This is a very remarkable statement. The coast districts of the Euxine had submitted to Darius on his advance to the Danube. It may be doubted whether this submission was very real or permanent. ◆H. v. 10.◆ But now Megabazos appears to be represented as having reduced the whole of Thrace, of which region Herodotus takes the opportunity of giving a comprehensive description. Bearing in mind the language of the sentence which suggested the description, it is somewhat startling to read in the closing sentence of it the words, “Megabazos then reduced the coast regions (of Thrace) to subjection to the Persians.” These two apparently conflicting statements form one of the many examples of the highly composite character of the sources from which Herodotus drew his history of these obscure years. It is impossible to say that the one is true and the other false. It is probably the case that here, as in some other similar instances in Herodotus’ history where two irreconcilable accounts of the same thing are either deliberately or inadvertently given, that either both are true in a sense, or that both contain elements of the truth. May it not be that this is an instance of the first of these two alternatives, and that the assertion with regard to the whole of Thrace refers to a position of weak dependence, whereas that with regard to the coast region refers to actual subjection? It will be seen later that this matter is not unimportant in its bearing upon the conclusions which must be drawn as to the history of the years which follow. The hypothesis is supported by the fact that though in those thirty years the coast region does appear to be, save during the interval of the Ionian revolt, under Persian rule, there is no evidence of the real subjection of the hinterland. Herodotus next recounts two incidents, the first of which is connected indirectly, the second directly with this campaign. These are (1) the grant of Myrkinos to Histiæus; (2) The removal of the Pæonians to Asia. Of the prominent Greeks who had accompanied the king to the Danube, Koës the Mytilenian, and Histiæus the Milesian were singled out for special rewards. To Koës was given the tyranny of Mytilene. ◆H. v. 11.◆ Histiæus was already tyrant of Miletus, and he asked not for further tyranny, but requested the grant of Myrkinos on the Strymon. This Darius gave him. There can be no question that he knew for what he was asking. This place, which stood within a short distance of the site of Amphipolis of later days, was the key of the North Ægean lands. It commanded not merely the great coast route from east to west, but the trade route which ran up the Strymon valley towards mid-Europe. It may well be that it was the latter circumstance, together with its nearness to the Thracian gold region, which made its value known to the tyrant of the great trading city. ◆H. v. 12, 13.◆