The character of this branch of the Hellenic race at this period of its history is difficult to realize. The extant evidence on the question, with the exception of a few fragments of the writings of historians most of whose works have perished, is demonstrably hostile to the Ionian Greek, and not merely that, but demonstrably unfair. Herodotus, as will be shown in dealing with his account of the Ionian revolt, is largely responsible for the mistaken impression of the nature of this people which has been handed down to after-time. His whole view of the Ionian Greek was coloured by the belief that he was originally responsible for all the trouble which fell upon European Hellas in the years succeeding the revolt; that he imperilled the very existence of that Hellenic liberty which was destined to produce the greatness of that after-time under whose influence he wrote. He looked upon the revolt as having been from beginning to end a colossal mistake. Begun in culpable ignorance, it was carried out with contemptible pusillanimity,—so he thought. Its authors were a people of whom the Hellenic race was ashamed. Even their nearest relations among the Greeks were loth to claim relationship with them. Apart from the facts which Herodotus himself gives tending to an opposite conclusion, the previous history of this branch of the Greek race, and especially of the Ionian section of it, tends in every way to deductions which are irreconcilable with the views of the historian. These Ionians were the descendants of men who had been conspicuous for ages as the boldest navigators of their time; who had planted colonies in almost every part of the Mediterranean, making voyages to lands previously unknown to the Greek, undeterred by the partly fabulous, partly real, perils of such enterprises. The Ionian Greek had been accustomed for centuries to take his life in his hands, facing all the manifold dangers incident to early navigation, to intercourse with barbarous tribes and life among them. And though by the end of the sixth century custom and experience must have diminished the perils attached to such adventurous existence, yet even then the Ionian had only one rival, the Phœnician, in the boldness of his seamanship. The dangerous trade route with Egypt across the expanse of the Levant was in his hands; the corn trade with the stormy Euxine was still for the most part under his control.