do no more than
delay the catastrophe and save their honour by their bravery. Cyprus
was the first to yield during the winter of 498-497. Its vessels,
in conjunction with those of the Ionians, dispersed the fleet of the
Phoenicians off Salamis, but the troops of their princes, still imbued
with the old system of military tactics, could not sustain the charge
of the Persian battalions; they gave way under the walls of Salamis, and
their chief, Onesilus, was killed in a final charge of his chariotry.*

* The movement in Cyprus must have begun in the winter of
499-498, for Onesilus was already in the field when Darius
heard of the burning of Sardes; and as it lasted for a year,
it must have been quelled in the winter of 498-497.

His death effected the ruin of the Ionian cause in Cyprus, which on the
continent suffered at the same time no less serious reverses. The towns
of the Hellespont and of AEolia succumbed one after another; Kyme and
Clazomenae next opened their gates; the Carians were twice beaten, once
near the White Columns, and again near Labranda, and their victory at
Pedasos suspended merely for an instant the progress of the Persian
arms, so that towards the close of 497 the struggle was almost entirely
concentrated round Miletus. Aristagoras, seeing that his cause was
now desperate, agreed with his partisans that they should expatriate
themselves. He fell fighting against the Edonians of Thrace, attempting
to force the important town of Enneahodoi, near the mouth of the Strymon
(496);* but his defection had not discouraged any one, and Histiseus,
who had been sent to Sardes by the great king to negotiate the
submission of the rebels, failed in his errand. Even when blockaded on
the land side, Miletus could defy an attack so long as communication
with the sea was not cut off.

* In Herodotus the town is not named, but a passage in
Thucydides shows that it was Enneahodoi, afterwards
Amphipolis, and that the death of Aristagoras took place
thirty-two years before the Athenian defeat at Drabeskos,
i.e. probably in 496.

[Illustration: 209.jpg A CYPRIOT CHARIOT]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the terra-cotta group in the
New York Museum.

Darius therefore brought up the Phoenician fleet, reinforced it with
the Cypriot contingents, and despatched the united squadrons to the
Archipelago during the summer of 494. The confederates, even after the
disasters