CHAPTER VIII.

IONIA. te for a tongue to curse the slave, Whose treason, like .a deadly blight, Comes o'er the counsels of the brave, And blasts them in their hour of might ! " MOORE, " Fire- Worshippers." DARIUS had not forgotten the good service done him by Histiaeus of Miletus, in preserving the Danube bridge for him on his hurried retreat from the Scythian expe- dition. He had given him a grant of land in Thrace, in a most desirable position for a new settlement. But he was afterwards persuaded that he had done wrong. A shrewd Greek would be tempted to form there the nucleus of an independent power. He there- fore sent for Histiaeus, and detained him in an honour- able captivity in his own court at Susa. And this detention led to the great Persian war. There was a revolution in the little island of Naxos. " The men of substance," as they were literally called, were expelled, and came to Miletus begging Aristag- oras, now deputy - governor in the absence of his father-in-law Histiaeus, to restore them. Thinking to get Naxos for himself, Aristagoras procured the aid of