It is noticeable that the Naxians seem to have been caught unprepared for the defence. There is no resistance such as had been successful ten years before. Up to this time the preparations of the Greeks to meet the storm had not passed the initial stage of vague anticipation. Naxos doubtless warned Athens and Eubœa. Even the preparations of Athens seem to have been made in a hurry.
Forewarned by the events in the neighbouring island of Naxos, the inhabitants of sacred Delos fled to Tenos. Datis, however, treated the pan-Hellenic sanctuary with marked consideration, and is reported to have offered sacrifice there. This was in accord with the manifest intention of the Persians to give the Greeks generally the impression that the expedition aimed merely at vengeance on those states which had been guilty of lèse-majesté against the Great King; Naxos by its resistance in B.C. 499; Eretria and Athens by their interference in B.C. 498. Nor would such an impression have been a false one, in so far as the immediate circumstances were concerned.
H. vi 98.
After the departure of Datis, there was an earthquake at Delos, the first and the last, so Herodotus says, up to the time of his writing.[63]
H. vi. 99.
From Delos the fleet went round the islands collecting men, and finally came to Karystos, in South Eubœa. This town refused a contingent, until the ravaging of its territory brought it to terms.
H. vi. 100.
Meanwhile Eretria had heard of the coming expedition, and had sent to Athens begging help. Athens did not turn a deaf ear to the appeal; and, though she could not spare men from Attica, she ordered the 4000 Athenian settlers (Kleruchs), who held the lands of that Chalkis which had been conquered sixteen years before, to go to the help of Eretria.
The tale of what followed, as told by Herodotus, is not wholly consistent; and it may be suspected that part of it was intended by its creators to cloke the cowardice of these Kleruchs.[64]
Opinions in Eretria, so the story runs, were divided. One party wished to leave the city and take refuge in the heights of Eubœa; the other planned treason and surrender to the Persian. A prominent citizen of Eretria, Æschines, the son of Nothos, warned the Kleruchs of this unsound state of things, and advised them to go home. They did more than this, for they crossed over to the mainland, and took refuge at Oropos. Then the tale becomes inconsistent; for, on the Persians landing and disembarking their cavalry, the Eretrians elect to stand a siege, and for six days make a brave defence against every attack, losing many men themselves, but also inflicting severe losses on the enemy.