Page:History of Greece Vol XII.djvu/122

 90 HISTORY OF GREECE. and Boges after iLe repulse of Xerxes from Greece.^ Alexan- der treated Mitlu-ines with courtesy and honor, granted freedom to the Sardians and to the other Lydians generally, with the use of their own Lydian laws. The betrayal of Sardis by Mithrines was a signal good fortune to Alexander. On going up to the citadel, he contemplated with astonishment its prodigious strength ; congratulating himself on so easy an acquisition, and giving directions to build there a temple of Olympian Zeus, on the sjjot where the old palace of the kings of Lydia had been sit- uated. He named Pausanias governor of the citadel, with a gar- rison of Peloponnesians from Argos ; Asander, satrap of the country ; and Nikias, collector of tribute.'^ The freedom granted to the Lydians, whatever it may have amounted to, did not ex onerate them from paying the usual tribute. From Sardis, he ordered Kallas, the new satrap of Helles- pontine Phrygia — and Alexander son of Aeropus, who had been promoted in place of Kallas to the command of the Thes- salian cavalry — to attack Atarneus and the district belonging to Memnon, on the Asiatic coast opposite Lesbos. Meanwhile he himself directed his march to Ephesus, which he reached on the fourth day. Both at Ephesus and at Miletus — the two princi- pal strongholds of the Persians on the coast, as Sardis was in the interior — the sudden catastrophe at the Granikus had struck unspeakable terroi*. Hegesistratus, governor of the Persian gar- I'ison (Greek mercenaries) at Miletus, sent letters to Alexander offering to surrender the town on his approach ; while the garri- son at Ephesus, with the Macedonian exile Amyntas, got on board two triremes in the harbor, and fled. It appears that there had been recently a political revolution in the town, con- ducted by Syrphax and other leaders, who had established aa oligarchical government. These men, banishing their politicaJ opponents, had committed depredations on the temple of Arte- mis, overthrown tlic statue of Philip of Macedon dedicated therein, and destroyed the sepulchre of Pleropythus the liberator m the agora.* Some of the party, though abandoned by their ' Herodot. vii. 106, 107.
 * Arrian, i. 17, 5-9 ; Diodor. xvii. 21.
 * Arrian, i. 17, 12. Respecting these commotions at Ephesus, which had