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Aristagoras d. 497/496, was the leader of
the Ionian city of Miletus in the late 6th century and early 5th century and a
key player during the early years of the Ionian Revolt against the Persian
Achaemenid Empire. He was the son-in-law of Histiaeus, and inherited the
tyranny of Miletus from him.
Background:
Map of the ancient Greek western coast of Anatolia. Ionia is in green. Miletus
and Naxos are shown.
By the time extant history hears of him, Aristagoras is already serving as
deputy governor of Miletus, a polis on the western coast of Anatolia around
500. He was the son of Molpagoras, previous tyrant of an independent Miletus,
and brother-in-law (and nephew) of Histiaeus, whom the Persians had set up as
tyrant, but never quite trusted. After general
Megabazus presented his
complaints about Histiaeus to Darius I of Persia, the latter summoned Histiaeus
to his court and detained him at Susa, the main reason being that he wanted a
trustworthy advisor. On the recommendation of Histiaeus, the Achaemenids then
appointed Aristagoras as the new ruler of Miletus. Aristagoras ruled Miletus
while Histiaeus remained in Susa. The assignment was put forward as temporary.
Privately, everyone knew that he was being kept under observation away from his
troops.
Aristagoras was the main orchestrator of the Ionian Revolt on secret
instruction by Histiaeus, when the latter learned of Persian plans to interfere
directly in Miletus. Aristagoras took advantage of Greek dissatisfaction with
Persian rule to incite an alliance of the Greek poleis of Ionia. Soliciting
assistance from the states of mainland Greece he failed to obtain the help of a
major state, Sparta. He did obtain the half-hearted assistance of Athens. Their
attack on the satrapy of Lydia having been defeated, they withdrew, abandoning
Aristagoras to his fate. In the last months of the failing revolt, the Persians
were reconquering rebel country city by city. Choosing not to remain and make a
stand alone, Aristagoras led a colony to Thrace, where he had negotiated a
franchise to settle from the Thracians. No sooner did he arrive than he and all
his men were massacred in a surprise attack by the Thracians, for reasons
unspecified by Herodotus, whether loyal to the Great King, or influenced by the
Scythians, who hated the Ionians for their rescue of the Great King, or just
because they changed their minds about the number of Hellenes they would allow
in their country. The revolt gained momentum briefly but then began to fail
again. When all was nearly lost, the Great King allowed Histiaeus to convince
him that he could settle the conflict and now should be sent back to Miletus.
Aristagoras was gone. According to Herodotus, they never met again.
Histiaeus never succeeded in reaching Miletus. Reporting first to Sardis,
undoubtedly still recovering from fire, whether with or without the Great
King's complicity (Herodotus does not say), he was interrogated concerning his
true loyalties. Histiaeus swore complete ignorance of the events of the revolt
and unquestionable loyalty to the Persians. He admitted nothing, but the
satrap, Artaphernes, was not in the least deceived. He said, "I will tell
thee how the case stands, Histaeus: this shoe is of thy stitching; Aristagoras
has but put it on." Seeing that the jig was up, Histiaeus escaped that
night and took ship at the coast, probably at Ephesus. He had no trouble
raising troops and finding ships, but he found that he was not trusted by the
revolutionaries. Miletus would not have him back. He became a soldier of
fortune in the Aegean until he was hunted down and executed by Artaphernes. The
Ionian revolt was finally settled in 494/493. The Persians went on to plot the
conquest of Greece under the pretext of a punitive campaign against Athens.
Failure of the Naxos expedition:
Main article: Siege of Naxos (499)
Certain exiled citizens of Naxos came to Miletus to seek refuge. They asked
Aristagoras to supply them with troops, so that they could regain control of
their homeland. Aristagoras considered that if he was able to supply troops to
the Naxians, then he could become ruler of Naxos. So he agreed to assist the
Naxians. He explained that he did not have enough troops of his own, but that
Artaphernes, Darius’ brother and the Persian satrap of Lydia, who
commanded a large army and navy on the coast of Asia, could help supply troops.
The Naxians agreed to Aristagoras seeking Artaphernes' support and supplied him
with money. Aristagoras travelled to Sardis and suggested that Artaphernes
attack Naxos and restore the exiles. The Persians would then gain control of
the island. He explained to Artaphernes that Naxos “was a fine and fertile
island, close to the Ionian coast, and rich both in treasures and slaves.”
