]
The Persians, [Year of the World d.] being routed, fled to their ships, of which many were sunk, and many taken: in both the fights, the Persians lost 200000 men, Hippias also, sometimes the tyrant of Athens, died there, who had been the author and procurer of this war, [ Justin out of Trogus, lib. 2. c. 9.] The whole army of the Persians at this battle consisted of 300000. as Valer. Max. [lib. 5. c. 3.] saith, and Plutarch intimates no less in the beginning of his Parallels: Justin, and Orosius following him say, they were in all 600000 men: Emil. Probus in his Miltiades, says there were 100000 foot, and 10 thousand horse: of the Athenians there were 10000, and of their auxileries out of Platea; 1000, saith Justin with Orosius. Probus assures us, that the Athenians, with the men of Platea, and all, made but 10000. This insignious victory, was gotten by them, upon the 6 day of Boedromion, the 3 month in the Attic Calendar, after the somer solstice, as Plutarch in the life of Camillus, says; when Phanippus was Praetor or L. Chancelor of Athens: as the same Plutarch hath it in the life of Aristides: to wit, in the 3 year of the 72 Olympiad, 4 years before the death of Darius, as Severus Sulpitius, in 2 book of his Sacra Historia telleth us: and in the 10 year before Xerxes his passing over into Greece, (as Thucydides in his 1 book of his history, witnesseth; and Lysias in his Epitaph of the Corinthian Auxiliaries, hath it) and before the sea fight at Salamis, in the same month of Boedromion, 10 years complete, as we find in Plato [3 de Legibus. ]
Daris and Artiphernes returning into Asia, carried with them their captives of Eretria to Susa, [ Herod. lib. 6. cap. 119.] though Cresias would have it, that Datis was slain in the fight at Marathon: and that, when the Persians desired to have his corps, the Athenians refused to give it.
Darius, [Year of the World 3515] when the Eretrian captives were brought unto his presence, [The Julian Period. 4225] gave order to have them placed in a part of the Cissian country, [Year before Christ 489] which is called Anderica, 210 furlongs from Susa, [ Herod. lib. 6. c. 119.] of whom a man may see more in Philostratus, in the life of Apollonius, [lib. 1. c. 17.]
When Darius had spent now 3 years, [Year of the World 3517] in making greater preparations against Greece than before; [The Julian Period. 4227] in the fourth year the Egyptians revolted from him, [Year before Christ 487] [ Herodotus, lib. 7. cap. 1.]
When Darius was now ready to begin his war against the Egyptians, [Year of the World 3519] and Athenians both, [The Julian Period. 4229] he was, [Year before Christ 485] by the Laws of the Persians, to declare his successor in the kingdom.
Artobazanes, whom others call Artemenes, or Ariamenes, his son by Gobryas his daughter, born to him before he came to be king, claimed the succession, by right of primogeniture, or as first born: But Xerxes, who was begotten and born, after Darius came to be king, and that of Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus, the founder of the Persian Monarchy, was declared to be king, in succession. [ Herod. lib. 7. cap. 2, 3.] of which friendly contention between the two brothers, more is to be seen in Justin, out of Trogus, [l. 2. c. 10.] and in Plutarch, in the life of Artaxerxes, and in his Apoth • gmes; and in his treatise 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , (i.e.) of Brotherly love.
Darius, having declared Xerxes to be king in succession, when he was now ready to take his journey, nay rather when he was now putting over into Greece, as Diod, Sic: [lib. 11.] reporteth, in the year after the revolt of the Egyptians, at the later end thereof, departed this life, when he had reigned fell 36 years, [ Herod. lib. 7. c. 4.]
Next him came Xerxes, the 4 king of Persia after Cyrus: who trusting in his riches, (as they were indeed exceeding great) stirred up his own subjects, together with all his allies and friends, to make war upon the Grecians kingdom; according to the prophecy of [ Daniel 11. 2.] though not moved hereunto at the first so much by any desire of his own, as set on, by the persuasions and instigations of Mardonius, his Cousin Germain, of the Alevadae, the kings of Thessaly, of the kindred of Pisistratus, and of one Onomacritus, a Sorcerer of Athens, [ Herod. lib. 7. cap. 5; 6.]
Xerxes, [Year of the World 3520] in the very beginning of the second year, [The Julian Period. 4230] after the death of Darius, [Year before Christ 484] took a journey against his rebel Egyptians; whom when he had subdued, and brought into a harder state of bondage, than they had ever felt under his predecessors, he set his brother Achaemenes, the son of Darius to be ruler over them, [ Herodotus lib. 7. cap. 7.]
This year was Herodotus the Historian, the son of Lyxus, and Eryone born at Halicarnassus, in the province of Caria: for that he was 53 year old, when the Peloponesian war began. [ A. Gellius lib, 15. cap. 23.] affirmeth out of Pamphyla. Now at that very time, Artemesia, the daughter of Lygdamis of Halycarnassus, upon the decease of her husband, obtained, (during the pupillage of her young son, whose name was Psindelis, as may be gathered out of Soudas, in the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 : ( i. e. ) Herodotus) the Tyranny which her husband held, and ruled over the Halicarnassians, the Coi • , the Nisirians, and Calydonians: and she, a while after, came into Greece with five good fighting ships, to the aid of Xerxes in his war there, [ Herod. lib. 7. cap. 99.]
Xerxes, [Year of the World 3523] when he had gathered together out of all his dominions, [The Julian Period. 4233] Egypt, [Year before Christ 481] Phoenicia, Cyprus, Silicia, Pamphylia, Pisidia, Lycia, Caria, Mysia, Troas, Hellespo • t, Bythinia, and Pontus, to the number of 1200 ships, making his Rendezvous at Cuma, and Phocaea in Ionia, himself with all the foot and horse, that he could make out of all his provinces, set out at length from Susa, in the beginning of the 4 year of the 74 Olympiad, though [ Diod. Sic▪ in the beginning of his 11 book, ] hudling together the gests of 2 years into one, relates this as done, in the first year of the Olympiad following Herodotus, [lib. 7. cap. 21.] affirms, that this provision was in making the 3 whole years before this year; but with a note premised in the chapter preceding, which cannot consist with the exact course of the times: For (saith he) from the subduing of Egypt, he was full 4 years in gathering an army, and in making his preparations; and in the beginning of the fifth year; he began to march with a huge army: for indeed, he set out from Susa, in the beignning of the fifth year, not from his subduing of Egypt, but from his coming to the crown: so that both Justin out of Trogus, [lib. 2. cap. 10.] and Orosius following him, do unadvisedly attribute five years, but most absurdly doth Julianus in his first Oration of the praises of Constantius, say, that he was ten years in making this preparation. But more ingenuous then all these, (though he not over exquisite in his account neither) is Labianus, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , where he saith, that between Darius and Xerxes, there was ten years time spent in making this preparation against Greece; since we have formerly shown out of Plato, that from the fight at Marathon, to the fight at Salamis, which was fought in the first year of the 75 Olympiad, (almost a full year after Xerxes his setting out from Susa,) there were only ten years ran out.
At Critalis in Cappadocia, all Xerxes his forces came into one body; and from thence he passed the river Halys, and came to Celaena, a city in Phrygia: where Pythius, a Lydian born, (whom yet Pliny [lib. 33. cap. 10.] makes to be a Bithynian) the son of Atyis entertained him, and his whole army, in a most magnificent and sumptuous manner: from hence passing by Anava, a city of Phrygia, and a Lough, out of which salt is made, he came to Colossae, a city likewise of Phrygia, where the river Lycus running under ground, loseth itself, and from thence again, to a town called Cyndra, seated in the confines of Phrygia, and Lydia, and then passing the river Maeander, and passing by the city called Callatebus, he at length arrived at Sardes, from whence he dispatched away his messengers into Greece, to demand of them earth and water, ( i.e. ) to require them to give themselves up into his power, [ Herodotus, lib. 7. from the 26. chapter, to the 32.]
The Navy in this mean while, was at Eleus, in Chersonesus, from whence a part of the army went to dig thorough the neck of the mount Athos, which was twelve furlongs over; and were forced to this work, with Bastinadoes. The inhabitants also of the places adjoining, were drawn into the work, and Bubares the son of Megabysus, and Artachaeus the son of Artaeus, both Persians, were appointed, to overlook the workmen, by whose industry at last that neck of land was cut through, and the sea let in, so broad, that two great ships with their oars out, might therein meet, and pass without falling fowl each of other, [ Id. ib. cap. 22, 23, 24.] And another part of the army was occupied in making a bridge of ships over the Hellespont, where the sea from Abydus to the shore, on the other side, is seven furlongs over: and when the bridge was all made, came a mighty tempest, and brake it all down again: at which Xerxes growing mad for anger, caused 300 stripes to be given to the Hellespont, and a pair of shakles to be thrown into the sea, to bind and fetter it withal: as for those, who were employed in making of the bridge; he caused their heads to be smitten off: and then set others on work, to make the bridge stronger, [ Id, ib. from chap. 33. to 36.]
In the beginning of the spring, [Year of the World 3524. b.] Xerxes with his whole army, moved from Sardes, where he had quartered all that winter, marching toward Abydus; and as he was setting forth, the sun withdrew his light; there being no clouds to cover it, but a most clear air, and the day was turned into night, at which stupendous prodigy, Pythius the Lydian being amazed, (for that it was no natural Eclipse, the Astronomical tables easily declare) besought the King, that of his five sons, who were then in his army, he would leave his eldest out, to be a comfort to him in his old age: Whereat growing into a rage, he caused that eldest son of his to be cut in two, and his whole army to march between the parts of his body, [ Id. ib. ca. 37. 38, 39.]
Hermotimus, who was an Halicarnassaean borne, and could do most of all the other Eunuchs with Xerxes, coming into the country of Atarne, in the province of Mysia, sent for Panionius, of the Isle of Chios (who was by his trade, a dealer in buying and selling of slaves, and by whom himself had formerly been gelt, and made an Eunuch) with his wife and children to come unto him: and making the father to cut out his children's stones, and then them to do as much to their father; he thought himself in some sort revenged for the wrong which had been done him in his eviration, [ Ib. lib. 8. chap 105. 106.]
Xerxes his army going from Lydia to the River Caiicus, and the country of Mysia, from thence came into the country, where old Ilium, or Troy, stood; and as he lay that night at the foot of the Hill Ida, there fell a terrible tempest of lightening and thunder, which destroyed many of his army: after which they came to the River Scamander, which they quite drank up; nor was it able to satisfy the men and cattle of the army with water for their thirst; when Xerxes was there, he went up to see and view the old habitation of King Priame; and there he sacrificed to Minerva of Troy, 1000. Oxen: and the Magi that attended him offered cakes to the Worthies, sometimes; of that place. This done, a panic or sudden fright fell and seized upon his army by night: and he removing from thence in the morning so soon as it was light, came to Abydus, [ id. lib. 7. cap. 42, 43.]
Here a toy took Xerxes in the head, to see all his army together; wherefore sitting in a Hall, which he had caused for that purpose to be there prepared, very sumptuous, and all of fair white stone; he there looking toward the sea, beheld all his Navy, and to the land-ward, all his land Forces at once, which whiles he beheld; he would needs also see a sea-fight: and when that fight was done, wherein the Phoenicians gat the prize, the King took great pleasure, both in the fight itself, and also in the number of his men. And when he beheld all the sea of Hellespout covered with his ships, and all the shoares and plains about Abydus with his soldiers; and withal considering the shortness of man's life, and that none of all those men should be alive at one hundred years end, he wept, [ Id. ib. cap. 44. 45. and Valer. Max. lib. 9. cap. 13.]
Xerxes, sending away his Uncle Artabanus to be Vice-roy at Susa, and there look to his house and kingdom; prepared himself now, to pass over into Europe: so soon therefore as the sun was up, himself holding a golden vial in his hand over the sea, made his prayer to the sun, that nothing might hinder him in the conquest of Europe, till he had gone to the utmost bounds thereof: And having thus said, he flung both the vial, and a golden gobler, and a Persian cimitre, into the sea. These things thus done, he sent his horse and foot to pass over the bridge on the right hand, which was toward Pontus; but over that on the left hand, which was toward the Egean-sea, he made all the bag and baggage, servants, and carriages to pass: spending seven whole days, and as many nights in the transportation. When all was over, the Navy fell down out of the Hellespont westward, to a place called Sarpedons Foreland. His land army passing thorough Chersonesus to Agora, turned aside to a place called the Black Bay: where a river of the same name, or Black water, was not able to make all his army drink. Having passed this River, the army held on their march westward, till they came to Doriscus, which is the name both of a sea-coast or shore, and also of a spacious field in the country, of Thracia, which the great River Hebrus runneth thorough: and there they camped, [ Ib. from the end of chap. 52. to the beginning of 59.]
The Navy coming to this place, and being hailed a shore, Xerxes would needs again take a muster, first of his land Forces, and then of his sea. Of his Foot, Herodotus reckons 170 myriads, or 1700000. men, [ chap. 60.] and of his Horse, besides Camels, and Chariots, 8 myriads, or 800000. Horse, [ chap, 87.] Among the Commanders of his Foot, he mentions two sons of his, begotten of his Queen Aristona, (whom I conceive to have been Esther) and of them he makes, the one called Arsames, Commander of the Ethiopians, to the southward of Egypt, [ chap. 69.] and the other, named Gobryas, Leader of the Maryandeni, and Ligyes, and Syrians, [ chap. 72.] Diodorus Siculus reckoneth of his foot Forces 80 myriads, or eight hundred thousand men; not coming to Herodotus his number of them by one half: and yet the number which Diodorus attributes to the Foot, that doth •• esias allow only to the whole Army of all sorts. viz. 80 myriads, besides the Chariots. Isocrates in his Paenathenaica, saith, that in his army of Foot, there were 70 myriads, ( i.e. ) seven hundred thousand soldiers; which self same number, Elian, [lib. 13. c • . 3.] of his Various History alloweth, and no more, to the whole Army. Pliny counts them 788000. men, [ lib. 33. cap. 10.] where yet for Xerxes, Darius his army is named. Justin, out of Trogus, and Orosius, following him, [ lib. 1. ca. 10.] says, that Xerxes had of his own subjects, seven hundred thousand, and three hundred thousand Auxiliares from his friends. Emilius Probus, in the life of Themistocles, saith, that his Foot were seven hundred thousand men, and his Horse four hundred thousand.
His Ship • for fight, were 1207. of which the Phoenicians furnished him, with 300. reckoning with them the Syrians dwelling in Palaestina: as Herodotus saith, [ lib. 7. ca. 89.] adding that by the name of Palaestina, he meaneth all the sea coast of Syria, as far as the borders of Egypt, [ lib. 3. ca. 91.] which also in another place he affirmeth to have been anciently called Syria Palaestina, [ lib. 3. ca. 91.] and that the inhabitants thereof are all circumcised, [ lib. 2. ca. 104.] for among other nations subject to the Persian Empire, the Jews also were one. And that he had of his country-men in this army against the Grecians, Josephus would fain prove out of those Verses of the Poet, [ Choerilus, lib. 1. cont. Apion. ]
But besides these men of War, Herodotus tells us, that he had 1207. Ships of burden, some of 30, some of 50 oars a piece, besides lesser vessels, and ships to carry horses in, to the number of 3000. [ lib. 7. ca. 97.] Diodorus. Sic. saith, there were above 1207. ships of of War: for carriage of horses, 850. and 3000. ships of burden of 30 oars a piece: and the Poet Eschylus, in Persis brings in messenger reporting the number of those ships in this manner.
Now whether he means that the total sum of them was a thousand; and so the 207. swift ones a part of them; or whether both sums put together, make up the number of 1207. which agreeth best with the particular catalogue of the ships, which every nation contributed to this voyage, mentioned by Herodotus, and with the totals of them by him cast up, doth not very clearly appear out of the Verses themselves. Cresias seems to favor the former opinion, and so doth Tully in the first of his Orations against Verres. Iscocrates in his Panegyric, and Panathenaic Orations, agreeth with the later; and Lysius in his Epitaph, sets them down in a round sum, 1200. ships: adding, that there were over and above them, 3000. ships of burden: For to say with Justin, that there were ten hundred thousand ships of them, no doubt, cannot be right.
That in those 1207. ships which came out of Asia, there were 241400. men stowed, Herodotus collecteth, by placing 200. men in every bottom: besides 30 passengers in everyone of them, of Persians, Medes and Sacaeans, which make in all 36210. men. But to those other 3000. ships of burden, he allows 240000. men, by placing in each of them, 80 persons, one with another; those which had more bearing out those that had fewer in them. So that the whole Navy consisted of, 517610. men; to which if you add the number of the land souilders, 1700000. Foot, and 800000, Horse, and the Arabians which had charge of the Camels, and the Lybians who intended the Waggons, amounting to about 20000. then will the whole number of them which followed Xerxes out of Asia into Greece, in all kinds, rise to the number of 2317610 thousand men, besides horse-boys and other servants, hangers-on, and besides those which were employed in furnishing the camp with corn and other victuals, [ Herod. lib. 7. ca. 184.]
Xerxes marching now from Doriscus into Greece, as he came to any country, took all that were fit, and made them serve him in the War, [ Id. ib. ca. 118.] whereby his Navy grew greater by 120. ships; into every of which, putting as before 200. heads, his Sea-Forces were increased 24000. men: and Herodotus thinketh that his Army by land, was likewise increased 30 myriads, that is, 300 thousand men: though, Diod. Sic. be of opinion, that they came to somewhat less than 200 thousand: and so the total of Xerxes his Army in Europaean and Asiatic soldiers amounteth to 2641610 men. Now the number of horse-boys, and foot-boys, and of hangers-on, and the tarpailians in the corn-ships, and others, he thinks to be greater rather than less, than that of the soldiers came unto. So that if that former sum should be but doubled, the number of those which Xerxes carried by sea to Sepias, and by land to Thermopylae, would come to 5283220 men; for as for the women which baked, and whores, and eunuchs, no man can tell the true number of them: no more can he of the horses and other beasts, of drought or burden, and Indian dogs with their keepers that followed the Gentlemen in the camp for their pleasure, so that it is no wonder, if so many rivers failed some bellies of so many as were there of all kinds to fill, [ Id. ib. c. 185, 186, 187.] as Juneval saith, Statyr. 10.
And yet in all this great number, was there not a man found comparable to Xerxes himself, for the beauty and goodliness of his person; or one that might seem more worthy of that great Empire than himself, if we believe Herodotus, [lib. 7. cap. 187.] that, as Saul among the children of Israel, [1 Sam. 10. 23, 24.] so here, Xerxes might well seem to have had, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , (i.e.) a feature fit for, and worthy of a crown. And yet if you speak of him as for a king, saith Justin out of Trogus, you will find cause to commend his wealth, ( fore-spoken of by Daniel 11. 2.) rather than his wits, of which, saith he, there was such infinite abundance in his kingdom, that when whole rivers failed the multitude of his army, yet his wealth could never be exhausted: as for himself, he was ever seen last in the fight, and first in the flight, fearful when any danger was, but puffed up with pride, when there was none.
Leonidus king of Sparta, with an army of 4000 Grecians, opposed himself against him and his whole army, consisting of three hundred thousand men, at the straits of Thermopylae in Thessaly, so called from the hot springs of water, which there do rise, as appears by the Epitaph which was made upon them, recorded by Herod. [ lib. 7. cap. 228.]
