Hellespont and of AEolia succumbed one after another; Kyme and Clazomenae next opened their gates; the Carians were twice beaten, once near the White Columns, and again near Labranda, and their victory at Pedasos suspended merely for an instant the progress of the Persian arms, so that towards the close of 497 the struggle was almost entirely concentrated round Miletus.  Aristagoras, seeing that his cause was now desperate, agreed with his partisans that they should expatriate themselves.  He fell fighting against the Edonians of Thrace, attempting to force the important town of Enneahodoi, near the mouth of the Strymon (496);* but his defection had not discouraged any one, and Histiseus, who had been sent to Sardes by the great king to negotiate the submission of the rebels, failed in his errand.  Even when blockaded on the land side, Miletus could defy an attack so long as communication with the sea was not cut off.

* In Herodotus the town is not named, but a passage in Thucydides shows that it was Enneahodoi, afterwards Amphipolis, and that the death of Aristagoras took place thirty-two years before the Athenian defeat at Drabeskos, i.e. probably in 496.

[Illustration:  209.jpg A CYPRIOT CHARIOT]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the terra-cotta group in the
     New York Museum.

Darius therefore brought up the Phoenician fleet, reinforced it with the Cypriot contingents, and despatched the united squadrons to the Archipelago during the summer of 494.  The confederates, even after the disasters of the preceding years, still possessed 353 vessels, most of them of 30 to 50 oars; they were, however, completely defeated near the small island of Lade, in the latter part of the summer, and Miletus, from that moment cut off from the rest of the world, capitulated a few weeks later.  A small proportion of its inhabitants continued to dwell in the ruined city, but the greater number were carried away to Ampe, at the mouth of the Tigris, in the marshes of the Nar-Marratum.*

* The year 497, i.e. three years before the capture of the town, appears to be an unlikely date for the battle of Lade:  Miletus must have fallen in the autumn or winter months following the defeat.

Caria was reconquered during the winter of 494-493, and by the early part of 493, Chios, Lesbos, Tenedos, the cities of the Chersonnesus and of Propontis—­in short, all which yet held out—­were reduced to obedience.  Artaphernes reorganised his vanquished states entirely in the interest of Persia.  He did not interfere with the constitutions of the several republics, but he reinstated the tyrants.  He regulated and augmented the various tributes, prohibited private wars, and gave to the satrap the right of disposing of all quarrels at his own tribunal.  The measures which he adopted had long after his day the force of law among the Asiatic Greeks, and it was by them they regulated their relations with the representatives of the great king.