It was also the gateway to the Cyclades, which the Persians did not yet rule.
Aristagoras promised that he would both fund the expedition and give
Artaphernes a bonus sum. He also tempted Artaphernes by adding that capturing
the island would place other poleis of the Cyclades under his control. They
would serve as bases for an invasion of Euboea.
After securing the permission of Susa, Artaphernes agreed and promised 200
ships. The following spring, Aristagoras and the Naxian exiles sailed with the
fleet. Unfortunately for the success of the invasion, Aristagoras quarrelled
with the Persian admiral Megabates. He interfered in the discipline of the
latter over the ship captains to save a friend from harsh punishment for an
infraction (failure to set a watch on his ship). Aristagoras saved his friend
but lost the friendship and loyalty of the Persian admiral, who expected to be
in overall command. The schism was irreparable, being the very first incident
of the subsequent Ionian revolt. Megabates sabotaged the entire operation by
secretly informing the Naxians that they were about to be attacked, taking away
the element of surprise. Naxos then had enough time to prepare for a siege.
Four months later, the siege still held, the Persians were out of supplies and
had only limited funds remaining. The expedition was then considered a failure
and the Persians sailed home.
Ionian Revolt:
Main article: Ionian Revolt
Due to his failure to make good on his Naxian promises, Aristagoras’
political position was at risk. He began to plan a revolt with the Milesians
and the other Ionians. Meanwhile, Histiaeus, still detained at Susa, had
tattooed a message upon the shaved head of a slave. Once his hair had grown
back, he sent him to Aristagoras. The message told Aristagoras to revolt.
Histiaeus, desperate to resume his authority at Miletus, hoped Darius would
send him to deal with a Milesian revolt. Both leaders being of the same mind,
Aristagoras conferred with a council of his supporters, who agreed to a
rebellion in Miletus in 499. Aristagoras was supported by most of the citizens
in council, except the historian Hecataeus. Hecataeus voted against the revolt
because he believed that the Ionians would be out-matched. Defeat would be
inevitable. Once the vote was taken, however, there is no evidence that he
recused himself from the revolt. In fact, he had suggestions to make.
Once the war began, the Ionians did not allow any fence-sitting among
themselves, although they could not stop the larger allies from withdrawing. In
general knowledge, warring nations do not allow citizens of any social status
to comment from the sidelines without participating in the war effort. As soon
as the vote for war was certain, Aristagoras took steps to secure Persian
military assets. The Naxos fleet was recovering from its ordeal at Myus. Now in
a position of command – Herodotus is not specific – Aristagoras sent
a party under Iatragoras to arrest the admirals still with the fleet, some
several men. Ironically, these were mainly Greek. They were later released and
sent home. Now that the rebellion was in the open, Aristagoras “set
himself to damage Darius in every way he could think of.”
The scope of the revolt spread rapidly to all Ionia. Aristagoras foresaw that
one city would soon be crushed. He therefore set about to create an alliance of
all the Ionian cities, but the members also came from regions beyond Ionia. He
made a number of constitutional changes, not all of which are clear. First he
relinquished his own tyranny. Approaching the other states, he convinced them
to end theirs. Finally he ordered all of the states to create a board of
generals to report, apparently, to him. When his government was in place he
sailed to Lacedaemon and other states of Greece in search of allies. There has
been some question as to the exact meaning of Herodotus' governmental terms,
and as to the form of government of the Ionian alliance.
