SUCCESSES OF THE PERSIANS. 295 but most of the chiefs decided in favor of a contrary policy, 1 to let the Persians pass the river, in hopes of driving them back into it and thus rendering their defeat total. Victory, however, after a sharp contest, declared in favor of Daurises, chiefly in consequence of his superior numbers : two thousand Persians, and not less than ten thousand Karians, are said to have perished in the battle. The Karian fugitives, reunited after the flight, in the grove of noble plane-trees consecrated to Zeus Stratius, near Labranda, 9 were deliberating whether they should now submit to the Persians or emigrate forevpr, when the appearance of a Milesian reinforcement restored their courage. A second battle was fought, and a second time they were defeated, the loss on this occasion falling chiefly on the Milesians. 3 The victorious Per- sians now proceeded to assault Karian cities, but Herakleides of Mylasa laid an ambuscade for them with so much skill and good fortune, that their army was nearly destroyed, and Daurises with other Persian generals perished. This successful effort, follow- ing upon two severe defeats, does honor to the constancy of the Karians, upon whom Greek proverbs generally fasten a mean reputation. It saved for the time the Karian towns, which the Persians did not succeed in reducing until after the capture of Miletus. 4 On land, the revolters were thus everywhere worsted, though 1 Herodot. v, 1 1 8. On the topography of this spot, as described in Herod- otus, see a good note in Weissenborn, Beytrage zur genaueren Erforschung der alt. Griechischen Geschichte, p. 116, Jena, 1844. He thinks, with much reason, that the river Marsyas here mentioned cannot be that which flows through Kelaenas, but another of the same name which flows into the Maeander from the southwest.
- About the village of Labranda and the temple of Zeus Stratius, see
Strabo, xiv, p. 659. Labranda was a village in the territory of, and seven miles distant from, the inland town of Mylasa ; it was Karian at the timo of the Ionic revolt, but partially Hellenized before the year 350 B.C. About this latter epoch, three rural tribes of Mylasa constituting along with the citizens of the town, the Mylasene community were, TapitovAapa, 'Or<j/> Kovda, uftpanda, see the Inscription in Boeckh's Collection, No. 2695, Mid in Franz, Epigraphies Graeca, No. 73, p. 191. In the Lydian language. bdSpvf is said to have signified a hatchet (Plutarch, Quaest. Gr. c. 45 p 314). 1 Herodot. v, 1 1 8, 1 19. * Herodct. v, 120, 121 ; vi, 2a.
