The voyage.
189.They held a couise across the Icarian Sea, being especially afraid, as it seems to me, of the voyage round the mountain, in which they had suffered great loss the year before. When after sailing across the Icarian Sea they came to Naxos, all the Naxians fled to the mountains. But the Persians, after reducing to slavery all they could catch (lit. those, whomsoever they might have caught), burnt both the temple and the city. After doing this they proceeded to sail against the remaining
Delos is spared.
190.Meanwhile (lit while these things are being done), the Delians also left their island and fly to Tenos. But Datis, on arriving in the neighbourhood of Delos with his host, did not allow the fleet to touch at the island; and after ascertaining whither the Delians had betaken themselves, he sent a herald, and made the following proclamation to them: ‘Why do ye retire in flight, ye holy men 1 do not consider me a very wicked man. This has been ordered to me by the Great King, not to injure the country in which these two gods were bom, nor its inhabitants. Wherefore return to your abodes.’ After saying this, he piled 300 talents of frankincense on the altar, and burnt them.
The fulfilmetit of an old prophecy.
191.After the departure of the Persians from this place, Delos was greatly disturbed and trembled: (a thing) which happened neither before that time, as the Delians affirm, nor afterwards as far as my time. And the god indeed caused this portent, to signify the evils that were overhanging mankind. Now, it is well known that more evils assailed Greece in the reigns of Darius, Xerxes, and Artaxerxes, than during the other twenty generations which existed before Darius. 80 it was not without a reason that Delos was greatly disturbed. It is also written as follows in a prophecy: ‘And Delos shall I move, though it be hitherto immovable.’ Moreover these three names have their meaning in the Greek language. Darius (means) a ruler; Xerxes, a warrior; Artaxerxes, a great warrior.
