Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/322

 804 HISTORY OF GREEJE. came a scene of disunion and mistrust. Some of them grew M reckless and unmanageable, that the better portion despaired of maintaining any orderly battle; and the Samians in particular now repented that they had declined the secret offers made tc them by their expelled despot, 1 JEakes, son of Syloson. They sent privately to renew the negotiation, received a fresh promise of Ihe same indulgence, and agreed to desert when the occasion arrived. On the day of battle, when the two fleets were on the point of coming to action, the sixty Samian ships all sailed off, except eleven, whose captains disdained such treachery. Other lonians followed their example ; yet amidst the reciprocal crimi- nation which Herodotus had heard, he finds it difficult to deter- mine who was most to blame, though he names the Lesbians as among the earliest deserters. 2 The hundred ships from Chios, constituting the centre of the fleet each ship carrying forty chosen soldiers fully armed formed a brilliant exception to the rest ; they fought with the greatest fidelity and resolution, inflict- ing upon the enemy, and themselves sustaining, heavy loss. Di- onysius, the Phokaean, also behaved in a manner worthy of his previous language, capturing with his three ships the like number of Phenicians. But these examples of bravery did not compensate the treachery or cowardice of the rest, and the de- feat of the lonians at Lade was complete as well as irrecover- a>lo. To the faithful Chians, the loss was terrible, both in the battle and after it. For though some of their vessels escaped from the defeat safely to Chios, others were so damaged as to be obliged to run ashore close at hand on the promontory of Mykale, where the crews quitted them, with the intention of marching northward, through the Ephesian territory, to the continent oppo- site their own island. We hear with astonishment that, at that critical moment, the Ephesian women were engaged in solemniz- ing the Thesmophoria, a festival celebrated at night, in the open air, in some uninhabited portion of the territory, and with- out the presence of any male person. As the Chian fugitives entered the Ephesian territory by night, their coming being neither known noi anticipated, it was believed that they were thieves or pirates coming to seize the women, and undor this 1 Herodot. vi, 13. * Herodot. vi, 14, II