His judgment as to the part played by Athens in the great events of the first twenty years of the century is a very striking one, and bears the impress of genuine conviction. Of the attitude of that state in the great war of 480–479 he has nothing but good to say; but he is evidently convinced that Athens, and Athens alone, was really responsible for that war having taken place at all. This judgment of his must have been a purely personal one, formed upon his reading of the events of the period of which he wrote the history. It can be seen now that he was not wholly mistaken. His mistake consisted in assuming that what was only a contributory cause was the whole efficient cause of what occurred subsequent to the revolt. His attitude towards the Ionians cannot, on the other hand, be attributed to purely personal judgment. His sources for the history of the revolt, which had their origin largely, it may be, in those Dorian cities of Asia which had not taken part in it, were evidently of a nature to prejudice his mind against the Ionian Greek.[27] The second part of the story which relates to Histiæus is probably a piece of Greek invention, describing what might well be supposed to have happened at Susa in consequence of the part which his near relative Aristagoras had played in the revolt. It served also to bring into relief the duplicity of this Ionian tyrant towards a master and a friend who trusted him but too implicitly. But in the case of this story, as in the case of other similar stories in Herodotus, it is necessary to bear in mind that, though the story itself may be fiction, it is extremely likely to contain historical matter in the shape of chance disclosures of the views which its framers or their contemporaries held as to the events of the time. There is in this very story a remark which indicates that some contemporary opinion was not disposed to regard the revolt as the hurried creation of Aristagoras. “The Ionians seem,” Histiæus is represented to have said, “after losing sight of me, to have done what they long desired to do.” Whatever persuasion Histiæus used, he succeeded in inducing Darius to let him go down to the coast. It would be vain to attempt to deduce from the juxtaposition of these two imaginative tales any conclusion as to the time at which Histiæus started from Susa. ◆Cf. H. vi. 1.◆ The only real indication of the date of his return is given in a subsequent chapter, where it is clearly implied that it was subsequent to the departure of Aristagoras from Miletus, if not to his death at Myrkinos. ◆Cf. H. v. 108.◆