The First Clash

by Jim Lacey

  Not ready to give up, Aristagoras followed Cleomenes to his home and offered him the astronomical bribe of fifty talents to lead a Spartan army to Ionia. It was at this point that Cleomenes’ daughter, the irrepressible Gorgo, told Cleomenes, “Father, your guest is going to corrupt you if you do not send him away immediately and stay away from him.”8 Pleased with his daughter’s advice, Cleomenes left the room, and Aristagoras left Sparta. Gorgo is one of the few Greek women Herodotus mentions by name, and she is always described in flattering terms. She was later to become famous as the wife of King Leonidas, who led the Spartan three hundred in their last stand at the pass of Thermopylae. Plutarch also credits her with replying to the question “Why are you Spartan women the only ones who can rule your men?” with, “Because we are the only ones who give birth to men.”

  Aristagoras moved on to Athens. He arrived at an opportune time, as a Persian ultimatum had just reached the city. As will be remembered, when the former tyrant Hippias had left Sparta, after the failure of Cleomenes’ second attempt to build a coalition to attack Athens, he went to the court of Artaphrenes at Sardis and enlisted the aid of the satrap. When envoys from Athens reached Sardis to convince Artaphrenes to ignore Hippias’s entreaties, they were instead told that if they wanted to remain secure from Persian arms, they would have to accept Hippias, their former tyrant, back.9 It was at this juncture that Aristagoras arrived and was permitted to speak to the assembly of Athenian citizens. Where he had failed with Cleomenes, he succeeded with a mob already angered by Persian threats. The Athenians voted to send twenty triremes and a small force of hoplites to Miletus, which, given the small size of the Athenian fleet at this time, was not an insignificant force.

  In the spring of 498 BC, the twenty Athenian ships, joined by five triremes from Eretria, arrived in Miletus. Herodotus states that the Eretrians had sent the five ships unbidden to repay a debt they owed the Milesians, who had assisted the Eretrians in a war against Chalcis.10 With this reinforcement, the Ionians determined to undertake the first offensive action of the war. After boarding their army on the fleet that had not yet disbanded following the attack on Naxos, they sailed north to Ephesus. From there they marched inland to Sardis, which they took without difficulty, except for the Acropolis, which Artaphrenes held with a large Persian force. Most of the houses in Sardis were constructed of reeds, and when one caught fire, by accident or design, the city went up in one huge conflagration. Almost immediately after the fire began, the Ionian army was set upon by Lydian and Persian forces “residing nearby” and had to make a fighting retreat to Mount Tmolus. Using the cover of night, they stole back to their ships.

  Many historians have wondered how the Persians could have been caught so totally by surprise. The revolt was now many months old. What had the Persians been doing? In a much later history, Plutarch quotes an explanation from an otherwise unknown Greek writer, Lysanias of Mallus, that the reason the Persian army was not available to defend Sardis was that it was attacking the heart of the rebellion, Miletus.11 Despite the unreliability of this evidence, most have accepted this version of events. Nevertheless, it is unconvincing. It is likely that Artaphrenes, in an attempt to crush the revolt in its infancy, would have sent all the forces at his disposal in a rapid assault on the rebel headquarters at Miletus. This would have been a hastily organized expedition that counted on overwhelming the rebels for success. Faced with the veterans of Naxos manning the walls, they would not have lingered long, as they would not have brought much in the way of supplies and were not equipped for a siege. They were also in all likelihood outnumbered and would not have been willing to stand in the open for a decisive fight. Moreover, if that army was still at Miletus when the Athenians arrived, it strains credulity to believe the rebel army would have sailed off to attack Sardis and hope that their own city would not fall while they were away. Knowing what we know about Greek methods of warfare and its hoplite tradition, if the Athenians arrived to find their enemy waiting to engage them, they would have marched out with the Milesians to offer immediate battle. At the time, it was the rare Greek force that could resist the call to decisive engagement.

