The list of ships contributed by the various States is as follows:—
| Miletus | 80 |
| Priene | 12 |
| Myus | 3 |
| Teos | 17 |
| Chios | 100 |
| Erythræ | 8 |
| Phokæa | 3 |
| Lesbos | 70 |
| Samos | 60 |
| 353 |
The Persian fleet is said to have numbered 600.
The absence of Ephesus from the Greek list is noticeable. There are other absentees of less note. If the contingent of Miletus, the object of attack, be omitted, the number of ships supplied by the states on the mainland amounts to only 43.
The smallness of this number is so remarkable that it cannot be passed over without comment. One of two things must have occurred. Either some of the Ionian towns had been reduced since 496, and the story of their reduction is part of the lost records of 495; or the resistance was weakening, and the Greek cities were withdrawing one by one from the struggle, after making their own terms with the Persian. Of the two conjectures, the latter is, perhaps, the more probable, as it would in a way justify the impression of pusillanimity which Herodotus gives to the revolt, an impression which, though on the whole unjustifiable, must have rested on some partial basis. The tradition of the last act in the great tragedy, as preserved in these renegade cities, was sure to be sinister; and from them, or some one of them, Herodotus may have drawn information which contributed to the formation of his own opinions.
The magnitude of the Ionian fleet which gathered at Ladé is in itself sufficient evidence of the determination of the insurgents to concentrate their effort on the sea. The Persian fleet was more than half again as numerous; but it had already suffered two severe defeats off Pamphylia and off Cyprus, and it showed a manifest inclination to avoid a conflict. Herodotus does not mention the station which it took up; but it was presumably somewhere near Miletus, because some of the ex-tyrants of the Greek cities who were aboard entered, at the instigation of the Persians, into communication with their late subjects, with intent to detach some of the contingents from the formidable armada. For the moment these intrigues met with no success.
H. vi. 10.
Herodotus is evidently of opinion that even this resistance to a proposal of treachery was an instance of the wrong-headedness[39] which the Ionians displayed throughout the revolt.
It is very difficult to form a judgment as to the amount of historical truth which is contained in the tale of the events which intervened between this time and the actual battle. It is manifestly told with the intention of presenting the Ionians in the worst possible light. This people, which had already in the course of the revolt inflicted two defeats by sea upon the Persians, is now represented as having neither the power nor the will to practise the tactics of a sea-fight.
H. vi. 11.