The great Persian War and its preliminaries

by G. B. Grundy

It is a strange tale this tale of Histiæus. He had certainly been playing a double game for years past, but it is very difficult to say what the two sides of the game actually were. His reception by the Chians shows that some of the insurgents, at any rate, were unaware that he had played any part in bringing about the revolt. He had, moreover, been able to persuade Darius of his honesty of purpose. Probably his purpose was dishonest to both sides, and what he aimed at was the leadership of the Asiatic Greeks, which should, if he could make it so, be independent of Persia. Failing that, he was prepared to serve the king as an Ionian satrap, but not as an underling of Artaphernes, or any other Persian governor. The great Persian officials were, accordingly, his irreconcilable opponents.

H. v. 23, ad fin.

The words reported in the tale of his conversation with Darius at Susa show that the author of that story had some reason for suggesting that Histiæus had long been privy to a conspiracy of revolt. H. v. 106. His action at Myrkinos had been interpreted by Megabazos as aiming at the setting up of a great power hostile to Persian interests. May not all this mean that this man, a schemer to his very fingers’ ends, had, before he was taken up to Susa, planned the conspiracy which ended in the revolt, and that his original design had been to overturn the Persian power in Asia with the aid of the Thracian tribes, who were at the time of his settlement in Myrkinos smarting under the recent attempt of Darius to subjugate them,—an attempt which had certainly not turned out a success? THE SITUATION IN B.C. 495 Is it not this which Megabazos hinted at but could not prove to Darius? Is it not of these plans of twelve years before that Histiæus spoke to the Chians, and so persuaded them to release him? Had not Aristagoras been, in a sense, an heir to these designs in virtue of that strange testament tattooed on the head of the slave? But was that testament of so late a date as Herodotus supposed?

It was either late in 496 or early in 495 that Histiæus came down to the coast. The revolt had not, indeed, prospered, but it was far from crushed. Aristagoras had gone to Myrkinos, if not to Hades. He had left Miletus, in all probability, before the great Persian disaster on the Pedasos road. That disaster, in which the greatest of the armies, if not the major part of the whole Persian force in Western Asia, had been wiped out of existence, now put a wholly different complexion upon affairs; and the satraps seem to have found themselves once more, in 495, in the position in which they had been in 497,—able to maintain the existing status, but without the means necessary for taking further offensive, for the time being. Hence the gap in this part of Herodotus’ story of the war. There is nothing recorded, because there was nothing remarkable to record. The side which had suffered most severely in the last round of the great fight had managed at the last moment to get in a smashing blow; and during the next round both sides were too weak to attempt a vigorous attack.

In one respect the circumstances were favourable to Histiæus. They afforded him time for intrigue. If Herodotus’ story is to be believed, he had to face the bitter reproaches of the Ionians at Chios for having brought about the revolt. It is doubtless the case that the Ionians were dispirited at the way in which matters had gone in the last campaign; but, apart from the inconsistency of this attitude of the Chians with their previous treatment of Histiæus, the story serves to point the moral of the hopelessness of the revolt, and, so doing, is not above suspicion. Histiæus is related to have defended himself by saying that he sent the message because he had discovered that Darius entertained a design of removing the Ionians to Phœnicia and the Phœnicians to Ionia. The intense rivalry between these two great commercial peoples may well have rendered such an allegation a commonplace with agitators on the Asiatic side of the Ægean; but there is no reason for supposing that it had any foundation in fact.

Histiæus now proceeded with his schemes. He was evidently convinced that the revolt could not succeed without external support of some kind. Upon Thrace he could not now reckon, since the news that Aristagoras had embroiled himself with the Thracians on the Strymon must have reached him by that time. H. vi. 4. He had, however, discovered that there was at Sardes a Persian party hostile to Artaphernes, with which he had previously conferred “about revolt.” With it he now sought to establish communications. He was unfortunate in his messenger—a certain Hermippos of Atarneus,—who carried the letters straight to Artaphernes. The latter directed him to take them to those to whom they were sent, and to bring back the answers. As might be expected, the recipients were executed.

So the plan miscarried.

Histiæus now persuaded the Chians to convey him to his old seat of tyranny, Miletus. Its citizens, who, says Herodotus, had been glad to get rid of Aristagoras, were not in a mood to receive him. He made an ineffectual attempt to force an entrance into the town, and was wounded in so doing. He accordingly returned to Chios and tried to persuade the Chians to give him ships,—on what excuse or for what purpose is not stated. As they refused, he went across to Mytilene and persuaded the Lesbians to give him eight triremes. With these he went to Byzantion, and, “settling there, they proceeded to seize vessels sailing out of the Pontus, except such as professed to be ready to obey Histiæus.”

Before making any attempt to explain the policy pursued by Histiæus and the Mytilenians at Byzantion, it is necessary to arrive at some conclusion as to when he and his allies went thither. Except for the narrative of the adventures of Histiæus, the history of the fourth year of the revolt (495) appears to be a blank. HISTIÆUS AT BYZANTION. No event seems to have occurred of a sufficiently striking nature to find a place in a record such as Herodotus set himself to write. For the time matters seem to have been at a standstill in so far as large operations are concerned. Either side had sufficient strength to keep the other in check, but neither was strong enough to inflict a serious blow. The war continued; but it was, doubtless, of a desultory character, unmarked by decisive success or failure. The Persians were waiting for reinforcements; the insurgents were too exhausted to do aught but wait for the renewal of the real struggle.

The great defeat in Caria seems, indeed, to have taken place in the autumn of 496; and it may therefore appear strange that a power like Persia should not have been able to supply the losses in time, at any rate, to strike a decisive blow before the next campaigning season ended. Had the losses been of an ordinary character, such would, no doubt, have been the case; but the reparation of a great defeat in those days of slow communications, and in a monarchy which did not keep a large standing army, was essentially a work of time. It was necessary to communicate with Susa. Susa had to communicate with the provinces from which the new levies had to be drawn. The levies had to be collected and drilled, and then had to be despatched on their long, long march to the Western satrapies. It is not strange, if more than a year elapsed before Persia was ready, after the campaign in Caria, to resume a real offensive in the west.