roofs of reeds; and when a certain soldier set fire to one of these houses, the fire ran quickly from house to house till the whole city was consumed. And while the city was burning, such Lydians and Persians as were in it, seeing that they were cut off from escape (for the fire was in all the outskirts of the city), gathered together in haste to the market-place. Through this market-place flows the river Pactolus, which comes down from Mount Tmolus, having gold in its sands, and when it has passed out of the city it flows into the Hermus which flows into the sea. Here then the Lydians and Persians were gathered together, being constrained to defend themselves. And when the men of Ionia saw their enemies how many they were, and that these were preparing to give battle, they were stricken with fear, and fled out of the city to Mount Tmolus, and thence, when it was night, they went back to the sea. In this manner was burned the city of Sardis, and in it the great temple of the goddess Cybele, the burning of which temple was the cause, as said the Persians, for which afterward they burned the temples in Greece. Not long after came a host of Persians from beyond the river Halys; and when they found that the men of Ionia had departed from Sardis, they followed hard upon their track and came up with them at Ephesus. And when the battle was joined, the men of Ionia fled before them. Many indeed were slain, and such as escaped were scattered, every man to his own city.
After this the ships of the Athenians departed and would not help the men of Ionia any more, though Aristagoras besought them to stay. Nevertheless the Ionians ceased not from making preparations of war against the King, making to themselves allies, some by force and some by persuasion, as the cities of the Hellespont and many of the Carians and the island of Cyprus. For all Cyprus, save Amathus only, revolted from the King under Onesilus, brother of King Gorgus.
When King Darius heard that Sardis had been taken and burned with fire by the Ionians and the Athenians, with Aristagoras for leader, at the first he took no heed of the Ionians, as knowing that they would surely