Hide browse bar Your current position in the text is marked in blue. Click anywhere in the line to jump to another position:
This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
” [3] But the terror which lay close at hand caused them to forget their former rivalry with one another and compelled them to man the triremes with all speed.2 [4] Hecataeus, the Milesian, whom the Ionians dispatched as an ambassador,3 asked what cause Artaphernes had to put no faith in them. And when Artaphernes replied that he was afraid that they would harbour resentment because of the injuries they had received during their defeat,4 Hecataeus said, "Well then, if suffering ill treatment has the effect of creating bad faith, receiving kind treatment will surely cause our cities to be well disposed toward the Persians" And Artaphernes, approving the statement, restored to the cities their laws and laid upon them fixed tributes according to their ability to pay.
1 Hdt. 5.102 says that the Persians gave the burning by Greeks of the temple of Cybele in Sardis as an excuse for their burning the temples of Greece.
2 The reference is to the Ionians as they saw themselves threatened by the Persian fleet. Cp. Hdt. 6.7 f.
3 Hdt. 5.36, 125 f. mentions Hecataeus in connection with the Ionian revolt, but not with any embassy like this, which has every appearance of being an invention.
The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.
Purchase a copy of this text (not necessarily the same edition) from Amazon.com
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.
View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.
Click on a place to search for it in this document.
Miletus (Turkey) (1)
Lade (United Kingdom) (1)
Greece (Greece) (1)
Download Pleiades ancient places geospacial dataset for this text.
Click on a date to search for it in this document.