Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/222

 204 HISTORY OF GREECE. both extensive and well built ; yet they could not hindor Harpa> gus from raising his mounds of earth up against them, while he was politic enough at the same time to tempt them with offers of a moderate capitulation ; requiring only that they should breach their walls in one place by pulling down one of the towers, and consecrate one building in the interior of the town as a token of subjection. To accept these terms, was to submit themselves to the discretion of the besieger, for there could be no security that they would be observed ; and the Phokasans, while they asked for one day to deliberate upon their reply, entreated that, during that day, Harpagus should withdraw his troops altogether from the walls. With this demand the latter complied, intimating, at the same time, that he saw clearly through the meaning of it. The Phokaaans had determined that the inevitable servitude impend- ing over their town should not be shared by its inhabitants, and they employed their day of grace in preparation for collective exile, putting on shipboard their wives and children as well as their furniture and the movable decorations of their temples. They then set sail for Chios, leaving to the conqueror a deserted town for the occupation of a Persian garrison. 1 spirit of the Herodotean narrative, nor do I think it likely. It is much more probable that the informants of Herodotus made a slip in chronology, and ascribed the donations of Arganthonius to a motive which did not really dictate them. As to the fortifications (which Phoksea and the other Ionic cities are reported to have erected after the conquest of Sardis by the Persians), the case may stand thus. "While these cities were all independent, before they were first conquered by Crcesus, they must undoubtedly have had fortifica- tions. When Crcesus conquered them, he directed the demolition of the fortifications ; but demolition docs not necessarily mean pulling down tlio entire walls : when one or a few breaches are made, the city is laid open, and the purpose of Croesus would thus be answered. Such may well have been the state of the Ionian cities at the time when they first thought it necessary to provide defences against the Persians at Sardis : they repaired nnd perfected the breached fortifications. The conjecture of Larcher (see the Notes both of Larcher and "Wessel- ing), TOV Av6bv instead of rbv M^dov, is not an unreasonable one, if it had any authority: the donation of Arganthonius would then be transferred to the period anterior to the Lydian conquest: it would get rid of the chronological difficulty above adverted to, but it would intro'luce somi new awkwardness into the narrative. 1 Herodot. i, 164.