  So where was the Persian army when Sardis was burned? The answer must be that it was on hand. It is unlikely that the Greek army was forced to retreat to Mount Tmolus and had to sneak away in the night out of fear of some irate locals.12 Furthermore, Darius states that the retreating Greeks were closely pursued by the Persians, who caught up with them at Ephesus. Here the Greeks turned to fight and suffered a sharp defeat. Herodotus states, “Many of them were slaughtered by the Persians.… Those who escaped from the battle dispersed as each one fled to his own city.” In other words, the Greeks were routed. Even the Athenians sailed for home and refused any and all entreaties for further participation in the conflict.13 The combined Athenian and Ionian force may have stolen a march on the Persians, who were caught napping. However, they were ready to react ferociously.14

  Informed that an Athenian force had participated in the burning of one of his capital cities, Darius inquired about who they were. After being told, he

  took a bow, set the arrow on its string, and shot the arrow towards the heavens. As it flew high into the air, he said, “Zeus, let it be granted to me to punish the Athenians.” After saying this, he appointed one of his attendants to repeat to him three times whenever his dinner was served: “My lord, remember the Athenians.”15

  Athens and Eretria may have retreated from Asia, not to return for a considerable period of time, but the burning of Sardis inflamed the imagination of the occupied lands in the Western Empire. The warlike Carians joined the revolt, along with Byzantium and many of the cities of the Hellespont. Moreover, Onesilos, the brother of one of the local tyrants in Cyprus, carried all of that island into revolt, with the exception of Amathus (a mostly Phoenician city), which he placed under siege.16 The Persians reacted rapidly to the threat of losing Cyprus, which would have been a staggering strategic loss, as the island commanded the passages from Phoenicia and Ionia.

  By now, the Persians, understanding the dimensions of the revolt and the immensity of the threat, had shaken off their lethargy. The full resources of the empire were mobilizing and were now aimed at Cyprus. Even as Onesilos prosecuted the siege of Amathus, word arrived that a Phoenician fleet and the Persian army were massing in Cilicia. Sensing their danger, the Cypriot rebels sent for help to the Ionians, who immediately dispatched their fleet to the island’s assistance.

  It was to no avail. While the Ionians were in harbor at Salamis (modern Famagusta), the Persians landed on the island’s north shore and marched overland to Salamis. Simultaneously, the Phoenician fleet rounded the Keys of Cyprus and came on in full battle array. At sea, the Ionians had the better of the fighting, but Herodotus gives no details. As the Phoenician fleet does not return to the war for three years, one can assume that it suffered a crippling blow. But on land things did not go well for the rebels. Onesilos drew up his forces somewhere on the central plain of that island, and the Cypriots likely had numbers on their side. However, they were facing a professional military force, fighting with the desperation of stranded men who knew defeat meant certain death for them all. After a desperate fight in which the rebels managed to kill the Persian commander, treachery resolved the issue. One of the local tyrants and his army deserted the battlefield, and the Cypriot war chariots followed their example. A general rout ensued, and soon thereafter the Cypriot cities each fell in short order. Only Soloi managed to hold out for five months before the Persians undermined its walls and sacked the city. The Ionian fleet, unable to influence events on land, had previously sailed for home.

  Even as the Persians mobilized forces to retake Cyprus, other levies were called forth throughout the empire. It was now 496 BC, and these reinforcements were streaming into the theater of war. With these substantial new forces, Artaphrenes devised a strategy that would strip the Ionians of their recent allies, the Carians and the cities of the Hellespont. Three
Persian generals, Daurises (son-in-law of Darius), Hymees (reputedly the commander who pushed the Greeks out of Sardis and defeated them at Ephesus), and Otanes (the general who replaced Megabazos in Thrace ten years before), were entrusted to undertake new operations.

  The year’s campaign began with Daurises leading an army into the Hellespont, where he met less than inspiring resistance. Five cities—Dardanos, Abydos, Perkote, Lampsacus, and Paisos—fell in as many days. But before he could finish his work in the region, Daurises received orders to march his army south to put down the Carian revolt. As he marched away, Hymees, who was operating farther to the east, had seized Kios, a key city on the south shore of the Sea of Marmara (the Propontis to Herodotus), and then marched his army into the Hellespont to subjugate the cities still in rebellion.17

  Beating the Greeks was proving easy for Persia’s professional warriors. However, the Carians were another matter, for they were the “wild geese” of their time. As G. B. Grundy states, “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 the strange fever which has at different periods driven members of some of the world’s most virile peoples to seek their livelihood in quarrels not their own.”18 This was the type of man Daurises was now marching on, and he encountered their army on the banks of Marsyas River. Herodotus reports that the battle was long and fierce, but the Persians eventually dealt the Carian force a shattering defeat, leaving ten thousand of their men dead on the field along with two thousand Persians.

