It would seem unlikely that Herodotus could not have obtained any information with regard to the course of events in the land immediately bordering on the territory of his own native town. The only possible conjecture is that his reference to the reduction of Caria as having taken place after that of Miletus, applies to its _complete_ subjugation, and that the process had been going on for some time. It has already been suggested that the inactivity of Caria was due partly to its resistance having been undermined by Persian diplomacy in the period following the great defeat; and it may be that those towns which submitted voluntarily had been gradually detached from the insurrection by offers of favourable terms from Artaphernes. ◆H. vi. 26.◆ Histiæus plays the chief part in the last scene of the drama of the revolt. Whenever this mysterious man appears upon the stage he brings mystery with him. He is still at Byzantion when the scene opens. He has been there for at least a year. But the strange feature of the matter is that, though he has been there so long, and though during all that time he has been committing acts of piracy (_sic_) against the Ionian traders, those simple-minded folk continue to send their vessels into the inevitable trap. ◆H. vi. 26.◆ His Lesbians are still with him, presumably the crews of the eight ships the Mytilenians had granted him. And yet while all these strange proceedings are going on at Byzantion, and while their own people are taking part in them, these very Mytilenians send seventy vessels to Ladé! Byzantion was less than two days’ sail from them, and with half that number of vessels they could have put a stop to what was going on there, had they had the will to do so. They must have been satisfied that Histiæus was acting in their interest; and had that consisted in the perpetration of piratical acts against their allies, it is strange that they should have thought it their interest to join those allies at Ladé. They played, indeed, a coward’s part there, but not without excuse. The evidence, though anything but conclusive, suggests the suspicion that Histiæus was acting in the interest of those cities who persevered in the revolt against those other Greek cities who had made, or had sought to make, terms with the Persian. His proceedings after he had received the news of the fall of Miletus are less obscure in motive than his doings at Byzantion. His position in the Hellespontine region had certainly developed in the course of the year during which he had been there.