aroused. He succeeds: the people accede to
his views. "It is easier," says the homely Herodotus, "to gain (or
delude) a multitude than an individual; and the eloquence which had
failed with Cleomenes enlisted thirty thousand Athenians." [265]

IV. The Athenians agreed to send to the succour of their own
colonists, the Ionians, twenty vessels of war. Melanthius, a man of
amiable character and popular influence, was appointed the chief.
This was the true commencement of the great Persian war.

V. Thus successful, Aristagoras departed from Athens. Arriving at
Miletus, he endeavoured yet more to assist his design, by attempting
to arouse a certain colony in Phrygia, formed of Thracian captives
[266] taken by Megabazus, the Persian general. A great proportion of
these colonists seized the occasion to return to their native land--
baffled the pursuit of the Persian horse--reached the shore--and were
transported in Ionian vessels to their ancient home on the banks of
the Strymon. Meanwhile, the Athenian vessels arrived at Miletus,
joined by five ships, manned by Eretrians of Euboea, mindful of former
assistance from the Milesians in a war with their fellow-islanders,
the Chalcidians, nor conscious, perhaps, of the might of the enemy
they provoked.

Aristagoras remained at Miletus, and delegated to his brother the
command of the Milesian forces. The Greeks then sailed to Ephesus,
debarked at Coressus, in its vicinity, and, under the conduct of
Ephesian guides, marched along the winding valley of the Cayster--
whose rapid course, under a barbarous name, the traveller yet traces,
though the swans of the Grecian poets haunt its waves no more--passed
over the auriferous Mount of Tmolus, verdant with the vine, and
fragrant with the saffron--and arrived at the gates of the voluptuous
Sardis. They found Artaphernes unprepared for this sudden invasion--
they seized the city (B. C. 499).--the satrap and his troops retreated
to the citadel.

The houses of Sardis were chiefly built of reeds, and the same slight
and inflammable material thatched the roofs even of the few mansions
built of brick. A house was set on fire by a soldier--the flames
spread throughout the city. In the midst of the conflagration despair
gave valour to the besieged--the wrath of man was less fearful than
that of the element; the Lydians, and the Persians who were in the
garrison, rushed into the market-place, through which flowed the river
of Pacto