Chapter III · THE IONIAN REVOLT.

The mist which hangs over the history of the last decade of the sixth century lifts somewhat when the historian enters upon the narrative of the first ten years of the fifth; but it does not wholly vanish. Striking incidents occur indeed within the range of vision; but it is evident that beyond that range many events took place which had much influence on the history of the time; and the causes of the known lie largely in the region of the unknown.

It is impossible to accept the accounts which Herodotus gives of the Ionian revolt or of the Marathonian campaign as a full history of either of those events. There are wide gaps in both narratives; and much that is recorded is wholly unaccounted for by anything in the rest of the story, or is, in some cases, wholly inconsistent with other facts which are mentioned. In tracing the course of events the modern inquirer is in the position of an astronomer who, having observed aberrations in the course of a far-off planet which cannot be accounted for by any known causes, seeks in the dim distance beyond for the disturbing influence. There, alas! the parallel between the two inquirers ceases, inasmuch as mathematical formulæ have not yet been made applicable to human action.

The imperfect character of the information which Herodotus furnishes with regard to the story of the great Revolt is so evident that the historian himself must have been conscious of it. The peculiarity of his narrative was therefore due in all probability to some simple reason; either, it may be, to the difficulties which met him in his search for reliable information, and to his disinclination to insert in his history anything which he personally regarded as unreliable; or to a determination to deal with only the most prominent and striking incidents of a part of history which was, after all, merely a preface to the great tale which he had set himself to tell—the story of the war in Europe in the years 480 B.C. and 479 B.C.

It is possible that both causes had their effect on his narrative. But if any judgment can be formed from data furnished by the general characteristics of the history as a whole, the first of these two suggested causes is the more credible. If, as is manifestly the case, he experienced the greatest difficulty in arriving at the truth concerning events which were comparatively recent at the time at which he wrote, and which had been of a nature such as to attract the attention of the whole world of his day, it is by no means surprising if he experienced much greater difficulty in getting at the facts concerning what occurred at an earlier date, and about events which, though striking, were infinitely less remarkable than those of the period which immediately followed them.

The defects in the story of the Ionian revolt,15 to whatever cause they be due, are in the main of three kinds:⁠—

(1) Omissions;

(2) Lack of chronological data;

(3) Anti-Ionian bias.

The main chronological difficulty is to attribute the events recorded to the years in which they actually took place. H. vi. 18. The only fact obtainable from Herodotus is that the outbreak took place in the sixth year before the capture of Miletus. It is possible to calculate with satisfactory certainty that the latter event took place in 494 B.C.; and therefore the revolt must have broken out in 499.

THE AFFAIR OF NAXOS.

The actual outbreak of the rising was brought about in a somewhat indirect way by an event or series of events which appear in Herodotus’ narrative as wholly independent of what had happened in the previous years. It may, however, be seen that these events could hardly have taken place had they not promised an issue such as would have been in accord with the tentative policy which Artaphernes had been following for some time past in his relations with European Greece.

He had already on two occasions shown a wish to interfere in the internal affairs of Athens. On both occasions he had made demands which aimed at the establishment of an area of Persian influence west of the Ægean; but on both occasions also he had omitted to back up those demands by even the display of force, unless,—which is, indeed, possible,—the demand for the reinstatement of Hippias was made at the time that the Persian expedition was preparing to start for Naxos, if not on its way thither.16

The affair at Naxos, which afforded Artaphernes the prospect of being able to forward his policy towards Greece, arose from circumstances which were but too common in Greek communities. The island was at the time the most opulent in the Ægean. When Samos lost its position as the easternmost land of the free Greeks on the great trade route which followed the line of islands which all but bridge the middle of that sea, H. v. 28. much of its trade must have passed to the most important of the islands which now became the outworks of Greek liberty. Prosperity did not bring peace in its train. Political dissension was rife; and certain of the wealthier inhabitants were driven out from the island, and sought refuge at Miletus.

There ruled at this time in Miletus Aristagoras, a cousin and son-in-law of that Histiæus whom Darius had taken up to Susa. To him the exiles applied for assistance. He told them that he could not unaided supply them with a force powerful enough to cope with the eight thousand hoplites which Naxos could put into the field, but that he would get help from Artaphernes. H. v. 31. To Artaphernes at Sardes he accordingly went. The great satrap required but little persuasion to induce him to enter upon an undertaking so promising for the fulfilment of his designs upon Greece; for Aristagoras held out the prospect of the acquisition not merely of Naxos, but of the other Cyclades and of the great island of Eubœa.

The circumstances seemed favourable for the establishment of a base which would immediately threaten the European shore.

Aristagoras had asked for one hundred ships; and, for some reason which is not satisfactorily accounted for in the story, had offered to defray the expenses of the expedition.

So thoroughly did Artaphernes approve of the plan that, in order to ensure its success, he offered to furnish double the number of ships for which Aristagoras had asked, provided Darius assented to the proposed expedition. It is evident that the custom, if not the constitution, of the empire under Darius did not permit even a great satrap like Artaphernes, who was the king’s own brother, to call out a force of considerable magnitude without leave from the king himself. H. v. 31. Artaphernes further promised that the ships should be ready in the coming spring, which shows that Aristagoras’ visit to Sardes must have been made in the first year of the fifth century, probably in the winter of 500 B.C.

Aristagoras returned to Miletus elated at his diplomatic success.

A few months must have elapsed ere Artaphernes received a despatch from Susa approving of his proposal. The assent of Darius is important, as showing that the king was quite willing to resume his designs on Greece when fair opportunity offered.

The true tale of what followed is one of the many unsolved riddles of this period. As told by Herodotus, it runs as follows:⁠—

FAILURE AT NAXOS.

Artaphernes prepared a fleet of two hundred triremes, together with a considerable force of Persians and other allies, and appointed Megabates, a member of the Achæmenid family, and cousin of Darius, to the command. This armament he despatched to Miletus to pick up Aristagoras together with the Ionian contingent and the Naxian exiles. Thence the expedition sailed to Kaukasa in Chios, with the pretended object of operating in the Hellespontine district,—a pretence which would not have been very effective had the operations of Otanes left it in a wholly satisfactory state of subjection. It was at Kaukasa that the design of the expedition was fated to be wrecked. Megabates, going his rounds, found a Myndian vessel without any guards set, and punished the Greek captain by causing him to be tied with his head through one of the oar-holes. On this being reported to Aristagoras, he made protest to Megabates; but as this had no effect, he himself released the man. A quarrel ensued between the two commanders, the result of which was that Megabates sent a ship and gave warning to the Naxians of the coming expedition. The latter prepared in all haste to meet the danger, and successfully resisted a four months’ siege. The attempt turned out a complete failure, and Aristagoras found himself in the position of guarantor of the expenses, without the means of meeting the guarantee. Such is the tale in Herodotus.

It is necessary to pursue the story somewhat further before any attempt can be made to hazard a conjecture as to the true explanation of some of the incidents in this narrative.

Aristagoras had brought his affairs into a very critical position. He had quarrelled with Megabates, and had made himself surety for a debt to Artaphernes which he had no prospect of being able to pay. He had, indeed, reason to fear that he would lose his tyranny of Miletus.

H. v. 35.

“Fearing these two things, he proceeded to plan a revolt. For it so fell out that the man with the tattooed head17 arrived at this time from Histiæus at Susa, suggesting to Aristagoras that he should revolt from the king. For Histiæus when wishing to suggest this revolt to Aristagoras, had, in consequence of the roads being watched, no other way of so doing except by shaving the head of the most faithful of his slaves and tattooing the message upon it. As soon as the hair had grown again he sent him off to Miletus, merely bidding him when he came to Miletus to ask Aristagoras to cut off his hair and look at his head. The tattoo marks, as I have already said, indicated revolt. Histiæus did this because he looked on his retention at Susa as a great misfortune. If a revolt took place he had every hope that he would be sent down to the sea, but he reckoned that if no disturbance took place at Miletus he would never get there. Such was the intent of Histiæus in sending the message. H. v. 36. But for Aristagoras it came about that all these things befel at the same time. He therefore proceeded to consult the conspirators, laying before them his own views and the message which had come from Histiæus.”

There are certain strange inconsistencies in this tale.

Megabates, though in command of the expedition, though responsible to Darius and Artaphernes for its success, is represented as wrecking what appears to have been a well-devised plan by giving information to the unsuspecting objects of attack. Yet he is neither disgraced nor discredited. His alleged treachery might have been concealed; his failure was, however, patent.

Again, it is quite clear that it is the intention of Herodotus to ascribe the outbreak of the revolt to this failure at Naxos; the insurrection is set on foot by Aristagoras merely for the sake of rescuing himself from a position of great embarrassment. And yet, when he proceeds in all haste to plan revolt, he finds fellow conspirators already in existence. It is impossible to suppose that any long interval can have elapsed between the return from Naxos and the first act of the revolt, for that took place on the fleet which had just returned from the attack on the island. The conspiracy cannot have been of recent origin.

There can be little doubt that Herodotus’ incidental reference to the “conspirators” or “insurgents” indicates that the plan of revolt had been made before,—it may be, long before,—the expedition to Naxos.

