Then why did he go to Chios? The answer to this question is dependent on the answer to a further question: Why, after occupying Chios, did he immediately attack Thasos?
Only one explanation of his conduct seems consistent with the circumstances of the time. The days of the revolt were numbered. A terrible retribution was to be apprehended. There must have been hundreds, perhaps thousands, of refugees on the Ionian coast of Asia, seeking for some shelter from the coming storm; and whither would they turn? To the islands first, as being safer than the mainland, with intent to secure time for escape over seas. Chios was the refuge to which these refugees would look in the first instance. Samos was anxious only for itself. Lesbos was farther from the centre of things. Chios was the natural rallying-point.
It was under these circumstances that Histiæus turned to Chios first after leaving the Hellespontine district. His action need not be attributed to philanthropic motives. It was at Chios that he would find any number of desperate recruits, ready for any venture on which he might propose to lead them; and he had such a venture planned in his mind.
His past experiences with the Chians had been unfortunate. But he had in the past managed to persuade them of his good faith towards the revolt; and why should he not be able to do so now?
The Chians were unprepared for his coming, and his landing was resisted. He accordingly withdrew to Polichne. This place lay near Klazomenæ,[47] and commanded from the land side the peninsula off which Chios lies. HISTIÆUS AT THASOS. Herodotus says that he used the place as a base of operations against the Chians. The improbability of his having, at this juncture of affairs adopted an attitude of hostility towards the Chians, and, above all, of his having deliberately entered upon operations against them at a time when the arrival of the Phœnician fleet might be expected, is so great, that it is impossible to accept the statement as a reliable record of events. Later tradition may well have interpreted his proceedings at Polichne in the light of the unfortunate incident with the Chian garrison. Whether depressed or not by the defeat at Ladé, it is beyond imagination that this powerful island-state should have succumbed to an attack from such a force as Histiæus could have brought with him. It is infinitely more probable that he withdrew to Polichne in order to be able to explain his attitude to the Chians before further collision took place, and that he did persuade them of the bona fides of his intentions.
His next proceedings throw considerable light upon those intentions. H. vi. 28. Having got the Chians to his side, he proceeded to attack the Island of Thasos, taking with him “many of the Ionians and Æolians.”
There can be no doubt as to the general reasons which prompted this attack. Thasos had considerable possessions on the lower Strymon.
The particular reasons may be matter for conjecture. It is, at least, conceivable that the Thasians had the strongest objection to the establishment of a new power in a region in which they had so much at stake, in the shape of those gold-mines which brought them such enormous wealth; and that Histiæus found it necessary to subdue them, before he tried to carry out his plans on the continent.
Had the Thasians participated directly or indirectly in the disaster which befell Aristagoras?
Be this as it may, Histiæus was only carrying out in a new form, and under conditions more favourable to himself, a policy he had attempted to initiate years before, the initiation of which had caused his removal to Susa. He was now backed up by a number of desperate men, ready for any venture which might save them from the hands of the Persian. But time was all-important. The Phœnician fleet was at the moment engaged in the reduction of such Carian towns as still resisted; but its arrival in the North Ægean could not be long deferred.