Asia having gained no honour by its
- In the next year after this Darius first sent a messenger to the men of Thasos, who had been accused by their neighbours of planning revolt, and bade them take away the wall around their town and bring their ships to Abdera. The Thasians in fact, as they had been besieged by Histiaios the Milesian and at the same time had large revenues coming in, were using their money in building ships of war and in surrounding their city with a stronger wall. Now the revenues came to them from the mainland and from the mines: from the goldmines in Scapte Hyle there came in generally eighty talents a year, and from those in Thasos itself a smaller amount than this but so much that in general the Thasians, without taxes upon the produce of their soil, had a revenue from the mainland and from the mines amounting yearly to two hundred talents, and when the amount was highest, to three hundred. 47. I myself saw these mines, and by much the most marvellous of them were those which the Phoenicians discovered, who made the first settlement in this island in company with Thasos; and the island had the name which it now has from this Thasos the Phoenician. These Phoenician mines are in that part of Thasos which is between the places called Ainyra and Koinyra and opposite Samothrace, where there is a great mountain which has been all turned up in the search for metal. Thus it is with this matter: and the Thasians on the command of the king both razed their walls and brought all their ships to Abdera.