Of these new projects, the first was that of conquering the island of Naxos. Here, too, as in the case of Hippias, the instigation arose from Naxian exiles,—a rich oligarchy which had been expelled by a rising of the people. This island, like all the rest of the Cyclades, was as yet independent of the Persians.[522] It was wealthy, prosperous, possessing a large population both of freemen and slaves, and defended as well by armed ships as by a force of eight thousand heavy-armed infantry. The exiles applied for aid to Aristagoras, who saw that he could turn them into instruments of dominion for himself in the island, provided he could induce Artaphernês to embark in the project along with him,—his own force not being adequate by itself. Accordingly, he went to Sardis, and laid his project before the satrap, intimating that as soon as the exiles should land with a powerful support, Naxos would be reduced with little trouble: that the neighboring islands of Paros, Andros, Tênos, and the other Cyclades, could not long hold out after the conquest of Naxos, nor even the large and valuable island of Eubœa. He himself engaged, if a fleet of one hundred ships were granted to him, to accomplish all these conquests for the Great King, and to bear the expenses of the armament besides. Artaphernês warmly entered into the scheme, loaded him with praise, and promised him in the ensuing spring two hundred ships instead of one hundred. A messenger despatched to Susa, having brought back the ready consent of Darius, a large armament was forthwith equipped, under the command of the Persian Megabatês, to be placed at the disposal of Aristagoras,—composed both of Persians and of all the tributaries near the coast.[523]
With this force Aristagoras and the Naxian exiles set sail from Milêtus, giving out that they were going to the Hellespont. On reaching Chios, they waited in its western harbor of Kaukasa for a fair wind to carry them straight across to Naxos. No suspicion was entertained in that island of its real purpose, nor was any preparation made for resistance, and the success of Aristagoras would have been complete, had it not been defeated by an untoward incident ending in dispute. Megabatês, with a solicitude which we are surprised to discern in a Persian general, personally made the tour of his fleet, to see that every ship was under proper watch, and discovered a ship from Myndus (an Asiatic Dorian city near Halikarnassus), left without a single man on board. Incensed at this neglect, he called before him Skylax, the commander of the ship, and ordered him to be put in chains, with his head projecting outwards through one of the apertures for oars in the ship’s side. Skylax was a guest and friend of Aristagoras, who, on hearing of this punishment, interceded with Megabatês for his release; but finding the request refused, took upon him to release the prisoner himself. He even went so far as to treat the remonstrance of Megabatês with disdain, reminding him that, according to the instructions of Artaphernês, he was only second and himself (Aristagoras) first. The pride of Megabatês could not endure such treatment: as soon as night arrived, he sent a private intimation to Naxos of the coming of the fleet, warning the islanders to be on their guard. The warning thus fortunately received was turned by the Naxians to the best account. They carried in their property, laid up stores, and made every preparation for a siege, so that when the fleet, probably delayed by the dispute between its leaders, at length arrived, it was met by a stout resistance, remained on the shore of the island for four months in prosecution of an unavailing siege, and was obliged to retire without accomplishing anything beyond the erection of a fort, as lodgment for the Naxian exiles. After a large cost incurred, not only by the Persians, but also by Aristagoras himself, the unsuccessful armament was brought back to the coast of Ionia.[524]
The failure of this expedition threatened Aristagoras with entire ruin. He had incensed Megabatês, deceived Artaphernês, and incurred an obligation, which he knew not how to discharge, of indemnifying the latter for the costs of the fleet. He began to revolve in his mind the scheme of revolting from Persia, when it so happened that there arrived nearly at the same moment a messenger from his father-in-law, Histiæus, who was detained at the court of Susa, secretly instigating him to this very resolution. Not knowing whom to trust with this dangerous message, Histiæus had caused the head of a faithful slave to be shaved,—branded upon it the words necessary,—and then despatched him, so soon as his hair had grown, to Milêtus, with a verbal intimation to Aristagoras that his head was to be again shaved and examined.[525] Histiæus sought to provoke this perilous rising, simply as a means of procuring his own release from Susa, and in the calculation that Darius would send him down to the coast to reëstablish order. His message, arriving at so critical a moment, determined the faltering resolution of Aristagoras, who convened his principal partisans at Milêtus, and laid before them the formidable project of revolt. All of them approved it, with one remarkable exception,—the historian Hekatæus of Milêtus; who opposed it as altogether ruinous, and contended that the power of Darius was too vast to leave them any prospect of success. When he found direct opposition fruitless, he next insisted upon the necessity of at once seizing the large treasures in the neighboring temple of Apollo, at Branchidæ, for the purpose of carrying on the revolt. By this means alone, he said, could the Milesians, too feeble to carry on the contest with their own force alone, hope to become masters at sea,—while, if they did not take these treasures, the victorious enemy surely would. Neither of these recommendations, both of them indicating sagacity and foresight in the proposer, were listened to. Probably the seizure of the treasures,—though highly useful for the impending struggle, and though in the end they fell into the hands of the enemy, as Hekatæus anticipated,—would have been insupportable to the pious feelings of the people, and would thus have proved more injurious than beneficial:[526] perhaps, indeed, Hekatæus himself may have urged it with the indirect view of stifling the whole project. We may remark that he seems to have urged the question as if Milêtus were to stand alone in the revolt; not anticipating, as indeed no prudent man could then anticipate, that the Ionic cities generally would follow the example.