THE ORIGIN OF THE REVOLT.

It is evident from the account of the Scythian expedition, and of the campaigns which followed it, that something had taken place in it which had for the time being seriously shaken the Persian position in West Asia; in other words, that Herodotus is not wrong in his general view of it as a disaster to the Persian arms.

The Greek cities of the coast would watch with the closest interest the development of events. It would be a hostile vigilance; and with such a race as the Greeks the step from hostile vigilance to conspiracy is a short one. For the successful accomplishment of any design, however, against a power so great as Persia, combination was necessary, and any attempt at practical combination between the cities, except under unusually favourable circumstances, must wreck the design by disclosing it prematurely to the satrap at Sardes. It was the gathering of the Ionian fleet for the attack on Naxos which offered the opportunity, the favourable circumstances, for which they had waited. The affair at Naxos was rightly regarded by Herodotus as the immediate efficient cause of the revolt.

It now remains to consider the part which Aristagoras played in the matter. In so doing it is necessary to draw a strong distinction between the facts which Herodotus states and his interpretation of them. It is also necessary to compare the facts which he records in one connection with those which he records in another.

Taking his account as it stands, it seems clear that Aristagoras was in the conspiracy before he entered upon the Naxian expedition. It is inconceivable that the astute Greek conspirator would have admitted into his confidence a man who held the position of tyrant in the Persian interest in one of the Greek cities, and who had just been engaged in an attack on the liberty of the free Greeks, unless that man had been beforehand thoroughly involved in the conspiracy.

It is also difficult to imagine that Aristagoras would have ventured on a journey to European Greece with a view to getting help thence in the same year in which the expedition to Naxos had taken place, had he not had some valid defence to offer for the part he had played in an affair which cannot but have caused the most serious alarm in Greece.

It is possible to explain away either of those difficulties taken separately; but taken together they constitute a very serious question, which the student of history must face if he is to arrive at an understanding of the story of these years. The evidence on which the account of Herodotus is to be tested is that which he himself supplies.

The critical question is whether Aristagoras in urging upon Artaphernes the expedition against Naxos did not merely aim at bringing about the mobilization and concentration of the Ionian fleet,—to provide, in other words, the only possible means for that combination between the Greek cities which was absolutely necessary for the success of the revolt.

What had Aristagoras to hope for from success at Naxos?

The fate of his predecessor, Histiæus, must have shown him clearly that the Persian authorities had no intention whatever of allowing even the most faithful and most favoured Greek tyrant to acquire a position of real power on the coast. He could, then, hardly hope for further extension of rule. Had he one particle of interest in the expedition except in so far as it afforded the opportunity for the gathering of the Ionian fleet?

Did Megabates send the message to Naxos? He had every motive for not doing so. Why should motive be disregarded in the court of history when it is regarded as an essential factor in a court of law? The problem,—the human problem,—is the same in both cases. Again, in a court of law the credibility of a witness is not regarded by those expert in the testing of evidence as being dependent solely on the assertions made by that witness with respect to the case before the court. Inquiry is made into the origin of his assertions, and into the possibility of personal prejudice on his part.

Was a man like Herodotus, a Greek to the very backbone, likely to be free from the bitter, hostile prejudice which the Greek entertained against a tyrant and all his works?

PART PLAYED BY ARISTAGORAS.

The tale of the affair at Naxos was not, maybe, of his own making; but it was one which he was not likely to subject to severe criticism. The very idea of tyranny stunk in the nostrils of the free Greek. He refused to recognize the part played by a Sicilian tyrant in the great war of liberation. With what feelings must he have regarded those tyrants of the Asiatic coast who inflicted on their fellow-countrymen the twofold tyranny of servitude to themselves and to the barbarian? It would have been a strange thing if Herodotus had been able to obtain in after times a true, unprejudiced account of the part played by a man in the position of Aristagoras.

Even prejudice could not, however, deny that he had been the chief instigator of the Ionian revolt. It contented itself with placing the worst complexion on his motives. Having failed to enslave the free, he tried to free the slave.

There is one further question which demands consideration. If this hypothesis as to the designs of Aristagoras be correct, why did he not take the first steps in the revolt before the expedition actually started from the Asian coast?

There are two facts stated in Herodotus which may possibly account for this delay. Artaphernes had, perhaps, been only too eager in taking up the proposed design. Aristagoras had asked for one hundred ships; Artaphernes had given two hundred. This accession of numbers may have been actually embarrassing to Aristagoras, as rendering the expedition of such magnitude as to demand the presence of a larger percentage of the non-Greek element on board the fleet than he had either hoped for or reckoned upon. The ships and crews seem to have been Greek; H. v. 32. ad fin. but it must be concluded from Herodotus’ account of the gathering of the expedition that a considerable Persian force was embarked. So long as this force was with the fleet such a measure as that with which the revolt was opened could hardly have been adopted with success, and would, indeed, hardly have been attempted. The conspirators would have to wait until the non-Greek element had disembarked and gone up country, and then would have to strike quickly before the fleet was dispersed by official orders.

Another possible reason for this delay is that Aristagoras wished to defer the outbreak until the close of the campaigning season, when he would have time to make preparations to meet the coming storm. The four months’ duration of the fruitless siege of Naxos would be in that case all in his favour. He had to waste time at Naxos in order to gain it on the Asiatic coast. A sturdy defence on the part of the Naxians was the very thing from which he had most to hope.

Did Megabates or Aristagoras send the fatal message?

The tale of “the man with the tattooed head” was evidently a celebrated tale of the time. There is no reason whatever to suspect the truth of it. In the plot as given in Herodotus it plays the part of a second motive. All that Herodotus knows of the message is that it “signified revolt,” and that Aristagoras imparted it to his fellow-conspirators. The method of communication implies that the message cannot indeed have been a long one.

It must, however, be regarded as an extraordinary coincidence that it should have arrived in the very brief period which must have intervened between the return from Naxos and the first act of insurrection. It must, in order to be effective, have suggested some powerful motive for revolt. It cannot possibly be imagined that Aristagoras wanted Histiæus back on the coast. The Greek conspirators were very unlikely to desire the return of the favoured friend of the great king, except on one assumption, namely, that Histiæus had been in the plot before ever he made the involuntary journey to Susa.

But whatever the full contents of the message, whatever the reasons which made it contribute to the determination of the conspirators, there are, as has been already said, no grounds whatever for doubting that the message did come. The question is as to the time at which it came.

Before proceeding with the narrative of the revolt it may be well to point out clearly the exact status, if it may be so called, of the hypothesis which has been here suggested as to the circumstances of its outbreak.

It is an hypothesis, and cannot pretend to be more than that. MEETING OF CONSPIRATORS. The evidence in the version of Herodotus, while it justifies destructive criticism of the story as told by him, is not sufficient to afford anything that can be claimed as a sure basis for constructive history. Herodotus was naturally disposed to accept a version which brought into relief the haphazard want of method in the first act of those who were responsible for a design which, however laudable its aims, was, as seemed to him, carried out from beginning to end with a strange mixture of pusillanimity and criminal folly.

H. v. 36. Cf. v. 36, ad fin.

The meeting of the conspirators took place immediately after the return from Naxos. The place of meeting was presumably Miletus. It certainly was not held on board the fleet.

On the question of revolt the conspirators were unanimous, with one prominent exception. Hecatæus the historian spoke words of serious warning. He pointed out the magnitude of the resources of the great king when compared with their own. Failing to dissuade them, he advised that, as they were bent on revolt, they should secure the command of the sea. This, he considered, offered the sole chance of success. For its successful maintenance capital was necessary; and this, he suggested, might be obtained from the great treasures of the temple of the Branchidæ, a shrine which had been enriched by the offerings of Crœsus. This plan was also rejected by the meeting.

The express mention of Hecatæus’ name in connection with two proposals, of one of which Herodotus must have cordially approved, is noticeable as an indication of the origin of much of the “prejudice” which is discoverable in Herodotus’ work. Cf. H. ii. 16; iv. 36; iv. 95, 96; ii. 123. Either from jealousy or from conviction, he had no very high opinion of the Ionian historio-geographers, and of the Ionian intellect generally. H. iv. 36. One of his most depreciatory remarks about them is in all probability directed against Hecatæus personally.

Yet though he entertained so poor an opinion of one side of Hecatæus’ work, though he was probably jealous of his reputation as a historian, he does not hesitate to reproduce from his sources emphatic testimony to the practical wisdom and judgment of the man.

The statement of the absolute rejection of the second proposal of Hecatæus must be understood in a modified sense. The Ionians did in the subsequent campaign allot a very prominent part to their fleet. The meaning of the proposal was that the offensive should be taken on sea; and, above all, that the sea should be regarded as the real base.

But Aristagoras, as his subsequent language at Sparta makes clear, was convinced that the Greek hoplite was infinitely more than a match for any soldiery which Persia could put into the field; and others apparently shared his opinion. The events of twenty years later proved the truth of his general judgment on this point. He and his fellow conspirators may have made a mistake, when they took the offensive on land, in expecting too much from the land forces which the insurgents could put into the field. But in great ventures great risks have to be taken; and the attack on the Persian base made at the beginning of the year 498, had it been successful, must have brilliantly justified the plan.

