DARIUS AND THE SCYTHIANS. 125

overcome. The smaller cities were conquered one
by one, but the Persians were four years in pre-
paring for the siege of Miletus. Resistance here
was fierce and bitter, but in the end the city fell.
The Persians now took a savage revenge for the
burning of Sardis, killing most of the men of this
important city, dragging into captivity the women
and children, and burning the temples to the
ground. ‘The other cities which still held out were
quickly taken, and visited like Miletus, with the
same fate of fire and bloodshed. It was now 495
B.c., more than twenty years after the invasion of
Scythia.

As for Histieus, he was at first blamed by Darius
for the revolt. But as he earnestly declared his
innocence, and asserted that he could soon bring
it to an end, Darius permitted him to depart.
Reaching Miletus, he applied at the gates for ad-
mission, saying that he had come to the city’s aid.
But Aristagoras was no longer there, and the
Mileseans had no use for their former tyrant. They
refused him admission, and even wounded him
when he tried to force his way in at night. He
then went to Lesbos, obtained there some ships,
occupied the city of Byzantium, and began a life
of piracy, which he kept up till his death, pillaging
the Ionian merchant ships as they passed into and
out of the Euxine Sea. Thus ended the career of
this treacherous and worthless despot, to whom
Darius owed his escape from Scythia.

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