  The Carians reportedly retreated in despair, but after receiving reinforcements from nearby Miletus, they turned once again to face the Persians. This time, according to Herodotus, they suffered an even worse defeat, with the Milesians suffering by far the greatest loss. Herodotus’s assessment of the results of these two battles is called into question by what happened next. The Persians, continuing their march toward the Carian cities, were caught by the regrouped Carian army in a night ambush. As Herodotus relates, “They stumbled into a trap and perished … so those Persians died.”19 Among the dead were many top Persian commanders, including Daurises. It was probably the worst defeat a Persian army had ever suffered in the field, leaving one to question how the Carians, having been bested in two fights to the extent Herodotus reports, could have inflicted so terrible a defeat. It is therefore not unreasonable to surmise that the Carians were defeated in two battles, but not as decisively as Herodotus states. Moreover, in the second battle the bulk of the casualties was probably sustained by the Milesians, leaving the Carians relatively undamaged. As both of these battles were hard contests, the Persians too must have suffered greatly. Herodotus does not provide a chronology for these events, but it is likely that a mauled Persian army would have taken some time to recover, which made it possible for the Carians to regroup and prepare a devastating welcome when the Persians once again continued their march.

  Simultaneously with the operations conducted in Caria, Artaphrenes himself was with Otanes when his army struck due west to the Aegean. They soon captured the Ionian city of Cyme, which apparently did not offer serious resistance. This bold stroke cut Ionia in half. From this point, overland communications between the northern and southern Ionian cities became near impossible. For Aristagoras, the situation must have seemed desperate. All or most of the cities of the Hellespont and the Bosporus had returned to the Persian fold, and as Daurises’ army had not yet been lost, matters did not look good in Caria, either. Moreover, horrible tales from the survivors of the Milesian force sent to Caria’s aid must have greatly lowered the morale of the rebellion’s leading city. With the rebellion foundering, Herodotus has Aristagoras play the coward and run off to Myrkinos, where he was killed in a battle with the Thracians. Modern historians, though, have been kinder to Aristagoras’s reputation, claiming he probably went to Myrkinos in hopes of creating another strong-point for the rebellion, one well placed to supply food and silver to Ionia.

  It was at this time that Histiaios (of Danube bridge fame) arrived in Sardis, after finally convincing Darius to send him to Ionia to negotiate a peace. In an audience with the satrap, Artaphrenes, he stated his astonishment that the Ionians would ever think of revolting against Persia’s beneficial rule. Artaphrenes, unconvinced of Histiaios’s sincerity, replied, “Histiaios, you stitched up the show and Aristagoras put it on.”20 If Artaphrenes had any evidence that this was the case, his close relationship with Darius would have availed Histiaios nothing. The Greek would have met his end then and there. Still, the accusation was alarming enough for Histiaios to flee the city for the coast. Upon arriving at Chios, he convinced the leaders, who were suspicious of his motives and feared he was an agent of the Persians, that he had supported the rebellion from the beginning.

  Once ensconced in Chios, he attempted to correspond with some Persians in Sardis he believed were in favor of a negotiated settlement or willing to oppose Artaphrenes. However, his messenger was a Persian spy who delivered all of his letters to Artaphrenes, who directed them to be delivered and the replies returned to him. In short order, Artaphrenes had an accurate list of those ready to betray him and ordered a series of gruesome executions. This purge coupled with the destruction of one of their major field armies in Caria likely accounts for the lack of Persian military activity in 495 BC. The break in military operations does not, however, mean the Persians were inactive. Falling back on proven methods of dealing with an opponent who proved difficult to defeat in the field, the Persians bought off the exhausted Carians, who returned their loyalty to Persia and were thus allowed to seize and retain substantial holdings of their former ally Miletus. Even worse for the Ionian cause, Persia redoubled its mobilization efforts, rebuilt its field army, and assembled a great fleet in Phoenicia.

