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Leotychides and Xanthippus now sailed back to Samos and made allies of the Ionians and Aeolians, and then they endeavoured to induce them to abandon Asia and to move their homes to Europe. They promised to expel the peoples who had espoused the cause of the Medes and to give their lands to them; [2] for as a general thing, they explained, if they remained in Asia, they would always have the enemy on their borders, an enemy far superior in military strength, while their allies, who lived across the sea, would be unable to render them any timely assistance. When the Aeolians and Ionians had heard these promises, they resolved to take the advice of the Greeks and set about preparing to sail with them to Europe. [3] But the Athenians changed to the opposite opinion and advised them to stay where they were, saying that even if no other Greeks should come to their aid, the Athenians, as their kinsmen, would do so independently. They reasoned that, if the Ionians were given new homes by the Greeks acting in common they would no longer look upon Athens as their mother-city. It was for this reason that the Ionians changed their minds and decided to remain in Asia. [4]

After these events it came to pass that the armament of the Greeks was divided, the Lacedaemonians sailing back to Laconia and the Athenians together with the Ionians and the islanders1 weighing anchor for Sestus. [5] And Xanthippus the general, as soon as he reached that port, launched assaults upon Sestus and took the city, and after establishing a garrison in it he dismissed the allies and himself with his fellow citizens returned to Athens. [6]

Now the Median War, as it has been called, after lasting two years, came to the end which we have described. And of the historians, Herodotus, beginning with the period prior to the Trojan War, has written in nine books a general history of practically all the events which occurred in the inhabited world, and brings his narrative to an end with the battle of the Greeks against the Persians at Mycale and the siege of Sestus. [7]

In Italy the Romans waged a war against the Volscians, and conquering them in battle slew many of them. And Spurius Cassius, who had been consul the preceding year,2 because he was believed to be aiming at a tyranny and was found guilty, was put to death.

These, then, were the events of this year.

1 The Greeks dwelling on the islands of the Aegean Sea.

2 480 B.C.

Diodorus Siculus. Diodorus of Sicily in Twelve Volumes with an English Translation by C. H. Oldfather. Vol. 4-8. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989.

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