The site of the infant city was selected with admirable judgment upon a navigable river, in the vicinity of mines, and holding the key of commercial communication between the long chain of Thracian tribes on the one side, and the trading enterprise of Grecian cities on the other.

Histiaeus was describing the walls with which the ancient cities were surrounded, when Megabazus, commander of the forces intended to consummate the conquest of Thrace, had the sagacity to warn the Persian king, then at Sardis, of the probable effects of the regal donation.

"Have you, sire, done wisely," said he, "in permitting this able and active Greek to erect a new city in Thrace?
Know you not that that favoured land, abounding in mines of silver, possesses, also, every advantage for the construction and equipment of ships; wild Greeks and roving barbarians are mingled there, ripe for enterprise--ready to execute the commands of any resolute and aspiring leader! Fear the possibility of a civil war--prevent the chances of the ambition of Histiaeus,--have recourse to artifice rather than to force, get him in your power, and prevent his return to Greece." Darius followed the advice of his general, sent for Histiaeus, loaded him with compliments, and, pretending that he could not live without his counsels, carried him off from his Thracian settlement to the Persian capital of Susa.

His kinsman, Aristagoras, continued to preside over the government of Miletus, then the most haughty and flourishing of the Ionian states; but Naxos, beneath it in power, surpassed it in wealth; the fertile soil of that fair isle--its numerous population--its convenient site--its abundant resources, attracted the cupidity of Aristagoras; he took advantage of a civil commotion, in which many of the nobles were banished by the people-- received the exiles--and, under the pretence of restoring them, meditated the design of annexing the largest of the Cyclades to the tyranny of Miletus.
He persuaded the traitorous nobles to suffer him to treat with Artaphernes--successfully represented to that satrap the advantages of annexing the gem of the Cyclades to the Persian diadem--and Darius, listening to the advice of his delegate, sent two hundred vessels to the invasion of Naxos (B.C.

501), under the command of his kinsman, Megabates.