Thirty Myriads make three hundred thousand; which are as many as Theodoret, [ l. 10.] 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 giveth to that whole army, [ Diodorus. Sic. lib. 11.] in this very Epitaph, p. 26. in the Greek and Latin edition, for, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , ( i.e. ) for the 30 Myriads hath 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , ( i.e. ) 20 Myriads, which make 20 hundred thousand; whereas yet, (p. 5.) he saith, that the whole army consisted of little less, than 100 Myriads, which is, of 1000000. ( i.e. ) of one hundred hundred thousand men, and speaking particularly of this fight at Thermopylae, (p. 9.) he says, that 500 men there set upon 100 Myriads, ( i.e. ) one hundred hundred thousand men. And yet Justin relating the same story out of Trogus, [ lib. 2. c. 11.] saith, that 600 men, brake into the camp of five hundred, or as in Orosius, of six hundred thousand men. And Isocrates in his Archidamus saith, that one thousand of them, went against seven hundred thousand of the Persians: But those whom Isocrates calls a thousand, Justin and Orosius, six hundred, and Diodoru, five hundred; are to be understood of those, who when the rest of the Grecians were sent away, stood it out to the last brunt, in which they all, together with their king Leonidas died; of which number, 300 were Spartans, the rest, thespians and Thebans, [ Herod. lib. 7. cap. 222, 224.] for whom amends was fully made by 20000 of the enemies then slain upon the place, [ Id. li. 8. c. 24.]
While these things thus passed at Thermopylae by land, sundry encounters and fights at sea happened also about Artemisium, a sore-land of Eubaea, [ Id. ib. cap. 15.] Eurybiades, a Lacedomonian, was chief Commander or Ammiral of the fleet, which consisted of 271 ship, besides 9 others, of 50 oars a piece, of which 127 were set out by the Athenians, and Plataeans, as Herod. saith, [ ib. cap. 1.] whereas yet, Isocrates, in his Areopagitical oration, saith, that the Athenians furnished only sixty of them: but Emelius Probus delivers, that the whole Grecian fleet consisted of 300 sails, and that 200 of them were of the Athenians, in this Themistocles, Herodotus, Diodorus, and Probus, all say, that this was a drawn battle on either side, though Isocrates in his Panegyrical oration, and Elian, [ lib. 2. cap. 25. Varia Histor.] talk as of a great blow, which the Persians received in it; yet the day when this battle was fought, is said by Elian, to have been upon the sixth of Thargelion, which was the second month, of the spring time, with the Athenians, agreeth not well with the relation of Herodotus, who [ lib. 8. cap. 12.] saith, that this was done in the midst of Summer, to wit, near after the end of the spring, at what time the Olympic games, in the midst of all these troubles, were kept in Greece, [ ib. c. 26.] to wit, in the 75 Olympiad; wherein, besides others, Dionysius, Halicarnassaeus, in his Roman Antiquities, [ l. 9.] saith it was, that Xerxes made war upon the Grecians.
Four months after his passing the Hellelpont with his army, Xerxes coming to Athens, found it abandoned by all the inhabitants thereof; what time Callias was Praetor, or Lord Chancelor there, [ Herod. lib. 8. c. 51.] In which year also, Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, a scholar of Anaximenes the Milesian, being but 20 years of age, was made public reader of Philosophy in Athens, as Laertius, out of Demetrius Phalereus in his Catalogue of the 50 Praetors, or Lord Chancellors of Athens, in his life reporteth, Philosophy being then first brought out of Ionia, and planted in the city of Athens, as Clemens Alexan. [ lib. 1. strom. ] saith, to wit, at what time, Xerxes, when he had taken Athens, took also a multitude of books, which Pisistratus, and the Athenians had there stored up, and setting all the rest of the city, (save the Castle) on fire, sent them away into Persia, as A. Gellius [lib. 17. Noct. Attica.] ralateth. In which exception yet of the Castle, I cannot easily assent unto him; since Herodotus saith plainly, that all that Acropolis or Citadel was burnt down, [ lib. 8. cap. 53.] and so doth Ctesias; and Diodorus Sic. further affirmeth, that the Temple of Minerva, which was undoubtedly in the Castle, was then also ruined.
The further Xerxes marched into Greece, the more nations still joined with him; the Melienses, the Dorienses, the Locri, the Baeothians, Caristians, Andrians, Teniaus, and sundry other: whereby it came to pass, that his forces, by land and sea, were no less, at Salamis and Athens, than when he first landed at Sepias, and came to Thermopylae, [ Herod. lib. 8. cap. 66.] which those verses of Eschilus before mentioned, seem also to imply, where he tells us, that at the fight at Salamis, there were 1000. or 1207 ships of his, and that Cresias says, that in that fight, the Persians had a thousand ships not to speak of Plutarch in his discourse, De glor. Athen. (i.e.) of the glory of the Athenians, where he saith, that that victory of Themistocles at Salamis, was gotten with the loss of a thousand ships of the enemies. At which sea fight before Salamis, the Grecians fleet was far greater than when they fought at Artemisium, to wit, 380 talls ships of war; whereof there were in all but 16. from Sparta; but the Athenians had there 180. [ Id. ib. cap. 42; 43, 44, 48, 62.] And with him, for the number of the Athenian ships, agreeth Plutarch, in the Life of Themistocles. not to trouble the reader here, with that place of Herod, [ lib. 8. cap. 61.] nor of Diod. Sic. [ lib. 15.] where, speaking of the Athenians, they say, that they had in it, 200 ships, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , ( i.e. ) fully manned and furnished, Eschylus says, that the whole number of the Grecian ships in the fight before Salamis, was but 300. besides ten other of an extraordinary bigness: though Cresias writes, that there were 700 of the Grecian fleet. There were lost in this fight of the Grecian ships, to the number of 40; of the Persian, 200; besides those which were taken with the men in them, as Diodorus. Sic. [lib. 11.] hath it, whereas Cresias reports, that the Persians in that fight, lost 500 ships. But Artemisia, the Queen of Halicarnassus, who came to aid Xerxes in this war, behaved herself most manfully in this fight; so that as in Xerxes, a man might see a womanly timourousnesse, so in her he might perceive, a most heroic courage, [ Justin. lib. 2. cap. 12.] insomuch, that Xerxes himself upon this occasion was heard to say, That his men had plaid the women, and the women the men, in that service. [Her. l. 8. c. 88.]
And so it came to pass, that by the leading indeed of Eurybiades, the Lacedaemonian, but the sage and prudent counsel, and great prowess of Themistocles the Athenian; a victory was gotten at Salamis every way equal to that at Marathan: but in setting down the time when this battle was fought, Plutarch is found very divers and differing from himself. For in the life of Lysander, and in his discourse, of the glory of the Athenians, he placeth it as done in the 16 day of the month Munichou, (which is the first of the vernal months, with the Athenians; but in the Life of Camylus; as on the the 20 day of Boedromian, which was their third month in Summer. It is true, in the Bay of Saron, which is otherwise called, the Bay of Salamis, as [ Strabo in his eighth book ] witnesseth, between the two Islands of Salamis an Egina, there was a nights fight at sea, between 10 Lacedaemonian ships, commanded by Gorgopas, and 13 Athenian ships, commanded by Eunomus, near unto Zoster, a fore-land of the Isthmus of Attica, in the days of Artarxerxes memor, king of Persia, of which Xenophon, in his fifth book of his History of the Greeks, maketh mention in this wise. In a sea fight made by moon-light, Gorgopas took 4 tall ships of war, and drawing them after him, carried them away to Egina: and the rest of the Athenian fleet fled home to their port of Piraeum, but because as upon the 16 day of that Lunary month among the Athenians, upon which Gorgopas set upon that small fleet of the Athenians, it happened to be the full of the moon, by the benefit whereof, the Athenian fleet saved itself, with the loss only of 4 ships, therefore did the Athenians as it seemeth consecrate that day ever after, to Diana, and kept it holy-day to her honor; whereupon it was, that Plutarch confounding this later sea fight, fought at Salamis, with that other, fought in the same place against Xerxes, in that discourse of his, of the glory of the Athenians, thorough error wrote of it in this manner: They consecrated, saith he, the 16 day of the month Munichion to Diana, because upon that day, after the victory gotten by the Grecians, the Goddess appeared full that night: for that the victory of the Greeks against Xerxes was gotten about the 20 day of Boedromion, both Plutarch in a Treatise of his, Of days, quoted by himself in the life of Camillus declareth; and it plainly appeareth in Herodotus: for that at that time, the Eleusinian Mysteries were celebrated by the Athenians, Herodotus plainly showeth, [ lib. 8. ca. 65.] the chief day of which solemnity, was upon the twentieth of the month Boedromion, on which the mysterious Pomp of Iacchus was openly shown to the people, as appeareth out of the same Pl • tarch, in the life of Camillus above mentioned: whence also it was, that when The mistocles would stay his country-men from pursuing the enemies, after their defeat at Salamis, when they fled, used this speech unto them: Now, saith he, let us stay •• Greece, and take care of ourselves and families, and look to the till age and sowing of our land, seeing the enemy is quite ejected out of it; and when the Spring comes on, then will we take a time to sails into Hellespont and Ionia. Argument sufficient, that the Persians were vanquished at Salamis, not in the beginning of the spring, but in the later end of summer.
After the fight Xerxes put to death certain of the Phoenicians, which were the first that fled, and threatened the rest of them with punishments answerable to their deservings; for fear whereof, the Phoenicians returned that day to Africa; but the night after, they put over all into Asia, [ Diod. Sic. l. 11. in the 1 year of the 75 Olympiad. ] Many other ships also, fearing more the rage of the King, than the fury of the enemy, slunk away, everyone to his own home, [ Justin lib. 2. c. 12.]
Xerxes, terrified with this disaster at sea, committed his sons to Ar • emesia the Queen, by her to be transported to Ephesus, with Hermotimus their Governor, [ Herod. lib. 8. ca. 103. 107.]
Cleombrotus of Sparta, brother to Leonidas, which died at Thermopylae, to stop the passage against Xerxes his coming by land into Peloponesus, caused a wall to be drawn athwart the neck of land which is called, Isthmus Corinthiacus, [Id. ib. ca. 71.] but whiles he was offering of a sacrifice against the Persians, the sun in the firmament lost his light, and grew dark: whereupon he withdrew his army which was employed in that fortification, and shortly after died: unto whom succeeded his son Pausanias, as cousin-germain and Tutor of Plistarchus, a child, the son of Leonidas deceased, [ Id. lib. 9. ca. 10.] But the Prutenian account gives us an Eclipse of the Sun of 8 digits and 32 minutes, upon the 2 day of October, after the Julian Calender, at one of the clock 39 minutes in the after-noon, in this year.
Themistocles, to send Xerxes packing the more speedily out of Greece, sent a seigned message to him from Salamis, that the Grecians had a purpose to send a Fleet of Ships to Hellespont, there to burn or break his bridge; which he no sooner heard, but he provided with all speed to get him gone out of Europ: into Asia, [ Herod. lib. 8. ca. 110. Diod. Sic. lib. 11. in 1 year of 75. Olympiad: and Plut. in the life of Themistocles. ]
Resolving therefore to be gone, he sent away his Fleet from Phalerus to Hellespont, to keep the bridge there, for his passage: and himself with Mardomus, and his land army accompanying him, marched speedily towards Thessalie, [ Herod. lib. 8. cap. 107. 113, 115.]
Mardonius coming with Xerxes into Thessalie, chose out of all his army, three hundred thousand men, which he kept with him to go on with the conquest of Greece; and with them, because the time of the year for keeping the field was past, he wintered in Thessalia, [ Ib. ca. 113. 114.] and herein with him agrees Justin out of Trogus, [ lib. 2. ca. 13.] and Plutarch in the life of Aristides, though Diod. Sic. saith, that there stayed with him no less than four hundred thousand men.
In this mean while, the Lacedaemonians by the command of the Oracle at Delphi, sent a Herald to Xerxes, to require reparation of him for the death of their King Leonidas: unto whom he returned this answer; that Mardonius should pay them their due. After which, leaving Mardonius in Thessalie, he hasted away to the Hellespont; taking along with him a very inconsiderable part of his army for his guard: but left the rest to be brought after him, by Hydarnes, [ Herod. lib. 8. cap. 114. 115, 118.]
As for those land Forces which he left behind him with Mardonius: first a famine, then a pestilence, fell upon them; and so foul was the mortality among them, that the high-ways lay strawed with the dead carcases of them, and both birds and beasts of prey, followed the army by the sent, where ever they went, [ Ib. ca. 115. Justin lib. 2. cap. 13.]
In Asia, they that were called Archaeanactidae, held the kingdom of Bosphorus Cimmerius 40 years long, [ Diod. Sic. lib. 12.] in 3 year of 85 Olympiad. These had their beginning from Archaeanactes of Mitylene; who is said to have built Sigaeum, with the stones digged out of the ruins of Troy, [ Strabo. lib. 13.]
Xerxes at 45 days end, [Year of the World 3525. a.] came to the passage at Hellespont, as saith Herod. [lib. 8. ca. 115.] Emil. Probus bates a third part of that time in the life of Themistocles: where he saith, that upon the way wherein he spent six months, in going into Europe, upon the same he spent less than thirty days, in his return from thence into Asia.
Xerxes finding his bridge broken down with the rage of Winter-storms; for very fear, put over in a poor fisher-boat: And truly it was a thing worth the fight, and a rare example of human frailty and change of things in this world, to see him lie skulking in a little wherry, whom a little before, the whole Sea seemed too little to contain; and him distitute of a page to wait upon him under whose army, the very earth earstwhiles, seemed to groan for the burden of it, [ Justin lib. 2. cap. 13.]
The land Forces also, which followed him under the conduct of Hydarves, coming thither, and finding the bridge broken down, passed over in boats to Abydus: and there finding more plenty of victuals than they had upon their way, what with gorging themselves with meat, what with change of water, they died by heaps; the rest accompanied Xerxes to Sardes, [ Herod. lib. 8. c. 117.]
Xerxes, whiles he was upon the way to Sardes, sent Megabyzus to spoil the Temple of Delphi, but when he desired to be excused, Mattacus an Eunuch undertook it, and having done the errand he was sent in, returned to him; [ Ctesias. ]
News being brought to Sufa, by the Courriers which were sent, that Xerxes had taken Athens, put the Persians into such a fit of mirth, that they strewed all the streets with mirtle boughs, and burnt frankincense in them: and set themselves wholly to sacrificing; and feasting: But when the second tidings came of his overthrow at Salamis; that put them into such a consternation of mind, that every man rent his garments, and filled all places with howlings and lamentations, [ Herod. l. 8. c. 99.] which mourning of theirs, Eschylus hath described, and set out to the life, in Persis.
The fleet which remained, and the sea-men which were therein left, having wasted over the land forces, out of Chersonesus to Abydus, wintered at Cuma in Eolia, [ Herod. lib. 8. c. 130.]
Artabazus the son of Pharnabazus, having accompanied Xerxes with 60 thousand soldiers to Hellespont, seeing him safely landed in Asia side; took his journey back again and staid about Pallene: seeing that Mardonius himself had taken up his winter quarter in Macedonia and Thessalia, and looked not after the rest of the army: and during his abode there, finding that the City of Potidea, with Pallene, had already revolted from the Persian, and Olynthus in terms to do the like, he clapt down before Potidea and Olynthus, and besieged them both at once, and having taken Olynthus, and put all the Bottiean inhabitants thereof to the sword, he committed the place to the keeping of Critobulus of Torona, a Chalcedonian born, [ Id. lib. 8. c. 126, 127.]
When the Persians had now lain 3 months before Potidea, a huge tide of the sea, brake in upon them, in their trenches, which made them raise their siege; yet many of them perished with that inundation; and when others sought to save themselves by swimming, the Potideans went in boats, and knocked them in the head; those that escaped, Artabazus took, and carried with him into Thessalie to Mardonius, [ Ib. c. 129.]
In the first of the spring, [Year of the World b.] the remainder of the Persian fleet, which had wintered at Cuma, put over to the Isle of Samos, where some other of their fellows had taken up their winter quarter. The greatest part in this Navy, were Persian and Median soldiers: and to them came shortly after certain Commanders, as, Mardoutes Fitz Bargeus, and Artanites Fitz Artacheus, who staying there, kept all Ionia from revolting, having a fleet of 300 sail, (reckoning in the Ionians that were with them) at their command, [ Ib. c. 130.] But Diodorus saith, that they were no less than 400 sail, which lay then at Samos, waiting the motion of the Ionians: in this 2 year of the 75 Olympiad.
The Grecian fleet consisting of one hundred and ten ships, under two Commanders, Leotychides king of the Spartans, and Xanthippus an Athenian, went to Egina, where certain messengers came to them out of Ionia; to beseech them, all delay set apart, to come and relieve them in Ionia; and with much ado, drew them as far as to Delos, thitherward, [ Herod. lib. 8. c. 131. 132.] and yet Diodorus tells us, that having staid some certain days at Egina, they then, of themselves, failed to Delos, with 250 tall ships of war.
Xerxes is said to have built both a Palace, [Year of the World c.] and a Castle at Celene in Phrygia, Xen. in his Expedition of Cyrus, [ lib. 1.]
Mardonius with his army came to Athens, not yet reinhabited, ten months after it was first taken by Xerxes: and there ruined and burnt down, what ever Xerxes had left standing, and thence marched into the country of Megare, which was the fathest place that the Persians were at westward, in all Greece, [ Herodotus, lib. 9. cap. 3. 13. 14.]
Whiles the Grecian fleet lay at Delos, [Year of the World d.] messengers came to them from Samos, praying them to succor both themselves, and the rest of the Greek nation, which dwelt in Asia, against the Persians. Leotychides the king of Sparta, at a Council of war resolved to set all the Greek Cities at liberty from the Persians: and they entering a league with the Samians, came with their whole fleet to Samos, and lay close under the Temple of Juno, providing there for a sea fight, against the Persians, [ Id. ib. cap. 89. 91. 95. with Diod. Sic. lib. 11.]
The Commanders of the Persian navy, continuing still at Samos, and hearing that the Grecians were coming against them, and finding themselves not able to match them at sea; suffered the Phoenician ships all to be gone; but with the rest sailed to Micale, which is a fore-land, or promontory in Ionia: where the land army lay, left there on purpose by Xerxes, to keep Ionia in order; consisting of 60000 men, under the command of Tigranes, who was the tallest and goodliest man to look to, of all the Persians: There, near to the Temple of Ceres, of Eleusis, they drew up their ships, and enclosed them with a rampart, which they fortified with stones and stakes, and such materials as the place afforded, [ Herodotus, lib. 9. cap. 95. 96.] and withal, sent to Sardes, and other places adjoining: for more land forces: so that they made up a body of an hundred thousand men: making provision also, of all other things necessary for the war, [ Diodorus, lib. 11.]
In an encounter of the horse, near a place called Erythrae in Beotia, between the Grecians and Persians, a commander of the Persians called Masistius, but by the Greeks, Macisias, happened to be slain; for whom, great lamentation was made by the Persians, [ Herodotus, lib. 9. cap. 20. 22. 24. and Plutarch, in the Life of Aristide.]
The Grecians, under the conduct of Pausanias the son of Cleombrotus, routed the Persian army at Platea: which, as Ctesias saith, consisted of one hundred and twenty thousand fighting men. Emil. Probus, in his Pausanias, saith there were of them, two hundred thousand foot, and twenty thousand horse; and Plutarch in the life of Aristides affirms, that there were no fewer, than three hundred thousand: to which three hundred thousand, Herodotus addeth also, all the Grecian auxiliaries, which Mardonius had then with him in pay, which he guesseth to have amounted to fifty thousand, [ lib. 9. cap. 311.] and Diodorus Siculus, to the 75 Olympiad, saith, that Mardonius, besides those which Xerxes left him, had out of Thracia and Macedonia, and other confederate places, above two hundred thousand soldiers, and that he had in all, an army consisting of five hundred thousand men: In the Grecian army, Ctesias reckons not above seven thousand and three hundred men: whereas Herodotus and Plutarch affirm, that of the Athenian party alone, there were no less than eight thousand men: and that the whole Grecian army consisted either of one hundred thousand fighting men: as Diodorus Siculus, Trogus, Pomp • us, and Orosius, or of one hundred and ten thousand, as Herodotus, [lib. 9. cap. 29.] says: of whom there fell in this battle, not above one thousand three hundred and sixty, as Plutarch in the Life of Aristides reports; though Diod, Sic. saith, there were slain of them in that fight, above 10000.
