Stories of the Persian Wars

This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design. Herodotus opens with the intrigue that drives the Persian Wars, where imperial suspicion, royal power, and personal ambition collide. Darius keeps the crafty Histiæus close at court, while events in Miletus and Ionia spiral outward through Aristagoras's failed Naxos expedition, a quarrel with Megabates, and a covert warning that turns conquest into embarrassment. Cornered by debt and Persian displeasure, Aristagoras embraces rebellion, urged on by Histiæus and ignoring Hecatæus's caution. He then seeks aid first in Sparta, where Cleomenes rejects his promises of Persian wealth after learning the distance to Susa, and then in Athens, whose own liberation from tyranny makes it receptive enough to send twenty ships. Those ships help ignite wider war: Sardis is burned, Darius vows revenge, and Persian retaliation pushes the conflict across Ionia and into Greece. Aristagoras's revolt collapses amid defeats, while Histiæus becomes a wandering agitator and Miletus falls after the disastrous battle of Lade, where discipline, fatigue, and disunity weaken the Ionian fleet. The narrative then broadens to Xerxes' invasion, Greek diplomatic appeals, and the difficulty of unity among proud city-states, from reluctant Argos to Gelon of Syracuse, whose offer of aid is undone by disputes over command and honor.