From the outset Aristagoras realised that they would be promptly overcome if Asiatic Hellas were not supported by Hellas in Europe. While the Lydian satrap was demanding reinforcements from his sovereign, Aristagoras therefore repaired to the Peloponnesus as a suppliant for help. Sparta, embroiled in one of her periodical quarrels with Argos, gave him an insolent refusal;* even Athens, where the revolution had for the moment relieved her from the fear of the Pisistratidaa and the terrors of a barbarian invasion, granted him merely twenty triremes—enough to draw down reprisals on her immediately after their defeat, without sensibly augmenting the rebels’ chances of success; to the Athenian contingent Bretria added five vessels, and this comprised his whole force. The leaders of the movement did not hesitate to assume the offensive with these slender resources. As early as the spring of 498, before Artaphernes had received reinforcements, they marched suddenly on Sardes. They burnt the lower town, but, as on many previous occasions, the citadel held out; after having encamped for several days at the foot of its rock, they returned to Ephesus laden with the spoil.**
* Aristagoras had with him a map of the world engraved on a
bronze plate, which was probably a copy of the chart drawn
up by Hecatseus of Miletus.
** Herodotus says that the Ionians on their return suffered
a serious reverse near Ephesus. The author seems to have
adopted some Lydian or Persian tradition hostile to the
Ionians, for Charon of Lampsacus, who lived nearer to the
time of these events, mentions only the retreat, and hints
at no defeat. If the expedition had really ended in this
disaster, it is not at all likely that the revolt would have
attained the dimensions it did immediately afterwards.
This indeed was a check to their hostilities, and such an abortive attempt was calculated to convince them of their powerlessness against the foreign rule. None the less, however, when it was generally known that they had burnt the capital of Asia Minor, and had with impunity made the representative of the great king feel in his palace the smoke of the conflagration, the impression was such as actual victory could have produced. The cities which had hitherto hesitated to join them, now espoused their cause—the ports of the Troad and the Hellespont, Lycia, the Carians, and Cyprus—and their triumph would possibly have been secured had Greece beyond the Ægean followed the general movement and joined the coalition. Sparta, however, persisted in her indifference, and Athens took the opportunity of withdrawing from the struggle. The Asiatic Greeks made as good a defence as they could, but their resources fell far short of those of the enemy, and they could do no more than delay the catastrophe and save their honour by their bravery. Cyprus was the first to yield during the winter of 498-497. Its vessels, in conjunction with those of the Ionians, dispersed the fleet of the Phoenicians off Salamis, but the troops of their princes, still imbued with the old system of military tactics, could not sustain the charge of the Persian battalions; they gave way under the walls of Salamis, and their chief, Onesilus, was killed in a final charge of his chariotry.*
* The movement in Cyprus must have begun in the winter of
499-498, for Onesilus was already in the field when Darius
heard of the burning of Sardes; and as it lasted for a year,
it must have been quelled in the winter of 498-497.
His death effected the ruin of the Ionian cause in Cyprus, which on the continent suffered at the same time no less serious reverses. The towns of the Hellespont and of Æolia succumbed one after another; Kymê and Clazomenæ next opened their gates; the Carians were twice beaten, once near the White Columns, and again near Labranda, and their victory at Pedasos suspended merely for an instant the progress of the Persian arms, so that towards the close of 497 the struggle was almost entirely concentrated round Miletus. Aristagoras, seeing that his cause was now desperate, agreed with his partisans that they should expatriate themselves. He fell fighting against the Edonians of Thrace, attempting to force the important town of Enneahodoi, near the mouth of the Strymon (496);* but his defection had not discouraged any one, and Histiseus, who had been sent to Sardes by the great king to negotiate the submission of the rebels, failed in his errand. Even when blockaded on the land side, Miletus could defy an attack so long as communication with the sea was not cut off.
* In Herodotus the town is not named, but a passage in
Thucydides shows that it was Enneahodoi, afterwards
Amphipolis, and that the death of Aristagoras took place
thirty-two years before the Athenian defeat at Drabeskos,
i.e. probably in 496.
Darius therefore brought up the Phoenician fleet, reinforced it with the Cypriot contingents, and despatched the united squadrons to the Archipelago during the summer of 494. The confederates, even after the disasters of the preceding years, still possessed 353 vessels, most of them of 30 to 50 oars; they were, however, completely defeated near the small island of Ladê, in the latter part of the summer, and Miletus, from that moment cut off from the rest of the world, capitulated a few weeks later. A small proportion of its inhabitants continued to dwell in the ruined city, but the greater number were carried away to Ampê, at the mouth of the Tigris, in the marshes of the Nâr-Marratum.*
* The year 497, i.e. three years before the capture of the
town, appears to be an unlikely date for the battle of Ladê:
Miletus must have fallen in the autumn or winter months
following the defeat.