Mardonius the son in law, (not of Xerxes, as Emil. Probus, in the life of Pausanias hath it, but) of Darius, who was father to Xerxes, as I shown before, in the year of the world 3510. General of all this army, was slain in this fight, by a stone flung at him, by Aimnestus, or Arimnestus, a man of Sparta, [ Herodotus, lib. 1. cap. 63.] Plutarch in the Life of Aristides, and Pausanias, [lib. 1.] for we may not belive Ctesias, who says, that he was only hurt, and so got away for that time, and that being commanded afterward, to spoil the Temple of Apollo, he was there killed, with a storm of hail that fell upon him: though Justin out of Trogus, and out of Justin Orosius reports, that Mardonius, accompanied with a very small number, escaped away thence, as out of a shipwreck.
The Persian army, having lost their General, fled to a fortress of theirs, made up of wood, and the Grecians, having forced it, slew therein above one hundred thousand of them, [ Diodorus Siculus, ] so that of three hundred thousand of them, there were not left full three thousand men; besides 40000 only, which fled away with Artabazus, [ Her. l. 9. c. 69.]
Leotychides, who commanded at sea, coming to Mycale, dealt with the Ionians to fall off from the Persians, whom they served: and what with his own army, what with their help, he obtained there a most memorable victory; wherein he slew above 30 thousand Persians; besides Mardontes, who commanded them by sea, and Tigranes, who was General by land: but two other great Commanders of their fleet, Artayntes, and Ithramitres fled; the rest that escaped, betook themselves to the tops of the promontory of Mycale, [ Id. ib. from c. 97. to 104. with Diod. Sic. l. 11.]
Both these fights fell out near to two Temples of Ceres of Elensis, and upon the same day of the same month: that at Platea in Europe, early in the morning; that other at Mycale in Asia, later in the afternoon; and so swilt winged was fame in spreading the news hereof, that at so far a distance, and in so few hours space, the report of the victory at Platea, came to them at Mycale; the same day, before they began to fight there, [ Id. ib. cap. 99. 130. with Justin lib. 2. c. 14.] though Diod. Sic. thinks (and that more probably) that Leotychides heard nothing at all of what was done at Platea, but cunningly cast abroad such a rumor among his soldiers, to put the more courage thereby into their hears, by way of a stratagem. Now the day of these two battles [ Elian. Var. Hist. lib. 2. ca. 25.] saith, was the sixth of the month Thargeleon, the 2 month in the Spring, with the Athenians; which Plutarch with more judgment saith, was in the month Boedromion, which was the 3 month in Summer; and that either upon the 3 day thereof; as [ in the life of Camillus, and in his discourse of the glory of the Athenians, ] or upon the fourth, as in [ the life of Aristides: ] and so this fight at Micale, was in the second year after Xerxes his first passage over into Greece, [ Herod. lib. 7. ca. 80.]
Hereupon all Ionia revolted from the Persian, [ Herod. lib. 9. ca. 103.] together with the Eolians and Islands bordering upon both, [ Diod. Sic. lib. 11.]
The Greeks having set fire upon, and consumed the Persian ships and camps; returned to the Isle of Samos, and there entered into a consultation how to transplant all the Ionian nation (yea and the Eolian too, as Diod. hath it) out of Asia, (where they seemed to be too openly exposed to the danger of the Persian cruelty) into Greece: But the Athenians fearing least the Ionians, which were now a Colony of their own, would by this means become common to the rest of Greece; opposed it, and told them, that themselves, as tied to them in blood, would never be wanting to their defense; and therefore desired that they might continue still where they were in Asia, [ Herod. ib. ca. 105. Diod. ib. in 2 years of 75 Olympiad. ]
They of the continent of Greece, entered into a firm association and league with them of Samos, Chios, Lesbos, and other Islanders, who had joined in this War against the Persian; and having plighted their faith each to other with a solemn oath, to continue firm in this association, and never to break the bond now made between them: sailed in a body towards Hellespont, and in their way thitherward, came to an anchor first at a Foreland called Lectium; being there taken short by a contrary wind: but the wind coming fair again, they passed on, and came to Abydus; and when they found the bridges there already broken down, which was the principal cause of their going thither, Leotychides with his men of Peloponesus returned home; but the Athenians with their Captain Xanthippus, and (as Thucydides saith,) with their associates out of Ionia and Hellespont, which had revolted from the Persians, passed over from Abydus into Chersonesus, and there besieged Sestos: now Artayctes, a Persian born, and a wicked man, was Governor of that province, appointed by Xerxes: and because that Town was fenced with a very strong Wall, therefore as well others of the neighbouring places; as O • basus himself, a Persian born, who had laid up all the Flags and Stremers, and other furniture of the bridges at Cardya, left that place, and put himself into Sestos also, [ Herod. ib. ca. 105. 113, 114, 115.]
Artabazus the son of Pharnaces, who with 40000 men fled out of the battle at Plataea, hastened away thorough the countries of Phocis, Thessalie, and Macedonia, into Thracia; and cutting the nearest way over-land, came unto Byzantium: having left many of his men behind him in his march; which were either knocked in head by the Thracians, or died with hunger, and travel on the way: and from Byzantium he got shipping, and passed over into Asia, [ Id. ib. ca. 65. 69, 76, 88.]
But those few which had saved themselves in the top of the rocks, in the Foreland or Promontory of Micale, repaired to Sardes, from whence Xerxes was not yet gone. In that journey, when Masystes, one of the sons of Darius Hystaspes, had charged Artayntes, one of the chief Commanders of the Fleet at Mycale, among other reproachful words, that he had carried himself basely in that service, and more like a woman than a man; and was therefore assaulted by Artayntes with his naked sword: Xenagoras of Halicarnassus stepped in, bare off the blow, and saved Masystes from that present danger: and Xerxes, for so saving his brothers life, made him Governor of all Silicia, [ ib. cap. 106.]
But whiles Xerxes spent his time at Sardes, he there sell desperately in love with his brother Masystes wife; whom when he had often solicited to adultery, and could not prevail that way, he thereupon married Artaynta, hers and his brother Masystes his daughter, to his own son: Darius hoping to get his will of her the more easily by this occasion. Which done, and the wedding ended, he returned toward Susa, [ Ib. cap. 107.] leaving part of his army at Sardes, to continue the War against the Grecians, [ Diod. Sic. an. 2, of 75. Olympiad.
Xerxes in his flight burnt the Oracle of Apollo Didymeus in Branchis, [Year of the World 3526] as he did all the other Temples in Asia, save that at Ephesus; those of Branchis having, without resistance, delivered up the treasury of their god, went altogether along with him, fearing least, if they stayed behind, they should have been punished for sacrilege and treason both. [ Strabo. lib. 14. with Solinus cap. 40.] Herodotus saith that Xerxes, going from Sardes, went to Susa: Diodorus, that he went to Ecbatane. Ctesias writeth, that he went from Babylon to Persia: Arrianus in his book of Alexanders Acts, affirmeth that coming to Babylon, he there demolished the Temple of Belus, and all other consecrated places; and with them, the Sepulcher of Belus; as Strabo, [lib. 16.] saith, who also there tells us, that he took away the statue of Belus, made all of massy gold, of twelve cubits high; and when the Priests opposed it, and would not suffer it to be removed, he slew him also, as we read in Herod. [lib. 1. cap. 183.]
While the Athenians lay at the siege of Sestos, and, the Autumn coming on, could not take it, they fell into a consultation to leave it; but the people within, were so near driven with famine, that they were fain to boil their very bedcords and eat them; so that Artayctes and Oebasus, with many of the Persians, gat down the walls by night, and fled; which the inhabitants perceiving early the next morning, signified the same to the Athenians, and opened their gates unto them, [ Herodotus, lib. 9. cap. 116, 117.]
When there was now a great number of prisoners taken, what at Sestos, what at Byzantium by the Athenians, and their confederates in the army; the confederates, of their own accord, offered to refer the division and sharing of that prey, to Cimon, a young Gentleman of the Athenians, to be made as he should think good; and they would stand to it, who falling presently to work, set all the persons on the one hand, and all the clothes and ornaments which they ware, on the other, and then bad them take their choice; saying, that the Athenians would content themselves, with that part which they left: their Associates, by the persuasion, of Herophytus of Samos, chose the clothes and ornaments, as of far greater value, than the bare bodies of the prisoners, and left the bodies, as not made for labor, to the Athenians. But soon after, the friends and kinsmen of the prisoners, coming out of Phrygia and Lydia; redeemed those prisoners at a great rate, wherewith Cimon maintained the fleet four whole months after, and brought moreover a very considerable stock of silver and gold into the treasury at Athens. This act first gave a reputation of wit and wisdom unto Cimon among the Athenians; and they having gotten so much money by the bargain, laughed at their fellows, by whom they had formerly been laughed at, [ Plutarch, in the life of Cimon, and Polyaenus, lib. 1. Stratag. ]
When Oebasus had gotten away into Thracia, the Thracians, called Absynthii, took him, and sacrified him to their god Plestorus; and put his followers, some to one kind of death, some to another. Artayntes and his followers, they seized on at Egos potamus, and carried him prisoner to Sestos: and by the sea side, where Xerxes had made his bridge, or as others say, upon a hill near the city Madytus, set up gibets, and there hung them up, stoning his own son first to death before his eyes. These things thus done, the Athenians returned into Greece, carrying with them besides moneys, the flags and streamers, ornaments of the bridges, which had been made over the Hellespont, purposing to hang them up as trophies in their Temples. And this was all that was done this year, [ Herod. lib. 9. cap. 118, 119, 120.] Xanthippus leaving a garrison in Sestos, dismissed all strangers, and he with his own companies returned to Athens; and so the war of the Medes, as they call it, came to an end, after it had lasted full two years, [ Diod. Sic. lib. 11.] in the 75. Olympiad.
Bagapates the Eunuch, [The Julian Period. 4236] when he had continued sitting by the tomb of Darius 7 years, [Year before Christ 478] died. [ Ctes. ]
Megabysus accused his wife Amyris, Xerxes his daughter, of adultery; who blamed his daughter for it, very sharply, [ Ctesias ] whiles he himself lay wallowing all the while in adultery and incest both; for turning his lewd affection • now from his Brother Masystes his wife, to their daughter Artaynta, whom he had now made his own daughter in law; he lay with her continually at Susa. [ Herod. lib. 9. cap. 107, 108.]
Pausanias the son of Cleombrotus, [Year of the World 3527] who was sent Gene • ral of the Grecians from Lacedemonia, [The Julian Period. 4237] to free such Greek cities, [Year before Christ 477] as were yet held by the garrisons of the Persians, with 20 ships out of Peloponesus, and 30 more from Athens, (Diodorus. saith 50.) commanded by Aristides made a voyage into Cyprus, and there restored many cities, which were hitherto held by Persian garrisons to their native liberty, [ Thucid. lib. 1. Diodorus. Sic. in the 4 year of the 75 Olympiad. ]
Xerxes celebrating his coronation day, gave to his Queen Amestris, who asked it of him for a boon, Masystes his brothers wife; whose paps, nostrils, ears, lips, and tongue she presently caused to be cut off, and so sent her home again; whereupon Masystes, conspiring with his own children, purposed to get him privily away with them into the province of Bactria, whereof himself was then Governor, and to raise both them and the Sacae to a rebellion against the king, but was intercepted by the way, by Xerxes his Soldiers; and both he and his children, and all that were in his company put to the sword, [ Herod. lib. 9. from chap. 108. to 112.] And that government of Bactria, Xerxes bestowed upon his own son Hystaspes, [ Diod. Sic. in the 4 year of the 78 Olympiad. ]
Pausanias, [Year of the World 3528] after his return out of Cyprus, [The Julian Period. 4238] went and took Byzantium: [Year before Christ 476] and then, without the privity of his associates in the war, sent the Persians whom he had there taken (some of them being Xerxes his near friends and kinsmen; giving it out that they were fled) home to Xerxes, safe and sound, and all this business he negotiated, by one Gongylus an Eretrian born, whom also he employed with letters unto Xerxes, wherein he desired his daughter in marriage: and in lieu thereof he undertook and promised, to bring Sparta, and all Greece, into his subjection. Glad was Xerxes at this news, and presently wrote back unto him by Artabazus the son of Pharnaces, whom for this purpose he dispatched away to the sea side; that at a shorter distance he might the more easily communicate his counsels with Pausanias: and therefore gave him the Government of the province of Dascylis, calling home Magabates, who was Governor there before. And when Pausanias upon these hopes grew more insolent than before, and began to live after the Persian garb, and carried himself more ruggedly and imperiously towards those who were in league with that State, the greater part of them, and especially the Ionians, and others who had been lately freed from their slavery under the Persians, fell all to the Athenians, and desired rather to serve under them, [ Thucid. lib. 1.]
Pausanias being hereof accused by the friends and associates of the Spartans, [Year of the World 3529] was presently sent for, [The Julian Period. 4239] to return home from Byzantium; [Year before Christ 475] where being found guilty and condemned for some private misdemeanors; yet was wholly acquitted from all suspicion of treason against the State: Nevertheless he was put from the Government of Hellespont; yet thither he went again without leave asking, in a ship of his own providing; to the end that under color of prosecuting the war on the behalf of the Grecians in those parts, he might the better negotiate and drive on his own designs with Xerxes: and therefore when the Athenians would not suffer him to nestle in Byzantium, he returned not to Sparta, but stayed at Colonae in Troas: whereupon he was again accused at Sparta, that he held intelligence with the Persians, and that it was for no good, that he stayed hovering so long in those parts. Wherefore, being sent for again by the Ephori, so soon as he came, they threw him into prison: but upon a hearing he was again acquitted, [ Id. ib. ]
But when the Principality of Greece, [Year of the World 3530] in hatred to Pausanias was taken from the Lacedaemonians, [The Julian Period. 4240] and settled upon the Athenians: [Year before Christ 474] they under a color of revenging the wrong done to the several countries by the common enemy, made a tax of what monies, and what ships, the particular cities should contribute against the Persians: whereunto the cities both of Greece, and of the Grecians in Asia, readily agreed for the common safeties sake. The first tax made, amounted to 460. (not as Diodorus hath it, 560.) talents: to be laid up in the Isle of Delos, as in the common treasury of all Greece, [ Thucid, lib. 1 Diod. lib. 11. Justin lib. 16. cap. 3. Plutarch and Emil. Probus, in the life of Aristides. ]
Pausanias, being discovered by Argilius, his love-boy, to whom he committed his last letters sent to Aartabazus, was by the Ephori starved to death, [ Thucid. lib. 1. Diod. lib. 11. Emil. Prob. in the Life of Pausanias. ]
Artabazus, [Year of the World 3531] an Hyrcanian borne, Captain of the Guard, and one who was above all others of greatest credit and authority with King Xerxes, as his father Artasyras was before with Darius; conspiring with Mithridates an Eunuch, Chamberlain to the King, (Cresias calls him Spamitres or Aspamitres) who was his intimate friend and nearkinsman, being let into the bed-chamber with his seven sons, all robustious young men, by night, slew Xerxes as he lay in his bed: and in the deep of the night, went speedily to Artaxerxes, told him that Darius, (who was the eldest of the three sons of Xerxes) had killed his father, that he might the sooner come to the Crown, (which Elian. lib. 13. cap. 3. delivers, as if it had been so indeed: ) but by this false tale, he persuaded Artaxerxes, to set the Kings Guard upon his brother Darius: and they slew him, [ Ctesias, Diod. Justin lib. 3. cap. 1.]
Thus by Artabanus his means, Artaxerxes came to the Crown. Ctesias, who was a man of a mild disposition, and full of magnanimity withal: surnamed Longimanus, because his right hand, was longer than his left. [ Plutarch in the beginning of the life of Artaxerxes. ] But the 7 first months of his reign, are by Euseb. in his Chron. attributed to Artabanus: because that for so long, he ruled all things, as it should seem, in Artaxerxes his name; for though Diodorus intimates, that Artabanus himself was presently done to death, after his murders committed upon Xerxes and Darius; yet that there was some time passed between, appears by the more full narrations of the matter, both by Cresias, and also by Justin.
Themistocles of Athens, being suspected of the conspiracy with Pausanias for the betraying of Greece into the hands of the Persians, was searched for, and had be been taken, had out of all doubt died for it: and therefore he fled out of Greece, and came to Pydna (a Town lying in the Thermaic bay of Macedonia) & there finding a Merchant's ship going into Ionia, put himself aboard her. But by tempest, she was carried into the midst of the Athenian army, which lay at the siege of Naxos. But the Master of the Barque being well fee'd by Themistocles, lay a whole night and a day at an anchor without the Athenian Fleet; and so when the tempest was over, came safe to Ephesus, [ Thucid. lib. 1. Emil. Prob. in the life of themistocles. Polyaen. lib. 1. stratag. ] Plutarch reports that he came to Cuma, and there found that many Sea Captains laid wait to take him, especially Ergoteles and Theodorus, for that Xerxes had promised 200. talents to whosoever should bring in his head: and therefore, he conveyed himself privily from thence, and came to a little town called Egas in Eolia: and there lay close for a few days, in the house of one Nicogenes, a very wealthy man in those parts, and one who was very well acquainted, and familiar, with divers of the kings nearest attendants: Diodorus calls him Lysitheis, and says further, that he was a man of so very great wealth, that when Xerxes passed that way, he feasted both him and all his army, in a very bountiful manner. By this good Host's means, was put into a close waggon, such as the kings, and other great men's harlots used, among the Persians, to be carried in: and that he came safe into Persia, both Plutarch and Thucydides agree; though Thucydides only saith, that he went also the way from the sea side into Persia, in the company of a certain Persian: now Herodotus tells us, that from Ephesus to Sardes, it is 3 days journey, and from thence to Susa 3 months, [ lib. 5. c. 50, 53, 54.]
Artabanus purposing now to destroy Artaxerxes, as he had formerly done his father and brother; disclosed his intention unto Megabyzus, whom he knew to be malcontent, for the jealousy he had conceived of his wives disloialty, Amytis, sister unto Artaxerxes himself: and they sware secrecy each to other: but Megabysus, presently went and disclosed the matter to the king; who thereupon put Artabanus to death, and then also came to light, his practices concerning the death both of Xerxes, and also of Darius. And then Aspamitres, or Spamitres the eunuch, who was of counsel with him in both, was put to a most bitter death, by certain racks, and other engines in a boat (described more at large by Plutarch, in the life of Artaxerxes) [ Ctesias. ] For Megabysus, Justin puts Becabasus, as consort with Artabanus in this plot; and sets out the manner of Artabanus his death in this wise. Artaxerxes, saith he, fearing the number of Artabanus his children, commanded all the army to be ready in the field the next day, for that he would take a view of them, both how many they were, and also how every man could stand to his arms, wherefore, when Artabanus was there present in armor, Artaxerxes said, that his own corselet was a little with the shortest for him, and that he would change with Artabanus: and when Artabanus at his command, had put off his corselet, Artaxerxes ran his naked body thorough with his sword, out of which measure of his corselet, we may well learn, by the way, that Artaxerxes, was not at this time so very a boy or child, as Justin makes him, but that he was at man's estate; and so old, as that the Scripture tells us, that in the seventh year of his kingdom, he was grown a father, [ Ezra 7. 23.]
After Artabanus his death, there was a battle fought between his friends, and the other Persians, wherein three of his sons were slain; and Megabysus, on the other side, sorely wounded, whereat both Artaxerxes himself and his sisters, Amytis, Megabysus his wife, and Rhodogyne, and his mother Amestris, much grieved; and hardly at length was Megabyzus recovered by the great skill and industry of one Apollonis, a Physician, or Surgeon, of the Isle of Coos: But hereupon all Bactria revolted from Artaxerxes, and another Artabanus was there made Governor, between whom and them, a field was sought, where they parted upon even terms, so saith Ctesias: where yet those words, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , are ambiguously spoken; for either it may be meant, as I have here expressed it, according to the construction thereof made by Hen. Stephanus; that there was another Artabanus made Governor of Bactria, in stead of the former, or that there was at this time another Artabanus, formerly Governor of that province, differing from him that was lately put to death; if we take the later sense, then this revolt of the Bactrians must be referred to a later time; but if the first, then to the present. For that at this present, Hystaspes, Xerxes his son, was Governor of Bactria, we learn out of Diodorus. Sic. and that he was the middle brother between Darius, and Artaxerxes, we find in Ctesias: and every man may think, that it stood with a great deal of reason, that Hystaspes seeing his younger brother Artaxerxes preferred before him in the kingdom, would stir up, not only the Bactrians, whose governor he then was, but also all his other friends, for the recovery of his right.
