THE IONIC REVOLT
[499-494 B.C.]
Several years had passed in unbroken peace when a trivial matter and an obscure man threw all in disorder again. Naxos, the largest of the Cyclades, was powerful at that time, ruling over several islands, possessing a considerable navy and able to place in the field eight thousand hoplites. Unfortunately, like every other Grecian state, Naxos was divided into two factions, the popular and the aristocratic. This latter destroyed itself by an unpardonable crime, similar to that of which Lucretia was victim about the same time in Rome. Sent into exile, they proposed to Aristagoras, Histiæus’ son-in-law and, in his absence, tyrant of Miletus, to take them back to their island. He acceded readily, beholding in fancy the Cyclades, possibly also Eubœa as already under his dominion. But unable to accomplish such an enterprise without help, he succeeded in interesting the satrap of Sardis, Artaphernes, who placed at his disposal a fleet of two hundred ships commanded by Megabates. This Persian rebelled at being under the orders of a Greek and to avenge a slight received in a quarrel that broke out between them, sent information to the Naxians. The success of the expedition depended on secrecy; this once destroyed, it was bound to fail. Aristagoras held to the project four months, spending his own treasure as well as that given him for the enterprise by the king. He feared being obliged to make good this loss, and decided that revolt offered a preferable alternative, in which choice he was aided by the secret instigations of Histiæus. The army he had led before Naxos was still united, and forming part of it were all the tyrants of the cities on the Asiatic coast. These he seized and sent back to their respective cities where they were placed under sentence of death or exile, then established democracy everywhere (499 B.C.). After these deeds, finding it necessary to attach some powerful ally to his cause, he visited Lacedæmon. Cleomenes, its king, questioned him as to the distance of the Persian capital from the sea. “A three months’ march,” replied Aristagoras. “In that case you will leave this place to-morrow,” said the king, “it would be folly to propose to Lacedæmonians to put a three months’ march between themselves and the sea.” Aristagoras tried to bribe him to consent; but for once Spartan virtue was incorruptible and the Ionian went on to Athens. Given permission to speak in the assembly, he described the riches of Persia, and laid stress on the advantage the Greeks would have over a foe to whom the use of spear and shield was unknown, and finally adduced the fact that Miletus was a colony of Athens. The Athenians had more than one grievance against the Persians—the refuge given to Hippias, and the order to recall the tyrant received as a reply to their remonstrances. Aristagoras had little difficulty in persuading them to assure their own safety by carrying the war with which they were menaced over into the enemy’s country, they also believing doubtless that the matter was but a private quarrel between the satrap and Aristagoras. They decreed to the envoy twenty vessels to which were added five triremes from Eretria, this state thus repaying the aid it had formerly received from Miletus in its war against Chalcis. The allies proceeded to Ephesus and thence to Sardis, which they took and pillaged. The houses were thatched with reeds, and, a soldier accidentally setting fire to one of the roofs, the entire city, with the exception of the citadel to which Artaphernes had retired, was consumed, together with the temple of Cybele, venerated as deeply by the Persians as by the Lydians (498). Artaphernes meanwhile had recalled the army that was besieging Miletus, and from all sides gathered the provincial troops; the Athenians began to think of retreat. A defeat they suffered near Ephesus, possibly also treason among themselves, completed their dissatisfaction. They boarded their ships and returned to Athens, leaving their allies to extricate themselves from the difficulty in which they were placed as best they could.
The Ionians continued the contest, drawing into their movement all the cities on the Hellespont and the Propontis, together with Chalcedonia and Byzantium, the Carians and the island of Cyprus. The Persians got together several armies; one, directed northward against the cities of the Hellespont, took several towns, then fell back towards the south against the Carians, who, after losing two battles, surrendered. Another attacked Cyprus with the Phœnician fleet that had been defeated by the Ionians, but the treachery of a Cypriote chief delivered the island over to the enemy. Acting jointly in the centre, Artaphernes and Otanes captured Clazomenæ and Cyme, and then advanced with a considerable force against Miletus, the last bulwark of Ionia. Here Aristagoras was no longer chief; he had basely deserted and escaped to Myrcinus, and was later killed in an attack on a Thracian city. As regards Histiæus, Darius, deceived by his promises, had recently restored him to liberty, but the Milesians, having no liking for tyrants, refused to receive him. Getting together a small force of Mytilenæans he became a pirate and was killed in a descent on the Asiatic coast. The Ionians assembled at the Panionium, deliberated as to the best means of saving Miletus. It was decided to risk a naval battle; Chios furnished a hundred ships, Lesbos seventy, Samos sixty, and Miletus itself eighty, the fleet numbering in all three hundred and fifty-three ships. The Persians had six hundred.
