piled up and burned upon the altar three hundred talents’ weight of frankincense. 98. Datis having done these things sailed away with his army to fight against Eretria first, taking with him both Ionians and Aeolians; and after he had put out to sea from thence, Delos was moved, not having been shaken (as the Delians reported to me) either before that time or since that down to my own time; and this no doubt the god manifested as a portent to men of the evils that were about to be; for in the time of Darius the son of Hystaspes and Xerxes the son of Darius and Artaxerxes the son of Xerxes, three generations following upon one another, there happened more evils to Hellas than during the twenty other generations which came before Darius, some of the evils coming to it from the Persians, and others from the leaders themselves of Hellas warring together for supremacy. Thus it was not unreasonable that Delos should be moved, which was before unmoved. [And in an oracle it was thus written about
“Delos too will I move, unmoved though it hath been aforetime.”]
Now in the Hellenic tongue the names which have been mentioned have this meaning—Darius means “compeller,” Xerxes “warrior,” Artaxerxes “great warrior.” Thus then might the Hellenes rightly call these kings in their own tongue.
- The Barbarians then, when they had departed from Delos, touched at the islands as they went, and from them received additional forces and took sons of the islanders as hostages: and when in sailing round about the islands they put in also to Carystos, seeing that the Carystians would neither give them hostages nor consent to join in an expedition against cities that were their neighbours, meaning Eretria and Athens, they began to besiege them and to ravage their land; until at last the