It is easy now, in the light of knowledge after the event, to see that, if the revolt was to be successful, it must succeed on both elements:⁠—on sea, because only by means of the fleet could the concentration of a large land force be brought about: on land, because only on that element could an effective blow be struck against the Persian dominion in Western Asia.

Aristagoras’ estimate of the strategic position of the insurgents was singularly justified by the history of the subsequent warfare of the century. The sea was, indeed, and must be, the Ionian base. The strategic weakness of the position of the cities rendered any other alternative impossible. But ages of fighting were destined to prove that no mortal blow could be inflicted on Persia by sea alone. The Ægean might be made a Hellenic lake. The islands on the Asian coast might be liberated. But so long as Persia maintained her hold upon the continent, the cities of the mainland must be ultimately at the mercy of a great land power holding the central position in Western Asia. If the revolt was to be successful, it was at this central position that the blow must be struck. Sardes must be the objective of the insurgents.

FIRST ACT OF REVOLT.

It was evident that nothing could be done with the fleet until the tyrants who were in command of its contingents were removed. H. v. 37. A certain Iatragoras was accordingly sent to seize them. He did so “by a trick,” whose nature is not specified. He seized four who are mentioned by name, and “many others.” It is a remarkable fact that not one of the four is Ionian. Two are Æolan, and two are Helleno-Carian18 Aristagoras, of his own accord, “nominally” laid aside the tyranny of Miletus. He then proceeded to depose other tyrants in Ionia, besides those whom he had caught upon the fleet, and handed over the whole number to their various cities. The Mytilenians slew their tyrant Koës; the others were allowed to depart. Inasmuch as those tyrants had all been acting in the interests of Persia, their deposition was necessarily the first step in the revolt.

This measure must have been taken later in the autumn of 499, just at the close of the campaigning season; for Aristagoras could not otherwise have ventured on the journey to Greece which he immediately undertook with a view to getting assistance.

It was to Sparta that he first turned for help.

The tale of his visit to Kleomenes, the Spartan king, is told at considerable length. As told, it contained at least one incident which was likely to render it famous in Greek story. The version of it which Herodotus has preserved is of Lacedæmonian origin.19

Aristagoras brought with him a map of the world engraved on a bronze tablet, the work of one of the Ionian geographers,—possibly of the famous Hecatæus. The strong appeal which he addressed to Kleomenes as leader of the foremost state in Greece to save the Ionians from their slavery comes strangely from the mouth of one who has just been represented as doing all in his power to bring one of the European islands into that state from which he now begged Kleomenes to save the Asiatic Greeks. It is still more strange that in this story, whose origin is manifestly different from that of the affair at Naxos, there is no mention whatever of any suspicion having been excited by Aristagoras’ conduct; and no explanation of it was demanded from him.

Coming to the practical question of the possibilities offered by a campaign in Asia, Aristagoras emphasizes in a very remarkable way the superiority of the Greek military equipment over that of the Persian. H. v. 49. His proposal does not confine itself to the liberation of Ionia: he even holds out the prospect of the conquest of the rich lands of Western Asia. To the men of the time at which Herodotus wrote, this part of the story must have seemed a striking example of the wild exaggeration of the Ionian imagination. As an estimate of possibilities it was, however, far more near the truth than they can have supposed—nearer, perhaps, than Aristagoras supposed himself. “When it is in your power,” said he, “to rule all Asia with ease, will you choose aught else?”

Kleomenes took three days for consideration, and then, at a second conference, asked Aristagoras how far the king was from the Ionian sea. When informed that it was a journey of three months up country to Susa, he broke off negotiations and dismissed Aristagoras at once.

Aristagoras would not accept dismissal, but returned once more, and, so the story goes, in the presence of the king’s little daughter Gorgo, tempted him with ever-increasing bribes. The child, with more than childish wisdom, brought the interview to a conclusion by saying, “Father, the stranger will corrupt you, unless you go away.”

Whether the story itself be truth or fiction the fact remains that Sparta abided by that policy which she had followed for some years past, and refused to become embroiled with the great empire of the East.

H. v. 55.

From Sparta Aristagoras went to Athens. His arrival was, in a sense, opportune. The demand of Artaphernes for the reinstatement of Hippias had created an intensely bitter feeling of hostility towards the Persian. Introduced before the public assembly, he used the same arguments as he had employed at Sparta, and further claimed that the Milesians were Athenian colonists. “There is nothing that he did not promise, so urgent was his request, until he persuaded them.”

AID FROM GREECE.

Herodotus is at considerable pains to show the depth of the folly, as he conceived it to be, with which Athens entered upon a fatal venture.

In the end the Athenians voted an aid of twenty ships; not a small number, when it is remembered that their navy at this time was but a fraction of what it was twenty years later. H. v. 97. “These ships were a source of woes to the Greeks and the barbarians,” says Herodotus. There can be no doubt as to his meaning. He regarded this as the decisive moment in the relations between Persia and European Greece.

The tale of the revolt is that part of his history in which he allows his own personal views to be most clearly seen. To him it seemed the great mistake of the century; that is clear from his story of it; but it is not so easy to say why he so utterly condemned it, unless he regarded it as leading to the renewal of those designs on Greece which Darius had been obliged for ten years past to lay aside.

But that cannot have been all. It is necessary to examine the whole story as told by him. That alone can afford some clear clue to the causes which brought about what was undoubtedly a strange perversion of his judgment.

H. v. 98.

Aristagoras, he says, returned from Athens to Miletus, “having devised a plan from which no advantage was fated to come to the Ionians.”

It must have been in the winter of 499 B.C. or early spring of the year 498 that Aristagoras returned.

His first act was to send a message to those Pæonians whom Darius had removed from the Strymon to Asia, telling them that they were free to return, as all Ionia had revolted from the king. Unless his object in so doing were to create an impression in the Persian sphere of influence in Europe, it is impossible to attribute a motive to any otherwise apparently causeless act. Herodotus looks upon it as simply designed to give annoyance to Darius, an end which, it may be presumed, Aristagoras had sufficiently attained by raising the standard of revolt. It is quite possible that he sought to carry out the policy attributed to his father-in-law, Histiæus, some ten years before, and to enlist the aid of the Thracians in a struggle with the Persian power in Western Asia. If this was the intent, the design did not meet with success. The Thracians did not take any active part in the revolt, though they took advantage of the events on the Asian side to throw off whatever allegiance they had hitherto owed to the king.

In the spring of 498 the twenty Athenian ships, accompanied by five triremes from Eretria, arrived on the Asiatic coast. The Eubœan city had apparently sent her aid unasked, influenced by those trade relations of which so little is heard from the two great historians of the fifth century, but which must have played so decisive a part in the shaping of events. The academic atmosphere of the Athens of the latter part of the century excluded such banausic details from a cultured narrative of events.

Hitherto the offensive operations of the insurgents had been confined to the deposition of the tyrants of the Greek cities.

Herodotus is absolutely silent as to the measures which Artaphernes took in consequence of this bloodless act of war. He can hardly have entertained any illusions as to its significance; yet, if Herodotus’ account is to be taken as a complete narrative of events, the Ionians took the offensive in the spring of 498, some months at least after this act of unmistakable hostility, without meeting at first with any opposition.

H. v. 99.

After the arrival of the ships from European Greece Aristagoras sent an expedition against Sardes. He did not accompany it himself, but placed his brother Charopinos and another Milesian in command. The expedition went by sea to Ephesus, and, leaving the ships at Koresos in the Ephesian territory, went up country under the guidance of the Ephesians.20

Following first the river Kaÿster, they afterwards crossed Mount Tmolos, and took Sardes, except the Acropolis, without opposition. That was saved by Artaphernes “with no inconsiderable force.”

ATTACK ON SARDES.

The town was composed of houses either thatched with reeds or wholly constructed of them. One of these was kindled by a Greek soldier, either by accident or design, and the whole place was burnt to the ground. A statement is then made which seems inconsistent with the assertion that the town had been taken without opposition, to the effect that, in consequence of the conflagration, the Lydians and Persians were compelled to defend themselves in the market-place, and that the Ionians, by reason of their numbers, found it advisable to retreat under cover of night to their ships.

The most remarkable feature of this story, as it stands in Herodotus, is its lack of consequence. Cause and effect are as little apparent in it as in the narrative of a dream. Artaphernes, after months of warning, is caught unprepared. Sardes is taken without opposition; yet, when the conflagration takes place, a host, not merely of Lydians, but of Persians also, springs from its very ashes, and in such formidable numbers that the Ionians are obliged to withdraw under cover of night.

If Greek history is to bear the guise of history, this story requires examination. No useful end can be served by accepting as fact that which is incapable of rational interpretation. Human motive springs from human thought; and if thought has its formal laws, it is reasonable to suppose that there is a formality in motive also.

It happens that in the present instance there exists evidence which puts a complexion on these events very different to that which is given by Herodotus.

Plut. de Herod. Malignitate, 24.

