29. And Histiaios was taken prisoner in the following manner:--As the Hellenes were fighting with the Persians at Malene in the district of Atarneus, after they had been engaged in close combat for a long time, the cavalry at length charged and fell upon the Hellenes; and the cavalry in fact decided the battle. 17 So when the Hellenes had been turned to flight, Histiaios trusting that he would not be put to death by the king on account of his present fault, conceived a love of life, so that when he was being caught in his flight by a Persian and was about to be run through by him in the moment of his capture, he spoke in Persian and made himself known, saying that he was Histiaios the Milesian.. 30. If then upon being taken prisoner he had been brought to king Dareios, he would not, as I think, have suffered any harm, but Dareios would have forgiven the crime with which he was charged; as it was, however, for this very reason and in order that he might not escape from punishment and again become powerful with the king, Artaphrenes the governor of Sardis and Harpagos who had captured him, when he had reached Sardis on his way to the king, put him to death there and then, and his body they impaled, but embalmed his head and brought it up to Dareios at Susa. Dareios having been informed of this, found fault with those who had done so, because they had not brought him up to his presence alive; and he bade wash the head of Histiaios and bestow upon it proper care, and then bury it, as that of one who had been greatly a benefactor both of the king himself and of the Persians. 31. Thus it happened about Histiaios; and meanwhile the Persian fleet, after wintering near Miletos, when it put to sea again in the following year conquered without difficulty the islands lying near the mainland, Chios, Lesbos, and Tenedos; and whenever they took one of the islands, the Barbarians, as each was conquered, swept the inhabitants off it; 18 and this they do in the following manner:--they extend themselves from the sea on the North to the sea on the South, each man having hold of the hand of the next, and then they pass through the whole island hunting the people out of it. They took also the Ionian cities on the mainland in the same manner, except that they did not sweep off the inhabitants thus, for it was not possible.. 32. Then the commanders of the Persians proved not false to the threats with which they had threatened the Ionians when these were encamped opposite to them: for in fact when they conquered the cities, they chose out the most comely of the boys and castrated them, making eunuchs of them, and the fairest of the maidens they carried off by force to the king; and not only this, but they also burnt the cities together with the temples. Thus for the third time had the Ionians been reduced to slavery, first by the Lydians and then twice in succession by the Persians.