Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/276

 258 HISTORY OF GREECE. of the actual state of the Grecian world about 518 B.C. As soon as they arrived at Tarentum, Demokedes now within a short distance of his own home, Kroton found an opportunity of executing what he had meditated from the beginning. At his request Aristophilides, the king of Tarentum, seized the fifteen Persians, and detained them as spies, at the same time taking the rudders from off their ships, while DemokGdes himself made his escape to Kroton. As soon as he had arrived there, Aristophilides released the Persians, and suffered them to pursue their voyage : they went on to Kroton, found Demokedes in the market-place, and laid hands upon him. But his fellow-citizens released him, not without opposition from some who were afraid of provoking the Great King, and in spite of remonstrances, en- ergetic and menacing, from the Persians themselves : indeed, the Krotoniates not only protected the restored exile, but even robbed the Persians of their storeship. The latter, disabled from pro- ceeding farther, as well by this loss as by the secession of Dem- okedes, commenced their voyage homeward, but unfortunately suffered shipwreck near the lapygian cape, and became slaves in that neighborhood. A Tarentine exile, named Gillus, ransomed them and carried them up to Susa, a service for which Darius promised him any recompense that he chose. Restoration to his native city was all that Gillus asked ; and that too, not by force, but by the mediation of the Asiatic Greeks of Kuidus, who were on terms of intimate alliance with the Tarentines. This gener- ous citizen, an honorable contrast to Demokedes, who had not scrupled to impel the stream of Persian conquest against his country, in order to procure his own release, was unfortunately disappointed of his anticipated recompense. For though the Knidians, at the injunction of Darius, employed all their influence at Tarentum to procure a revocation of the sentence of exile, they were unable to succeed, and force was out of the question. 1 The last words addn ssed by Demokedes at parting to his Per- sian companions, exhorted them to acquaint Darius that he (Dem- okedes) was about to marry the daughter of the Krotoniate Milo, one of the first men in Kroton, as well as the greatest wrest- ler of liif) time. The reputation of Milo was very great with 1 Hcrodot. iii, 137, 138.