The most fundamental question is where Aristagoras got his authority over the
Ionians in the first place. They were all under the satrapy of Lydia, not under
Miletus. The satrap was Persian. The tyrant of Miletus was appointed by the
satrap, but he also appointed all the other tyrants. For reasons not specified
in Herodotus, Miletus had the upper hand. One can only assume a leadership role
of some kind of Aristagoras over the other tyrants, whether personal or
according to some unspecified convention. In order to gain the participation of
the people in the revolt, we are told, Aristagoras "let go" the
tyranny and established isonomia, which the translators translate variously
with imprecise terms, such as "equality of government." According to
Liddell and Scott, a standard dictionary of ancient Greek, Thucydides uses it
to mean the "equality of rights" in a democracy. Apparently
Aristagoras established democracy, but then he went on to "put a stop to
tyranny" in all the other Ionian cities, and moreover to insist that they
select boards of generals reporting to him, which are not democratic powers. No
voting is mentioned. Apparently a new sovereign state had been formed with
Aristagoras as its chief. He had not stepped down, but up. The state had the
power to levy taxes and troops. Aristagoras was commander of the joint armed
forces. Miletus was to be the new capital. In fact the new sovereign Ionia
issued its own coinage between 499 and its destruction by the Persians in 494
Spartan refusal to provide assistance:
Aristagoras appealed to the Spartan king, Cleomenes I, to help them throw off
the Persian yoke. He praised the quality of the Spartan warriors, and argued
that a pre-emptive invasion of Persia would be easy. To illustrate his view, he
had brought along a "bronze tablet on which a map of all the earth was
engraved, and all the sea, and all the rivers." No more information is
given about the map, but the circumstantial evidence suggests it was most
likely the world map of Hecataeus of Miletus, an important player in Milesian
political life of the times. Aristagoras claimed that the Persians would be
easy to defeat, as they fought in “trousers and turbans,” clearly not
a sign of good warriors. He also tempted him with Persian riches. Cleomenes
asked Aristagoras to wait two days for an answer. When they next met, Cleomenes
asked how long it would take to reach Susa, and upon learning that it was a
three months’ journey, he firmly refused Spartan assistance as his troops
would be gone for too long. At the time, Sparta was concerned over possible
attacks from the Argives.
The Greek historian Herodotus claimed that Aristagoras attempted to change
Cleomenes’ mind with bribes, until the king's young daughter Gorgo warned
that Aristagoras would corrupt him. Aristagoras left without the requested
assistance.
Defeat of the Athenians:
Aristagoras next went to Athens, where he made a convincing speech, promising
“everything that came into his head, until at last he succeeded.” Won
over, the Athenians agreed to send ships to Ionia and Aristagoras went before
them. The Athenians subsequently arrived in Miletus with twenty triremes and
five others that belonged to the Eretrians. Herodotus described the arrival of
these ships as the beginning of troubles between Greeks and barbarians. Once
all his allies had arrived, Aristagoras put his brother Charopinus and another
Milesian, Hermophantus, in charge of the expedition, and the whole contingent
set out for the provincial capital, Sardis, while Aristagoras remained to
govern at Miletus. The first leg of the journey was to proceed along the coast
to Ephesus. Using it as base, they went overland to Sardis, on which they
descended by surprise. The satrap Artaphernes and his forces retreated to the
acropolis immediately. A fire, started by accident in the town, accidentally
burned down the temple of the Lydian goddess Cybebe (Cybele). Attributing the
fire to Ionian maliciousness, the Persians later used it as an excuse for
burning Greek temples. The fire forced the defenders of the acropolis to
abandon it in favor of the marketplace. Its defence coincided fortuitously with
the arrival of Persian reinforcements. Interpreting the tumult as a
counter-attack, The Ionians retreated to Tmolus, a nearby elevation, from which
they escaped by night. The reinforcements followed the Ionians, caught up with
them near Ephesus and soundly defeated them.
The Persians had obtained Lydia, including all the Greek cities, by defeating
the last Anatolian-speaking kingdom of the same name. They made such a show of
mercy as to win the hearts and minds of the Anatolians, as well as of some of
the Greeks. In that sense, the "Ionian Revolt" was de facto an
Anatolian civil war. A call for assistance went rapidly around the satrapy.
Joint Persian-Anatolian forces hastened overnight to the assistance of the
satrap. They arrived with such short notice and major fanfare as to frighten
away the Ionian-Athenian forces.
The Cambridge Ancient History article attributes this swift arrival to the
Persian cavalry, which also had no trouble tracking and catching the Ionians
before the gates of Ephesus. The losses of the East Greeks were so great that
they slunk away, so to speak, leaving Aristagoras and the rebels to fend for
themselves. An air of doom pervaded the revolt, but they fought with such
spirit that the rebellion spilled over into the islands After this battle, the
Athenians refused to continue to fight in the Ionian Revolt and returned to
Athens. Because of their participation in this battle, however, the Persian
king, Darius, swore vengeance on Athens and commanded a servant to repeat to
him three times every day at dinner, “Master, remember the
Athenians.” The story is somewhat and probably hypocritically naive (but
not necessarily on that account false), as the Persians intended expansion into
the Balkans all along. They still held parts of Thrace from their previous
abortive expedition into Scythia, only stopped when they learned the true size
of the country (most of Russia) and the danger of their position in it. The
Ionians fought on, gaining control of Byzantium and the surrounding towns as
well as the greater part of Caria and Caunus. They were not, however, alone. In
this last phase of the conflict, almost all of Cyprus also rebelled against the
Persians. Onesilus, the younger brother of Gorgus, the ruler of Salamis, tried
to convince his brother to rebel against Persia and join in the Ionian Revolt.