Aristagoras and his friends resolved forthwith to revolt, and their first step was to conciliate popular favor throughout Asiatic Greece by putting down the despots in all the various cities,—the instruments not less than the supports of Persian ascendency, as Histiæus had well urged at the bridge of the Danube. The opportunity was favorable for striking this blow at once on a considerable scale. The fleet, recently employed at Naxos, had not yet dispersed, but was still assembled at Myus, with many of the despots present at the head of their ships. Iatragoras was despatched from Milêtus, at once to seize as many of them as he could, and to stir up the soldiers to revolt. This decisive proceeding was the first manifesto against Darius. Iatragoras was successful: the fleet went along with him, and many of the despots fell into his hands,—among them Histiæus (a second person so named) of Termera, Oliatus of Mylasa (both Karians),[527] Kôês of Mitylênê, and Aristagoras (also a second person so named) of Kymê. At the same time the Milesian Aristagoras himself, while he formally proclaimed revolt against Darius, and invited the Milesians to follow him, laid down his own authority, and affected to place the government in the hands of the people. Throughout most of the towns of Asiatic Greece, insular and continental, a similar revolution was brought about; the despots were expelled, and the feelings of the citizens were thus warmly interested in the revolt. Such of these despots as fell into the hands of Aristagoras were surrendered into the hands of their former subjects, by whom they were for the most part quietly dismissed, and we shall find them hereafter active auxiliaries to the Persians. To this treatment the only exception mentioned is Kôês, who was stoned to death by the Mitylenæans.[528]
By these first successful steps the Ionic revolt was made to assume an extensive and formidable character; much more so, probably, than the prudent Hekatæus had anticipated as practicable. The naval force of the Persians in the Ægean was at once taken away from them, and passed to their opponents, who were thus completely masters of the sea; and would in fact have remained so, if a second naval force had not been brought up against them from Phenicia,—a proceeding never before resorted to, and perhaps at that time not looked for.
Having exhorted all the revolted towns to name their generals, and to put themselves in a state of defence, Aristagoras crossed the Ægean to obtain assistance from Sparta, then under the government of king Kleomenês; to whom he addressed himself, “holding in his hand a brazen tablet, wherein was engraved the circuit of the entire earth, with the whole sea and all the rivers.” Probably this was the first map or plan which had ever been seen at Sparta, and so profound was the impression which it made, that it was remembered there even in the time of Herodotus.[529] Having emphatically entreated the Spartans to step forth in aid of their Ionic brethren, now engaged in a desperate struggle for freedom,—he proceeded to describe the wealth and abundance (gold, silver, brass, vestments, cattle, and slaves), together with the ineffective weapons and warfare of the Asiatics. The latter, he said, could be at once put down, and the former appropriated, by military training such as that of the Spartans,—whose long spear, brazen helmet and breastplate, and ample shield, enabled them to despise the bow, the short javelin, the light wicker target, the turban and trowsers, of a Persian.[530] He then traced out on his brazen plan the road from Ephesus to Susa, indicating the intervening nations, all of them affording a booty more or less rich; but he magnified especially the vast treasures at Susa: “Instead of fighting your neighbors, he concluded, Argeians, Arcadians, and Messenians, from whom you get hard blows and small reward, why do you not make yourself ruler of all Asia,[531] a prize not less easy than lucrative?” Kleomenês replied to these seductive instigations by desiring him to come for an answer on the third day. When that day arrived, he put to him the simple question, how far it was from Susa to the sea? To which Aristagoras answered, with more frankness than dexterity, that it was a three months’ journey; and he was proceeding to enlarge upon the facilities of the road when Kleomenês interrupted him: “Quit Sparta before sunset, Milesian stranger; you are no friend to the Lacedæmonians, if you want to carry them a three months’ journey from the sea.” In spite of this peremptory mandate, Aristagoras tried a last resource: he took in his hand the bough of supplication, and again went to the house of Kleomenês, who was sitting with his daughter Gorgô, a girl of eight years old. He requested Kleomenês to send away the child, but this was refused, and he was desired to proceed; upon which he began to offer to the Spartan king a bribe for compliance, bidding continually higher and higher from ten talents up to fifty. At length, the little girl suddenly exclaimed, “Father, the stranger will corrupt you, if you do not at once go away.” The exclamation so struck Kleomenês, that he broke up the interview, and Aristagoras forthwith quitted Sparta.[532]
Doubtless Herodotus heard the account of this interview from Lacedæmonian informants. But we may be permitted to doubt, whether any such suggestions were really made, or any such hopes held out, as those which he places in the mouth of Aristagoras,—suggestions and hopes which might well be conceived in 450-440 B. C., after a generation of victories over the Persians, but which have no pertinence in the year 502 B. C. Down even to the battle of Marathon, the name of the Medes was a terror to the Greeks, and the Athenians are highly and justly extolled as the first who dared to look them in the face.[533] To talk about an easy march up to the treasures of Susa and the empire of all Asia, at the time of the Ionic revolt, would have been considered as a proof of insanity. Aristagoras may very probably have represented, that the Spartans were more than a match for Persians in the field; but even thus much would have been considered, in 502 B. C., rather as the sanguine hope of a petitioner than as the estimate of a sober looker-on.
