It was either late in 496 or early in 495 that Histiæus came down to the coast. The revolt had not, indeed, prospered, but it was far from crushed. Aristagoras had gone to Myrkinos, if not to Hades. He had left Miletus, in all probability, before the great Persian disaster on the Pedasos road. That disaster, in which the greatest of the armies, if not the major part of the whole Persian force in Western Asia, had been wiped out of existence, now put a wholly different complexion upon affairs; and the satraps seem to have found themselves once more, in 495, in the position in which they had been in 497,—able to maintain the existing status, but without the means necessary for taking further offensive, for the time being. Hence the gap in this part of Herodotus’ story of the war. There is nothing recorded, because there was nothing remarkable to record. The side which had suffered most severely in the last round of the great fight had managed at the last moment to get in a smashing blow; and during the next round both sides were too weak to attempt a vigorous attack. In one respect the circumstances were favourable to Histiæus. They afforded him time for intrigue. If Herodotus’ story is to be believed, he had to face the bitter reproaches of the Ionians at Chios for having brought about the revolt. It is doubtless the case that the Ionians were dispirited at the way in which matters had gone in the last campaign; but, apart from the inconsistency of this attitude of the Chians with their previous treatment of Histiæus, the story serves to point the moral of the hopelessness of the revolt, and, so doing, is not above suspicion. Histiæus is related to have defended himself by saying that he sent the message because he had discovered that Darius entertained a design of removing the Ionians to Phœnicia and the Phœnicians to Ionia. The intense rivalry between these two great commercial peoples may well have rendered such an allegation a commonplace with agitators on the Asiatic side of the Ægean; but there is no reason for supposing that it had any foundation in fact. Histiæus now proceeded with his schemes. He was evidently convinced that the revolt could not succeed without external support of some kind. Upon Thrace he could not now reckon, since the news that Aristagoras had embroiled himself with the Thracians on the Strymon must have reached him by that time. ◆H. vi. 4.◆ He had, however, discovered that there was at Sardes a Persian party hostile to Artaphernes, with which he had previously conferred “about revolt.” With it he now sought to establish communications. He was unfortunate in his messenger—a certain Hermippos of Atarneus,—who carried the letters straight to Artaphernes. The latter directed him to take them to those to whom they were sent, and to bring back the answers. As might be expected, the recipients were executed. So the plan miscarried.