That state had been for some years past in the throes of a revolution, in which the Spartan king, Kleomenes, had played various parts. After being instrumental in expelling Hippias in 511 B.C., he had discovered that by so doing he had placed the power in the hands of the democratic party at Athens. He sought to remedy the mistake by espousing the cause of Isagoras and the oligarchs. His interference was disastrous to himself and fatal to them. In spite of his failure, his action caused great alarm at Athens, and an idea sprang up there that he aimed at making the country subservient to Sparta. There was no power in Greece itself to which Athens could turn for protection against Sparta, H. v. 73. and in her perplexity she cast her eyes over sea to the great empire on the eastern side of the Ægean, and sent an embassy to Artaphernes asking for his assistance.
AFFAIRS AT ATHENS.
It is on the face of it a very remarkable fact that Artaphernes abstained from making full use of the opportunity thus offered him for interference in the affairs of Greece; but the fact, remarkable as it is, is in accord with such other indications as exist of the position of affairs at this time in the West Asian satrapies. It is probable that Artaphernes had his hands full with the maintenance of the dominion which Persia had won in that region, and that he had at the time neither the will nor the power to spare such resources as he had at his disposal on the direct acquisition of further territory. He made a pretence,—his ignorance can hardly have been real,—of not knowing who the Athenians were. On being informed, he offered them alliance on condition they gave earth and water, an offer which the Athenian ambassadors took upon themselves to accept. When, however, they returned to Athens their conduct in so doing was strongly condemned, and the terms were repudiated.
Shortly after this the storm which the Athenians had foreseen broke upon them. H. v. 74. Kleomenes collected a formidable army from Peloponnesus and invaded Attica, while the Bœotians and the Chalkidians of Eubœa prepared to attack from the north. The main danger was averted by the disruption of Kleomenes’ army. The defection not merely of the Corinthians, but also of Demaratos, Kleomenes’ partner in the dual kingship of Sparta, brought the expedition to a premature close after it had actually entered upon Attic territory. This was disastrous for the northern allies. The Bœotians and the Chalkidians were both defeated. In the case of the latter the disaster was irreparable. Their great city, foremost in early Greek trade and colonization, lost its independence, and its lands were occupied by Athenian settlers. Athens had acquired one of the great strategic positions of Greece; and Corinth had made the first of those fatal mistakes of policy which were to have such momentous consequences in the next century.
The Bœotians did not accept defeat. Left in the lurch by their Peloponnesian allies, H. v. 89. they sought and obtained aid from Ægina, which great trading state seized the opportunity of inflicting damage on an old enemy and growing rival in commerce, and harried the Attic coast with piratical raids.
Meanwhile events were preparing for a second interference of Persia in Athenian affairs. H. v. 90. The Lacedæmonians had discovered the fact that they had been tricked by the Delphic Oracle, which, bribed by the Alkmæonidæ, had urged them to aid in the expulsion of Hippias from Athens. Seeking to amend this mistake, they recalled Hippias from Sigeon in the Troad, to which principality he had retired after his expulsion, and where he must have been living for some years as a vassal prince of Persia. Their intention was to reinstate him in the tyranny at Athens. It was again the Corinthians who wrecked the plan. At a conference of the Peloponnesian League called to consider the question, they bitterly opposed the proposal, and carried the other allies with them. Hippias, having had his journey for nothing, returned to Asia more than ever embittered in feeling against Athens and Greece alike; and he seems to have moved heaven and earth to induce Artaphernes to reinstate him in his tyranny. In the end he prevailed so far that Artaphernes called upon the Athenians to receive him back. Whether he intended to take action in case of their refusal will never be known, but events were imminent in Asia, even if they had not already occurred, which rendered all idea of his active interference out of the question; for, if Herodotus’ chronology be correct, this demand was made by him either immediately before or after the first actual step had been taken in the great revolt. H. v. 96, 97. The demand, says Herodotus, convinced the Athenians that thereafter there could only be open enmity with Persia; and while they were in this mind Aristagoras came to Athens.
CHAPTER III.
THE IONIAN REVOLT.
The mist which hangs over the history of the last decade of the sixth century lifts somewhat when the historian enters upon the narrative of the first ten years of the fifth; but it does not wholly vanish. Striking incidents occur indeed within the range of vision; but it is evident that beyond that range many events took place which had much influence on the history of the time; and the causes of the known lie largely in the region of the unknown.
It is impossible to accept the accounts which Herodotus gives of the Ionian revolt or of the Marathonian campaign as a full history of either of those events. There are wide gaps in both narratives; and much that is recorded is wholly unaccounted for by anything in the rest of the story, or is, in some cases, wholly inconsistent with other facts which are mentioned. In tracing the course of events the modern inquirer is in the position of an astronomer who, having observed aberrations in the course of a far-off planet which cannot be accounted for by any known causes, seeks in the dim distance beyond for the disturbing influence. There, alas! the parallel between the two inquirers ceases, inasmuch as mathematical formulæ have not yet been made applicable to human action.
The imperfect character of the information which Herodotus furnishes with regard to the story of the great Revolt is so evident that the historian himself must have been conscious of it. The peculiarity of his narrative was therefore due in all probability to some simple reason; either, it may be, to the difficulties which met him in his search for reliable information, and to his disinclination to insert in his history anything which he personally regarded as unreliable; or to a determination to deal with only the most prominent and striking incidents of a part of history which was, after all, merely a preface to the great tale which he had set himself to tell—the story of the war in Europe in the years 480 B.C. and 479 B.C.