Eusebius in his Chron. noteth, that in the fourth year of this 76 Olympiad, (upon which we now are) it was, that Themistocles fled to the Persians, which sureth well enough with that which is delivered by Thucydides; who placeth the coming of Themistocles to Artaxerxes, between the siege of Naxos, and that famous victory gotten over the Persians, at the mouth of the river Eurymedon by Cimon the Athenian; and withal, maketh the beginning of the reign of Artaxerxes, to fall in with the same time, for he saith, That Themistocles sent letters to Artaxerxes, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , ( i.e.) when he was come newly to the crown, wherein he both craved his favor, and offered him his service against the Greeks: from whence we may fully discern the true beginning of Artaxerxes his reign, which was almost full nine years sooner, than it is commonly said to have been.
Plutarch out of Phanias reports, that Themistocles was brought to Artaxerxes his presence, by Artabanus, a Colonel; and out of Eratosthenes that he obtained this favor at that Colonels hand, by the means of his Lie-by; which was a wench of Eretria: but doth not explain, what Artabanus this was: whether he, who affecting the kingdom, was slain by Artaxerxes; or that Arabanus to whom Xerxes, seven years before, when he went into Greece, committed the Government of his kingdom. For if he mean the first, then Themistocles his coming to Artaxerxes, must needs be within the first seven months after his coming to the crown; according to Euseb. his account: but if any other, than his coming to the king, might also have fallen upon any other month of the same first year, which will very well also suit with that place of Thucydides above mentioned; where he said, that he was brought to Artaxerxes, when he was newly come to the crown. Now that it was the office of the Colonel, or Chiliarch, being the second officer in the kingdom, to bring such as were to be admitted to the presence of the king, appeareth plainly by Emilius Probus, in the Life of Conon; and by Elian, [ lib. 1.] Varius Histor. [cap. 21.]
When Themistocles, was thus graciously received, and welcomed by the king, a new danger grew upon him by the means of Mandane a daughter of Darius Hystaspes: for she having lost all her children in the sea-sight before Salamis, and not being able to prevail with the king, tried and solicited all her friends and great men about the Court, and at last stirred up the common people itself, to be revenged of this Themistocles, for the hurt he had done them in that battle. And when they all in a hurry came flocking into the Court, Artaxerxes told them fairly, that he would refer the whole matter to the judgment of his Lord's: and so, by appointing a long time, for the preparing and hearing, and determining of this great cause, he found the means to deliver Themistocles, out of the people's hands, for the present, [ Diod. Sic. lib. 11.]
In the second battle, [Year of the World 3532] between the Persians and the Bactrians, [The Julian Period. 4242] by reason of a strong tempestuous wind, [Year before Christ 472] sitting in their faces, Artaxerxes got the victory of them, and reduced them wholly to his subjection, [ Ctesias. ]
Themistocles, when he had spent a whole year in learning, as well as possibly he could the Persian tongue, and withal, was grown perfect in the laws and customs of the country, and then coming to his trial, did not only quit himself from all objections made against him, but grew moreover into such favor with the King, as no Grecian was ever in before: for he not only used to carry him abroad with him a hunting, but also to call him to his private delights and recreations at home, insomuch, that he was admitted to the presence of Amestris the kings mother, and conversed familiarly with her. He bestowed on him also, a Persian wife, of noble parentage, excellent for beauty, and goodness of disposition; besides servants to attend upon him, cupboards of pla • e of all sorts, and all oath things, not only for his necessary use, but even for delight and pleasure, [ Thucydides, lib. 1. Diodorus Siculus, lib. 11. Plutarch in the Life of Themistocles. ]
When Demaratus the Lacedaemonian, who returned out of Greece with Xerxes, was fallen into the kings high displeasure, for that he came riding into Sardes in his Chariot, wearing his turbant upright, upon his head, in a kingly fashion; upon the mediation, and entreaty of Themistocles, he assuaged his anger, and grew friends with him again: [ Plut. in Them. with Sen. lib. 6. de Benefic. 31.]
Themistocles being made Governor of the province of Magnesia, returned into Asia; [ Thucid. lib. 1.]
In his return, he escaped a great danger, intended toward him, by the lying in wait of Epyxius, a Persian, Governor of the Vpper Phrigia, and the Pisidians, and he escaped it by the forewarning of Dindymena, the mother of the gods, in a dream which he had, as he lay sleeping at noon: in memory whereof, he built her a Temple at Magnesia: and made his own daughter Muesiptolema to be consecrated Priestesse to her, Plutarch in Themistocles: or, as some will have it, his wife; as in Strabo, [lib. 14.]
But that Themistocles might appear in Asia, with the greater luster, the king gave him, besides the government of the province of Magnesia, the very city of Magnesia, upon Meander, which paid the king yearly, fifty talents, to find him bread for his Table; and Lampsacus in Hellespont, to buy him wine to his meat; and Myus, at the mouth of Meander, for his second course. Neanthes Cyzicenus, and Phanias and Atheneus, [ lib. 1. c. 27.] add two Cities more, in the country of Troas, to wit, Percotes and Palescepsis, to furnish him with clothes, and carpets, [ Thucid. 1. Diod. lib. 11. Plut. and Emil. Prob. in the Life of Themistocles.
Cimon the son of Miltiades, [Year of the World 3532] who was General in the field at Marathon, [The Julian Period 3243] being now himself made General by the Athenians against the Persians, [Year before Christ 471] set out of the Pyreum at Athens, with 200. fighting ships: which afterward, what out of Ionia, what out of other parts, he increased to the number of 300. and with this Fleet he set sails for the coast of Caria: where all the sea towns, which had been at any time heretofore planted by Grecians, presently revolted to him from the Persians. The rest which were possessed by the natives of the country, & held by the Persian garrisons, he set upon, and took them all by pure force of war. Having thus dispatched the errand he came on, in Caria, he passed into Lycia: and in like manner took in all there too; and when as upon their submission to the Athenian government, he demanded shipping of them, his Navy was forthwith exceedingly much increased, [ Diod. lib. 11.]
The Persians listed what men they could out of other the Kings Dominions, for land service; but for shipping, they sent to the Phoenicians, Cyprians, and Cilicians. The chief Commander of all the Persian Fleet, when it came together, was Tithraustes, a bastard son of Xerxes, [ Id. ib. ] Ephorus saith, that he was Admiral of the Fleet, and Pherendates Commander by land: But Callisthenes saith, that Ariomandes the son of Gobryas, commanded the army, [ Plut. in Cimone. ]
After the Athenians had subdued Naxos, [Year of the World 3534] as Thucydides, [The Julian Period. 4244] in his first book teacheth us. [Year before Christ 470] They and their confederates under the conduct of their General Cimon, in one and the same day, put to flight the Persians, both in a sea-fight, not far from the Isle of Cyprus, and also in a fight at land, at the mouth of the river Eurymedon in Pamphylia, the 3 year of the 77 Olympiad: as [ Diod. Sic. lib. 11.] reporteth; who was of opinion, (and so was Justin, lib. 2. in fine, ) that Xerxes was yet living: contrary to what Thucydides affirmeth, who yet of all other, lived nearest to that time. And therefore Eusebius is in the righter, who placeth this great victory in the 4 year of Artaxerxes; with this further note upon it: Cimon obtained this victory by sea and land against the Persians, near the River Eurymedon; and so the war with the Medes ended. For from the beginning of Artaxerxes reign (as we have put it according to Thucydides his account) his fourth year fell in with the third year of the 77 Olympiad, here mentioned by Diodorus, though Eusebius missorting the first year of his reign, with the first year of the 79 Olympiad, must of necessity in consequence thereof, have placed his 4 year, with the 4 year of the same Olympiad. But the best way will be, to set down this whole matter in order as we find it in Diodorus. and Plutarch, thus.
When Cimon had heard, that the Kings Captains had taken up their Station with a great army by land, and a fleet by sea, in the coast of Pamphylia; he to keep the sea, that they might not come within the Chelidonian Islands, went with 200. sails from Cnidus and Triopium, and came to the city of the Phaselites, who were Grecians: and because they would not receive his Navy into their Port, nor fall off from the Persian, he fired their country, and assaulted their city. Nevertheless, at the intercession of those of Chios, who were in the Fleet, a peace was made, upon condition that they should pay down ten talents ready money, follow Cimon, and partake in the war against the Persians, [ Plut. in the life of Cimon. ]
Then Cimon, understanding that the Persian Fleet hovered about the coast of Cyprus; set presently sail towards them, with 250. ships against 340. of theirs: Diod. Though Ephorus saith that the Persians were 350. and Phanodemus 600. strong: yet these did nothing worthy of so great a Navy; but they that were next the land, abandoned their ships, and fled to land, to the army that there was ready ranged in battle array: the rest were set upon by Cimon, taken, and put to the sword, [ Plutarch. ] Thucydides saith, that they took all the Phoenician ships, to the number of 200. and sunk them everyone, [ Emil. Probus in the life of Cimon ] saith that, he overcame and took all the Fleet of the Cyprians and Phoenicians, to the number of 200. sails. Diodorus, that the Athenians having sunk many of their ships, took 100. with the men in them prisoners, and that the rest when the soldiers were fled out of them into Cyprus, came all empty into their hands: which yet to have been taken full of soldiers appears by those Verses, which the Athenians made and offered to their god; found both in Diodorus, and also in Aristides his 2 Platonic Oration.
Plutarch also in his little discourse of the Athenian glory, saith that Cimon brought from Eurymedon about 100. ships of war of the Phoenicians. But Diodorus affirms, that he took not only more than 100. but also full 340. ships, that is, the whole Persian Navy, and 20000. men in them.
Nor was Cimon satisfied with this victory at sea; but presently put over with his Fleet, and set upon the land army of the Persians in Asia which he saw ranged upon the shore, near the mouth of the river Eurymedon; which the better to effect, he put all his own soldiers, into the enemies bottoms, which he had taken, and clad them all in Persian attire; whereupon they conceiving them to have been their own ships, hailed them as friends. Cimon therefore, so soon as the night came on, (and it was very dark without moon-shine,) landed his men, who breaking suddenly into the enemies Camp, slew all they met with, and killed one of the two chief Commanders, Pherendates, the kings brothers son, as he lay in his pavilion; and after a while made them (all amazed as they were with this sudden onslat,) to betake them to their heels, [ Diodorus. ] And of this Stratagem, Polyaenus, [ lib. 1.] maketh mention, saving that by a mistake, he saith, that Cimon so landed his men in Cyprus, and not in Pamphilia; and so doth Julius Frontinus, in the end of his 4 book: where Conon is found written instead of Cimon.
Cimon moreover took 80 of the Phoenicians ships, riding near Hydrus, and were not in the fight, nor had heard any incling of it, [ Plutarch. ]
This year Cimon setting sails from Athens, [Year of the World 3535] with four tall men of war, [The Julian Period. 4245] took 13 ships of the Persians, [Year before Christ 469] in the Chersonese of Thracia, and driving out thence, both Persians and Thracians, possessed the place for the Athenians; and so wrought the matter, that in all Asia from Ionia to Pamphylia, there was not anybody of a Persian army to be seen, [ Plut. in the Life of Cimon. ] And thence it came to pass, that Pericles, who this year began to have the principality at Athens, with 50 ships, and Ephialtes with 30 more, sailing beyond the Chelidonian Islands, in the sea of Pamphylia, saw never a sail of any Persian fleet all the way, as Plutarch out of Calisthenes reporteth: and Isocrates, in his Panathenaic, says, that neither a Persian man of war, durst appear nearer Greece, than the port Phaselis, nor any company of them by land, over the river Halys: yet Diod. writes, that the Persians seeing the increase of the Athenian power fell to building of ships faster than ever.
Ezra the Priest, [Year of the World 3537] a Scribe (or a Lawyer) skilled in the Law of Moses, [The Julian Period. 4247] obtained a large patent, [Year before Christ 467] and was therewith sent by Artaxerxes the king and his seven counselors to settle the Jewish Common-wealth, and to reform the Church at Jerusalem; by which patent, it was again made lawful, for all Jews that would, not only to go themselves, but also to send or carry with them what gold or silver, either the king and his nobles, or the Jews themselves would offer to their God: there were also thereby given all sorts of furniture for the Lord's house, and order given to the Tresurers beyond the river, to supply them with all other necessaries, out of the kings exchequer; and that all that attended any way upon the service of the Temple, should be free from tribute; and all the people was suffered, to live according to their own laws, [ Ezra 7. 11, 26.]
In the seventh year of Artaxerxes, the first day of the first month, Ezra, with a great multitude of the Jews, set out from Babylon, [ Ezra 7. 6, 7, 9. chap. 8. 1, 14.]
Ezra and his company spent 3 days at their Tents at Ahava; till the Levites, which were wanting, came unto them: when all were come together, Ezra commanded a solemn fast to be kept, and prayer to be made unto God, to prosper them in their journey, and consigned all the gold and silver, which was consecrated to God, into the hands of 12 choice men of the Priests, and to as many of the Levites, [ Ezra 8. 13, 30.]
Upon the 12 day of the the first month, [Year of the World b.] they removed from the river Ahava, and upon the 10 day of the 5 month, in the seventh year of Artaxerxes his reign, they arrived at Jerusalem: and there rested themselves three days, [ Ezra 7. 8, 9. chap. 8. 30, 32.]
Upon the 4 day of the 5 month, the gold and silver which they had brought, was weighed out, and with the other furniture was laid up, in the house of the Lord: and they which returned offered also their sacrifices unto God: which done, the kings edicts were presented to the Governors and rulers beyond the river; who, thereupon, shown all favor to the people, and house of the Lord, [ Ezra 8. 33, 36.]
Ezra, understanding that the Israelites had entered into affinity with the heathen; mourns, fasts, and openly made intercession to God, to avert his wrathful indignation from them, [ Ezra 9.] And when many of the people also made great lamention for the same, Shecanias advised Ezra to move the people, that they would bind themselves by a vow to God, to put away their heathenish wives, and the children which they had by them: which was done accordingly, [ chap, 10. 1.]
Warning was given to all such, as were returned out of the captivity, that they should appear at Jerusalem within three days, upon a great penalty to those, which should then be found absent. Wherefore all the men of Judah and Benjamin, coming together in the court of the Temple, the 20 day of the 9 month, and there quaking, what with the horror of the thing they came about, what with the bitterness of the weather; Ezra commanded them every male to separate himself from his heathenish wife, who readily consenting thereunto; and desiring further, that Judges might be appointed to see that order put in execution: there were forthwith appointed two out of the order of the Priests, and two adjuncts more out of the Levites to assist them, in taking the cognizance of cases of this nature, [ chap. 10. 7. 15.]
This examination held from the first day of the 10 month, [Year of the World b.] to the first of the first month, [The Julian Period. 4248] and so in two months space, [Year before Christ 466] was all this business of the strange wives dispatched, [ c. 10. 16, 17.]
Themistocles died of a natural death at Magnesia, [Year of the World d.] or as others will have it, of poison voluntarily taken, when he saw, that he could not perform what he had undertaken to the King, for the subduing of Greece, [Thuc. lib. 1.] Cicero saith in his Laelius, that he killed himself, 20 years after the death of Coriolan; which according to Dionysius Halicarnassaeus his reckoning, falls in just with the 3 year of the 78 Olymp. upon which year there is this note put by Eusebius in his Chron. Themistocles, saith he, whom his own worth had made the conqueror, his countries injuriousness made the General, of the Persians: Nevertheless, that he might keep himself from going in hostile manner against it; he appointed to offer a sacrifice, at which, taking a bowle full of the bulls blood, he drank it off, and so fell down, as a noble sacrifice of piety, dead before the Altar; which so memorable a departure of his out of this life wrought this effect, that Greece should never need another Themistocles after him. Against which manner of his death, yet Tully in his Brutus, makes Pompo Atticus to argue in this wise: For as you now, saith he, tell us a tale of Coriolan, so Clitarchus and Stratocles do the like of • hemistocles; for of whom Thucydides, who was an Athenian himself, and nobly born, and an excellent man, and who lived not long after him, saith only that he died, and that he was privily buried in some place in Attica, and that there was some suspicion, that he made away himself by poison; of him these men write, that when he had sacrificed a bull, he took of the blood of him in a basin, and quaffing it off, fell down dead in the place: Though indeed before the writing of this History by Thucydides, the Athenians themselves had heard it from Aristophanes, in Equitibus; which Comedy he wrote and taught in Athens, the 7 year of the Peloponesian war, when Stratocles was Pretor, or L. Chancelor of Athens, that he died with drinking of bulls blood. [Year of the World 3540]
Jubily, [The Julian Period. 4249] 20. [Year before Christ 465]
Inaros the son of Psammeticus king of Libya (not a Lydian as Ctesias hath it) going from Marea, [Year of the World 3544] a City bordering upon Pharus, [The Julian Period. 4254] turned away the greater part of Egypt, [Year before Christ 460] from the obedience of Artaxerxes; and being made and proclaimed king by them, sent for the Athenians, from Cyprus, who by chance were there at that time, employed in a war, with two hundred fail of ships, partly of their own, partly of their allies and friends, [ Thucid. lib. 1.]
Artaxerxes hearing of the Egyptians revolt, presently gathered an army out of all his dominions, and rigg'd up a Navy, sparing for no pains nor cost therein, Diodorus Siculus, 2 year, 79 Olympiad. forerunning here in Thucydides his more exact accompt, by two full years.
Artaxerxes purposed to go himself in the head of this army into Egypt: but upon his friends dissuasion, he gave that off, and sent his Brother Achemenes in that voyage with 400 thousand foot, and 80 sail of ships, [ Ctesias. ] and Diodorus agreeth with him for the sending of Achemenes General in this Egyptian war: but saith that he was Darius his son, and Artaxerxes his own great Uncle; and he gave him 300 thousand horse and foot, wherewith to go upon that service; meaning hereby Achemenes the son of Darius Hystaspes, and Atossa, unto whom Xerxes had formerly committed the kingdom of Egypt, which himself had subdued, to be governed, [ Herodotus, lib. 7. cap. 7. & 97.]
Achamenes, [Year of the World 3545] all. Achamenides, coming into Egypt, sat down with his army upon the bank of the river Nile; and having refreshed his army a while, after their long march, prepared to give them battle: They on the other side, having gotten together what forces they could make out of Egypt and Liba, lay still, waiting for the coming of the Athenians, [ Diod. Sic. ]
The Athenians, coming from sea; and entering the mouth of the Nile, quickly made themselves masters of the river, [ Thucid. ] Inaros, together with Charam • tis, who was Ammiral of a fleet of 40 ships, sent from Athens, got a victory at sea; wherein of 50 Persian ships, they took 20. with all the men in them; and sunk the other thirty, [ Ctesias. ] But Diodorns Siculus tells us, that the whole Athenian fleet which lay before Cyprus, and consisted of 200 sails, came at this time into Egypt; not forty ships only, as Ctesias said.
Inaros, with his own Egyptians, and this supply of the Athenians, fought also a battle with the Persians by land: wherein for a while the Persians, by reason of their overpowering multitude, had the better; but when the Athenians came and made a strong impression on them, and made the wing which they encountered with, to retire, many of them died in the place; and the rest of the Persian army betook themselves to their heels: in which flight, there was a huge slaughter made of them, [ Diodorus. ] for of 400 thousand men, which Achemenides brought into the field, there fell that day, together with himself, 100 thousand: for he died of a wound which he received from Inaros his own hand, and his body was sent to Artaxerxes, [ Ctesias. ] Herodotus also makes mention [ lib. 3. c. 12. and lib. 7. c. 7.] of one Achamenes a son of Darius, and of other Persians, slain by Inaros a Lybian, son of Psammitichus, in a place called Papremes.
