The great Persian War and its preliminaries

by G. B. Grundy

If Greek history is to bear the guise of history, this story requires examination. No useful end can be served by accepting as fact that which is incapable of rational interpretation. Human motive springs from human thought; and if thought has its formal laws, it is reasonable to suppose that there is a formality in motive also.

It happens that in the present instance there exists evidence which puts a complexion on these events very different to that which is given by Herodotus.

Plut. de Herod. Malignitate, 24.

Plutarch has preserved a tradition that at the time at which the expedition against Sardes took place the Persians were engaged in the siege of Miletus, and that one object of the expedition was to force the Persians to raise the siege. The bitter animus of the treatise in which this assertion is made makes it impossible to accept statements in it without consideration. In the present instance, however, the statement is so manifestly in accord with the situation at the time that it is impossible to reject it as untrue.

Miletus had been, through Aristagoras, the author of the revolt. Artaphernes had had a whole winter’s warning. It is inconceivable that he should have allowed months to elapse without taking measures to crush the rising before it became formidable; and this end could best be attained by an attack on that centre at which the conflagration had had its origin, and from which it was, if left unchecked, but too likely to spread far and wide. Artaphernes was no child playing at empire, but a practised administrator, who had governed a great outlying province for nearly ten years of a critical period of its history.

There can be little question that the bold design of a direct attack on Sardes completely upset his plans. It forced him not merely to raise the siege of Miletus, but also to hurry with all speed to save the Persian capital in the west, which must, from its very position, be his base of operations in the coming struggle. An examination of the map will show that the loss of Sardes would have necessitated the withdrawal of that base far to the east. It is doubtful indeed whether another could have been found west of Halys. The attack was a brilliant venture on the part of the Greeks. It was a brilliant idea on the part of the one man to whom it can be attributed,—Aristagoras.

Aristagoras has come down in history with the ill reputation of one who dared to lead brave men to their death, but dared not die with them. This feature of his life’s story has tended to obscure the true picture of the man. The added selfishness of motive is not calculated to present him in a more favourable light.

Such is the general impression created by the picture which Herodotus draws of him.

Yet the details do not altogether bear out the impression which is created by the picture as a whole.

It is doubtless the case that he acted from selfish motives. It may be that his highest aim was to become the first man among the Greeks of the Asiatic coast; but he must at least be credited with a spirit that ventured much to gain more. He miscalculated the means to the end he sought. But was the miscalculation more discreditable to him than to those European Greeks on whose aid he had calculated? They had, no doubt, their excuse; but he had his.