  Thwarted in his attempts to make trouble in Sardis, Histiaios asked the Chians to support his return to Miletus. But the Milesians, just recently freed of the overbearing Aristagoras, were not willing to accept their former tyrant and closed their gates to him. When he tried to force them during the night, he was wounded in the scuffle. He then made his way back to Chios, but after finding himself unwelcome there, too, he went to Lesbos, which he convinced of his fidelity to the rebel cause. He was given eight triremes to command, but instead of taking these ships to the aid of the Ionian cities, about to face the greatest crisis of the war, he sailed toward Byzantium and became a pirate, doing much harm to the Ionian cause.21

  Later, after the Ionians were defeated, the Persians captured Histiaios while he was leading a small force scavenging for food. He was brought before Artaphrenes, who, taking no chances that the Greek would convince Darius to spare him, had him immediately impaled.

  While Histiaios caused what trouble he could in the Sea of Marmara, both Ionia and Persia spent 495 BC preparing for the climactic battle. Only eight Ionian cities led by Miletus and a few Aegean islands still fought on. Against them were ranged the combined fleets of the Levant, Egypt, Cilicia, and Cyprus: six hundred ships in all.22 From Sardis marched the full strength of the Persian army, which had been mustering there in its multitudes for a year. No longer distracted by operations in the Hellespont or Caria, Artaphrenes concentrated his full might on his primary target—Miletus.

  Through a supreme effort, the Greeks assembled the greatest fleet they had yet put to sea. Herodotus presents an exact tally of the contributions each of the parties made by those cities still carrying on the fight:

  Miletus 80 ships

  Priene 12 ships

  Myous 3 ships

  Teos 17 ships

  Chios 100 ships

  Erythrai 8 ships

  Phocaea 3 ships

  Lesbos 70 ships

  Samos 60 ships

  * * *

  Total 353 ships

  The small number of ships from some of the Ionian cities was probably the result of having to keep a large number of their men at home to guard each city’s wal
ls. Still, the Milesians, who were the most immediately threatened by the Persian army, knew that the decisive battle would occur at sea and managed to spare enough men from the walls to man eighty ships. With the Carians out of the fight, the Greeks did not attempt to place an army in the field, and each city saw to its own defense. All of their hopes therefore rested on the fleet, which made camp at the island of Lade (off the coast of Miletus) and waited.

  The Persians came, but dealing with the Carians had taught them a lesson that would pay dividends for another two centuries—there were always a significant number of Greeks whom they could buy off. Fearful of the large Greek fleet that had decisively defeated them in their last encounter at Cyprus, the Persian force did not strike immediately. Rather, they had the deposed Ionian tyrants make contact with the forces of their respective cities and promise lenient terms if they were to desert the rebel cause. This carrot was offered alongside the threat of a gruesome stick in the event they fought on: “We shall lead you into captivity as slaves, and we shall turn your sons into eunuchs and drag your virgin daughters away to Bactria and give over your lands to others.”

  While the Persians waited for their bribes and threats to do their insidious work, they kept a close eye on the Greek fleet as it practiced its maneuvers. At first, they must have been impressed as the Greeks toiled long hours every day, but shortly the training regimen let up. If we are to believe Herodotus, the Greek crews, men who spent their lives at hard toil, wearied of practice and refused to train. They further claimed that it was wrong for them to follow the orders of the appointed commander, Dionysius of Phocaea, when he had brought only three ships to join them in the coming battle.

  What are we to make of this? It is unlikely that the Ionians simply got tired of drilling, as Herodotus claims. To judge what was going on, one must look at matters from their viewpoint. After half a decade of war, they were further away from winning independence than ever. Now, despite having inflicted tremendous blows on the enemy’s armies and fleets, the Persians had not become disheartened and given up the fight. Instead, they had patiently rebuilt their forces and come on stronger than ever. The Greeks were making one more supreme effort in the knowledge that defeat meant ruin, but with equal certainty that victory meant they would probably confront an even stronger Persian force the following year. Moreover, by this time the Persian army was probably besieging Miletus and controlled the shores. The task of feeding over fifty thousand unanticipated sailors would have been difficult under any circumstances, but with the Persians at the city walls it was impossible.23 It would not have been long before the ships’ crews were on short rations, which would account for their dissatisfaction with their appointed leaders. Moreover, the fleet remained crowded together in what must have been an unsanitary mass of humanity and a superb disease incubator. Under such circumstances, dissension was inevitable. Dispirited, dealing with gnawing hunger, and with sickness spreading, many began looking on the Persian offer with greater favor.