The Athenians following the chace upon the Persians, took two parts of Memphis, and assaulted the third part also, called the white Wall, whereinto the Persians and Medes were fled: [ Thucid. and Diod. ]
Artaxerxes, [Year of the World 3546] hearing of this great overthrow, [The Julian Period. 4256] dispatched away presently, [Year before Christ 458] Megabasus a Persian, to Sparta, with a mass of money, to stir up the Peloponesians to a war against the Athenians, thinking that this would draw home the Athenians out of Egypt, But the Lacedaemonians would none of his money, nor yield to any of his demands: which the King perceiving, he called Megabazu • home again with the monies which were left; and commanded Megabyzus the son of Zoppyrus to provide himself for a journey into Egypt. [ Id. ib. ] to wit, that Megabysus, who was formerly General in Xerxes his army; as [ Herod. lib. 7. cap. 82.] and married Xerxes his daughter, Amytis: as Ctesias, the son of that Zopyrus, who recovered Babylon to Darius the son of Hystaspes: as Herod. in the very end of his third book saith.
Artabazus and Megabyzus designed Commanders for the war in Egypt, [Year of the World 3547] carried with them out of their own country, [The Julian Period. 4257] horse and foot 300. thousand men, [Year before Christ 457] [ Diod. ] but Ctesias saith only 200. thousand.
When they were come into the part of Silicia and Phoenicia, the Commanders thought fit there to rest a while, and to refresh the army after so long a march: mean while they command the Cilicians, Cyprians, and Phoenicians to rig up and provide the Navy: and they in a trice provided 300. sail of tall ships, which were forthwith furnished with sea-men and soldiers, with store of ammunition, and all things fit and necessary for a sea-fight. Diod. Admiral of which Fleet was appointed Oriscus, [ Ctesias. ]
In making of which preparations, and in training and exercising their men in arms, and making them apt and serviceable for the war, they spent almost a whole year; mean while the Athenians press the siege of the Fort of White-wall in Memphis: But when the Persians within manfully defended it, and the Athenians saw no possibility of taking it by assault; yet they lay before it all this year, [ Diod. ]
The Persian Commanders in Asia having all things fitted, [Year of the World 3548] march from thence thorough Syria, [The Julian Period. 4258] and Phoenicia, [Year before Christ 456] with their land Army; their Navy of 300. sails coasting them still as they went: Until at last, they came to Memphis, [ Diod. ] where to those two hundred thousand which they brought with them, there joined three hundred thousand more of those which Achaemenides had left in Egypt. Between these and the Egyptians there was a stout battle fought, and many fell on either side; but most of the Egyptians. At length Megabyzus with his own hand wounded Inaros in the thigh: whereupon he fled, and put himself into a most strong hold, called Byblus, in the Isle of Prosopitis in the river of Nile; and with him the Grecians which were left, and not slain with Charamites their General; and all Egypt besides save only that Fort of Byblus, followed the part of Megabysus. [ Ctesias. ]
Megabysus having driven all, both Egyptians and Grecians out of the field, and out of Memphis, and shut them up all in the little Isle of Prosopitis; continued the siege of them there, one year and six months. [ Thucid lib. 1.]
In the 20 year of the reign of Artaxerxes, [Year of the World 3550. a.] in the 9 month called Cisleu, Nehemiah's being then at Susa, where the Kings of Persia used to keep their Winter-quarter: as Athenaeus [Deipnosoph. 12.] teacheth us, having received news how ill matters went with the Jews at Jerusalem, namely, that the wall thereof was broken down, and the gates consumed with fire; fell to mourning, and fasted and prayed to God, that he would remit the sins of his people, and give to himself grace and favor in the sight of the King, [ Nehem. 1. 1, 11.]
In the same 20 year of the King, [Year of the World c.] in the month Nisan, when the time came that Nehemiah in his turn was to attend upon the King; (for he was one of the Cup-bearers to him) and both King and Queen, (whom I suppose to be her whom Ctesias calls Damaspia) took notice of his sorrowful and dejected looks; he opened the cause thereof unto them, and obtained from the King a grant, not only to be Governor of all Judea; but also to rebuild Jerusalem, [ Neh. 11. 1, 6.] and from this time, begins the account of Daniel's 70 weeks, [ Dan. 9. 24, 25.]
Nehemiah furnished now with a Commission, and equipage from the King, in spite of Sanballat the Horonite of Moab, and of Tobia the Ammonite, the Governor of some place thereabouts; comes to Jerusalem, begins the work, and answereth them who laughed at him for undertaking so idle a business as that was, [ Nehem. 11. 7, 20.]
The Persian Commanders in Egypt, laid the channel of the river which compassed the Isle of Prosopitis dry, turning the water another way by ditches, which they cut; and so lest the Athenian ships aground: and now was Prosopitis no longer an Island, but joined to, and made a part of the Continent. As soon therefore as the Egyptians saw the Athenian ships, in what case they were, they took a fright, and presently, not careing what became of them, made their own peace with the Persians: and the Athenians for their parts, seeing themselves thus deserted by the Egyptians, and their ships made useless, set them all on fire, that the enemy might not gain them. The Persians therefore now passing the channel on dry foot, entered the Island, and by a fight at land took it nevertheless, seeing the excess of valor in the Athenians, and remembering what losses they had formerly received by them, were content to come to a fair agreement and composition with them, that they should all, (and there were six thousand of them) depart out of Egypt, with bag and baggage; and return home when they would, [ Thucid. Diod. Ctesias. ]
And thus the fortunes of the Athenians in Egypt, where they had spun out the war six years, came to nothing: and Egypt returned into Artaxerxes his power and obedience again, all save Amyrtaeus, who was king of those which dwelt in the fen countries of Egypt; for him they could not take in, both because of the vastness of the fen itself, and also for that the inhabitants thereof were a most warlike nation, [ Thucid. lib. 1.]
Eliashib, [Year of the World d.] the son of Joiakim, the son of Jehu (or Jehoshua) the High Priest, and the rest of the Jews, everyone in his place, fell in hand very stoutly with the building of the wall of Jerusalem, [ Nehem. 3.] beginning on the fourth day of the fifth month Ab. as is gathered out of chap. 6. 15. ib.
Sanballat and Tobias, with the Samaritans, and other enemies of the Jews, first fell a laughing and scoffing at this new work: but when they saw the wall half up, they left their mocking, and laid their heads together, and consulted how to destroy the builders, which when Nehemiah's understood, he first prayed to God, and then began to order his men, all in a military way; and so put by the purpose and practice of their enemies, [ chap. 4. ib. ]
Nehemiah's, upon the complaints and outcries of the people, taketh an order to have them all freed, the slaves of their bondage, the debtor of their debts; and those that had pawn'd or mortgaged their lands or goods, of their forfeitures; and himself to give an example in so good and charitable a work, released his own debts, and all engagements of lands or goods made unto him, and • ased the poorer sort of public taxes, and contribution, and gave liberally of his own unto them that wanted, [ chap. 4. ib. ]
But Nehemiah's was not only in danger from Sanballat, and other enemies abroad, but also from false prophets and false brethren at home, which sought to hinder the work no less than the other did. All which difficulties well overcome, the wall in fifty two days was finished, to wit, upon the 25 day of the sixth month called E • ul, do their enemies at home and abroad, what they could to the contrary, [ chap. 6. ib. ]
The dedication of the wall was performed with much celebrity, and great joy, [ Neh. 12. 27, 43.]
Then did Nehemiah take into consideration the several offices belonging to the house of the Lord, appoints Governors over the city, and orders the guards thereof; and calling their congregation together, takes a note, of all that had returned out of the captivity, that ont of them a number might be selected, to people and store the city now it was built, with inhabitants: all which, everyone according to his ability, made their several offerings unto God, [ Neh. c. 7.]
When 50 sails of Grecian ships were sent into Egypt, to serve in their room, who had been there so long already, it • ell out, that they knowing nothing of what had happened to their countrymen there, came to anchor at Mendesium, which is one of the mouths of Nile. There as they lay, the Persian sat upon them from the land, and the Phoenicians by sea, and destroyed the greatest part of them; few escaped to carry news into Greece. And even of that great army which was there before, few returned into Greece again, but were lost as they passed thorough the deserts of Libya, to get unto Cyrene. And this was the end, which that great voyage of the Athenians into Egypt came unto, [ Thucid. lib. 1.]
In the feast of Trompets, [Year of the World 3551] the first day of the seventh month, when all the Jews came together at Jerusalem, the Law of God was by Ezra red and expounded to them, at the hearing whereof, when they were all sorely grieved, and fell a weeping, they were heartened up by Nehemiah, Ezra, and the Levites, and by them persuaded to keep that feast, with merriment and joy of mind, [ Nehem. 8. 1, 2, 12.]
Upon the second day of the same month, Ezra, was consulted withal, by the Elders of the families, and by the Priests and levites, concerning certain doubts arising upon the reading of the Law, and it was enjoined them to keep the feast of Tabernacles, [ Nehem. 8. 13, 14, 15,] abroad in the fields, and in booths made of boughs, according to the Law, [ Lev. 23. 40.]
Upon the 15 day, and the six days following, the feast of Tabernacles was celebrated with great care and devotion, and for seven days together, the law of God was read in their ears, and the eight day also was kept very solemnly, according as was prescribed, [Levite. 23. 36.] Neither was there the like feast of Tabernacles kept from the days of Joshua the son of Nun, unto that time, and there was great joy made at it, [Ib. 17. 18.] Of which the Jews in their greater Chronicle, [ cap. 30.] speak in this manner; It may be said that he compareth the return of the children of Israel into the land, in the days of Ezra, with that of their first entering into it in the days of Joshua: and as in the days of Joshua they were bound to tithes, to the years of Shemitae, or Remission, and to Jubilies, and to the hallowing of their walled towns: so now in their return in the time of Ezra, they were in like manner obliged to the law of Tithes, of the years of Shemitae or releaseings, of Jubilies, and to the hallowing of their walled Cities; and they rejoiced greatly before the Lord.
Upon the 24 of this month, the Israelites which returned, separating themselves from all strangers, made public profession of their repentance, [ Nehem. 9.] and renewing their covenant with God, bound themselves to the observation of the Law of God and of his Worship, [ chap. 10.] and in special of that Law, [ Levite. 25. 4. Deut. 15. 1, 2.] concering the tillage of their land, and exaction of debts: and of letting their land rest every seventh year, [ Nehem. 10. 31.]
The chief Heads of the people seated themselves all at Jerusalem; the rest cast lots, according to which every tenth man, should inhabit and have his dwelling in the holy City. [ Nehem. 11. with 1 Chron. ca. 9.]
Megabyzus, [Year of the World c.] leaving Sartamah Governor of Egypt, returned to Artaxerxes with Inarus, and certain of the Grecians in his company; having given them his word, that they should have no hurt done unto them; which Artaxerxes himself carefully observed and performed toward them, though grievously incensed against Inaros for having slain his brother Achaemenides, Insomuch, that when his mother Amestris (instead of which, the name of Amytis is here crept into Cresias) desired vengeance to be taken of Inaros, and the Grecians, and even of Megabyzus himself; her son in law the King, denied her request, [ Ctesias. ]
The Athenians send Cimon their General with a Fleet of 200. sail of their own, [Year of the World 3554] and their confederates into Cyprus: [The Julian Period. 4264] of which sixty went away into Egypt to Amyrtaeus, [Year before Christ 450] who continued still in the fenny country of Egypt: the rest besieged Citium a City in Cyprus, [ Thucid. lib. 1.] At this time Artabazus and Megabyzus commanded the Persian Army; the first of which Artabazus lay with the Fleet consisting of 300. sail, about Cyprus: the other with his land Forces, which amounted to the number of 300. thousand men, remained in Silicia, [ Diod. Sic. lib. 12. in the 3 year of 82 Olympiad ]
Cimon sent certain messengers to the Temple of Ammon, to consult the Oracle there, about some secret matter, [ Plutarch in the life of Cimon. ]
In the siege of Citium in Cyprus, [Year of the World 3555] (as Thucydides saith) Cimon died; [The Julian Period. 4265] either of a natural disease, [Year before Christ 449] (as Emil. Probus hath it) or, as others, of a wound which he received in a fight against the enemy. Being ready to depart this life, he advised those that were about him to conceal his death, and to get them gone with all the speed they could. And it fell out, that neither friends nor foes knowing anything of his death, all the Greek army returned home safe, under the conduct, (as Phanedemus speaketh) of Cimon when he had been a whole month dead; But they who were sent to consult the Oracle, having received no other answer, but that Cimon was already with him: returned to their fellows in Egypt, and understood by them that Cimon died, at that very time, when that answer was made unto them, [ Plut. in the life of Cimon. ]
When the Grecian army returned out of Egypt, they which lay before Citium in Cyprus, being sorely pressed with famine, raised their siege from thence, and sailed to Salamis in the same Isle: where they fought with the Phoenicians, Cyprians, and Cilicians, both by sea and land. In the sea-fight, they sunk many ships of the enemies Navy, and took a hundred bottoms, with all the soldier; and Mariners in them: and the rest they pursued as far as unto Phoenicia itself: But the Persians with such of the ships as were left, fled into Silicia, where Megabyzus with the army lay. And the Athenians making thither ward with all possible speed, landed their men upon the open shore, and set upon the enemy. In which fight, Anaxicrates who commanded the Fleet, behaving himself in most manful wise, died a most noble and heroic death. The rest having gotten the victory, and made a great slaughter of their foes, returned to their ships; and came home all in company with those, which were upon their way returning out of Egypt, [ Diod. Sic. in the 3 and 4 year of the 82 Olympiad, ] as he stands corrected out of Thucydides. But Elian writeth, that the Athenians lost in Egypt 200. tall men of War, and in Cyprus, 150. with all their tackle, ammunition, and furniture, in them, [ Elian. Variar. Histor. lib. 5. cap. 10.]
Artaxerxes, hearing of the loss of his men in Cyprus, advised with his Council concerning this war; and in the end it was resolved, that it was for the good of that kingdom, that peace should be made with the Grecians. Therefore the King wrote his letters to the Captains and Commanders in Cyprus that they should at any hand, and upon any terms come to a treaty, and conclude a peace with the Grecians. Hereupon Artabazus and Megabyzus dispatched away messengers to Athens, there to treat of a peace; and when the Athenians had consented to the conditions by them proposed, they also sent commissioners on their part with full power and authority, the chief of which was Callias, the son of Hipponicus, [ Diod, in the 4. year of the 82. Olympiad. ] At which time also the men of Argos, sent their messengers to Susa, to know of Artaxerxes, whether he thought the league and friendship which they had heretofore made with his father Xerxes, did continue still; or whether they were held by him as enemies. To whom Artaxerxes returned this answer, that the league continued by all means, and that he held no City more friend to him than that of Argos was, [ Herodotus, lib. 7. cap. 151.]
The peace between the Athenians and their confederates on the one side, and the Persians on the other, was concluded on, upon these conditions, That the Grecian cities, in all Asia, should enjoy their own liberty, and rights. That no Persian Governor, should at any time come within three days journey of the Sea: that there should no ship of war, of either side be found riding out, between Phaselis, and the Cyanean Isles: or as Plutarch expresseth it, That the king should not have any beakedship, or man of war surging in all the sea, between the Cyanean, and the Chel • donian Islands.
Now when the King and his Council of war had subscribed to these articles, then the Athenians also, took their oath, that they would not in hostile manner invade any of the kings Provinces, [ Diod, ut sup. ]
It is said also, that they built an altar in memory of this peace, and that they heaped many honors upon Callias, who had been the contriver and procurer of it, [ Plut, in the life of Cimon. ]
Artaxerxes tired out with the importune solicitation of his mother, [Year of the World 3556] which for five years space she continually used unto him, [The Julian Period. 4266] at length gave up Inaros the Egyptian, [Year before Christ 448] king, and the Greeks that came with him into hit hand; whereupon the Queen caused the body of Inarus to be so racked, and stretched out, and wreathed several ways, that he hung upon three several crosses at one time: as for the Grecians she caused fifty of them (for she could catch no more) to have their heads smitten off. [ Ctesias. ] Thucydides saith that Inarus king of Libya, was taken by treachery and crucified; yet Herodotus telleth us, that his son Thammyras, by the favor of the Persians, held the Principality in Egypt; which his father had held before him, [ lib. 3. c. 15.]
Megabyzus, being sorely grieved for the death of Inaros and those Grecians, asked leave that he might go to his own government in Syria: and had under hand sent away thither, the rest of the Grecians which had escaped; and he following after, so soon as he came thither revolted from the king: and gathered an army of 150000 men, Ctesias. ]
Against Megabyzus was sent Osiris, [Year of the World 3557] with an army of 200 thousand men: [The Julian Period. 4267] they fought and in the fight, [Year before Christ 447] Osiris wounded Megabyzus with a dart in the thigh, two inches deep: and he likewise wounded Osiris with a dart, first in the thigh, and then in the shoulder; with which Osiris fell from his horse; but Megabyzus took him about by the middle, and saved him, many of the Persians fell: and the two sons of Megabyzus, Z •• yrus and Artipsyus, fought valiantly that day: so that Megabyzus had the better of it, and having gotten in the end a full victory, had great care of Osiris and sent him to Artaxerxes, who demanded him at his hands, [ Ctesias. ]
Against Megabyzus was sent another army, [Year of the World 3558] whereof was general Menostanes, [The Julian Period. 4268] or Menostates, [Year before Christ 446] son to Artarius, Governor of Babylon, and brother to king Artaxerxes; who met and fought, and Megabyzus wounded Menostanes in the shoulder: and also in the head; yet was neither of those wounds mortal: but upon those wounds received, he and all his whole army left the field and fled, and Megabyzus obtained a most glorious victory, [ Ctesias. ]
Artarius, first by messengers, then Artoxares the Eunuch, a Paphlagonian born, and Amestris, the Queen mother, persuaded Megabyzus, to come to an agreement with the king: and with much a do could Artarius himself, and Amytis his wife, and Artoxares, who was now 20 years of age, and Petisas, Osiris his son, prevail with him to come unto the king: and when he was come, the king sent him word, that he freely pardoned him all his by-past offenses. But when a while after, the king went a hunting, and there a lyon set upon him, and Megabyzus, seeing the lyon raised upon his hinder feet, slew him with his spear; the king growing wroth with him, because he had done it, before he himself had given the lyon any blow, commanded his head to be taken off: yet upon the intercession of Amestris, & Amytis & others, his life was spared, and he sent away and confined to a certain Island, called Cirta, in the read sea: Artoxares also, the Eunuch, for having ofttimes spoken liberally to the king, on the behalf of Magabyzus was bannished into Armenia, [ Ctesias. ]
Herodotus, [Year of the World 3559] when he had read his books at Athens, [The Julian Period. 4269] before the Council there; [Year before Christ 445] was much honored for them, as saith Euseb. in his Chron. where Scaliger noteth, that Herodotus wrote his books, before his going into great Greece; not in great Greece itself, as some imagine, following herein Pliny, and we shall see more in the year subsequent. But I observe, that in these his books, mention is often made of the Peloponesian War, both in [ the 7 book cap. 137. and in the 9 book cap. 72.] In the former of which is related a thing done in the 2 year of that War; and in the later, a thing acted in the 19 year thereof at Decelaea: full 33 years after the time consigned by Euseb. to the reading of his books at Athens. See more after in the year 3596. and 3597.
