Datis
（
*Da=tis), a Mede, who, together with Artaphernes, had the command of the forces which were sent by Dareius Ilystaspis against Eretria and Athens, and which were finally defeated at Marathon in B. C. 490. (
Hdt. 6.94, &c.) [ARTAPHERNES, No. 2.] When the armament was on its way to Greece through the Aegean sea, the Delians fled in alarm from their island to Tenos; but Datis re-assured them, professing that his own feelings, as well as the commands of the king, would lead him to spare and respect the birthplace of " the two gods."
The obvious explanation of this conduct, as arising from a notion of the correspondence of Apollo and Artemis with the sun and moon, is rejected by Müller in favour of a far less probable hypothesis. (
Hdt. 6.97 ; Müller,
Dor. ii 5.6, 6.10; Thirlwall's
Greece, vol. ii. p. 231; Spanheim,
ad Callim. Hymn. in Del. 255.)
The religious reverence of Datis is further illustrated by the anecdote of his restoring the statue of Apollo which some Phoenicians in his army had stolen from Delium in Boeotia. (
Hdt. 6.118;
Paus. 10.28; Suid.
s. v. Δ̔ᾶτις). His two sons, Armamithres and Tithaeus, commanded the cavalry of Xerxes in his expedition against Greece. (
Hdt. 7.88.)
He admired the Greek language, and tried hard to speak it; failing in which, he thereby at any rate unwittingly enriched it with a new word--*Datismo/s. (Suid.
l.c. ;
Aristoph. Peace 289; Schol.
ad loc. [
E.E]
