send twenty ships to help the men of Ionia, and appointed one Melanthius, a man of reputation among them, to be captain. These ships were the beginning of trouble both to the Greeks and the barbarians.
After this Aristagoras sailed to Miletus; and as soon as he was gone there he did a thing which could be of no profit to the men of Ionia, but vexed King Darius. He sent a messenger to the Pæonians, whom Megabazus had carried away captive from the river Strymon and set down in Phrygia, saying, “Thus saith Aristagoras, lord of Miletus, If ye will obey him, ye shall have deliverance. All Ionia hath rebelled against the King. Now therefore ye can depart in safety to your own land. How ye shall get to the sea ye must order for yourselves; but when ye come thither, we will see to the matter.” The Pæonians heard this with great gladness; and taking with them their wives and their children, they fled to the sea. Yet some of them were afraid and remained behind. And when they had come to the sea, they crossed over to Chios. And when they were already in Chios there came a multitude of the horsemen of the Persians, pursuing them, who, as they had not been able to overtake them, sent messengers to them in Chios, bidding them return to the land of Phrygia. But the Pæonians would not hearken to them. And the people of Chios carried them thence to Lesbos, and the Lesbians carried them to Doriscus; and from Doriscus they returned on foot to their own land of Pæonia.
When the twenty ships of the Athenians were arrived, and with them five ships of the Eretrians, which came, not for any love of the Athenians, but because the Milesians had helped them in old time against the men of Chalcis, Aristagoras sent an army against Sardis, but he himself abode in Miletus. This army, crossing Mount Tmolus, took the city of Sardis without any hindrance; but the citadel they took not, for Artaphernes held it with a great force of soldiers. But though they took the city they had not the plunder of it, and for this reason. The houses in Sardis were for the most part built of reeds, and such as were built of bricks had their