Scholars have taken widely differing views of the evidence of the
Lindian Temple Chronicle and the Hellenistic historians there cited.
Wilamowitz ( Jahrb. Arch. Inst., 1913) regarded the whole tradition as a
' Schwindel'; Beloch ( GG II, ii ( 1916), pp. 81ff) accepted it, assigning
the episode reasonably to 494 rather than 490; that is, to the first
appearance of a Perso-Phoenician fleet in Rhodian waters, rather than
to 490, when Persia was mistress of the sea; and he is followed by Cary
( CAH IV, p. 225). Meyer ( GdA IV, i ( 1916), p. 306, n. 1) follows
Blinkenberg (ad loc.) in referring it to 490, and mentions no other
possibility. (His and Beloch's references to each other's work on the
revolt generally resemble a long-range artillery duel.) Xenagoras
( Jacoby 2 40)), cited in the Chronicle as sole authority for Mardonios
as the besieger, 'sent by Datis', is little known apart from the citations
in the Chronicle itself, where he is the most cited authority. He wrote,
however, whether within or apart from the Chronikē Syntaxis re-
peatedly cited there, a work cited as On Islands ( Et. Mag., s.v. Sphēkeia,
said to have been an old name of Rhodes; Harpokr., s.v. Chytroi). His
date, 'noch im IV Jahrhundert' according to Beloch, does not seem
to be well established. If Mardonios did besiege Lindos, it was not in
490, when he was recovering from wounds, and perhaps under some-
thing of a cloud (p. 223 ). - In the list of offerings, § xxxii (p. 26 Blinkenberg
), where the name of someone 'General of the Persians' is obliter-
ated, it would be tempting to restore the name of Mardonios, since
Blinkenberg's 'Artaphernes' imports a name not otherwise found in the
Chronicle, and A. should surely be rather with the land forces in his
Satrapy; while ' Datis', suggested by Beloch, is too short to fill the
space. But the eight authorities there cited are almost all the same as
those elsewhere cited as naming Datis; and Xenagoras, Mardonios'
sponsor, does not here appear.

The date, according to H.vi, 40, 2, is 4 95), 'in the third year' before
his flight in 493, and the year 495 gives time enough for his conquest

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