Plutarch has preserved a tradition that at the time at which the expedition against Sardes took place the Persians were engaged in the siege of Miletus, and that one object of the expedition was to force the Persians to raise the siege. The bitter animus of the treatise in which this assertion is made makes it impossible to accept statements in it without consideration. In the present instance, however, the statement is so manifestly in accord with the situation at the time that it is impossible to reject it as untrue.

Miletus had been, through Aristagoras, the author of the revolt. Artaphernes had had a whole winter’s warning. It is inconceivable that he should have allowed months to elapse without taking measures to crush the rising before it became formidable; and this end could best be attained by an attack on that centre at which the conflagration had had its origin, and from which it was, if left unchecked, but too likely to spread far and wide. Artaphernes was no child playing at empire, but a practised administrator, who had governed a great outlying province for nearly ten years of a critical period of its history.

There can be little question that the bold design of a direct attack on Sardes completely upset his plans. It forced him not merely to raise the siege of Miletus, but also to hurry with all speed to save the Persian capital in the west, which must, from its very position, be his base of operations in the coming struggle. An examination of the map will show that the loss of Sardes would have necessitated the withdrawal of that base far to the east. It is doubtful indeed whether another could have been found west of Halys. The attack was a brilliant venture on the part of the Greeks. It was a brilliant idea on the part of the one man to whom it can be attributed,—Aristagoras.

Aristagoras has come down in history with the ill reputation of one who dared to lead brave men to their death, but dared not die with them. This feature of his life’s story has tended to obscure the true picture of the man. The added selfishness of motive is not calculated to present him in a more favourable light.

Such is the general impression created by the picture which Herodotus draws of him.

Yet the details do not altogether bear out the impression which is created by the picture as a whole.

It is doubtless the case that he acted from selfish motives. It may be that his highest aim was to become the first man among the Greeks of the Asiatic coast; but he must at least be credited with a spirit that ventured much to gain more. He miscalculated the means to the end he sought. But was the miscalculation more discreditable to him than to those European Greeks on whose aid he had calculated? They had, no doubt, their excuse; but he had his.

THE LYDIANS AND THE REVOLT.

Even in the hostile pages of Herodotus there is clear evidence that the measures he took with the means at his disposal showed high ability, if not genius. He all but checkmated the Persians at Sardes; and the period during which the revolt was formidable was coincident with the time at which he played the foremost part in it.

The incidental light which Herodotus’ narrative throws on the events at Sardes is, in some respects, of more historical importance than his direct story of events.

The attitude of the Lydians towards the revolt is clearly marked from the very first. This people, for some reason which it is not possible to conjecture with anything approaching certainty, not merely stood apart and remained neutral, but actually fought on the Persian side, in Sardes at any rate. H. v. 102. This deed of active hostility may have been exceptional, and both it and the absence on the part of the Lydians of all sympathy with the revolt may be due to the destruction of their chief city, and especially of their national sanctuary of the goddess Kybebe, which perished in the conflagration. This, so Herodotus says, served as an excuse for the subsequent destruction of the Greek temples; but if it also served to alienate the sympathies of the Lydians from the struggle for freedom, it can only be regarded as a disaster of the first magnitude to the cause of the Asiatic Greeks.21

H. v. 102.

The Greek occupation of the town of Sardes does not seem to have been a matter of a few days. Not merely had the news of its seizure time to spread to the region west of Halys, but the Persian commanders22 in that wide stretch of country had time to assemble a large levy for the rescue of the capital; and though when they arrived there the Greeks had departed, their departure had been so recent that the relieving force actually overtook and fought an action with them before they reached their ships.

The spreading of the news and the gathering of this force must have been at least an affair of some weeks; and the summer of 498 must have been at its height ere the Greek retreat began.

It was near Ephesus that the Persian reinforcements overtook the Greeks. In the battle which followed the Ionians were, so Herodotus says, badly defeated, and a great many prominent men were slain, while the survivors dispersed to their various cities. Evalkides, the Eretrian general, was one of those who perished; and the record of his death has all the appearance of truth. There are several very serious reasons, however, for believing that the result of the battle has been greatly exaggerated.

After the battle the Athenian contingent sailed off home. This was probably in the autumn of 498. It is the last event recorded by Herodotus which can be attributed with certainty to that year.

It is possible that the Athenians had a valid excuse for this apparent desertion, in that they had just become engaged in a war with Ægina; but the date of the outbreak of that war is quite uncertain, and the real cause of withdrawal may have been that the Athenians took too pessimistic a view of the prospects of the revolt.23 The non-participation of the Lydians was calculated to set them thinking. If the latter of these alternatives were the case, it is conceivable that the tale of the results of the battle of Ephesus is of Athenian origin, put forward in part justification of the withdrawal.

Herodotus24 evidently attributed it to the results of the battle of Ephesus, and this may be taken to indicate, at any rate, that the Athenians thought badly of the prospects of the revolt. BYZANTION AND CARIA JOIN THE REVOLT. Aristagoras sent message after message during the winter of 498–97, imploring them to return; but they refused to come back.

It seems certain that the Athenians greatly miscalculated the possibilities of the moment; yet it may be doubted whether the actual facts were not such as to justify their decision. Save for the assistance given by their own small contingent and by the five ships from Eretria, the Ionians had gone through the first season of the war single-handed. The revolt had merely excited opposition in Lydia; and its remarkable extension in the next year could hardly have been foreseen. Even the Greek cities of the coast were not unanimous in supporting it. Herodotus, himself a Dorian of Asia, is so significantly silent as to any part which the Dorian cities played in it, that it must be concluded that they played no part at all.

The winter of 498–97 was passed by the Ionians in preparation for the continuance of the struggle. The withdrawal of the Athenians was not a great loss to the actual fighting power of the insurgents. It seems, moreover, to have had but little moral effect upon them, and none whatever upon their relations and friends in Asia.

The Ionian fleet opened the year’s campaign by sailing to Byzantion, and bringing about the revolt of the whole region of the Propontis.25 From the Propontis the fleet returned to Caria, which also joined the insurgents. The Carian district of Kaunos had apparently been invited to join at the time of the burning of Sardes, but had deferred doing so until the arrival of the fleet.

The action of the fleet, and the sudden spread of the revolt at this time, tend to throw light on certain obscurities in the history of the campaign of the previous year.

Inasmuch as the Ionian fleet must, in spite of Aristagoras’ refusal to recognize the fact, have formed the real base of the insurgent operations, it is inconceivable that the Persians should have omitted to bring up the Phœnician fleet to cope with it. This would be the first measure which would suggest itself to them. Yet at the beginning of the second campaigning season, at least a year and a half after the first act of revolt had placed the Ionian fleet in the power of the insurgents, that fleet is free to leave the Ægean coast undefended, and to go to the Propontis to stir the Hellespontine region into activity! Where was the Phœnician fleet meanwhile? The artifice of Aristagoras in bringing about the mobilization of the Ionian fleet had indeed given the Asiatic Greeks a long start in naval operations; but at least eighteen months had elapsed since he had shown his hand.

Had the revolt of Cyprus already taken place, and had the Phœnician fleet been obliged to make the reduction of that island its first objective? There are at least three reasons which render this assumption unlikely:⁠—

H. v 104, ad init.

(1) Herodotus is certainly under the impression that the Cypriote revolt took place about the same time as that of Caria.26

(2) Cyprus was so important to the revolt that, had the Phœnician fleet been in a position to threaten it at this time, the Ionians could hardly have ventured on an expedition to the Hellespontine region.

(3) The revolt in Cyprus had been in progress for many months before the Ionian fleet went thither.

Plut. de Herod. Malign. 24.

It seems probable that Plutarch has preserved the record of an important incident in the history of this time, which Herodotus had either forgotten, or of which he had never heard. He refers to a victory gained by the Ionian fleet off the Pamphylian coast. This would account for the non-appearance of the Phœnician fleet in the Ægean in the campaign of 498.

REVOLT OF CYPRUS.

It may be conjectured that the victory took place early in that year—that is, in the spring or early summer,—and that it was won over a fleet which was coming up to assist Artaphernes in the siege of Miletus. It would account also for the spirit shown by the Ionians in the bold venture of the attack on Sardes.

H. v. 103.

The rapid spread of the revolt in 497 makes it almost impossible to accept Herodotus’ version of the battle at Ephesus. If he is to be believed, the reverse there sustained more than compensated for any success won at Sardes. If that be so, the impetus given to the revolt by the burning of Sardes becomes inexplicable. It must be concluded that Ephesus was not the disaster which Herodotus represents it to have been.

The news of the revolt of the Ionians had thrown the Cypriote Greeks into a state of ferment. The island had been for many ages past divided between the Greek and Phœnician interests. The Greek section of the population seems to have hitherto adopted an attitude of passive or secretly active resistance to the Persian, while the Phœnician formed the Medic party. Persian and Phœnician interests in the island were mutual. The Persian communications were dependent on the Phœnician fleet, while the Phœnicians could only hold their ground against the preponderating numbers of the Greeks by means of Persian support. Salamis and Amathus (Hamath) were respectively the foremost towns of the Greek and Phœnician regions.

