army, the Brygi, that are a tribe of Thracians, assailed him in his camp by night and slew many of his men, and wounded Mardonius himself. Notwithstanding, the Brygi escaped not the doom of slavery, for Mardonius left not this region till he had utterly subdued them. But when he had done this he went back to Asia, for his army had suffered much from the Thracians, and his ships from the storm at Mount Athos. Thus did this great undertaking come to an end with little honor.
For all this Darius changed not his purpose concerning Athens and the other cities of Greece. For every day, at his bidding, did his servant say to him, “O King, remember the Athenians.” Also the children of Pisistratus ceased not to speak against the city. The King indeed desired, having for a pretense his quarrel against the Athenians, to subdue all the Greeks that would not give him earth and water; for the giving of these things is to the Persians a token of submission. Mardonius, seeing that he had fared badly in his undertaking, the King discharged of his office, appointing thereto Datis, that was a Mede, and Artaphernes his brother’s son. These then he sent on the same errand on which he had sent Mardonius, saying to them, “Make slaves of the men of Eretria and of the men of Athens, and bring them to me that I may see them.” So these two went down from the city of Susa to Cilicia, having with them a very great army and well-appointed; and while they were encamped here in a plain that is called the Aleian plain, there came also to that country the whole array of ships as had been commanded, and with the rest ships designed for the carriage of horses, for in the year before the King had commanded the inhabitants that such should be built. On these ships, therefore, they embarked their horses, and on the other ships the rest of the army, and so set sail to Ionia, having in all six hundred ships of war.
But they sailed not along the coast after the former manner, going northwards to the Hellespont and to Thrace, but voyaged through the islands, beginning with Samos; and this they did, as it seems, because they feared the going round Mount Athos, remembering what loss and