When his brother refused to support the revolt, Onesilus waited until he left
Salamis and then shut the city gates on him. Gorgus fled to the Persians while
Onesilus took over and convinced the Cyprians to revolt. They then proceeded to
lay siege to the city of Amathus.
Manville's theory of a power struggle between Aristagoras and Histiaeus:
Herodotus’ account is the best source we have on the events that amounted
to a collision between Persia, which was expanding westward, and classical
Greece at its peak. Nevertheless, its depictions are often scanty and
uncertain, or incomplete. One of the major uncertainties of the Ionian revolt
in Herodotus is why it occurred in the first place. In retrospect the case
seems obvious: Persia disputed the Hellenes for control of cities and
territories. The Hellenes had either to fight for their freedom or submit. The
desirability of these material objects was certainly economic, although
considerations of defence and ideology may well have played a part. These are
the motives generally accepted today, after long retrospect. Herodotus
apparently knew of no such motives, or if he did, he did not care to analyse
history at that level. J D Manville characterizes his approach as the
attribution of “personal motivation” to players such as Aristagoras
and Histiaeus. In his view, Herodotus “may seem to overemphasize personal
motivation as a cause,” but he really does not. We have either to fault
Herodotus for his lack of analytical perspicacity or try to find credible
reasons in the historical context for actions to which Herodotus gives
incomplete explanations. Manville suggests that the unexplained places mark
events in a secret scenario about which Herodotus could not have known, but he
records what he does know faithfully. It is up to the historian to reconstruct
the secret history by re-interpretation and speculation, a technique often used
by historical novelists. Manville puts it forward as history. The main players
are portrayed by Herodotus as naturally hypocritical. They always have an
ulterior motive which they go to great lengths to conceal behind persuasive
lies. Thus neither Aristagoras nor Histiaeus are fighting for freedom, nor do
they cooperate or collaborate. Each has a personal motive related to greed,
ambition, or fear. Manville fills in the uncertainties with hypothetical
motives. Thus he arrives, perhaps less credibly for his invention, at a
behind-the-scenes struggle for dominance between Aristagoras and Histiaeus.
They can best be described as rivals or even enemies.
Some of the high points of the argument are as follows. While Histiaeus was
away serving Darius, Aristagoras acted in his stead as deputy of Miletus where,
it is argued, he worked on securing his own power. The word for deputy is
epitropos, which he was when the Naxian deputation arrived. By the time the
fleet departs for Naxos, Aristagoras has promoted himself to “tyrant of
Miletus.” There is no explicit statement that he asked Histiaeus’
permission or was promoted by Histaeus. Instead, Aristagoras turned to
Artaphernes, who was said to be jealous of Histiaeus. It is true that
Artaphernes would not move without consulting the Great King, and that the
latter's advisor on Greek affairs was Histiaeus. However, Manville sees a coup
by Aristagoras, presuming not only that the Great King's advisor did not
advise, but was kept in the dark about his own supersession. When the
expedition failed, Histiaeus sent his tattooed slave to Aristagoras, not as
encouragement to revolt, but as an ultimatum. Manville provides an underlying
value system to fill in the gap left by Herodotus: revolt was so unthinkable
that Histiaeus could bring the fantasies of his opponent back to reality by
suggesting that he do it, a sort of “go ahead, commit suicide.”
