[569] Herodot. vi, 16.
[570] Thucyd. viii, 14.
[571] Herodot. vi, 17. ληϊστὴς κατεστήκεε Ἑλλήνων μὲν οὐδενὸς, Καρχηδονίων δὲ καὶ Τυρσηνῶν.
[572] Herodot. vi, 22-25.
[573] Herodot. vi, 18, 19, 20, 22.
Μίλητος μέν νυν Μιλησίων ἠρήμωτο.
[574] Herodot. vi, 18, αἱρέουσι κατ᾽ ἄκρης, ἐν τῷ ἑκτῷ ἔτεϊ ἀπὸ τῆς ἀποστάσιος τῆς Ἀρισταγόρεω. This is almost the only distinct chronological statement which we find in Herodotus respecting the Ionic revolt. The other evidences of time in his chapters are more or less equivocal: nor is there sufficient testimony before us to enable us to arrange the events, between the commencement of the Ionic revolt, and the battle of Marathon, into the precise years to which they belong. The battle of Marathon stands fixed for August or September, 490 B. C.: the siege of Milêtus may probably have been finished in 496-495 B. C., and the Ionic revolt may have begun in 502-501 B. C. Such are the dates which, on the whole, appear to me most probable, though I am far from considering them as certain.
Chronological critics differ considerably in their arrangement of the events here alluded to among particular years. See Appendix, No. 5, p. 244, in Mr. Clinton’s Fasti Hellenici; Professor Schultz, Beyträge zu genaueren Zeitbestimmungen von der 63n zur 72n Olympiade, pp. 177-183, in the Kieler Philologische Studien; and Weissenborn, Beyträge zur genaueren Erforschung der alten Griechischen Geschichte, Jena, 1844, p. 87, seqq.: not to mention Reiz and Larcher. Mr. Clinton reckons only ten years from the beginning of the Ionic revolt to the battle of Marathon; which appears to me too short; though, on the other hand, the fourteen years reckoned by Larcher—much more the sixteen years reckoned by Reiz—are too long. Mr. Clinton compresses inconveniently the latter portion of the interval,—that portion which elapsed between the siege of Milêtus and the battle of Marathon. And the very improbable supposition to which he is obliged to resort,—of a confusion in the language of Herodotus between Attic and Olympic years,—indicates that he is pressing the text of the historian too closely, when he states, “that Herodotus specifies a term of three years between the capture of Milêtus, and the expedition of Datis:” see F. H. ad ann. 499. He places the capture of Milêtus in 494 B. C.; which I am inclined to believe a year later—if not two years later—than the reality. Indeed, as Mr. Clinton places the expedition of Aristagoras against Naxos (which was immediately before the breaking out of the revolt, since Aristagoras seized the Ionic despots while that fleet yet remained congregated immediately at the close of the expedition) in 501 B. C., and as Herodotus expressly says that Milêtus was taken in the sixth year after the revolt, it would follow that this capture ought to belong to 495, and not to 494 B. C. I incline to place it either in 496, or in 495; and the Naxian expedition in 502 or 501, leaning towards the earlier of the two dates: Schultz agrees with Larcher in placing the Naxian expedition in 504 B. C., yet he assigns the capture of Milêtus to 496 B. C.,—whereas, Herodotus states that the last of these two events was in the sixth year after the revolt, which revolt immediately succeeded on the first of the two, within the same summer. Weissenborn places the capture of Milêtus in 496 B. C., and the expedition to Naxos in 499,—suspecting that the text in Herodotus—ἑκτῷ ἔτεϊ—is incorrect, and that it ought to be τετάρτῳ ἔτεϊ, the fourth year (p. 125: compare the chronological table in his work, p. 222). He attempts to show that the particular incidents composing the Ionic revolt, as Herodotus recounts it, cannot be made to occupy more than four years; but his reasoning is, in my judgment, unsatisfactory, and the conjecture inadmissible. The distinct affirmation of the historian, as to the entire interval between the two events, is of much more evidentiary value than our conjectural summing up of the details.
It is vain, I think, to try to arrange these details according to precise years: this can only be done very loosely.
[575] Herodot. vi, 25.