H. v. 104.

The leader of the movement in the island was Onesilos, the younger brother of Gorgos, the Greek king of Salamis. “He had frequently before this time advised his brother Gorgos to revolt from the king; but now, when he heard that even the Ionians had revolted, he was very urgent in his endeavours to induce him to do so.” Failing to persuade Gorgos, he seized the city during his temporary absence, and Gorgos fled to the Persians. The revolt spread to all the towns of the island except Amathus. Onesilos proceeded accordingly to besiege this place.

It is very difficult to assign a certain date to these events. One thing may, however, be confidently assumed, namely, that when Onesilos made his urgent representations to his brother, and, still more, when the revolt broke out, the Phœnician fleet was for the time being hors de combat. The absolutely indeterminate element in the matter is the length of time which intervened between the first urgent representation of Onesilos and the deposition of Gorgos. Certain facts stated in the subsequent story of the campaign render it probable that Onesilos’ representations were made after the battle off the Pamphylian coast, if not after the burning of Sardes, and that they must therefore be attributed to the autumn of 498; while the first step in revolt, the deposition of Gorgos, took place in the following winter, and the siege of Amathus began in the spring of 497.

The customs or necessities of campaigning in the fifth century rendered the winter the natural time for planning insurrection, and the summer the time for carrying it out.

This chronology of the prelude to the revolt in Cyprus is not merely in accord with calculations which may be made from Herodotus’ statements, but is also in agreement with his general assumption that the outbreak concurred with the similar outbreaks in the Hellespontine region and in Caria.

After mentioning the beginning of the siege of Amathus, Herodotus transfers the scene of his narrative to Susa, where he describes the reception by Darius of the news of the burning of Sardes by the Athenians and Ionians. The details of the story cannot be cited as serious history, but it contains the record of what are undeniably historical events. As is so often the case with famous stories, the historical matter has become involved in a mass of graphic detail which cannot be supposed to rest on anything but the slenderest foundation of fact.

There are two features of Herodotus’ version which, though not, it may be, historical, are of both interest and importance to the student of Herodotus’ history; they are (1) the prominence given to the Athenian participation in the opening campaign of the revolt; (2) an incidental reference to the Ionians.

DARIUS HEARS OF THE REVOLT.

H. v. 105.

“When the news was brought to King Darius that Sardes had been captured and burnt by the Athenians and Ionians, and that Aristagoras the Milesian had been leader of the coalition, so that he had devised those things, he is said in the first instance, on hearing this, to have recked nothing of the Ionians, knowing well that they would not come off unpunished for their revolt, but to have asked who the Athenians were; and afterwards, when he had been informed on this point, he is said to have asked for his bow, and to have taken an arrow, and, placing it in the bow, to have shot it towards heaven, exclaiming in so doing: ‘Zeus, grant that I be avenged on the Athenians.’ Having thus said, he ordered one of his attendants that whenever his dinner was laid before him, he should say three times, ‘Master, forget not the Athenians.’”

The tale then passes on to a reported conversation with Histiæus.

The historical fact underlying this story amounts in all probability to no more than that Darius was both exasperated and alarmed at this first instance of an active interference of the European Greeks in his West Asian dominions. It was, indeed, the realization of a trouble which he seems to have foreseen.

The references to the Athenians and Ionians, though they cannot be regarded as historical, are undoubtedly made with intent to give a certain colouring to the history of the time. It is therefore important to try and form some judgment as to their significance. Whatever their origin, there can be no doubt that they give that colouring to events which Herodotus himself believed to be the true one.

His judgment as to the part played by Athens in the great events of the first twenty years of the century is a very striking one, and bears the impress of genuine conviction.

Of the attitude of that state in the great war of 480–479 he has nothing but good to say; but he is evidently convinced that Athens, and Athens alone, was really responsible for that war having taken place at all. This judgment of his must have been a purely personal one, formed upon his reading of the events of the period of which he wrote the history. It can be seen now that he was not wholly mistaken. His mistake consisted in assuming that what was only a contributory cause was the whole efficient cause of what occurred subsequent to the revolt. His attitude towards the Ionians cannot, on the other hand, be attributed to purely personal judgment. His sources for the history of the revolt, which had their origin largely, it may be, in those Dorian cities of Asia which had not taken part in it, were evidently of a nature to prejudice his mind against the Ionian Greek.27

The second part of the story which relates to Histiæus is probably a piece of Greek invention, describing what might well be supposed to have happened at Susa in consequence of the part which his near relative Aristagoras had played in the revolt. It served also to bring into relief the duplicity of this Ionian tyrant towards a master and a friend who trusted him but too implicitly.

But in the case of this story, as in the case of other similar stories in Herodotus, it is necessary to bear in mind that, though the story itself may be fiction, it is extremely likely to contain historical matter in the shape of chance disclosures of the views which its framers or their contemporaries held as to the events of the time. There is in this very story a remark which indicates that some contemporary opinion was not disposed to regard the revolt as the hurried creation of Aristagoras. “The Ionians seem,” Histiæus is represented to have said, “after losing sight of me, to have done what they long desired to do.”

Whatever persuasion Histiæus used, he succeeded in inducing Darius to let him go down to the coast.

It would be vain to attempt to deduce from the juxtaposition of these two imaginative tales any conclusion as to the time at which Histiæus started from Susa.

Cf. H. vi. 1.

The only real indication of the date of his return is given in a subsequent chapter, where it is clearly implied that it was subsequent to the departure of Aristagoras from Miletus, if not to his death at Myrkinos.

Cf. H. v. 108.

From Susa the story shifts back to Cyprus. STRATEGIC VALUE OF CYPRUS. The siege of Amathus is still proceeding, and Onesilos has just received word of the coming of a Phœnician fleet with a large Persian force aboard of it, under the command of Artybios. He accordingly despatched messengers to Ionia to ask for help. Herodotus emphasizes the promptness with which the Ionian fleet was despatched to aid the Cypriotes.

It is plain that both sides recognized the crucial importance of the part which Cyprus had to play in the great struggle. The peculiar configuration of the neighbouring continent, which brings the only really practicable military line of communication between Asia Minor and the Euphrates valley into immediate contact with the shore of the Levant at that corner of the sea which is commanded by Cyprus, renders this island a strategical position of inestimable value either to a power assailing Asia Minor from the east, or to one defending it from the west. The Cypriote Greeks, backed by the Ionian fleet, would have been in a position to threaten at its weakest point the Persian line of communication with the Western satrapies. From it as a base also, the Ionian fleet might have made it impossible for the Phœnicians to sail to the Ægean. Cyprus was then, as it is now, the key of the Levant.

Of its value as a strategic position the Greek was, moreover, fully aware. The alacrity with which the Ionians accepted the invitation in the present instance was equalled by the eagerness with which, twenty years later, the Greeks on the fleet under Pausanias sought to seize it, even when the liberation of the Ægean coast was as yet in its initial stage. They knew that its possession would inevitably facilitate their task nearer home. Had not Kimon died so inopportunely, Athens might have realized the dream of its permanent acquisition.

But it was not merely its strategic position that rendered it so attractive in the eyes of the trading cities of Ionia. From a commercial point of view it would have supplied an ideal base for trade with the wealthy East, and would have placed the Greek trader in possession of a sea route of his own, instead of, on the one hand, a sea route on which he had to face the fierce Phœnician competition, and, on the other, a land route through Asia Minor, inconvenient alike from the expense of traffic along it, and from its passing through many alien peoples.

When it is considered that the Ionian fleet had already in this campaigning season brought about the revolt both of the Hellespontine region and of Caria, it cannot be supposed that the expedition to Cyprus was undertaken earlier than the late summer of this year 497.

Apart from the time spent in the actual operations at these two comparatively distant points, the ships of those days were not able to keep the sea for any prolonged period without a refit.

H. v. 108.

The Ionian fleet seems to have arrived at Cyprus at about the same time as the Persian expedition. The Phœnician fleet transhipped the Persian army from the Cilician coast to the north shore of the island, whence it marched overland towards Salamis. The fleet then rounded the islands called “the Keys,”28 and so sailed towards the same destination.

Herodotus describes an interview between the Cypriote tyrants and the Greek commanders, in which the former offer to embark their men on board the fleet and let the Ionians fight on land. The latter, however, replied that the Common Council of the Ionians had sent them to fight on board the fleet, and on board the fleet they intended to fight.

Of the battle by sea which ensued, Herodotus says but little, save that the Ionians fought well and beat the Phœnicians; and that, of the Ionians, the Samians fought best.

Whatever the measure of success attained, it was more than compensated for by the loss of the battle on land. There was grievous treachery in the Cypriote army. Stesenor, tyrant of Kourion, with a large band, deserted during the battle; and part, at least, of the Salaminian contingent followed his example. Onesilos and one of the Greek tyrants perished in the battle.

The Ionian fleet seems to have remained some time longer upon the coast, until, at any rate, the Persians began the siege of the various Greek cities. Then, finding itself powerless to effect anything, it sailed away home. CHRONOLOGICAL DISCREPANCY. One of the towns, Soli, held out for five months, but with its capture the revolt of Cyprus came to an end; and “thus,” says Herodotus “the Cyprians, after a year of freedom, were enslaved anew.”