[494-492 B.C.]
In the Greek fleet was a very able man who would have saved Ionia had she been willing to be saved. This was Dionysius, a Phocæan, who demonstrated to the allies that strict discipline and constant practice in manœuvres would assure them success. For seven days he drilled the crews in all the movements of naval warfare, but at the end of this time the effeminate Ionians had had enough; they left the ships, pitched their tents on land, and forgot that the enemy existed. As was unavoidable after taking such a course, their moral fibre became relaxed and treachery began to show among them. When the day of battle arrived, the Samians, in the hottest of the action, deserted their post and made for their own island. The Ionians were defeated despite the splendid courage of the Chian sailors and of Dionysius, who himself took three of the enemy’s vessels. When he saw that the battle was lost he boldly pushed on to Tyre and sank several merchant ships, retiring to Sicily with the wealth obtained. The rest of his life was passed in pursuing on the open sea Phœnician, Carthaginian, and Tyrrhenian ships.
All hope was lost for Miletus; it was taken and its inhabitants transported to Ampe, at the mouth of the Tigris (494). Chios, Lesbos, Tenedos, shared Miletus’ fate, and several cities of the Hellespont were destroyed by fire. The inhabitants of Chalcedon and Byzantium abandoned these cities to seek a home on the northwest coast of the Pontus Euxinus, in Mesambria. Miltiades also deemed it prudent to leave the Chersonesus; he returned to Athens, where he was soon to find himself arrayed against those very Persians from whom he now sought flight. The news of Ionia’s downfall echoed sadly throughout Greece, Athens, in particular, being affected. Phrynichus presented a play entitled the Capture of Miletus at which the entire audience burst into tears, and the poet was sentenced to pay a fine of a thousand drachmæ “for having revived the memory of a great domestic misfortune.” Tears like these expiate many faults.
Meanwhile Darius had not forgotten that after the burning of Sardis he had sworn to be revenged on the Athenians. He gave to his son-in-law, Mardonius, command over a newly raised army that was to enter Europe by way of Thrace while the fleet followed along the coast. Mardonius, to conciliate the Greeks in Asia, restored to them a democratic government, bearing in mind that the authors of the recent revolt had been two of the tyrants that Persia supported.
Megabazus had already subdued all the nations between the Hellespont and Macedonia. Mardonius crossed the Strymon and gave his fleet rendezvous in the Thermaic Gulf. He took Thasos and was passing along the coast of Chalcidice when on doubling the promontory of Mount Athos, which rises nineteen hundred and fifty metres out of the sea, his fleet encountered a terrific gale that wrecked three hundred ships and destroyed twenty thousand lives. About the same time Mardonius, attacked at night by the Thracians, lost many of his men and was himself wounded. He continued the expedition, but was so enfeebled after the subjugation of the Brygians that he felt himself obliged to return to Asia.
A more formidable armament was at once prepared. Before sending it forth Darius despatched heralds to Greece demanding homage of earth and water, and, in the case of maritime cities, a contingent of galleys. The greater part of the islands and several cities yielded to this demand, Ægina even anticipating the desire of the Great King. The indignation of Athens and Sparta was such that they forgot the respect due to envoys. “You want earth and water?” replied the Spartans, “very well, you shall have both,” and the unfortunate men were thrown into a well. The Greeks cast them into the barathrum, and if a not very authentic tale may be believed, condemned to death the interpreter who had defiled the Greek tongue by translating into it the orders of a barbarian.[18]