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The year after these events, Darius received information from certain
neighbours of the Thasians that those islanders were making
preparations for revolt; he therefore sent a herald, and bade them
dismantle their walls, and bring all their ships to Abdera. The
Thasians, at the time when Histiaeus the Milesian made his attack
upon them, had resolved that, as their income was very great, they
would apply their wealth to building ships of war, and surrounding
their city with another and a stronger wall. Their revenue was derived
partly from their possessions upon the mainland, partly from the mines
which they owned. They were masters of the gold mines at
Scapte-Hyle, the yearly produce of which amounted in all to eighty
talents. Their mines in Thasos yielded less, but still were so far
prolific that, besides being entirely free from land-tax, they had a
surplus income, derived from the two sources of their territory on the
main and their mines, in common years of two hundred, and in the best
years of three hundred talents.
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