vengeance for the rape of Helen. 95. Now while these carried on the
war, besides many other things of various kinds which occurred in the
battles, once when a fight took place and the Athenians were
conquering, Alcaios the poet, taking to flight, escaped indeed
himself, but the Athenians retained possession of his arms and hung
them up on the walls of the temple of Athene which is at Sigeion.
About this matter Alcaios composed a song and sent it to Mytilene,
reporting therein his misadventure to one Melanippos, who was his
friend. Finally Periander the son of Kypselos made peace between the
Athenians and the Mytilenians,[87] for to him they referred the matter
as arbitrator; and he made peace between them on the condition that
each should continue to occupy that territory which they then
possessed. 96. Sigeion then in this matter had come under the rule of
the Athenians. And when Hippias had returned to Asia from Lacedemon,
he set everything in motion, stirring up enmity between the Athenians
and Artaphrenes, and using every means to secure that Athens should
come under the rule of himself and of Dareios. Hippias, I say, was
thus engaged; and the Athenians meanwhile hearing of these things sent
envoys to Sardis, and endeavoured to prevent the Persians from
following the suggestions of the exiled Athenians. Artaphrenes however
commanded them, if they desired to be preserved from ruin, to receive
Hippias back again. This proposal the Athenians were not by any means
disposed to accept when it was reported; and as they did not accept
this, it became at once a commonly received opinion among them that
they were enemies of the Persians.

97. While they had these thoughts and had been set at enmity with the
Persians, at this very time Aristagoras the Milesian, ordered away
from Sparta by Cleomenes the Lacedemonian, arrived at Athens; for this
was the city which had most power of all the rest besides Sparta. And