The Milesian chief had made application to Sparta, as the presiding power of Hellas,—a character which we thus find more and more recognized and passing into the habitual feeling of the Greeks. Fifty years previously to this, the Spartans had been flattered by the circumstance, that Crœsus singled them out from all other Greeks to invite as allies: now they accepted such priority as a matter of course.[534]
Rejected at Sparta, Aristagoras proceeded to Athens, now decidedly the second power in Greece. And here he found an easier task, not only as it was the metropolis, or mother-city, of Asiatic Ionia, but also as it had already incurred the pronounced hostility of the Persian satrap, and might look to be attacked as soon as the project came to suit his convenience, under the instigation of Hippias: whereas the Spartans had not only no kindred with Ionia, beyond that of common Hellenism, but were in no hostile relations with Persia, and would have been provoking a new enemy by meddling in the Asiatic war. The promises and representations of Aristagoras were accordingly received with great favor by the Athenians: who, over and above the claims of sympathy, had a powerful interest in sustaining the Ionic revolt as an indirect protection to themselves,—and to whom the abstraction of the Ionic fleet from the Persians afforded a conspicuous and important relief. The Athenians at once resolved to send a fleet of twenty ships, under Melanthius, as an aid to the revolted Ionians,—ships which are styled by Herodotus, “the beginning of the mischiefs between Greeks and barbarians,”—as the ships in which Paris crossed the Ægean had before been called in the Iliad of Homer. Herodotus farther remarks that it seems easier to deceive many men together than one,—since Aristagoras, after having failed with Kleomenês, thus imposed upon the thirty thousand citizens of Athens.[535] But on this remark two comments suggest themselves. First, the circumstances of Athens and Sparta were not the same in regard to the Ionic quarrel,—an observation which Herodotus himself had made a little while before: the Athenians had a material interest in the quarrel, political as well as sympathetic, while the Spartans had none. Secondly, the ultimate result of their interference, as it stood in the time of Herodotus, though purchased by severe intermediate hardship, was one eminently gainful and glorifying, not less to Athens than to Greece.[536]
When Aristagoras returned, he seems to have found the Persians engaged in the siege of Milêtus. The twenty Athenian ships soon crossed the Ægean, and found there five Eretrian ships which had also come to the succor of the Ionians; the Eretrians generously taking this opportunity to repay assistance formerly rendered to them by the Milesians in their ancient war with Chalkis. On the arrival of these allies, Aristagoras organized an expedition from Ephesus up to Sardis, under the command of his brother Charopinus, with others. The ships were left at Korêssus,[537] a mountain and seaport five miles from Ephesus, while the troops marched up under Ephesian guides, first, along the river Kayster, next, across the mountain range of Tmôlus to Sardis. Artaphernês had not troops enough to do more than hold the strong citadel, so that the assailants possessed themselves of the town without opposition. But he immediately recalled his force near Miletus,[538] and summoned Persians and Lydians from all the neighboring districts, thus becoming more than a match for Charopinus; who found himself, moreover, obliged to evacuate Sardis, owing to an accidental conflagration. Most of the houses in that city were built in great part with reeds or straw, and all of them had thatched roofs; hence it happened that a spark touching one of them set the whole city in flame. Obliged to abandon their dwellings by this accident, the population of the town congregated in the market-place,—and as reinforcements were hourly crowding in, the position of the Ionians and Athenians became precarious: they evacuated the town, took up a position on Mount Tmôlus, and, when night came, made the best of their way to the sea-coast. The troops of Artaphernês pursued, overtook them near Ephesus, and defeated them completely. Eualkidês, the Eretrian general, a man of eminence and a celebrated victor at the solemn games, perished in the action, together with a considerable number of troops. After this unsuccessful commencement, the Athenians betook themselves to their vessels and sailed home, in spite of pressing instances on the part of Aristagoras to induce them to stay. They took no farther part in the struggle;[539] a retirement at once so sudden and so complete, that they must probably have experienced some glaring desertion on the part of their Asiatic allies, similar to that which brought so much danger upon the Spartan general Derkyllidas, in 396 B. C. Unless such was the case, they seem open to censure rather for having too soon withdrawn their aid, than for having originally lent it.[540]