when this was effected, Darius ordered his victorious forces to
proceed to punish Athens and Eretria, and to conquer European
Greece. The first armament sent for this purpose was shattered
by shipwreck, and nearly destroyed off Mount Athos, But the
purpose of King Darius was not easily shaken. A larger army was
ordered to be collected in Cilicia; and requisitions were sent to
all the maritime cities of the Persian empire for ships of war,
and for transports of sufficient size for carrying cavalry as
well as infantry across the AEgean. While these preparations
were being made, Darius sent heralds round to the Grecian cities
demanding their submission to Persia. It was proclaimed in the
market-place of each little Hellenic state (some with territories
not larger than the Isle of Wight), that King Darius, the lord of
all men, from the rising to the setting sun, required earth and
water to be delivered to his heralds, as a symbolical
acknowledgment that he was head and master of the country.
[Aeschines in Ctes. p. 622, ed. Reiske. Mitford, vol. i. p. 485.
AEschines is speaking of Xerxes, but Mitford is probably right in
considering it as the style of the Persian kings in their
proclamations. In one of the inscriptions at Persepolis, Darius
terms himself "Darius the great king, king of kings, the king of
the many peopled countries, the supporter also of this great
world." In another, he styles himself "the king of all inhabited
countries." (See "Asiatic Journal vol. X pp. 287 and 292, and
Major Rawlinson's Comments.)] Terror-stricken at the power of
Persia and at the severe punishment that had recently been
inflicted on the refractory Ionians, many of the continental
Greeks and nearly all the islanders submitted, and gave the
required tokens of vassalage. At Sparta and Athens an indignant
refusal was returned: a refusal which was disgraced by outrage