Five months of siege would protract the revolt far into the winter of 497–96. It is noteworthy that the chronological details deducible from the account of the revolt in Cyprus are in reasonable agreement with the general statements as to its duration. This chapter of the history of the revolt as a whole is, indeed, conspicuous as being the only one in which chronological data can be said to be existent.

From the end of the revolt in Cyprus in the winter of 497–96 until the siege of Miletus in 494, the course of recorded events does not admit of any certain chronological arrangement, and, apart from this, the record is manifestly of a most fragmentary character.

It is now necessary to carry back the story to the Ægean coast. Earlier in the year the Ionian fleet had brought about the revolt of Caria and the district of the Propontis. These events can be attributed with some assurance to the spring and early summer of 497. But the chronology of the measures taken by the Persians to reduce these revolted regions to submission is so hopelessly involved that it is impossible to accept it.29

H. v. 116, ff.

The greatness of the chronological discrepancy will be best appreciated when it is pointed out that Herodotus in one chapter ascribes the reduction of the revolt on the Hellespont and in Caria to a period which, H. v. 103. if the data of a previous chapter be correct, must have been from four to six months before the outbreak of the insurrection in those regions. Of the two series of chronological data the earlier one is by far the more trustworthy. It is connected with the outbreak of the revolt by a continuous chain of events whose dates can be fixed with reasonable probability. The later chronological series is not merely in disaccord with the previous one, but, if adhered to, renders the whole story of the revolt incomprehensible. The reader wanders amid a maze of circumstances without cause and without effect.

The main incidents attendant on the suppression of the revolt on the continent of Asia Minor seem, in so far as they are told, to be correctly told by Herodotus, in all save their chronological setting. The modern world has, at any rate, no other evidence on the subject. On the question of fact the position must be accepted. On the question of chronology, Herodotus must be corrected by his own chronological statements, and by the strong presumptive evidence of his own statements of fact. The direct evidence makes it quite clear that the measures undertaken by the Persians for the suppression of the widespread revolt were not undertaken at the time to which he attributes them. His statements of fact render it possible to form some conclusion as to when they were undertaken.

It is not possible to assign an earlier date than the summer of 497 to the despatch of the Ionian fleet to Cyprus. Herodotus himself says that the General Council of the Ionians were prompt in their decision to send it. It may reasonably be concluded that the circumstances of the insurrection on Asia Minor were at the time in a favourable condition. The lack of hesitation would be otherwise incomprehensible, inasmuch as the combination of the cities against attack was, from the vary nature of things, dependent upon the fleet.

It is not a mere assumption to say that the circumstances must have been favourable. The formidable character of the rising had been well-nigh quadrupled by the accession of the Hellespont, Caria, and Cyprus to the insurrection in the earlier half of the year 497. The forces which Artaphernes had at his disposal were sufficient to save the citadel of Sardes in 498, and to inflict some sort of reverse on the retreating Ionians at Ephesus; but were they sufficient to cope with the infinitely more dangerous situation in the early months of the following year?

PERSIAN REINFORCEMENTS.

The Persian Empire appears in history as a great military power because it only appears in extant records when engaged in warfare with the Greek. But it was not a military monarchy in any real sense of the word. It did not, relatively to the size of the empire, keep a large standing army on foot. It met military necessities by the calling forth of levies, the gathering of which must have demanded time. The Persian king, like the Roman emperor of later days, did not entrust the governors of distant provinces with the disposal of large bodies of troops, unless circumstances rendered such a step absolutely necessary.

The reverse suffered by the Greeks at Ephesus cannot have been serious; but it had clearly demonstrated the fact that, on land, Artaphernes was able to hold his own against the insurrection, so long as it was confined to Ionia. At sea the circumstances were not so promising. The defeat off Pamphylia had placed the Phœnician fleet hors de combat for the time being, and it is not difficult to imagine that at least a year would have to pass before the cities of the Syrian coast could turn out a fleet sufficiently powerful to cope with that of the Ionian Greeks. This second fleet would be that one which was defeated off Cyprus in 497. But in the course of that year the whole balance of military power on land had been completely changed by the spread of the revolt to Hellespont and Caria. This would necessitate the despatch of reinforcements from Susa to the Western satrapies, reinforcements which would, doubtless, have reached Sardes by the latter part of the summer of 497, had not the state of affairs in Cyprus rendered it necessary to divert them, as well as the new Phœnician fleet, to the suppression of the revolt in that island. That was an affair of some months; and these reinforcements cannot have reached Sardes until early in the year 496.

There is, and there must be, a certain arbitrariness in any scheme for the rearrangement of the confused chronology of those years. All that can be urged in favour of the one here set forth is that it is of a piece with Herodotus’ own chronology of the opening year of the revolt, and is in accord with the facts, other than chronological, stated by him.30

The arrival of these troops at Sardes in the late winter or early spring of 496 made it possible for the Persian generals to devise a scheme for the simultaneous suppression of the revolt in Hellespont and Cana. The events of 498 had shown that the Ionians were not formidable on land unless the Persians were taken by surprise.

H. v. 116.

The three chief commanders were Daurises, Hymeës, and Otanes, the last of whom had been the successor of Megabazos, nigh ten years before, in the command in Thrace.

H. v. 117.

Daurises began operations in the district of the Hellespont, and took Dardanos, Abydos, Perkote, Lampsakos and Paisos. These places he is reported to have taken with incredible rapidity.31 From these successes he was called away, so Herodotus says, by the revolt of Caria. Why Caria should have revolted at a time when the structure of revolt in the Hellespont was falling like a house of cards, and why, above all, the Common Council of the Ionians, after bringing about the revolt of both the Hellespont and Caria by means of its fleet, should have unhesitatingly despatched the fleet to Cyprus at a time when a large part of the one district had been resubjugated, and the other was on the point of being attacked, Herodotus does not explain. The chronological combination of events in these chapters is intended to heighten the impression of the hopelessness of the revolt which has been conveyed by the story of the disaster at Ephesus, and with that intent these events are brought into close juxtaposition with it. CAMPAIGN IN CARIA. When it is remembered that the defection of Thrace and Macedonia must have been closely linked with that of the Hellespontine region, it is impossible to suppose that the revolt in these parts was of so feeble a nature that it could be suppressed within what, if Herodotus’ second chronological series is to be accepted, cannot have amounted to more than a few weeks from its outbreak—so feeble, too, that a large number of the most prominent cities were captured with the utmost ease.

The campaign of Daurises in the Hellespont seems to have taken place in the spring of 496. It seems, moreover, to have been successful. The European shore was, indeed, left alone for the time being, but the revolt on the Asiatic side of the Hellespont must have been practically stamped out.

H. v. 117.

Herodotus represents Daurises as having been called away to Caria before his work in the Hellespontine region was done. It may be that he was called away from the north; but, even on Herodotus’ own evidence, he had done his work thoroughly on the Asiatic side of the Propontis.

The reconquest of Caria was a much more difficult matter. The Carians were not mere amateurs in the art of war, but numbered among them men who had seen fighting in many lands, the soldiers of fortune of their time. The race was infected with that strange fever which has at different periods driven members of some of the world’s most virile peoples to seek a livelihood in quarrels not their own.

Herodotus makes no attempt to place the striking events of this war in Caria in a chronological setting. Three great battles take place, of which the first two are great Persian victories, while the last is a tremendous disaster to their arms. There is no means of judging of the interval between the victories and the disaster; though, from the way in which the narrative is told, it might be supposed that the Carians recovered almost instantaneously from two serious and successive defeats.

On the general question of the campaign it may be said that it seems to have been part of a great design planned at Sardes in the winter of 497–96, to be carried out so soon as reinforcements came up from the east.

The Carians were not caught unprepared. The insurgents of the Ægean coast must have spent a winter of anxious expectation as to what would happen when the Persian reinforcements arrived. The Ionian fleet had in the autumn brought back news of the disastrous failure of the revolt in Cyprus; and from that time it was a question where the next blow would fall, and how it could best be parried. The danger of the situation arose from the fact that by the end of the year 497 the opportunity for a vigorous offensive on land in the west had, for the time being, vanished. The absence of the Ionian fleet in Cyprus in the late summer of that year would prevent any combined movement of the insurgents at a time when the available fighting strength of Persia in the satrapy of Sardes can hardly have been sufficient to cope with the force which might have been collected had the fleet been there. The Ionian towns, the moral and geographical centre of the revolt, had for the moment staked their all on success in Cyprus, and had despatched thither their fleet, the sole means by which the concentration necessary for a formidable combined movement could be brought about. So the revolted were reduced to a passive state of expectancy, confined to a defensive, which, inasmuch as Persia held the inner line in Western Asia Minor, was most disadvantageous to them from a strategical point of view. The Persian council of war saw this weakness. The revolted regions could be taken in detail.

The plan adopted seems to have been to deal with the Hellespont, the Ionian towns, and Caria, as three areas of operations, and to take a vigorous offensive in one region at a time, while threatening the other two with a number of troops sufficient to prevent their sending any substantial help to the region attacked. With the reduction of one region, the troops which had been employed in it would be largely available for the second attack.

