Artaphernes

It would be a huge force, including army units from all parts of the empire, plus a tremendous navy that would move along with it.

With such a colossal mobilization, there was no question of island hopping, as in the earlier expedition by Datis and Artaphernes.

The army would have to march all the way around the Aegean with the fleet moving along the coast.

That presented considerable logistical challenges just to keep the army fed.

Leave Miletus and your newly founded Thracian city and follow me to Susa, where you will have all that is mine, sharing my table and my counsels.

This, then, is what Darius said, and after appointing Artaphrenes, his father's son, to be viceroy of Sardis, he rode away to Susa, taking Histius with him.

First, however, he made Otanes governor of the people on the coast.

Otanes' father Sisamnes had been one of the royal judges, and Cambyses had cut his throat and flayed off all his skin because he had been bribed to give an unjust judgment.

Nevertheless, I will do everything I can to realize your request.

This is my plan.

Artaphrenes is my friend, and he is not only Hystaspes' son and brother to Darius the king, but also governor of all the coastal peoples of Asia; he accordingly has a great army and many ships at his disposal.

This man, then, will, I think, do whatever we desire." Hearing this, the Naxians left the matter for Aristagoras to deal with as best he could, asking him to promise gifts and the costs of the army, for which they themselves would pay, since they had great hope that when they should appear off Naxos the Naxians would obey all their commands.

Leave Miletus and your newly founded Thracian city and follow me to Susa, where you will have all that is mine, sharing my table and my counsels.

This, then, is what Darius said, and after appointing Artaphrenes, his father's son, to be viceroy of Sardis, he rode away to Susa, taking Histius with him.

First, however, he made Otanes governor of the people on the coast.

Otanes' father Sisamnes had been one of the royal judges, and Cambyses had cut his throat and flayed off all his skin because he had been bribed to give an unjust judgment.

Nevertheless, I will do everything I can to realize your request.

This is my plan.

Artaphrenes is my friend, and he is not only Hystaspes' son and brother to Darius the king, but also governor of all the coastal peoples of Asia.

He accordingly has a great army and many ships at his disposal.

Other local rival cities, such as Uruk, were now given preferential treatment, which may have further punished Babylon.

These are nuanced and subtle punishments, however, and are not at all the kinds of behaviours we might expect of Herodotus' villain, who, when Pytheas, a former Lydian king, requested his eldest son be excused military duty for other sons also served, cut the man's son in half so that his army could march between it or from the man who ordered the hellespont to be whipped fettered and branded when xerxes wished to cross it with his army and it dared to produce a storm After the defeat of Darius I's generals, Datis and Artafernes, at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC, the king had planned a new expedition to be led by himself.

His failing health, however, meant he did not see this expedition to fruition despite three years of planning.

Xerxes, therefore, inherited the idea, plans and motivation for this invasion and punishment of Greece.