The Chians were unprepared for his coming, and his landing was resisted. He accordingly withdrew to Polichne. This place lay near Klazomenæ,[47] and commanded from the land side the peninsula off which Chios lies. #HISTIÆUS AT THASOS.# Herodotus says that he used the place as a base of operations against the Chians. The improbability of his having, at this juncture of affairs adopted an attitude of hostility towards the Chians, and, above all, of his having deliberately entered upon operations against them at a time when the arrival of the Phœnician fleet might be expected, is so great, that it is impossible to accept the statement as a reliable record of events. Later tradition may well have interpreted his proceedings at Polichne in the light of the unfortunate incident with the Chian garrison. Whether depressed or not by the defeat at Ladé, it is beyond imagination that this powerful island-state should have succumbed to an attack from such a force as Histiæus could have brought with him. It is infinitely more probable that he withdrew to Polichne in order to be able to explain his attitude to the Chians before further collision took place, and that he did persuade them of the _bona fides_ of his intentions. His next proceedings throw considerable light upon those intentions. ◆H. vi. 28.◆ Having got the Chians to his side, he proceeded to attack the Island of Thasos, taking with him “many of the Ionians and Æolians.” There can be no doubt as to the general reasons which prompted this attack. Thasos had considerable possessions on the lower Strymon. The particular reasons may be matter for conjecture. It is, at least, conceivable that the Thasians had the strongest objection to the establishment of a new power in a region in which they had so much at stake, in the shape of those gold-mines which brought them such enormous wealth; and that Histiæus found it necessary to subdue them, before he tried to carry out his plans on the continent. Had the Thasians participated directly or indirectly in the disaster which befell Aristagoras? Be this as it may, Histiæus was only carrying out in a new form, and under conditions more favourable to himself, a policy he had attempted to initiate years before, the initiation of which had caused his removal to Susa. He was now backed up by a number of desperate men, ready for any venture which might save them from the hands of the Persian. But time was all-important. The Phœnician fleet was at the moment engaged in the reduction of such Carian towns as still resisted; but its arrival in the North Ægean could not be long deferred. It was, no doubt, owing to the resistance of Thasos that the plan miscarried. While he was besieging the place, news arrived that the Phœnician fleet was moving northward. This being so, it was quite certain that the Æolians in his force would insist on an attempt being made to rescue the Lesbians, if not Lesbos. So to Lesbos Histiæus went. ◆H. vi. 28.◆