The Hellespont, certainly the weakest of the three, was first invaded and reduced, while Ionia and Caria were merely threatened. This accomplished, a twofold force was directed against Caria, while Ionia was watched; and, finally, the combined armies fell upon the land which formed the heart, the life-centre of the revolt.

The first step in this design seems to have succeeded. The second proved a harder task.

H. v. 118.

Forewarned, and therefore forearmed, the Carians collected their forces at a place called “the White Pillars,” near a river named Marsyas,32 a tributary of the Mæander, with the intention of meeting the Persian invasion at that point. Arrived there, a discussion arose among the commanders as to whether it would be better to fight with the river at their backs, and so animate their men with the courage of despair, or to retire somewhat from the river and make the Persians, as the assailants, take up a position which, in case of their defeat, would be infinitely disastrous to them.33

The second of these alternatives was wisely chosen. There must have been many experienced soldiers in the Carian army who would be well aware of the error which the first proposal involved. The fact that it was made, and the stated reason for its being made, suggests, however, the difficulty under which the insurgents laboured, in that they had to meet the Persian levies with armies which must have been composed for the most part of untrained men. The period of subjection to Persia was now half a century old, and, during that time, the subject population must have been afforded the minimum of opportunity for anything resembling military training. Persia did not call out levies except under stress of necessity; and it is quite certain that she would never have allowed any subject race to practise its people in arms.

H. v. 119.

The battle on the Marsyas was fiercely contested. No details of it are given, except that the Carians were finally overpowered by numbers, and sustained a loss of 10,000 men, whereas the Persian loss was only 2000.

The fugitives took refuge in the temple and sacred precinct of Zeus Stratios at Labraunda, Strabo, 659. a village on the mountain pass between Alabanda and Mylassa, about seven miles from the latter. They seem to have regarded their position as a desperate one; for they are reported to have debated the question of leaving Asia altogether.

This place was, however, near Miletus, and the Milesians and their allies, presumably Greeks from the smaller towns near Miletus,34 H. v. 120. sent help to the Carians. This put new heart into them. Instead of capitulating or deserting their post, they resisted the Persian attack, only, however, to sustain a defeat worse than that at the Marsyas river, a disaster in which their Milesian allies suffered severely.

H. v. 121.

“But after this disaster the Carians recovered and fought once more,” says Herodotus. When it is remembered that their first defeat had reduced these Carians to a state bordering on despair, and that their second defeat is expressly said to have been still more serious than their first, this statement is difficult to understand. It may reasonably be suggested that, if the account of the previous operations be the whole truth, it is incomprehensible that the Carians should have had time to recover from such disasters before the Persians followed up their successes. The question may even arise whether Herodotus is relating the events of the same campaign as that in which the two defeats took place. It is impossible to pretend that the available evidence is in any way conclusive on this point. The only detail which tends to throw light upon the question is a geographical one. By the time that the events next recorded took place, the Persians had certainly advanced beyond Labraunda; and this fact would tend to the conclusion that they did actually occur in the same campaign. Herodotus recounts them as follows:⁠—

HELLESPONT AND IONIA.

H. v. 121.

“The Carians, on hearing that the Persians were about to march against their cities, laid an ambush on the road in Pedasos, into which the Persians fell by night and were destroyed, both they and their generals, Daurises, Amorges, and Sisimakes. With them perished also Myrsos the son of Gyges. The commander of this ambush was Herakleides, the son of Ibanollis, a Mylassian.”

The scene of this terrible defeat is on the road which would be taken by an army advancing from Labraunda southward into Caria.

What had really happened can only be a subject for conjecture. The Persians must have suffered so severely in the battles on the Marsyas and at Labraunda, that further advance was delayed until reinforcements could come up. During this delay the Carians rallied, and then inflicted on the invaders the most crushing defeat of the whole war.

H. v. 122.

In this campaigning season of the year 496, the operations in the Hellespont region which Daurises had left in an all but complete stage, were continued by Hymeës, who had been campaigning in the Mysian district. But little can have remained for him to do. His army accomplished the task, though he himself died before it was actually completed.

H. v. 123.

A little light is also thrown upon the doings of the army which, under the command of Artaphernes and Otanes, had occupied the attention of the Ionians during the campaign in Caria. It captured the towns of Klazomenæ and Kyme.

The outlook towards the close of the summer, before the great Persian defeat in Caria took place, must have been a gloomy one for the insurgents. Cyprus was lost. The prospects of the revolt in Caria seemed desperate. The Hellespont region had been reduced, though that of the Bosphorus was as yet untouched; and even two of the Greek coast towns of the Ægean had fallen.

H. v. 124.

It is not strange if Aristagoras began to despair of the future. Herodotus is consistent in placing his conduct in the very worst light: he was a coward at heart: he had thrown Ionia into confusion: he had stirred up a mighty business; and now he planned flight.

As a preface to a story of a selfish attempt on the part of Aristagoras to provide for his own safety, regardless of the fate of his fellow-conspirators, such bitter condemnation of the man would have been justified. But the tale which follows is singularly inconsistent with the preface. So far from stealing away from Miletus, and seeking to save his own life alone, he called the conspirators together, and, in view of the desperate position of the revolt, he pointed out to them that it would be well to secure some place of retreat, in case they were driven forth from Miletus, by establishing a colony either in Sardinia or at Myrkinos, “which Histiæus had proceeded to fortify after receiving it as a gift from Darius.” Hecatæus is reported to have opposed the plan, and to have suggested the futile alternative of fortifying the small island of Leros, off Miletus, and of using it as a base for the recovery of that town.35 The majority of the meeting voted in favour of Aristagoras’ design. Accordingly, leaving Miletus in charge of a prominent citizen named Pythagoras, Aristagoras sailed for Myrkinos, presumably late in the year 496, taking with him all who volunteered to go. They all perished in an attack on a Thracian town, whose name Herodotus does not mention, but which seems, Th. iv. 102. from what Thucydides says, to have been on the site of the later Amphipolis.

Herodotus’ story of this last scene in Aristagoras’ life cannot be said to support the bitter language of the judgment passed on him. He went out to secure a refuge for his fellow citizens, and died in so doing. He never returned, because he could not return. Had he remained indefinitely at Myrkinos; had he looked on while his native city and the men who had joined him in the great venture were destroyed, without making one effort to return and take part in the last struggle for life and liberty, he might with justice have been branded with the cowardice of desertion. Herodotus’ account of the man and all that he did, fails, when examined, to support the picture of his character which the historian has drawn.

HISTIÆUS AND ARTAPHERNES.

H. vi. 1.

It was about the time of Aristagoras’ death that Histiæus, having come down from Susa, arrived at Sardes. There he met the satrap Artaphernes. The brief account of their meeting given by Herodotus is a dramatic scene.

“On his arrival from Susa, Artaphernes, the satrap of Sardes, asked him what he supposed to be the reason for the Ionian revolt. He said he did not know, and that he was surprised at what had happened, pretending that he was wholly ignorant of the causes36 of what was taking place. Artaphernes, however, seeing through his dissimulation, and knowing the truth about the revolt, said, ‘Histiæus, the truth about these matters is this: You stitched this sandal, and Aristagoras put it on.’ Thus Artaphernes spoke about the revolt.”

It has been assumed by modern historians of Greece that Artaphernes’ language is a direct reference to the man with the tattooed head. The assumption involves, however, certain difficulties.

Unless Artaphernes’ information with regard to the part played by Histiæus was a recent acquisition at the time at which the latter arrived at Sardes, it is incomprehensible that Histiæus should ever have been allowed to leave Susa. The great Persian officials would certainly not conceal such information from Darius. They loathed Histiæus, and would have been but too glad to do him a bad turn. Furthermore, Darius himself had taken the precaution of removing Histiæus to Susa for reasons which would have seemed as nothing compared with an allegation that he had been a prime mover in the great revolt.

The “truth about the revolt” which Artaphernes knew in so far as Histiæus was concerned, can have amounted to little more than the suspicion that, at the time when he was fortifying Myrkinos, he had had designs against the peace of the empire. The remarkable persistence with which Histiæus and Aristagoras pursued their designs upon Myrkinos suggests that behind the direct design lay a larger one, which is only incidentally mentioned by Herodotus.37

Whatever may have been the grounds for Artaphernes’ suspicions, Histiæus saw clearly that it would be dangerous to remain at Sardes, and so fled by night to the sea, H. vi. 2. “having deceived King Darius: for he, having undertaken to subdue Sardinia, the greatest of islands, sought to assume the leadership of the Ionians in the war with Darius.” He went to Chios first, where he was imprisoned upon suspicion of being engaged in evil designs at Darius’ instigation. “But the Chians, learning the whole story, that he was an enemy to the king, released him.”

It is a strange tale this tale of Histiæus. He had certainly been playing a double game for years past, but it is very difficult to say what the two sides of the game actually were. His reception by the Chians shows that some of the insurgents, at any rate, were unaware that he had played any part in bringing about the revolt. He had, moreover, been able to persuade Darius of his honesty of purpose. Probably his purpose was dishonest to both sides, and what he aimed at was the leadership of the Asiatic Greeks, which should, if he could make it so, be independent of Persia. Failing that, he was prepared to serve the king as an Ionian satrap, but not as an underling of Artaphernes, or any other Persian governor. The great Persian officials were, accordingly, his irreconcilable opponents.

