Erato   

burn either their city or their temples, as they did those of the
other rebels. Immediately after the fall of Miletus the Persians
recovered Caria, bringing some of the cities over by force, while
others submitted of their own accord.
Meanwhile tidings of what had befallen Miletus reached Histiaeus
the Milesian, who was still at Byzantium, employed in intercepting the
Ionian merchantmen as they issued from the Euxine. Histiaeus had no
sooner heard the news than he gave the Hellespont in charge to
Bisaltes, son of Apollophanes, a native of Abydos, and himself, at the
head of his Lesbians, set sail for Chios. One of the Chian garrisons
which opposed him he engaged at a place called "The Hollows," situated
in the Chian territory, and of these he slaughtered a vast number;
afterwards, by the help of his Lesbians, he reduced all the rest of
the Chians, who were weakened by their losses in the sea-fight,
Polichne, a city of Chios, serving him as head-quarters.
It mostly happens that there is some warning when great
misfortunes are about to befall a state or nation; and so it was in
this instance, for the Chians had previously had some strange tokens
sent to them. A choir of a hundred of their youths had been despatched
to Delphi; and of these only two had returned; the remaining
ninety-eight having been carried off by a pestilence. Likewise,
about the same time, and very shortly before the sea-fight, the roof
of a school-house had fallen in upon a number of their boys, who
were at lessons; and out of a hundred and twenty children there was
but one left alive. Such were the signs which God sent to warn them.
It was very shortly afterwards that the sea-fight happened, which
brought the city down upon its knees; and after the sea-fight came the
attack of Histiaeus and his Lesbians, to whom the Chians, weakened
as they were, furnished an easy conquest.
Histiaeus now led a numerous army, composed of Ionians and
Aelians, against Thasos, and had laid siege to the place when news
arrived that the Phoenicians were about to quit Miletus and attack the
other cities of Ionia. On hearing this, Histiaeus raised the siege
of Thasos, and hastened to Lesbos with all his forces. There his
army was in great straits for want of food; whereupon Histiaeus left
Lesbos and went across to the mainland, intending to cut the crops
which were growing in the Atarnean territory, and likewise in the
plain of the Caicus, which belonged to Mysia. Now it chanced that a
certain Persian named Harpagus was in these regions at the head of
an army of no little strength. He, when Histiaeus landed, marched
out to meet him, and engaging with his forces destroyed the greater
number of them, and took Histiaeus himself prisoner.
Histiaeus fell into the hands of the Persians in the following
manner. The Greeks and Persians engaged at Malena, in the region of
Atarneus; and the battle was for a long time stoutly contested, till
at length the cavalry came up, and, charging the Greeks, decided the
conflict. The Greeks fled; and Histiaeus, who thought that Darius
would not punish his fault with death, showed how he loved his life by
the following conduct. Overtaken in his flight by one of the Persians,
who was about to run him through, he cried aloud in the Persian tongue
that he was Histiaeus the Milesian.
Now, had he been taken straightway before King Darius, I verily
believe that he would have received no hurt, but the king would have
freely forgiven him. Artaphernes, however, satrap of Sardis, and his
captor Harpagus, on this very account- because they were afraid
that, if he escaped, he would be again received into high favour by
the king- put him to death as soon as he arrived at Sardis. His body
they impaled at that place, while they embalmed his head and sent it
up to Susa to the king. Darius, when he learnt what had taken place,
found great fault with the men engaged in this business for not
bringing Histiaeus alive into his presence, and commanded his servants
to wash and dress the head with all care, and then bury it, as the
head of a man who had been a great benefactor to himself and the
Persians. Such was the sequel of the history of Histiaeus.