Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/310

 292 HISTORY OK GREECE. laid siege to Amathus. These towns of Cyprus were then, and Beem always afterwards to have continued, under the government of despots ; who, however, unlike the despots in Ionia gener- ally, took part along with their subjects in the revolt against Persia. 1 The rebellion had now assumed a character more serious than ever, and the Persians were compelled to put forth their strong- est efforts to subdue it. From the number of different nations comprised in their empire, they were enabled to make use of the antipathies of one against the other ; and the old adverse feeling of Phenicians against Greeks was now found extremely service- able. After a year spent in getting together forces, 2 the Pheni- cian fleet was employed to transport into Cyprus the Persian general Artybius with a Kilikian and Egyptian army, 3 while the force under Artaphernes at Sardis was so strengthened as to enable him to act at once against all the coast ol Asia Minor, from the Propontis to the Triopian promontory. On the other side, the common danger had for the moment brought the loni- ans into a state of union foreign to their usual habit, and we hear now, for the first and the last time, of a tolerably efficient Pan-Ionic authority. 4 Apprized of the coming of Artybius with the Phenician fleet, Onesilus and his Cyprian supporters solicited the aid of the Ionic fleet, which arrived shortly after the disembarkation of the Persian force in the island. Onesilus offered to the lonians their choice, whether they would fight the Phenicians at sea or the Persians on land. Their natural determination was in favor of the sea- fight, and they engaged with a degree of courage and unanimity 1 Hcrodot. v, 103, 104, 108. Compare the proceedings in Cyprus against Artaxerxes Mnemon, under the energetic Evagoras of Salamis (Diodor. xiv, 98, XT, 2), about 386 B.C.: most of the petty princes of the island became for the time his subjects, but in 351 B.C. there were nine of them independent (Diodor. xvi, 42), and seemingly quite as many at the time rhen Alexander besieged Tyre (Arrian, ii, 20, 8). 3 Herodot. vi, 6. 4 Herodot. v, 109. 'Hwfof aTreTre/^e rb KOIVOV TUV 'Id'vu
 * Ilerodot. v, 116. Kinrpioi nsv 6r/, kviavrbv Ifaudepoi yevo/itvot, avri; it
 * < Tnv du./.aaaav, etc. : compare vi, 7.