Histiaeus was, in Manville's speculation, ordering Aristagoras to give up his
rule or suffer the consequences. Apparently, he was not being kept in the dark
by the king after all. Manville leaves us to guess why the king did not just
crush the revolt by returning the supposedly loyal Histiaeus to power. However,
at this time Histiaeus was still required to remain in Susa and, despite his
threat, he was unable to do anything if Aristagoras did revolt. Realizing that
this would be his last chance to gain power Aristagoras started the revolt
despite Histiaeus’ threat. This is a surprise to Manville's readers, as we
thought he already had power via a coup. Manville does note the contradiction
mentioned above, that Aristagoras gave up tyranny, yet was able to force
democracy on the other cities and command their obedience to him. We are to see
in this paradox a strategy to depose Histiaeus, whom we thought was already
deposed. The tale goes on to an attempt by Histiaeus to form an alliance with
Artaphernes to depose the usurper and regain his power at Miletus. Artaphernes,
though he was involved in open war with Aristagoras, refuses. The tale told by
Manville thus contains events related by Herodotus supplemented by non-events
coming from Manville's imagination.
Myres’ Theory of a balance of power between thalassocracies:
John Myres, classical archaeologist and scholar, whose career began in the
reign of Queen Victoria and did not end until 1954, close friend and companion
of Arthur Evans, and intelligence officer par excellence of the British Empire,
developed a theory of the Ionian Revolt that explains it in terms of the stock
political views of the empire, balance of power and power vacuum. Those views,
still generally familiar, assert that peace is to be found in a region
controlled by competing geopolitical powers, none of which are strong enough to
defeat the others. If a power drops from the roster for any reason, a
“vacuum” then exists, which causes violent competition until the
balance is readjusted. In a key article of 1906, while Evans was excavating
Knossos, the Ottoman Empire had lost Crete due to British intervention, and
questions of the “sick man of Europe” were being considered by all
the powers. Referring to the failing Ottoman Empire and the power vacuum that
would be left when it fell, the young Myres published an article studying the
balance of what he termed “sea-power” in the eastern Mediterranean in
classical times. The word "sea-power" was intended to define his
“thalassocracy.” Myres was using sea-power in a specifically British
sense for the times. The Americans had their own idea of sea power, expressed
in Alfred Thayer Mahan’s great strategic work, ‘’The Influence
of Sea Power upon History’’. which advocated maintaining a powerful
navy and using it for strategic purposes, such as “command of the
sea,” a kind of domination. The United States Naval Academy used this
meaning for its motto, ‘’ex scientia tridens’’,
“sea-power through knowledge.” It named one of its buildings, Mahan
Hall. Far different is Myres’ “sea-power” and the meaning of
thalassocracy, which means “rule of the seas.“ In contrast to
“tridens,” rule of the seas is not a paternalistic but democratic
arrangement. Where there are rulers, there are the ruled. A kind of exclusivity
is meant, such as in Rule, Britannia!. Specifically, in a thalassocracy, the
fleets of the ruler may go where they will and do as they please, but the ruled
may go nowhere and engage in no operation without express permission of the
ruler. You need a license, so to speak, to be on ruled waters, and if you do
not have it, your ships are attacked and destroyed. “Shoot on sight”
is the policy. And so Carthaginian ships sank any ships in their waters, etc.
The list of thalassocracies:
Thalassocracy was a new word in the theories of the late 19th century, from
which some conclude it was a scholarly innovation of the times. It was rather a
resurrection of a word known from a very specific classical document, which
Myres calls “the List of Thalassocracies.” It occurs in the Chronicon
of Eusebius, the early 4th century Bishop of Caesarea Maritima, the ruins now
in Israel. In Eusebius, the list is a separate chronology. Jerome, 4th-century
theologian and historian, creator of the Vulgate, interspersed the same items,
translated into Latin, in his Chronicon of world events. The items contain the
words “obtinuerunt mare,” strictly speaking, “obtained the
sea,” and not “hold sea power,” although the latter meaning may
be implied as a result. Just as Jerome utilized the chronology of Eusebius, so
Eusebius utilized the chronology of Castor of Rhodes, a 1st-century BC
historian. His work has been entirely lost except for fragments, including his
list of thalassocracies. A thousand years later, the Byzantine monk, George
Syncellus, also used items from the list in his massive Extract of
Chronography. Over the centuries the realization grew that all these references
to sea-power in the Aegean came from a single document, a resource now
reflected in the fragments of those who relied on it. C Bunsen, whose
translator was one of the first to use thalassocracy, attributed its discovery
