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82 duced by Herodotus to find a motive for the attention of the king being called to Greece. He had abundant reasons besides, as the history shows; but our author will not desert the theory of his choice, that Woman is the mainspring in all human affairs. Democedes had got into favour at court by successful treatment first of Darius himself, then of Atossa the favourite sultana. For this latter service he obtained leave to name his own reward, it was, to be allowed to visit his home; and, as Darius wished also to conquer Greece, in order that Atossa's desire of having some of "those Lacedæmonian handmaidens of whom she had heard so much" might be gratified, Democedes was sent to make the tour of Greece and its colonies on the Italian coast with a party of spies. When he reached his native Crotona, he chose to remain there, and was assisted by his fellow-townsmen against the Persians who tried to take him back with them. He bade the latter tell Darius that he was about to be married to the daughter of Milo the wrestler; wishing the king to know that he was a man of some mark in his own country, where—as in some cases amongst us moderns—athletics ranked even higher than science. These spies were said to have been the first Persians who visited Greece.

But Darius had no time to think of Greece just then, as his hands were full with a revolt in Babylonia and other provinces, which appears to have assumed larger proportions than those known to Herodotus. Samos was the first state which was unfortunate enough to draw upon itself the might of the Persian arms. The cause of this war was a cloak. When Cambyses was in Egypt with his army, one