In the first year of the 84 Olympiad, [Year of the World 3560] when Praxiteles was Praetor or L. Chancelor of Athens, [The Julian Period. 4270] 12 years before the Peloponesian war began: the Athenians sent a Plantation or Colony of theirs into Great Greece, [Year before Christ 444] to rebuild a certain decayed City there, called Thuri • : which Colony was carried thither by Lysias, a youth, at that time, of 15 years of age, and no more, [ Plutarch and Dionysius Halicarnassaeus in the life of Lysias the Orator ] And Herodotus being then 41 years old, who though he were born at Halicarnassus in Caria; yet obtained he the surname of Thurius afterward 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , ( i.e.) because he was one who had his part in carrying that Colony or Plantation to Thurii: as strabo saith in his 14 book: Now this 84 Olympiad fell in with the 310. year of the nativity of Rome, according to Varroes account. In which year Pliny saith, that Herodotus compiled his History at Thurii in Italy, [lib. 12. cap. 4.] as we touched in the precedent year.
In this year all wars were laid asleep throughout Asia, [Year of the World 3562] Greece, [The Julian Period. 4272] Sicily, [Year before Christ 442] Italy, Gaule, Spain, and almost all the World over, [ Diod. Sic. 3. year of the 84 Olympiad. ]
Nehemiah's, when he had governed Judea 12 years, ( i.e. ) from the 20 year of the reign of Artaxerxes, to the 32 of the same, returned to the King, [ Nehem. 5. 14. and chap. 13. 6.]
In his absence Eliashib the Priest, which was over the Chamber of the House of God, having contracted affinity with Tobia: had prepared him a fair chamber in the court of the temple: in which chamber, were formerly wont to be laid up and kept the hallowed Gifts and Tithes. And the son of Joiada the son of Eliashib the High Priest, (who was a different man from Eliashib, of whom I spake before) became son in law, and had married the daughter of Sanballat the Horonite; which disorders, with sundry others which had crept in, in his absence, Nehemiah's upon his return to Jerusalem with a new Commission, quickly redressed, and severely punished, [ Nehem. 13.]
Megabyzus when he had lived now full five years in banishment; [Year of the World 3563] fled out of the Island where he was confined, [The Julian Period. 4273] and feigning himself to be a Pisagas, [Year before Christ 441] (1. a Leper in the Persian language, and one to whom no man might approach) came home to his own wife Amytis: and what by her, what by Amestris the Kings mother, was in the end reconciled to the King: who thereupon made him sit at table with him, as he had done in former times: and when he had lived 76 years he died; for which the King grieved very sorely. [ Ctesias. ]
In this year began a war between the Samians and Milesians, [Year of the World 3564] about the city of Priene, [The Julian Period. 4274] ( i. ) the sixth year in the beginning thereof, [Year before Christ 441] (Thucydides hath it) after the 30 years peace and league made between the Athenians and Lacedaemonians: and in the 4 year about the midst thereof, of the 84 Olympiad as Diodorus noteth. Now Priene was a City in Caria, which the Samians and Milesians, each laid claim to as their own: the Milesians finding themselves too weak at blows, drew unto their party some of the Samians, who desired an alteration of things in their own State: and with them repaired to Athens, and there complained of the injurious carriage of the Citizens of Samos: whereupon the Athenians sent unto them, requiring them to surcease their arms, and to come and debate the matter in difference, before them at Athens. Which when the Samians refused to do, Pericles prevailed to have open War proclaimed against them: and all this in favor of his wench Aspasia, that famous Courtisan, and one whom he doted on, not so much for her beauty, as for her wit; and because she was the daughter of one Axiochus, who was a Milesian borne. The Athenians therefore sending a Fleet of 40 sail, under the command of Pericles, easily took the City of Samos, and changed the Aristocraty thereof into a democratical kind of Government.
But presently after, Pericles was returned from Samos, there arose among them a terrible sedition: some striving to maintain the new established popular Government, and others holding that the old Aristocratical was the better. They therefore who disliked the Democratical, conspiring with the chief men of the city, sent into Asia, to Pissuthnes the son of Hystaspes Governor of Sardes; and having made a confederacy with him, obtained of him a company of 700. soldiers; with which putting over in the still of the night into the Isle of Samos: they there joined with other of their consorts, who attended their coming, and so altogether surprised and took the Town, and professing themselves open enemies to the Athenians, took the whole Garrison of them that there was, with the Captain and Officers, and sent them all for a present to Pissuthnes: which done, they forthwith march against Miletus, having drawn the inhabitants of Byzantium also into their confederacy against the Athenians.
The Athenians hearing of the revolt of Samos, dispatch away thither sixty sails of ships, well furnished; whereof sixteen went partly towards Caria, to encounter the Phoenician fleet in those parts, and partly into Chios and Lesbos, to take in aides from thence, the other 44 vessels continued with Pericles the Ammiral and his 9 colleagues. The Samians hereupon recall their 20 sails of ships, which they had sent all full of soldiers to assault Miletus, and joining to them 50 sails more, fought with the 44 ships of the Athenians, near an Island called Tragia, and had there the worst of it. From whence the Athenians, having a supply of 40 sails more from home, and 25 more by way of aid from Chios and Lesbos, went and landed with their forces, in the Isle of Samos, and getting the better of it there also, they possessed themselves of the Haven, and having drawn a treble ditch about the city by land, they barred up the Haven with their ships.
A few days after, Pericles understanding by letters out of Caria, and Caunus, that the Phaenician fleet, was coming towards him, to the relief of Samos, he, leaving a part of his army to maintain the siege, took with him 60 sails out of the Navy; and went to encounter them, with all the speed he could possibly make, and with him went Stesagoras with five ships of Samos, and others, to meet with the Phaenician Navy.
The Samians taking advantage of the absence of Pericles, by the persuasion and leading of Melissus, the son of Ithogenes; a singular Philosopher, suddenly sallied out upon the Athenian camp, which was neither fenced not manned, as it ought to have been; and having sunk the ships which kept the Haven, fought with the land forces in the open field, and routed them; and hereby, having an open sea, for 14 days space, they freely imported and exported, what they would, without impeachment.
Pericles, hearing what had befallen his men at Samos, made back thitherward, as fast as conveniently he could, increased his fleet; and when Thucydides; Agnon—and Phormio, were come to him with 40 sails, and Tlepolemus and Anticles, with 20 ships more from Athens; and those of Chios and Mitylene had sent him 30 sails, with these great forces, he set upon Melissus, and overthrew him in the field, and then fell to besiege the town itself by land and sea, as afore, and harassed them with frequent assaults on every side: insomuch, that some say, those engines of Battrie, as Rams, and Vines, and Galleries, were there first invented, by one Artemon, of Clazomena: which Artemon the Engineer, Ephorus the Historian doth unskilly confound with Artemon Periphresus, of whom Anacreon the Poet, in his verses (recited by Athenaeus lib. 12.) maketh mention, [ Thucid. lib. 1, Diod. Sic. in the 4 year of 84 Olympiad, and Plut. in the life of Pericles. ]
After 9 months siege, [Year of the World 3565] the Samians gave up the town, [The Julian Period. 4275] which was forthwith dismantled, [Year before Christ 439] they gave hostages also for their fidelity in time to come, they gave up all their shipping, and paid for the expense of the war, according to an enstalment then made. Those of Byzantium also came in, and submitted to the Athenian government as before, [ Thucid. lib. 1.]
Spartacus succeeded Archaeanactides, [Year of the World 3566] in the kingdom of Bosphorus Cimmerius, [ Diod. the third year of the 85 Olympiad. ]
Spartacus died, [Year of the World 3571] whom Diodorus Siculus, [The Julian Period. 4281] in the 4 year of the 86 Olympiad, [Year before Christ 432] affirmeth then to have reigned 17 years; and in the 3 year of the 85 Olympiad, he affirmeth him to have reigned 17 years, when as yet the interval between these two Olimpic years assigned by him, the one to the beginning, the other to the end of his reign, make up but five, or at most (both parts being included) but six years of his reign; after him succeeded Seleucus.
At Athens, [The Julian Period. 4572] in the year when Apseudes was Archon or President, and in the last year, almost complete of the 86 Olympiad, Meton observed the summer solstice, to be upon the 21 day of the Egyptian month, Phamenoth (or the 27 day of June, according to the Julian Calendar) in the morning, [ Ptolemy, in his Mag. Syntax lib. 3. cap. 2.] and thereupon framed the Cyclus Punaris, or the circle of the moon, which we call the Golden number, of 19 years, [ Diod. Sic. the fourth year, of the 85 Olympiad, deducing the beginning of this Cycle, from the new moon next following that Solstice, or the 15 day of July, according to the Julian account.
Arcesilaus was killed by the Cyrenians his own subjects; [Year of the World 3573] and was the 8 king in that state. [The Julian Period. 4283] And the man which in the 3 year of the 73 Olympiad, [Year before Christ 431] wan the 31 Pythian race with his chariot; and which is so much renowned for it by Pindarus, in his 4 and and 5 Ode. whom when his son would have succeeded, he was put by, by the Syrenians; whereupon he sailed into the Hesperides, or western Islands, and there died: and so that kingdom of Cyrenia, which had stood 200 years, four of the name of Battus, and four of the name of Archelaus, enterchangeably succeeding each the other therein, according to the oracle at Delphi, reported by Herod, [lib. 4. cap. 163.] came to an end, [ Scholiast. Pind. in Od. 4. Pythion. ]
The 1 year of 87 Olympiad drawing to an end, when there were but two months left of the Praetorship of Pythodorus of Athens, in the beginning of the spring, began the war which is called the Peloponesian war, between the Lacedemonians and the Athenians: wherein the Nations inhabiting all along the coast of Asia, sided with the Athenians; as the Carians, the Dores, the Ionians, those of Hellespont, and all the Islanders adjoining, except those only, which inhabited the two Islands of Melos, and Thera: But both parties sent their Embassies to Artaxerxes, to crave his aide, [ Thucid. lib. 2.]
In the beginning of this war, there flourished 3 noble Historiographers, Hellanicus, of the age of 65. Herodotus 53. and Thucydides 40 years old; as A. Gellius, in his 15 book. cap. 23. reporteth out of Pamphilia, [lib. 11.] of which Thucydides wrote the full history of this war, to the 21 year thereof; diligently setting down all things done therein, by winters and summers: beginning every summer from the first of the spring; and every winter from the first of Autumn.
In the first summer of this war, there fell so great an enclipse of the sun, that the stars appeared in the firmament, [ Thucid. lib. 2.] which bred a great terror in all men's minds as a sad and great prodigy in the world, But Pericles, seeing the Master of the ship wherein he was, overtroubled thereat, cast his cloak over his eyes, and asked him whether he were afraid at that? or whether he thought it portended any great matter of no; and when he said, no: why, replied Pericles, what difference is between this covering of the sun, and that, save only, that, that which causeth this darkness, is greater than my cloak? [ Plutarch in the life of Pericles: ] and thereupon entered into a discourse concerning the eclipses of the sun and moon, and their motions, by which they come, according as he had heard and learned from his Master Anaxagoras; and persuaded his fellow citizens, not to trouble themselves, with a vain and needless fear, [ Valer. Max. lib. 8. cap. 11.] And that this year also, upon the 3 day of August, at 5 a clock in the after-noon, the son was eclipsed at Athens, to about the quantity of 10 digits, the Astronomical account plainly demonstrates.
A fearful plague, [Year of the World 3574] beginning first in Ethiopia, [The Julian Period. 4284] and thence spreading itself into the parts of Libya and Egypt, [Year before Christ 430] and especially into the regions of the Persian dominion, came at last, and lay very sore upon the City of Athens in the 2 year of this war; [ Thucid. l. 2.] where he setteth down historically, the kind and manner of this plague; as he might well do, having himself been taken with it, and oft in company with those who were sick thereof: and what he doth historically; that doth Hippocrates as a Physician, as living then in Athens, and was employed in the curing of sundry persons, afflicted therewith, [ lib. 3. Epidem. Sect. 3.] but poetically, Lucretius, who lived many ages after, hath set it forth, and painted it to the life.
In a town of the Colophonians, called Notium, upon a sedition raised among themselves, Itamenes and his Median solidiers, being called in by one of the sides, came and possessed himself, of the strongest part of the town, [ Thucid. lib. 3.]
In the later end of this summer, Aristeas, the son of Adimantus a Corinthian, and the Ambassadors of the Lacedemonians, Aneristus, and Nicolaus, and Patrodemus, and Timagoras of Tegrea, and Polis of Argos, in his own name, taking their journey into Asia towards Artaxerxes, to entreat of him aide of men and money for the war, took Thrace in their way, and came to Sitalces the king thereof, the son of Tereas: But when they thought to pass the Hellespont, and to go to Pharnaces the son of Pharnatacus, hoping by him to be convoyed and brought to Artaxerxes, they were betrayed by Sadocus, the son of Sitalces the king, and Nymphodorus of Abdera, the son of Pytheus, and were all taken and carried to Athens: and the Athenians without judgment, or hearing them so much as speak, when they would have said something for themselves, the self same day they came, caused them all to be killed, and thrown into a ditch, [ Thucid. l. 2. with Herod. l. 7. c. 137.]
The winter following, [Year of the World 3575] the Athenians, sent six ships, into Caria: under the command of Melesandrus, both to gather what money they could in those parts, and to scour the seas from pirates and robbers, who out of Peloponesus, were wont to take up poor Merchants ships with their loadings, which traded along the coast of Phaselis, Phenice, and other ports of the continent. But Melesandrus, with his Athenians, and other confederates, not keeping the sea, but going a land in Licia, was there met, and fought withal, and slain, with a great part of his army, [ Thucid. lib. 2.]
Seleucus, [The Julian Period. 4285] the king of Bosphorus Cimmerius, [Year before Christ 428] having held that principality 4 years [ Diod. 4 year of the 86 Olympiad. ] after whom, as it seemeth, Spartacus the 2. reigned, and he continued 22 years.
Pericles died, [Year of the World 3576] the 4 year of 87 Olympiad, [The Julian Period. 4286] [ Diod. l. 12.] 2 years and 6 months after the beginning of the Peloponesian war, [Year before Christ 428] whereof himself had been the chief occasion, [ Thucid. lib. 2.] and when he had continued Prince of the Athenian state, 40 years, [ Cic. lib. 3. de oratore. and Plutarch in the life of Pericles. ]
In the same year died Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, Pericles his master, who was born in the 70 Olympiad, and died in the first year of the 88 Olympiad, as Laertius in his life reporteth, out of Apollodorus his Chron. though it be there miswritten, Olympiad 78. Where he also addeth, that the men of Lampsacus, bestowed on him, an honorable burial, with this Epitaph, recorded also by Elian, [lib. 8. Var. Histor. cap. ult. ] upon his tomb.
In the winter season of the fourth year of the Peloponesian war, [Year of the World 3577] the Athenians sent 12 ships, commanded by Lysicles, and four commissioners with him, to collect their tribute from their consederate cities. Lysicles, as he went from place to place to gather moneys, at last going from Myus, thorough Caria, the Carians, and Anaeitae rose suddenly upon him out of an Ambuscado, and slew both him, and the greatest part of his army, [ Thucid. lib. 3.]
Alcides commander of the Lacedaemonian fleet, coming to the foreland of Myonesus, in the country of the Teii, put to death there the greatest part of the Greeks, whom he had taken prisoners out of Asia: but when he was come to Ephesus, some messengers sent unto him, by the Samians, which were of the Anaeitae, told him that he took a wrong way to deliver the Greek nation out of servitude and thralldom, if he purposed to destroy such, as neither ever bare arms against him, nor were his enemies; but only were forced to pay contribution, to the Athenians: whereupon he spared the rest, and let them go.
A new broile rising between the old citizens, which dwelt in the base town of Notium, and those which had newly fled thither, these confideing in the power of such Arcadians, and other barbarians as Pissuthnes, the Governor of Lydia had sent them, drew a wall round about the upper town, for a fortification against the base town, and confederating with those Colophonians, who dwelling in the upper town, took part with the Medes, made one Common-wealth with them. But the other side sent for Pachetes, a captain of the Athenians to come and help them; who when he came, desired Hippias, whom Pissuthnes, had made captain of the Arcadians in the fort to come forth to a parley, covenanting with him, that if they could not agree, he should return safe and sound into the fort again, whereupon he came forth: but so soon as he came, Pachetes took, and committed him to safe custody, yet without manacles or fetters; and setting presently upon the fort took it, and put all whom they found therein to the sword, as well Arcadians as Barbarians; and last of all, to keep his word with Hippias he let him come safe and sound into the fort; but so soon as he was come, laid hold on him again, and shot him to death with arrows, so he restored Notium to the Colophonians, save to those, who had taken part with the Medes. Afterward the Athenians sent a plantation thither of their own, and governed the place, according to their own laws, gathering together as many of the Colophonians out of all parts, as they could find to inhabit it, [ Thucid. lib. 3. Polyae. Stratag. lib. 3.]
Artaxerxes sent Artaphernes, [Year of the World 3578] a Persian Ambassador, [The Julian Period. 4289] with a letter written in the Assyrian language, [Year before Christ 425] to Lacedemon: wherein, among other things signified to them, that he knew not what they would have, nor what their meaning or intention was; for that they had sent unto him a multitude of Ambassadors: but no one of them agreed with another; werefore if they would have him to understand their minds, they should send some men of their own unto him, with the bearer thereof, [ Thucid lib. 4.]
Artaxerxes, [Year of the World d.] in the interim died, and his son Xerxes succeeded him, only for one year, [ Diod. Sic. the 4 year of the 88 Olympiad. ] whose mother Damaspia, died the same day, that Xerxes, or rather, that her husband Artaxerxes (as the sequel showeth) did; and Bagorazus the Eunuch carried the corps, both of father and mother into Persia, [ Ctesias. ]
In the winter of the seventh year of the Peloponesian water, [Year of the World 3580. a.] Aristides, the son of Archippus, one of the captains which were sent from Athens, to gather the tribute of their confederetes, lighted upon Artaphernes the Persian Ambassador, as he was going to Lacedemon, at a place called Eione, upon the river strimon, and brought him prisoner to Athens, whom the Athenians presently shipt away, and sent him back to Ephesus, and an Ambassador of their own with him; but coming thither, and hearing there, that Artaxerxes was lately dead, they returned home again, [ Thucid. lib. 4.]
In the beginning of the next summer; [Year of the World b.] Thucydides says, [The Julian Period. 4269] there was a little Eclipse of the Sun, [Year before Christ 445] beginning, as his manner is the Summer, from the first of the spring, for that upon the 21 day of March, according to the Julian Calendar, toward the end of the fourth year of the 88 Olympiad, in the forenoon, the Sun was more than half over eclipsed, the Prutenian account showeth.
The Banditoes of Mitylene, after their city was taken by the Athenians, joining with the Banditoes of Lesbos, and hiring some others out of Peloponesus, went in a great body and took Rhaetium; and having received of them a round sum of money, spared the City: and from thence went to Antandrus and took that by intelligence within: for their purpose from the beginning was to set at liberty, as sundry other Cities of the country called Actaea, (which formerly was held by the Mitylenians, but was then possessed by the Athenians,) so especially Antandrus; to the end that having fortified it, they might there build them shipping enough, as having the hill Ida, and store of timber from thence at hand: and hoped with that and other provision, to get Lesbos, and other Cities of Eolia, in the Continent, into their possession, [ Thucid. lib. b. 4.]
