The History of Antiquity, Vol. 6 (of 6)Duncker, Max
History
The History of Antiquity, Vol. 6 (of 6)
Duncker, Max
History, Ancient
Together with the tribes of the Thracians, the numerous cities of the
Greeks on this coast became subjects of Darius.[307] Doriscus on the
mouth of the Hebrus received a Persian garrison.[308] In vain the
inhabitants of Teos, more than thirty years previously, had emigrated
before the siege of Harpagus, and founded Abdera on this coast--they now
became subjects of the Persians. In return for the great service which
he had rendered at the bridge on the Danube, Histiaeus the prince of
Miletus received permission to found a colony on the Strymon, where it
leaves Lake Prasias, in the land of the Edonians, near Myrcinus, on the
north-west spur of Pangaeum, which is here clothed with magnificent
forests, and possessed fruitful veins of silver.[309] Histiaeus began at
once to build the walls which were to protect the new settlement.
With the subjugation of the Paeonians and the crossing of the Strymon,
Megabyzus reached the border of an empire, the Macedonian kingdom, the
central district of which lay between the Axius and the Haliaemon.
Amyntas, the son of Alcetas,[310] the king of Macedonia, was requested
by Megabyzus through an embassy of seven Persians to send earth and
water as tokens of submission to Darius. Amyntas was in great terror of
the Persians, as Herodotus tells us;[311] he did not refuse the request,
and thus acknowledged the sovereignty of the Persians. In order to do
honour to his envoys, they were hospitably entertained. But when in
their intoxication they laid hands on the women of the royal house,
Alexander the young son of Amyntas caused them to be cut down with their
train. As they did not return, Megabyzus sent his son Bubares, the
brother of the Zopyrus who had done good service before Babylon, and
was now viceroy there, with an armed force.[312] Amyntas was prepared to
pay a large sum as a fine, and to receive the son of Megabyzus at his
royal house; he gave his own daughter Gygaea, the sister of Alexander,
in marriage to Bubares.[313]
While Megabyzus subjugated the Thracian coast with its harbours and
trading-places to the west as far as the Strymon, Otanes had completed
the reduction of the rebellious Greek towns to the south of the straits,
on the shores of Asia Minor. Not only Lamponium and Antandrus, opposite
Lesbos, but also Abydus, Chalcedon, and Byzantium were punished. Coes,
who had led the ships from Lesbos to the Danube, had been rewarded for
his services to Darius by the government of the island. He was not
required to furnish ships to Otanes for the conquest of Lemnos and
Imbros. The Lemnians resisted bravely. When they had been conquered,
Otanes made Lycaretus, a brother of Maeandrius of Samos (p. 261), tyrant
of the island, and he governed it till his death (towards 500
B.C.[314]). With the conquest of Lemnos and Imbros, two large and
important islands in the Ægean Sea, in addition to Samos, Chios and
Lesbos were gained for the Persian kingdom.
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