to the German scholar, Christian Gottlob Heyne In a short work composed in
1769, published in 1771, Eusebius’ Chronicon being known at that time only
through fragments in the two authors mentioned, Heyne reconstructed the list in
their Greek and Latin (with uncanny accuracy), the whole title of the article
being Super Castoris epochis populorum thalattokratesanton H.E. (hoc est) qui
imperium maris tenuisse dicuntur, “About Castor's epochs of
thalattocratizing peoples; that is, those who are said to have held the
imperium over the sea.” To thalattokratize is “to rule the sea,”
not just to hold sea power like any other good fellow with a strong navy. The
thalattokratizer holds the imperium over the watery domain just as if it were a
country, which explains how such a people can “obtain” and
“have” the sea. The list presented therefore is one of successive
exclusive domains. No two peoples can hold the same domain or share rule over
it, although they can operate under the authority of the thalassocrat, a
privilege reserved for paying allies. According to Bunsen, the discovery and
translation of the Armenian version of Eusebius’ Chronicon changed the
nature of the search for thalassocracy. It provided the original document, but
there was a disclaimer attached, that it was in fact “an extract from the
epitome of Diodorus,” meaning Diodorus Siculus, a 1st-century BC
historian. The disclaimer cannot be verified, as that part of Diodorus’
work is missing, which, however, opens the argument to another question: if
Eusebius could copy a standard source from Diodorus, why cannot Diodorus have
copied it from someone else? It is at this point that Myres picks up the
argument. Noting that thalassokratesai, “be a thalassocrat,” meaning
“rule the waves,” was used in a number of authors: elsewhere by
Diodorus, by Polybius, 2nd century historian, of Carthage, of Chios by Strabo,
1st century geographer and some others, he supposes that the source document
might have been available to them all (but not necessarily, the cautious Myres
points out). The document can be dated by its content: a list of 17
thalassocracies extending from the Lydian after the fall of Troy to the
Aeginetan, which ended with the cession of power to Athens in 480. The Battle
of Salamis included 200 new Athenian triremes plus all the ships of its new
ally, Aegina. Despite various revolts Aegina went on to become part of the
Delian League, an imperial treaty of the new Athenian thalassocracy. Thucydides
writes of it after 432, but Herodotus, who visited Athens “as late as
444” does not know a thing about it. This tentative date for the Eusebian
list does not exclude the possibility of an earlier similar document used by
Herodotus.
Myres’ historical reconstruction of the list:
The order of thalassocracies in the various versions of the list is nearly
fixed, but the dates need considerable adjustment, which Myres sets about to
reconcile through all historical sources available to him. He discovers some
gaps. The solidest part of the list brackets the Ionian Revolt. The Milesian
thalassocracy is dated 604-585. It was ended by Alyattes of Lydia, founder of
the Lydian Empire, who also fought against the Medes. The latter struggle was
ended by the Eclipse of Thales at the Battle of the Halys River in 585, when
the combatants, interpreting the phenomenon as a sign, made peace. The Lydians
were now free to turn on Miletus, which they did for the next 11 years,
reducing it. When the Persians conquered Lydia in 547/546 they acquired the
Ionian cities. After 585 there is a gap in the list. Lesbos and one or more
unknown thalassocrats held the sea in unknown order. In 577 began the
thalassocracy of Phocaea. Breaking out of its Anatolian cage, it founded
Marseilles and cities in Spain and Italy, wresting a domain away from Carthage
and all other opponents. Their thalassocracy ended when, in the revolt of the
Lydian Pactyas, who had been instructed to collect taxes by the Persians, but
used them to raise an army of revolt, the Ionian cities were attacked by the
Persians. The Phocaeans abandoned Phocaea about 534 and after much adventuring
settled in the west. The thalassocracy of Samos spans the career of the tyrant,
Polycrates, there. The dates of the tyrant are somewhat uncertain and variable,
but at some time prior to 534, he and his brothers staged a coup during a
festival at Samos. Samos happened to have a large navy of pentekonters.
Becoming a ship collector, he attacked and subdued all the neighbouring
islands, adding their ships to his fleet. Finally he added a new model, the
trireme. His reign came to an end about 517 when, taking up the Great King's
invitation to a friendly banquet for a discussion of prospects, he was suddenly
assassinated. There were no prospects. However, if he had chosen not to attend,
he was doomed anyway. Some of his trireme captains, learning of a devious plot
by him to have them assassinated by Egyptian dignitaries while on official
business, sailed to Sparta to beg help, which they received. The adventurous
young king, Cleomenes I, was spared the trouble of killing Polycrates, but led
an expedition to Samos anyway, taking the thalassocracy for two years, 517-515.