At the same time, [Year of the World c.] Aristides and Demodocus, whom Diodorus calleth Symmachus, Captains of the Athenian Navy, lay in Hellespout, gathering of their tribute; whiles Lamachus, their third Captain, was gone with ten ships into Pontus. They therefore hearing that the Mitylenians purposed to fortify Antandrus; gathered an army of their confederates, and set sail thitherward; and when the enemy sallied out from thence, foiled them in the field, and gat the Town again. But Lamachus who was gone into Poatus, coming into the mouth of the river Caleces, (which Diodorus calls Cachetes) in Heracleotis, leaving their ships at an anchor, there went and spoiled all the country about Heraclea, which in favor of the Persian, had refused to pay contribution to the Athenians. But when upon the falling of a great rain the river swol, and ran with a mighty current, and drave their ships upon the rocky shore, he there wholly lost his Fleet, and a great part of his army besides. Wherefore when by sea he could not, having lost his ships, and by land durst not with so small a company return home, thorough so many fierce & warlick Nations as lay in his way; they of Heraclea, taking this occasion to gratify them rather than to be revenged of them, and thinking the spoil of their country well bestowed, if they might thereby purchase them for friends, which were before their foes, sent them away fairly, with all manner of provision for their journey homeward. So Lamachus, with the company which he had left, went over land thorough the country of the Thracians, which dwelt in Asia side, and came safely to Chalcedon, [ Thucid. lib. 4. Diodorus. lib. 12. Justin lib. 16. cap. 3.]
When Xerxes, [Year of the World d.] upon a Festival day had drunk himself stark drunk, and was laid asleep in his chamber, his brother Secundianus, begotten upon Aloguna, a Babylonish woman, and Pharnacyas an Eunuch, came in upon him, and murdered him. [ Ctesias. ]
Secundianus, who had a long time born a grudge to Bagoras the Eunuch, picking a quarrel with him for burying his fathers body without his advise taken therein, commanded him to be stoned to death: which act of his the army took very ill; and although he bestowed large mouies among them, yet what for this, what for the murder of his brother, they ever hated him. [ Ctesias. ]
Ochus, [Year of the World 3581. d.] whom his father Artaxerxes had made Governor of Hyrcania, being sent for by his Brother Secundianus to come unto him, sent word he would, but came not; and this he often did: but at length, gathered a mighty army, and intended for the kingdom. Arbarius who was General of the Horse to Secundianus, fell over unto Ochus: and Arxanes the Governor of Egypt did the like. Artoxares also, out of Armenia came unto him in person, and whether he would or no, set the Cidaris, ( i. ) the Crown upon his head. [ Ctesias. ]
Thus Ochus was made King, [Year of the World b.] and called himself from thence forward Darius: and by the advice of Parysatis, his wise and sister, tried first what he could do with his brother Secundianus by fair words and oaths: But Menosthanes, who was the greatest man with him among all his Eunuchs, was earnest with him not to believe his oaths, nor have any treaty with faithless men: yet Secundianus, came to a treaty, and was there laid hold on; and being thrown into a heap of ashes, there died, [ Ctesias ] of which kind of punishment, see more before, in the year of the World, 3485. b. and in 2 Maccabees, [cap. 13. 5, 6.]
When Scundianus, all. Sogdianus, was now dead, then reigned Ochus alone, known by the name of Darius Nothus toward the later end of the first year of 89 Olimpiade; as appears by [ Thucydides, lib. 8. and Diodorus. 3 year of 89 Olympiad. ]
When the men of Delos were driven out of their country by the Athenians, [Year of the World 3582] Pharnaces gave them Adramyttium in Asia for a dwelling place, [The Julian Period. 4292] [ Thucid. lib. 5. Diod. 3 year 89 Olympiad. ] [Year before Christ 422]
The Athenians, [Year of the World 3583] by command of the Oracle at Delphi, [The Julian Period. 4293] restored those of Delos to their Island again, [Year before Christ 421] [ Thucid. lib. 5.]
Those of Byzantium and Chalcedon, [Year of the World 3588] joining with the Thracians, [The Julian Period. 4298] pass with a great. [Year before Christ 416] army into Bithynia, and having wasted the country, and forced many of the lesser towns, used there unmeasurable cruelties: for having gotten together an huge multitude of men women and children, they butchered them everyone, [ Diod. 1 year of 91 Olympiad. ]
Jubilie 21. which was the last that ever the Prophets of the Old Testament saw: [Year of the World 3589] for that place in [ Nehem. 12. 22.] is not to be understood of Darius the last, but of this Darius Nothus, in whose time [ Nehemiah cap. 12. 22.] signifieth, that Johananes, called also Johannes and Jonathan, obtained the High Priesthood after his father Joiada, (whom Josephus calleth Judas) and that Jadduas his son, who succeeded his father in the Priesthood, was then also born; but these things Nehemiah mentions only by the way: his full History ending with the time of Artaxerxes Longimanus, the father of this Darius, of whom Josephus [lib. 1. cont. Ap • on • ] speaketh in this wise: From the death of Moses, to Artaxerxes, King of Persia, who succeeded Xerxes; the Prophets comprised what passed is their times in 13 books; but from Artaxerxes to our time, all things indeed have been likewise committed to writing, but not held to be of like credit with the former: because the succession of the Prophets one after another, hath been uncertain; and Euseb. in Chron. in the 32 of this Artaxerxes, with whom the continued History of Nehemiah ended; Hitherto, saith he, the Divine Scriptures of the Hebrews contain the Annals, or year books of the times: but those things which were done among them after this time, we must deliver out of the books of the Maccabees, and out of the writings of Josephus and Africanus; who have delivered a general History of things done among them down to the Roman times.
But that Malachi the last of the Prophets, was contemporary with Nehemiah, they gather from hence; to wit, for that he nowhere exhorts the people to the building of the Temple, as Haggai and Zacharias did: but the Temple being now built, he reproves those disorders which Nehemiah at his second return with a new Commission from Babylon, in the last Chapter of his book saith he found to have in his absence crept in among the Jews: as marriage with strange women, [ cap. 11. 11.] withholding of tithes, [ cap. 3. 8.] and abuses in the worship of God, [ cap. 1. 13. cap. 2. 8.] And because they were no longer now to expect a perpetual succession of Prophets, as before; Malachi therefore in the last words of his Prophecy exhorreth them, that they should hold them fast to the law of Moses, until Christ that Great Prophet of the Church should appear, whose forerunner John the Baptist, should first come, in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the rebels to the wisdom of the just, [Mal. 4. 4.] compared with [Luke 1. 17. Math. 11. 14. and cap. 17. 12.] to which hath reference that of Jerome [ lib. 13. of his Comment. upon Isaiah cap. 49.] After Haggai, and Zacharias and Malachi, saith he, I see no other Prophets till John the Baptist. See [1 Maccab. 4. 46. and cap. 9. 17. and August. de Civit. Dei lib. 17. cap. 24.]
We read indeed in the book of Pirke Abbeth, that The men of the great Synagogue succeeded the Prophets: though the Jews of later times reckon, even Haggai, Zacharias, and Malachi, among them, and make Ezra the President and Head of this Sanhedrin, or great Syagogu • , or Council.
Pissuthnes the Governor of Lydia, [Year of the World 3590] revolted from Darius; [The Julian Period. 4300] and therefore Tissaphernes, [Year before Christ 414] Spitradates, and Pharmises, were sent against him. And Pissuthnes went to meet them, having with him Lycon an Athenian, with such Grecians as he had under his command: But the Kings Commanders bribed Lycon and his Greeks, and drew them off from Pissuthnes, and then drew in Pissuthnes himself, upon promise to bring him safe to the King, which they did. But he presently bad, Away with him to the Ash-heap: and bestowed his Government upon Tissaphernes: and Lycon, for a reward of his treachery, had whole Cities and Countries bestowed upon him. [ Cteslas. ]
Eusebius in his Chron. noteth that Egypt fell off from the Persian, and that Amyrtaeus Saites reigned there 6 years: which seemeth to be the same Amirtaeus, which Herodotus writeth of, [ lib. 2. cap. 140. and lib. 3. cap. 15.] where he showeth that he did the Persians a thousand mischiefs.
In the 19 Summer of the Peloponesian war, [Year of the World 3591] when Nicias would have drawn off his army in a night from before the w • lls of Syracusae in Sicily, [The Julian Period. 4301] there suddenly appeared an Eclipse of the Moon, [Year before Christ 413] about ten of the clock at night, in the month Metageiton; upon the 27 of August, according to the Julia • Calender; at the sight whereof he was so affrighted, that he forbare drawing off, for that time, and by a little more delay used thereupon, he lost himself and his whole army, [ Thncid. lib. 7. Polyh. lib. 9. Diod. Sic. an. 4. 91. Olympiad, Plin. lib. 2. cap. 12. Plutarch in the life of Nicias, and in his book, De Superstitione. ]
The winter following, two Governors of Darius, upon the sea coast in the lesser Asia, Tissaphernes of Lydia, and Pharnabazus of Hellespont, seeking to recover the old tribute from the Grecian Cities lying within their several Governments, which the Athenians had of late forbidden them to pay unto the King, dealt with them under hand, to fall off from the Athenians: and withal soliciting the Peloponesians in general to make a fresh war upon the Athenians, moved the Lacedemonians in special to consederate and join in arms with the king against them: when the Athenians power was thus weakened in Asia; upon whom Pissuthnes had founded all his hopes, Tissaphernes sought by all means how to get Amorges, a bastard son of Pissuthnes, who had taken up arms in Caria, into his hands; and, as he was commanded, to send him alive or dead to the king. But finding at this present, that the Citizens of Chios and Erythrae, were ready to revolt from the Athenians, he sent his messenger with theirs to Lacedemon, there to negotiate the matter, by the joint advice of both, [ Thucid. lib. 9.]
At the same time Calligetus and Timagoras the one of Megara, the other of Cyzicum, each banished out of his own country, came to Lacedemon, sent indeed by Pharnabazus, who had entertained them, during the time of their exilement, but in the name of the inhabitants of Cyzicum, to get shipping of them, to carry into Hellespont. And when the messagers of Pharnabazus and Tissaphernes, made each of them his suit a part from the other, the Lacedemonians were thereupon extremely divided among themselves: some advising that Ionia and Chios should first be holpen; other that Hellespont: but in the end, the Petition of Tissaphernes and the Chii carried it; and the rather, by the help of Alcibiades, who standing at that time a condemned man at Athens, lived at Sparta, in house with Endius, one of the Ephori, his fathers old acquaintance, wherefore having made a confederacy with the Chii and Erythraeans, they presently ordered 40 sails of ships to be sent away to their succor. But Calligetus and Timagoras, who were there in the behalf of Pharnabazus, and the men of Cyzicum, would contribute nothing toward the setting out of this fleet to Chios; nor would lay out the 25 talents which they had brought with them to hire ships for themselves that way; because they had a purpose shortly to prepare a fleet of their own, [ Id. Ib. ]
In the 20 summer of the Peloponesian war, [Year of the World 3592] Alcibiades an Athenian, [The Julian Period. 4302] and Chalcideus a Lacedaemonian, [Year before Christ 412] were sent by Endius, and the rest of the Ephori, with five ships into Ionia, to draw the Greek cities there off from the Athenian party: and coming speedily to Corycum, by such persuasions as they used, they prevailed first with the Chii, then with the Erythreans openly to revolt from the Athenians: and then going with three ships to Clazomenae, draw them also over from the Athenian party: and those of Clazomenae, putting over presently into the continent adjoining, there built a strong fort, that if need were, they might there have a place to retire unto out of their poor Island: and in like manner all that revolted from the Athenians, fell in hand presently, with sortifications, and other preparatives for the war, [ Thucid. lib. 8.]
Strombichides, a Commander of the Athenians, coming with 8 ships to Samos, and taking with him one more from thence, sailed to Teus, and persuaded them, not to enter into any practice against the Athenians. Chalcideus also came thither with 23 sails of ships; and had with him some foot companies of the Clazomenians and Erythreans. The Teians, though at first refused to receive those foot, yet when they saw the Athenians fled and gone, took them in: who having a while expected the return of Chalcideus from the chase of the Athenians, and he not returning they of their own heads, threw down the wall which the Athenians had made to the land-ward, with the assistance of certain others which came to help them, under the command of Tages Tissaphernes his Livetenant. Chalcideus and Alcibiades, having pursued Strombichides, as far as to Samos, taking with them 20 ships more from Chios, sailed to Miletus, and by the means of Alcibiades, who had great acquaintance with the chief men there, persuaded them also to fall off from the Athenians, and when the Athenians followed them thither, but were kept out by the Milesians, they retreated to an Island called Lada, lying over against Miletus. [ Ib. ]
After this revolt of the Milesians, the first association of the Lacedemonians and the Persians was concluded and made, by Tissaphernes and Chalcideus, upon this condition, that what ever cities the Persians did then hold, or heretofore had held, should continue still in their power. [Ibid. ]
The Chii therefore presently to know how the squares went at Miletus, and with all to induce other cities to the like revolt, from the Athenians, bent their course with ten ships to Anaea, a city in Caria: but being called back by Chalcideus, because Amorges Pissuthnes his son, was drawing down thitherward, with his land forces, they came to a place called Dios-hieron, a small town, in Ionia; where, espying a fleet of 16 sails of the Athenians, sent from thence under the command of Diomedon to join with Thrasicles, they dispersed themselves, and one ship of them came to Ephesus, the rest to Teus, but four of them fell into the Athenians hands: yet nothing but the bare hulls, for the men were got to land, the rest of the ships came safe to Teus. After this when the Athenians were gone to Samos, the Chii pursued their purpose, with the remainder of their Fleet and Forces, and drew over to their party Lebedus and Eras, cities of Ionia, [ Ib. ]
After the Foot companies of the Chii, were departed from Teus, Tissaphernes, coming thither with his army, pulled down what was left of the walls of Teus, and departed: and no sooner was he gone, but Diomedon, with ten sail of Athenians came thither; and agreed with the Teians to receive him too: and going from thence to Eras, when he had tried, and could not force it, went his way, [ Ib. ]
The Athenians, having taken the Fott, which the Clazomenians had built in the Continent, made them go back again into their own Island, all save the heads of that revolt, who went to Daphnus: and so the Clazomenians returned into the obedience of the Athenians, [ ib. ]
In the same Summer, [Year of the World c.] the Athenians with 20 sail which lay at Lada against Miletus, landing at Panormus, and lighting there upon Chalcideus, the Lacedaemonian slenderly accompanied, slew him, and all that were with him; and returning thence the third day after, erected a Trophie in memory of what they had there done: which the Milesians, as set up by those who had not mastered the country, demolished, [ ib. ]
In the end of that Summer, the Athenians with 1500. Corselets, and 1000. men out of Argos, and as many of their other confederates, with 48 ships, commanded by Phrynichus, and Onomacles, and Saronidas, sailed into Samos first, and from thence set sail for Miletus; and landing there, sat down before it with their army. Against them went out 800. of the Milesians themselves, all Corselets; and Alcibiades, with those companies which Chalcideus had brought out of Peloponesus, and certain companies of foreign nation which followed Tissaphernes, and Tissaphernes himself with his Horse. The Argivi which led the Van in the wing where they were, trusting over much to their valor, were wholly routed by the Milesians, whom they vilified and contemned as being but Ionians, and lost 300. upon the place: yet the Athenians had the better of the day: and therefore setting up a Trophie in the field, set themselves to besiege the city, seated as it was, in a peninsula or neck of land: but when news was brought that a Fleet out of Sicily and Peloponesus was upon the sea thitherward, by the advice of Phrynicus, they drew off, and returned to Samos, [ Ibid. ]
The Fleet when it came, with the ships of Chios which had formerly been beaten with Chalcideus by the enemy, at the entreaty of Tissaphernes, set upon Jasos: where Amorges the base son of Pissuthnes, (who had revolted from the King) then kept himself. The Peloponesians under the command of Astyochus the Ammiral, to whom Theramenes a Lacedaemonian had brought that Fleet, and the Syracusans (who made principal proof of their valor in this service under their General Hermocrates) setting suddenly upon the Jasians, who thought they had been friends, surprised them, and took the city. The Peloponesians having therein taken Amorges alive, delivered him up to Tissaphernes, to send him to Darius, if he pleased. The city Jasos itself, which long peace had made to abound with all plenty, they sacked, and made a vast booty of it: The companies which Amorges had there in pay, they saved, and because most of them were Peloponesians borne, they listed them among themselves: but the Town itself they gave over to Tissaphernes, with all the persons thereof, bound and free, taking for every head of them half a crown; and returning from thence to Miletus, they convoyed Paedaritus, who was sent by the Lacedemonians as Governor to Chios, overland, with the companies belonging to Amorges, as far as Erythrae, and left Philippus, Governor of Miletus, [ Ibid. ]
The Winter following Tissaphernes, [Year of the World d.] having put a Garrison into Jassos, came to Miletus, and there according to promise made at Lacedemon; paid them and their fellows, the monies which were due, which was a drachma of Athens, upon every head; and agreed with them for a standing pay, in time to come, [ Ib. ]
Astyochus the Ammiral of the Lacedaemonian Fleet with ten ships of Lacedemon, and as many of Chios, having in vain for a while besieged the city Pteleum, put over to Clazomenae, and there commanded such as favored the Athenian party to leave the place, and go and dwell in Daphnus: which was the command also upon them laid by Tamos Lieutenant of Ionia; which when they refused to do, he set upon the Town; being but an open burgade: yet not being able to carry it by assault, he left it and went his way: But meeting with a strong wind at sea, he himself came safe to Phocaea and Cuma, but the rest of his ships. were driven ashoar upon the Isles lying before Clazomenae, Marathusa, Pela, and Drymissa: where they lay 8 days for the violence of the tempest, and there spent and spoiled what they pleased of such goods as the Clazomenians had transported thither for fear of the war; and the rest they put aboard their ships, and carried away, and came to Astyochus at Phocaea and Cuma, [ Ibid. ]
The same Winter, Hippocrates of Lacedemon, setting sail from Peloponesus with ten ships of the Thurians, commanded by Dorieus and two others in commission with him, and one of Laconica, and another of Syracusae, came to Cnidus, which had now revolted from Tissaphernes, whereof so soon as the Milesians heard, they presently sent unto Hippocrates, by all means to leave one half of his ships in garrison at Cuidus, and to go with the rest, and surprise certain ships laden with Marchandise from Egypt, lying at Triopium, which is a foreland of Cnidia; and the Athenians hearing thereof, went from Samos, and surprised the six ships which lay at Triopium, as a garrison to the places, but the Mariners were got out of them, and so left them nothing but the hulls: and then coming to Cnidus, missed but little of surprizing it, at the first onset, being but an open bourgade without walls; but being put off for that time, their purpose was, to try again the next day: but the Cnidians having cast up some works about the place that night, and they which were forced a shore at Triopium, coming thither also, the thing grew harder to do now, than it was before, wherefore having wasted the country, they returned to Samos, [ Ibid. ]
When the league concluded between Chalcideus, [Year of the World 5593] and Tissaphernes, was judged at Sparta, not to be right, and pinch a little on the Lacedemonians side, another form was drawn up, between the Lacedemouians and their confederates on the one side, and Darius and his sons, and Tissaphernes on the other, in clearer terms than the former was, and subscribed,) in the presence of Theramenes of Lacedemon, after which Theramenes, having given up the charge of the Navy to Astyochus, put himself aboard a little Skiff, and went his way, [ Ibid. ]
The business, which Pharnabasus, (who was Governor for the king in Hellespont) had sent Calligetus of Megara, and Timagoras of Cyzicum about to Sparta, was there granted, according as he desired, and 27 sails of ships were sent under the command of Antisthenes a Lacedaemonian, in the depth of winter from Peloponesus into Ionia, The Lacedemonians also sent 11 Commissioners of theirs (whereof one was Lycas, the son of Arcesilaus) to be of council with Astyochus, in the management of this war, one of their instructions was, that when they came to Miletus, they should send of these 27 ships, all or some, more or less, as they should see cause into Hellespont, to Pharnabazus, and make Clearchus Commander of those they thought fit to send, and further, that, if they saw cause, they should remove Astyochus (who was drawn into some suspicion upon Pedaritus his information by letters against him,) from the charge of the Navy, and put Antisthenes in his room. Now these Commissioners loosing from Malea, a port in Peloponesus, came first to the Island of Melus; and from thence fetched a further compass about, that they might go in the less danger of the enemy, and landed at Caunus in Asia, [ Ibid. ]
Astyochus coming to Cnidus, hasted from thence to meet with the Athenian fleet, which waited for the Peloponesian ships coming from Caunus, where they were safely arrived: and meeting with them, they fought, where the Athenians gave at first the enemy a blow, but receiving a far greater one in the second fight from them, they retired, and came to Halicarnassus: and the Peloponesians as conquerors, returned to Cnidus. The Athenians after this, came to an Island called Sima, where they had received their overthrow; with all their fleet, and yet dust not attempt anything upon the Lacedaemonian navy, which lay at Cuidus, but taking in only some tackle and furniture from Sima, and having done something against Lorymae, in the continent, they returned again to Samos, [ Ibid. ]
When all the Peloponesian Navy was come together at Cnidus, consisting in all of 94 ships; the 11 Commissioners debated with Tissaphernes of matters aleady transacted, if they found fault with anything therein, and how the war for the future might be carried on, for the best advantage on both sides, but especially Lichas, considering what had passed, said, that neither of the two leagues, no, not that which was made with Theramenes, was as it should be, for that it was a thing not to be endured, that the king should hold all those countries which be or his ancestors had held; for by this reason, said he, all the Islands, and all Thessaly, and Locri, and consequently, all Baeothia, must all fall again into the kings power, and the Lacedemonians, instead of freeing the Greek cities, must help to enslave them to the power of the Persian more than ever; and therefore, that they must fall to a new draught & form of a league between them, or vacate this, and never ask nor receive Stipend more of the king of Persia, by virtue of this that was already made; whereupon Tissaphernes growing into cholor, brake up the treaty, and went his way, [ Ibid. ]
Now when letters came from the Peloponesians to Astiochus, that he should make away Alcibiades, for that they had him in suspicion, and he was a professed enemy to Agis the king of Lacedemon, Alcibiades getting an incling thereof, withdrew himself secretly, and fled over to Tissaphernes, and persuaded with him, not to make such large allowance of Stipend to the peloponesian Navy; but rather hold matters in such a balance, that neither they might subvert the state of the Athenians, nor the Athenians theirs; and so when they had wearied and worn out each other with a war, both in the end might easily be brought into the kings subjection. Hereupon Pisander and ten other Ambassadors with him, sent by the people of Athens, to treat with Tissaphernes and Alcibiades, upon such terms, as to them should seem meetest for the Commonwealth, and benefit of both, of whom Alcibiades in Tissaphernes his name made such vast demands, as though they yielded to many of them, yet were they fain at last to break off without doing anything, for he demanded that they should surrender into the kings hands, all Ionia, with the Islands adjacent thereunto: and when they had yielded thereunto, then he demanded, that the king might make what ships he would, and where he would, and that he might pass and repass by their coast as often, and with as many ships in a fleet as he pleased. But then the Athenians conceiving these demands to be intolerable, and themselves abused by Alcibiades, brake up in a rage, and returned to Samos, [ Ibid. ]
After this; [Year of the World b.] toward the end of this winter season, Tissaph ernes went to Caunus, purposing to recall the Lacedaemonian Commissioners back to Miletus, and to make them take their pay again, upon any conditions, least they should turn flat enemies against him: when they came, he paid them down all their arrears: and made a third league with them: which began thus,
In the 13 year of the reign of Darius, when Alexipidas was Ephorus, ( i. e. ) agreements were made, in the field of Maeander, between the Lacedemonians, and their confederates on the one side, and Tissaphernes and Hieramenes, and the sons of Pharnacus on the other, concerning the affairs of the king, and of the Lacedemonians and their confederates, to wit, That what country soever in Asia is, the kings, that let him hold still, and of his own countries, let him dispose as he will, &c. But concerning the payment of their yearly stipend it was thus agreed, That Tissaphernes should pay the fleet that then was there, till the kings own sh • ps came, and after they were come, then the Lacedemonians and their confederates, should maintain their own navy if they would, but if they would rather have a stipend for it, then Tissaphernes should furnish it; but with condition, that upon the end of the war, they should refund all the money, which they had received, [Ibid.] from whence we may gather the full meaning of what Justin, [lib. 5. 1.] more concisely hath delivered, Darius the king of Persians, saith he, making a league with the Lacedemonians by Tissaphernes his Governor of Lydia, promised to bear all the charge of the war.
