* Herodotus fixes the date at the time when the Athenians first ostracised the principal partisans of the Pisistratids, and amongst others Hipparchus, son of Charmes, i.e. in 507-6.

     ** Herodotus said that Darius sent spies with the physician
     Democedes of Crotona shortly before the Scythian expedition.

While he thus studied the territory from a distance, he did not neglect precautions nearer to hand, but ordered the Milesians to occupy in his name the principal stations of the AEgean between Ionia and Attica.  Histiasus, whose loyalty had stood Darius in such good stead at the bridge over the Danube, did not, however, appear to him equal to so delicate a task:  the king summoned him to Susa on some slight pretext, loaded him with honours, and replaced him by his nephew Aristagoras.  Aristagoras at once attempted to justify the confidence placed in him by taking possession of Naxos; but the surprise that he had prepared ended in failure, discontent crept in among his men, and after a fruitless siege of four months he was obliged to withdraw (499).* His failure changed the tide of affairs.  He was afraid that the Persians would regard it as a crime, and this fear prompted him to risk everything to save his fortune and his life.  He retired from his office as tyrant, exhorted the Milesians, who were henceforth free to do so, to make war on the barbarians, and seduced from their allegiance the crews of the vessels just returned from Naxos, and still lying in the mouths of the Meander; the tyrants who commanded them were seized, some exiled, and some put to death.  The AEolians soon made common cause with their neighbours the Ionians, and by the last days of autumn the whole of the AEgean littoral was under arms (499).**

     * Herodotus attributes an unlikely act of treachery to
     Megabates the Persian, who was commanding the Iranian
     contingent attached to the Ionian troops.

** The Dorian cities took no part in the revolt—­at least Herodotus never mentions them among the confederates.  The three Ionian cities of Ephesus, Kolophon, and Lebedos also seem to have remained aloof, and we know that the Ephesians were not present at the battle of Lade.

From the outset Aristagoras realised that they would be promptly overcome if Asiatic Hellas were not supported by Hellas in Europe.  While the Lydian satrap was demanding reinforcements from his sovereign, Aristagoras therefore repaired to the Peloponnesus as a suppliant for help.  Sparta, embroiled in one of her periodical quarrels with Argos, gave him an insolent refusal;* even Athens, where the revolution had for the moment relieved her from the fear of the Pisistratidaa and the terrors of a barbarian invasion, granted him merely twenty triremes—­enough to draw down reprisals on her immediately after their defeat, without sensibly augmenting the rebels’ chances of success; to the Athenian contingent Bretria added five vessels,