Adventure and piracy not being activities approved by the Spartan people, they
tagged him as insane and insisted he come home. The sea was now available to
Naxos, 515-505.
Aftermath:
The Hellenes had obtained a foothold on the coast of Anatolia by siding with
rebel coastal Anatolian states against the Hittite Empire. Their position was
made more solid by the fall of Troy against a coalition of mainland Greek
kings. The coastal cities managed to retain their positions against the
subsequent Phrygian invasion of Anatolia by joining with the rump Anatolian
states, while the Hittites withdrew into neo-Hittite states in Syria. The
coastal cities, now entirely Hellenic, continued to receive immigrants from
mainland Greece. The massive transfer of Persian-speaking population from the
steppes of Central Asia to the range they now occupy presented the Anatolian
Hellenes with an impossible strategic problem. They could not hope to oppose
their small armies against the resources of the vast Persian empire unless they
could once again receive major support from the mainland Greek states,
especially the maritime power of Athens. Those states, however, were reluctant
to take on the might of ancient Persia. Consequently, the Hellenic states in
Anatolia submitted reluctantly to Persian rule, and were placed in the new
satrapy of Lydia, with capital at Sardis. The satrap of Lydia allowed self-rule
as long as taxes were paid and the supremacy of ancient Persia was granted.
Many of the Anatolian cities proved loyal subjects. However, underlying
resentment against Persian rule was universal. Persia was not interested in the
status quo. Their desire to expand to the west brought them into conflict with
Ionia over the question of self-rule, one of the principles of the agreement of
the city-states to submit. Their interference in Miletus was the spark that set
off the Ionian revolt. Aristagoras, the first rebel ruler, appeared then as the
champion of Greek freedom. The Ionians had high hopes of independence. Due to
the disparity in resources and the reluctance of the mainland states to involve
themselves, the tide soon turned in favour of the Persians. After only one
year, the Cyprians were once again forced into submission by Persia. The cities
around the Hellespont fell one after another to Daurises, the son-in-law of
king Darius. The Carians fought the Persians at the Maeander River and were
defeated with severe casualties.
Aristagoras, seeing the rebellion falling to pieces around him, and little help
forthcoming from the Greeks, began looking for a shelter to which he could
execute a strategic retreat. He and his men resolved on Myrcinus in Thrace,
which had been an Ionian stronghold in the abortive Persian invasion of
Scythia. He put Pythagoras, “a man of distinction,” in charge of
Miletus and set sail for Thrace, where he attempted to establish a colony on
the Strymon river, at the same site as the later Athenian colony of Amphipolis.
The Thracians, not now disposed to tolerate any further presence of Greeks in
their country, opposed this incursion. He gained control of the territory but
later, while besieging a neighbouring town, Aristagoras was killed in battle.
Expecting a swift Persian victory, Aristagoras had hoped to establish a redoubt
of Ionians, who would come to the assistance of Miletus at a later time. By an
accidental sequence of historical events his reputation drew the ire of his
main historian, Herodotus of Halicarnassus, an Ionian partisan, to such a
degree that it suffers yet. Although a champion of freedom, Aristagoras is the
only man in all his histories that Herodotus openly calls a coward, blaming his
supposed flight for the defeat of the revolt. The revolt apparently intensified
and spread into the islands. Aristagoras had no way of knowing that he would
have been in the van of it, or that the Thracians would not allow a redoubt.
The revolt was over by 494/493. Going directly for Miletus in 494, the Persians
defeated the Ionians with their own weapon, the ship, in the Battle of
Lade, an island off Miletus. The city was
then subject to a siege and the war lost at its fall. Although there was some
mild devastation of rebel cities (except for Miletus, which was razed and the
population decimated and transported), the Persians were interested in ruling
rather than revenge. They began to plan forthwith for the largest invasion of
Greece yet undertaken, executed starting 490 in a series of conflicts called
the Greco-Persian
Wars, and which are yet famous.
Unfortunately for the Persians, they were forced to adopt contingents of Ionian
Greeks into their armies and navies.
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