Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/296

 278 mSTORf OF GREECE. submit until they had undergone long and severe hardship. Ly karetus, brother of that Mseandrius whom we have already no- ticed as despot of Samos, was named governor of Lemnos ; but he soon after died. 1 It is probable that the Pelasgic population of the islands was greatly enfeebled during this struggle, and we even hear that their king Hermon voluntarily emigrated, from fear of Darius. 3 Lemnos and Imbros thus became Persian possessions, held by a subordinate prince as tributary. A few years afterwards their lot was again changed, they passed into the hands of Athens, the Pelasgic inhabitants were expelled, and fresh Athenian set- tlers introduced. They were conquered by Miltiades from the Thracian Chersonese ; from Elreus at the soutli of that penin- sula to Lemnos being within less than one day's sail with a north wind. The Hephaestieans abandoned their city and evacu- ated the island with little resistance ; but the inhabitants of My- rina stood a siege, 3 and were not expelled without difficulty: both of them found abodes in Thrace, on and near the peninsula of Mount Athos. Both these islands, together with that of Skyros (which was not taken until after the invasion of Xerxes), remained connected with Athens in a manner peculiarly intimate. At the peace of Antalkidas (387 B.C.), which guaranteed universal autonomy to every Grecian city, great and small, they were specially reserved, and considered as united with Athens. 4 The property in their soil was held by men who, with- out losing their Athenian citizenship, became Lemnian kleruchs, and as such were classified apart among the military force of the state ; while absence in Lemnos or Imbros seems to have been 1 Herodot. v, 26, 27. The twenty-seventh chapter is extremely perplex- ing. As the text reads at present, we ought to make Lykaretus the sub- ject of certain predications which yet seem properly referable to Otanes. We must consider the words from Oi ftev 6rj A.fipvioi down to reXevra RS parenthetical, which is awkward ; but it seems the least diffic iky in the caso. and the commentators are driven to adopt it. 9 Z-inyb. Proverb, iii, 85. 3 Herodot. vi, 140. Charax ap. Stephan. Byz. v, 'H^atano. 4 Xenophon, Hellen. v, 1, 31. Compare Plato, Menexenus', c. 17, p. 245, where the words fyieTepai uTroiiciai. doubtless mean Lemnoe, Icibroa, saJ