H. v. 23, ad fin.

The words reported in the tale of his conversation with Darius at Susa show that the author of that story had some reason for suggesting that Histiæus had long been privy to a conspiracy of revolt. H. v. 106. His action at Myrkinos had been interpreted by Megabazos as aiming at the setting up of a great power hostile to Persian interests. May not all this mean that this man, a schemer to his very fingers’ ends, had, before he was taken up to Susa, planned the conspiracy which ended in the revolt, and that his original design had been to overturn the Persian power in Asia with the aid of the Thracian tribes, who were at the time of his settlement in Myrkinos smarting under the recent attempt of Darius to subjugate them,—an attempt which had certainly not turned out a success? THE SITUATION IN B.C. 495 Is it not this which Megabazos hinted at but could not prove to Darius? Is it not of these plans of twelve years before that Histiæus spoke to the Chians, and so persuaded them to release him? Had not Aristagoras been, in a sense, an heir to these designs in virtue of that strange testament tattooed on the head of the slave? But was that testament of so late a date as Herodotus supposed?

It was either late in 496 or early in 495 that Histiæus came down to the coast. The revolt had not, indeed, prospered, but it was far from crushed. Aristagoras had gone to Myrkinos, if not to Hades. He had left Miletus, in all probability, before the great Persian disaster on the Pedasos road. That disaster, in which the greatest of the armies, if not the major part of the whole Persian force in Western Asia, had been wiped out of existence, now put a wholly different complexion upon affairs; and the satraps seem to have found themselves once more, in 495, in the position in which they had been in 497,—able to maintain the existing status, but without the means necessary for taking further offensive, for the time being. Hence the gap in this part of Herodotus’ story of the war. There is nothing recorded, because there was nothing remarkable to record. The side which had suffered most severely in the last round of the great fight had managed at the last moment to get in a smashing blow; and during the next round both sides were too weak to attempt a vigorous attack.

In one respect the circumstances were favourable to Histiæus. They afforded him time for intrigue. If Herodotus’ story is to be believed, he had to face the bitter reproaches of the Ionians at Chios for having brought about the revolt. It is doubtless the case that the Ionians were dispirited at the way in which matters had gone in the last campaign; but, apart from the inconsistency of this attitude of the Chians with their previous treatment of Histiæus, the story serves to point the moral of the hopelessness of the revolt, and, so doing, is not above suspicion. Histiæus is related to have defended himself by saying that he sent the message because he had discovered that Darius entertained a design of removing the Ionians to Phœnicia and the Phœnicians to Ionia. The intense rivalry between these two great commercial peoples may well have rendered such an allegation a commonplace with agitators on the Asiatic side of the Ægean; but there is no reason for supposing that it had any foundation in fact.

Histiæus now proceeded with his schemes. He was evidently convinced that the revolt could not succeed without external support of some kind. Upon Thrace he could not now reckon, since the news that Aristagoras had embroiled himself with the Thracians on the Strymon must have reached him by that time. H. vi. 4. He had, however, discovered that there was at Sardes a Persian party hostile to Artaphernes, with which he had previously conferred “about revolt.” With it he now sought to establish communications. He was unfortunate in his messenger—a certain Hermippos of Atarneus,—who carried the letters straight to Artaphernes. The latter directed him to take them to those to whom they were sent, and to bring back the answers. As might be expected, the recipients were executed.

So the plan miscarried.

Histiæus now persuaded the Chians to convey him to his old seat of tyranny, Miletus. Its citizens, who, says Herodotus, had been glad to get rid of Aristagoras, were not in a mood to receive him. He made an ineffectual attempt to force an entrance into the town, and was wounded in so doing. He accordingly returned to Chios and tried to persuade the Chians to give him ships,—on what excuse or for what purpose is not stated. As they refused, he went across to Mytilene and persuaded the Lesbians to give him eight triremes. With these he went to Byzantion, and, “settling there, they proceeded to seize vessels sailing out of the Pontus, except such as professed to be ready to obey Histiæus.”

Before making any attempt to explain the policy pursued by Histiæus and the Mytilenians at Byzantion, it is necessary to arrive at some conclusion as to when he and his allies went thither. Except for the narrative of the adventures of Histiæus, the history of the fourth year of the revolt (495) appears to be a blank. HISTIÆUS AT BYZANTION. No event seems to have occurred of a sufficiently striking nature to find a place in a record such as Herodotus set himself to write. For the time matters seem to have been at a standstill in so far as large operations are concerned. Either side had sufficient strength to keep the other in check, but neither was strong enough to inflict a serious blow. The war continued; but it was, doubtless, of a desultory character, unmarked by decisive success or failure. The Persians were waiting for reinforcements; the insurgents were too exhausted to do aught but wait for the renewal of the real struggle.

The great defeat in Caria seems, indeed, to have taken place in the autumn of 496; and it may therefore appear strange that a power like Persia should not have been able to supply the losses in time, at any rate, to strike a decisive blow before the next campaigning season ended. Had the losses been of an ordinary character, such would, no doubt, have been the case; but the reparation of a great defeat in those days of slow communications, and in a monarchy which did not keep a large standing army, was essentially a work of time. It was necessary to communicate with Susa. Susa had to communicate with the provinces from which the new levies had to be drawn. The levies had to be collected and drilled, and then had to be despatched on their long, long march to the Western satrapies. It is not strange, if more than a year elapsed before Persia was ready, after the campaign in Caria, to resume a real offensive in the west.

If this be so, the exploits of Histiæus constitute the sole record of events for the year 495, and his departure to Byzantion may be attributed to the late summer or to the autumn of that year.

What was his design in going to Byzantion? It has been assumed that he went there to commit the acts of piracy to which Herodotus is supposed to refer. But is it certain that this is the only interpretation which can be put upon Herodotus’ language? Even if it is, is it possible to credit such a story?

Were the Mytilenians in the slightest degree likely to allow their ships to be used for the mere purpose of plundering their allies, for to them a large number of the vessels engaged in the Pontus trade must have belonged? Was it for this that Histiæus had come down to the coast?

But Herodotus’ language is inconsistent with this interpretation of Histiæus’ acts. He is described as treating the passing vessels in different ways, according as they did or did not “obey” him. No explanation is given of what this means, but it does not seem possible to interpret it as a reference to piracy.

Was he bringing pressure to bear on the Greek cities of the Asian coast,—such as, for instance, Ephesus,—which were beginning to waver in their determination, by interfering with their trade at an important point? The Mytilenians might have supported him in this. They might, too, have supported him in a design to make the revolt more active in these parts, for it is a noteworthy fact that Byzantion is not recorded to have taken any active part in it. Was Byzantion wavering? Did it require watching? Its loss would have been a serious blow, for it would have meant the loss of the command of that route on which the insurgents must have been peculiarly dependent for food supplies, amid the destruction, stress, and turmoil of the war.

H. vi. 6.

At the time of Histiæus’ departure, the Ionians were living in expectation of the renewal of the attack upon them. By the autumn of 495, reinforcements from the east must have begun to arrive at Sardes. But the attack does not seem to follow in that year, in so far as any calculation can be made from the known date of the subsequent fall of Miletus.38 It appears to have been in the early spring of 494 that the Persians collected all their available troops for an attack on Miletus, “considering the other cities to be of less account.” So much for the Greek cities. But what of Caria? THE FATE OF CARIA? That land practically disappears from the story of the revolt, after dealing Persia the severest blow she suffered during all the years of it.

H. vi. 25.

Herodotus does not tell the tale of its reduction. All that he says is that, “after the fall of Miletus [in 494], the Persians immediately got possession of Caria, some of the cities surrendering voluntarily, others being brought to submission by force.”

But the absence of any record of Carian participation in the revolt during the long period intervening between the Persian defeat near Pedasos and the fall of Miletus, suggests the suspicion that these “voluntary surrenders” are not in all cases attributable to the time following the fall of that city.

H. vi. 20.

The people of that very town Pedasos are, in the settlement of affairs made after the capture of Miletus, granted by the Persians a portion of the late Milesian territory. It would seem as if Caria, partially, at any rate, made terms with her old masters; as if Artaphernes made a successful trial of diplomacy in the critical time which succeeded the great defeat, and detached Caria from the cause of the insurgents by offering her a share in the spoils of her allies. This hypothesis explains, at any rate, two features in the history of this time which would otherwise be inexplicable, namely, the apparent non-participation of Caria in the years following the Persian defeat, and the unexpected grant made by the Persians to a Carian city.

Whatever may be the truth with regard to Caria, it is plain that she was a negligible quantity at the time when the great attack on Miletus was planned.

The attack was to be of a twofold character, by sea as well as land. The naval forces of Persia had already suffered two severe defeats in the course of the war. On these two occasions the Phœnicians had proved inferior to the Ionians on the sea. H. vi. 6. But the fleet in the present instance was drawn not merely from Phœnicia, but also from Cilicia and Egypt, and even from that Cyprus which, but two short years before, had fought as an ally of the Ionians. Both sides regarded this great effort as the crisis of the struggle.