Thence the victorious armament passed to Eretria.

The Athenians had sent to the relief of that city the four thousand colonists whom they had established in the island--but fear, jealousy, division, were within the walls.

Ruin seemed certain, and a chief of the Eretrians urged the colonists to quit a city which they were unable to save.

They complied with the advice, and reached Attica in safety.

Eretria, however, withstood a siege of six days; on the seventh the city was betrayed to the barbarians by two of that fatal oligarchical party, who in every Grecian city seem to have considered no enemy so detestable as the majority of their own citizens; the place was pillaged--the temples burnt--the inhabitants enslaved.