In the very beginning of the summer following, which began the 21 year of the P • loponesian war, Dercylidas, a Lacedaemonian, is sent from Miletus over-land, with a small company into Hellespont, to stir up the city of Abydus, which was a colony or plantation of the Milesians to rebel against the Athenians: whereupon that city first, and two days after Lampsacus, fell off from them to Dercylides, and Pharnabazus.
Upon the first news whereof, Strombychides set sails out of Chios, with a fleet of 24 Athenian vessels, and came to Lesbos; and when the Lesbians, made a sally to encounter him, he routed them, and took the town at the first assault, being but an open bourgade, and having settled matters there, went to Abydus, but being there manfully repulsed, he put over to Sestos, and there placed a strong garrison for the defense of all the Hellespont, [ Thucid. lib. 8.]
The whole Navy of the Athenians coming together at Samos, they there entered a covenant with the Samians, to join in the restoring of the Popular estate in Athens, and to abolish the Junto or Government of 400, newly there erect, and bound themselves with solemn oath for performance hereof; and appointed Thrasibulus and Thrasyllus for captains in this action; they consulted also of calling home Alcibiades, hoping by his means, to draw away Tissaphernes from the Lacedaemonian party, and to gain the kings favor and assistance to themselves, [ Id. ibid. ]
Among the sea-men of the Peloponesians, which were at Miletus, there grew a grudge and murmuring against Tissaphernes, and Astyachus both; against Astyochus; for that he, when as heretofore they were strong in shipping, and the Athenians weak, would never fight with them at sea, nor to this day would, though it were known well enough unto him, what division there was among the Athenians: no, nor would ever so much as draw the Lacedaemonian Navy into a body; and against Tissaphernes, for that he cared not to send for the Navy of the Phoenicians, according to his promise, nor paid them their stipends, but when pleased himself: and then but by halfs neither: when therefore they cried out to put the matter to a battle; Astyochus and his confederates, commanded the M • lesians to march over-land, to the fore-land of Micale, whiles they went about by sea, with their whole fleet, consisting of 112 ships, to the same place. But when the Athenians, which lay at Glauca, under Mycale, with eighty two ships, saw their fleet coming, they presently weighed ancor, and highed them away as fast as they could to Samos: yet when Strombichides with his fleet, hearing thereof, hasted him to come to their help out of Hellespont, the Peloponesians withdrew and returned to Miletus. And the Athenians, having now 108 ships together, all strong and well provided, followed them home to Miletus, and there going on land, ranged their army in the open field; but seeing that the Peloponesians would not come forth, they took sea again, and returned to Samos without stroke striking. After which, the Peloponesians, seeing they were not able to deal with the Athenians, with all the force they could make by sea, and not being able of themselves to pay so many seamen, especially when Tissaphernes, was so sparing and backward, in sending in their stipend, according to agreement; they sent away Clearchus with 40 of their ships into Hellespont, to Pharnabasus, who both desired their coming very earnestly and promised them pay very liberally, and many good offices besides, if they pleased to come. [ Ib. ]
Thrasybulus, going to Tissaphernes, brought over Alcibiades with him to Samos, where the army made him one of their chief commanders; and indeed committed the whole charge of things to his ordering: who being thus made, in a sort, General to the Athenian army, sailed back presently to Tistaphernes; that he might seem to communicate in all counsels with him; and handled matters so cunningly to his own advantage, that he could make the Athenians afraid of Tissaphernes, and Tissaphernes of them, at his pleasure; [ Ibid. ]
And moreover wrought this effect in the Peloponesians which lay at Miletus, that he set them further out with Tissaphernes, than they were before, so that they began now to mutiny again, not only against him, but also against Astyochus: whom they charged of collusion with Tissaphernes for his own gain and advantage sake. And in this mangling it fell out that the Mariners of the Syracusian and Thurian companies cried, gelt, and demanded pay of Astyochus in a very saucy and mutinous manner; and when he again answered them somewhat roughly, and with some menacing terms withal, and offered to bastinado Doricus, who commanded the Thurian squadron (though the Greek scholiast of Thucydides, understands hereby, Hermocrates, commander of the Syracusian squadron) for upholding his mariners, they, crying, One and All, ran in upon him; and had, no doubt, there made an end of him, had he not ran and saved himself at an altar there by. The Milesians also, making a head, got secretly into the fort or citadell, which Tissaphernes had built, and turning out the soldiers that were there in garrison, took it into their own hands: which was very well liked of by the rest, save only by Lychas the Lacedaemonian, who said that the Milesians, and the rest under the kings dominion ought in duty to obey Tissaphernes so long as he governed so moderately as he did; and until the war should receive a happy end. [ Ibid. ]
Whiles they were busy in this alteration, Pindarus arrived, sent from Lacedemon, to succeed Astyochus in the Ammiralty or command of the Navy: and he took it upon him, upon the surrender of Astyochus. When Astyochus took shipping to return home to Lacedemon, Tissaphernes sent a messenger of his own along with him, one Gauletes, a Carian born, but one that could both the Greek and Persian tongue; who was both to charge the Milesians for surprising his citadel, and withal to clear him from those false aspersions, which the Milesians, and Hermocrates the Syracusian had cast upon him, for he well knew, that they would along too, and accuse him for conspiring with Alcibiades against the Lacedaemonian state; and for fickleness of mind toward them.
Tissaphernes seeing the Peloponesians bent against him, (among other things, for suffering Alcibiades to return to his own again) as one who now openly favored the Athenian party against them, went to Aspendus, where the Phoenician fleet, consisting of 147 sail of ships, was now arrived to purge himself, as he thought: and took Lichas the Lacedaemonian along with him, leaving his Agent Tamos with them, to see the stipend duly paid to the Peloponesian Navy, which yet was but so so performed by him: moreover the Peloponesians at Tissaphernes his request, sent Philippus a Lacedaemonian, with two tall ships to Aspendus, there to take a view of the Phoenician fleet. And Alcibiades, understanding that Tissaphernes was at Aspendus came with 13 sail to Caunus first, and then to Phaselis, promising everywhere to his friends huge supplies and aides in all kinds, and when he was returned to Samos, he informed them there, that he had wrought matters so, as that the Phoenician fleet should not assist the Peloponesians, and that Histaphernes was now become more friend to the Athenian than ever; for true it was, that Tissaphernes met with the Phoenicians at Aspendus, but would not let a sails of them go to the Peloponesians; putting them off with this idle excuse, that there were not so many ships come to him, as the k. had commanded: whereas indeed his purpose was, to hold both parties of the Greeks in suspense; and by siding with neither, to make them waste and consume one another, [ Ib. ]
The Junto or Government of 400 at Athens was dissolved, and 5000 put in their places; who by an Act of theirs, ratified, and confirmed the recalling of Alcibiades home, into his country, [ Ibid. ] and by the same order, was he joined in Commission, though absent, with Thra • ybulus, and Theramenes, and by their vallour, and virtue, the Athenian state, was in short time, much reformed and brought into better order than erst it was, [ Emil. Prob. in the life of Alcibiades. ]
Whiles the Peloponesians linger out the time at Miletum, none of those, whom Tissaphernes, when he went for Aspendus, had left behind him, took care to pay the Navy, nor did Tissaphernes himself, or the fleet which he promised, come at them: and both Philippus, who was sent with Tissaphernes to Aspendus, wrote to Mindarus, who had the charge of things belonging to the Navy, and so did Hippocrates from Phaselis, that he should not look for any supply of ships, or anything else that good was, from Tissaphernes his hand: But on the contrary, Pharnabazus, who served the king, in the parts of Helespont, shown them all the favor and friendship, that could be imagined: For he both solicited their coming, and of his own accord, moved all the Greek cities within his Province, to fall off from the Athenians (which Tissaphernes would have seemed to do too) hoping hereby to have increased his own power. Mindarus, being nettled with this news, made ready in an instant 72 ships; and gave the word, on a sudden to be gone, to the end, that there might no tidings thereof be carried to Samos, where the Athenians lay, and presently weighing anchor from Miletus, ran a straight course to Hellespont; and Thrasyllus hearing thereof, followed him from Samos, with 55 sails [ Thucid. lib. 8.]
Mindarus and the Syracusian squadron had a fight at sea with Thrasyllus and Thrasybulus, at a fore-land of Cynos-sema (a place known by old Hecubaes tomb) where after a sharp bickering on both sides, the Athenians went away with the victory, having had 15 of their own ships sunk, and taken 21 of their enemies: which sea-fight is more fully fet forth by Thucid. [in his 8. book, and by Diod. Sic. 2 year of 92 Olympiad. ]
The 4 day after this fight, the Athenians having used all possible diligence, in repairing their fleet, set sails from Sestos to Cyzicum, which had revolted from them, and having esp • ed 8 ships at Harpagium and Priapus, which came from Byzantium, set upon them, and having beaten those who defended them from the shore, took the ships into their own possession: and going on their way to Cyzicum, took that also, being then but an open bourgade, and squeesed a great sum of money out of them, [ Thu. l. 8.]
Alcibiades setting out from Samos with 22 ships, exacted great sums of money out of them of Halycarnassus: and then wasting the country of Coos, fenced the town of Cos, with a wall; and the winter now drawing on, returned with a great prey to Samos [ Id. ib. Diod. 2. year of 92 Olympiad. ]
Astacus a Persian borne, and Lieutenant to Tissaphernes, having conceived secret deadly batred against the men of Delos (who being driven out of their old habitation, dwelt at Atramyttium) coming that way, sent for all the chief men among them, as friends and confederates, to come and serve the king in his wars, and upon a time, seeing them altogether at dinner, closed them round with his soldiers, and they with their darts slew them every man. [ Thucid. ib. ]
Those of Antandrus in Eolia, fearing least Astacus should serve them with the same sauce, and impatient of those taxes which he had laid upon them, sent for certain Peloponesian soldiers, from Abydus, and drawing them privily over the mount Ida, received them into their city, and turned the garrison of Astacus out of the Castle there, [ Id. ibid. ]
Tissaphernes returning from Aspendus into Ionia, and being much moved with this last attempt at Antandrus, and with other the like a • Miletus and Cuidus (for there also the inhabitants had turned out his garrisons) thought himself much wronged by the Peloponesians: wherefore fearing worse matters from them, and troubled moreover in his mind, least Pharnabazus, in a shorter time, and with far less charge in paying them, should seem to have gone further against the Athenians than himself had done, he purposed to go in person to the Peloponesians in Hellespont, both to expostulate with them their fact in turning his Garison out of Antandrus, and also to clear himself, in the best manner he could, of those imputations which they laid upon him, concerning the Phoenician fleet and other things: and as soon as he was come to Ephesus, he there sacrificed to D • ana, [ Id. lib. 8. in fi. ] Here ends the History of Thucid, which Theo-pompus continues for 17 years, and Xenophon for 48 years after, [ Diod. 2 year of 92 Olympiad. ] Theo-pompus we have not, the later we have, but maimed in the head: for besides the proeme of his History, we want his whole two first years of it: to wit, from the end of the summer of the 21 year of the Peloponesian war, where Thucydides left, to the end of the 23 summer of the same war.
Of the 300 ships sent back into Phenicia, [Year of the World 3594] Tissaphernes purged himself to the Lacedemonians, [The Julian Period 4304] saying that he had received advertisement, [Year before Christ 410] that the coast of Phenicia was in danger to be assailed both by the Arabians, and also by the king of Egypt (meaning K. Amyrteus) [as Diod. Sic. hath it, 3 year of the 93 Olympiad, ] whereas Thucid. taught us, that there came but 147 ships to Aspendus out of Phenicia, and that they were all sent back again by Tissaphernes; contrary to his promise made.
There was this year another sea-fight, [Year of the World 3595. c.] between the Lacedemonians, [The Julian Period. 4305] and Athenians, [Year before Christ 409] at Cynos-sema aforesaid; which was described by Theo-pompus, as a certain nameless greek writer saith, in the life of Thucid.
Thymochares, coming to Athens with a small company of ships, presently the Lacedemonians and Athenians had another sea-fight, wherein the Lacedemonians, under the conduct of Hegesandridus, gat the victory, [ Xen. in the beginning of his History of the Greeks. ]
Not long after Dorieus of the Isle of Rhodes, Ammiral of the Thurian Fleet, out of Italy, in the beginning of Winter, setting out from Rhodes with 14 sail of ships, went to the Hellespont, there to join with Mindarus: who lying at Abydus, did there attend the coming of all the friends and confederates of the Peloponesian name and nation. And now was this Dorieus come as far as Sigeum, a Port in Troas, when the Athenians lying at Sestos, having knowledge of his being there, and whither he was going, went toward him with 20 ship: but Dorieus hearing of their coming, fled from thence, and drew up his ships upon the Rhaetaen shore; and having there landed his men, with the help of the men of Dardania, they defended both themselves and their ship • too, in spite of the Athenians: who seeing at last, they could do no good upon them, came back to Madytus, to the rest of their army. Mindarus seeing this fight, who at that time happened to be at old Troy, sacrificing to Minerva, went speedily with 84 ships to the Foreland of Dardania, to re • ieve Dorieus, and to save his ships; where he found also the land Forces of Pharnabazus ready to assist the Lacedaemonian Navy against their enemies. Against whom the Athen an Fleet consisting of 74 ships came forth, close to the shore of Abydus, and there began the fight. Mindarus having under his command 97 ships in all of his own, besides those of Dorieus, he placed the Syracusians in the left wing; himself took charge of the right: on the other side, Thrasybulus had the right wing, Thrasyllus the left. The fight continued doubtful from morning to the evening: when upon the sudden Alcibiades came stemming in with 18 fresh ships which came from Samos towards Hellespont: upon sight whereof the Lacedemonians fled towards Abydus. And the Athenians, following them close, took ten of their ships; and then a great storm of wind arose, so that the Athenians could not do as they would have done in the chase, and so the Peloponelians escaped all safe to shore, and fled to Pharnabazus his land army that was thereby: and Pharnabazus himself during the fight, rid his horse into the very sea, up to his saddle-skirts, and there fought, and commanded his men both Horse and Foot to do the like. The Peloponesians also themselves, locking their ships close together, and making one bulk of them, fought against their enemies from the decks close to the shore: but the night drawing on, the Athenians with 30 empty ships which they had taken of their enemies, and taking with them such of their own as had been hurt, and either battered or bilged in the fight, returned to Sestus: and the next morning so soon as it was light, gathering what spoils they could get together of their enemies wreck, they erected a Trophie: and then leaving 40 sail to guard the Hellespont, they disposed of the rest, some here, some there, to gather up their tribute monies: yet one of their chief Captains, Thrasyllus, sailed back to Athens, there to let them know what a victory they had gotten, and withal to desire a supply both of men and shipping for the carrying on of the war in those parts. [ Xen. Hellen. lib. 1. Diod. Sic. lib. 13. Plutarch in the life of Alcibiades. ]
Mindarus, about the first watch of the night, came back to the sea side, and gave order for the curing of his ships which were hurt and broken in the fight: and sent in all haste to Lacedemon for fresh supplies, both by land and sea. And whiles these things were in providing, his purpose was to join his land Forces with Pharnabazus, to take in the tributary cities of the Athenians, that were in Asia, [ Diod. ib. ]
Mean while came Tissaphernes in Hellespont, [Year of the World 3596. a.] and Alcibiades thinking to magnify himself after so great and glorions a victory atcheived against the Lacedemonians, [The Julian Period. 4306] came a land unto him with rich presents, [Year before Christ 408] and a princely train. But Tissaphernes, who was already ill spoken of at Lacedemon, and fearing least some information would be made against him to Darius, laid hold on him, and put him in irons at Sardes; pretending, that such was the Kings command, to show, that he reckoned the Athenians for his open enemies. But within a month after, he with one Manitheus, a Carian borne, and a fellow prisoner of his, gat horses, and by night stole away to Clazomenae; and gave out, that it was with Tissaphernes his privity and consent, [ Xen. Hellen. lib.