He had not proceeded far on his homeward march before news reached him of a rising in Lydia. Paktyas, a renegade Lydian who had embraced his cause, and to whom the conqueror had entrusted the care of the transport of the spoils, had intrigued with the Ionian Greeks; and, having ample funds at his disposal, had hired mercenaries from them. Tabalos, the Persian lieutenant whom Cyrus had left behind him, was besieged in the citadel of Sardes; and there was every prospect that, if the place fell, all the work of the late campaign would have to be done again. There was no time to be lost: nor was Cyrus the man to lose time. He despatched an army under Mazares the Mede to rescue the besieged, and Sardes was saved. Paktyas fled to Kyme, and thence to the islands. He neither deserved nor received sympathy, and, after various adventures, was handed over by the Chians to the Median commander. With the flight of Paktyas the insurrection in Lydia came to an end; in fact, in so far as extant records go, the Lydians themselves played but little part in it. The passive and entire submission of this people, their acceptance, once and for all, of the yoke laid upon them, is one of the most extraordinary features of this extraordinary time. #CONQUEST OF IONIA BY PERSIA.# It might well have been expected that a nation with a past so recent and so glorious would have seized the first and every opportunity of attempting to regain the freedom, if not the dominion they had lost. But nothing of the kind took place; and even the great effort of the Ionian revolt failed to rouse them from the apathy of defeat. The circumstances of Paktyas’ rebellion showed Mazares that the Greek cities of the coast could no longer be left in a position to be the instruments of trouble in the newly-won territory. To them, accordingly, he immediately turned his attention. He first attacked Priene and sacked it; but, before he had completed the reduction of Magnesia on the Mæander, he died, and Harpagos, who succeeded him as governor, took up the task of reduction. Phokæa and Teos were besieged. Ere they fell, the mass of their inhabitants went into voluntary exile—the Phokæans to Corsica in the farthest west, the Teans to the near coast of Thrace.