The Ionian Revolt
The Greek cities of Asia Minor revolted against Persia in 499 BC and lost, and the reprisal brought Persia to Marathon. The Ionian cities had been under Persian rule since Cyrus took Lydia in 546 BC, governed through local tyrants who were installed and supported by the satrap at Sardis. The revolt was begun by one of them. Aristagoras of Miletus had promoted a failed Persian expedition against Naxos, expected to be removed for it, and pre-empted the removal by declaring for democracy and calling the cities out. He went to mainland Greece for help. Sparta refused when told that Susa was three months' march inland; Athens sent twenty ships and Eretria five, which Herodotus calls the beginning of troubles for Greeks and barbarians alike. The allied force marched inland in 498 BC, took the lower town of Sardis and burned it — accidentally, since a fire in a reed-thatched house spread — including the temple of the local goddess. That is the act Darius did not forgive, and the story that he had a servant remind him three times a day to remember the Athenians belongs to it. The Athenians went home, the revolt spread and fragmented, and the Persian fleet destroyed the Ionian one at Lade in 494 BC. Miletus was sacked, its men killed and the rest deported to the Persian Gulf. The punitive expedition against Athens followed in 490 BC. Aristagoras is also the first person recorded using a map in a diplomatic argument. He brought a bronze tablet with the known world engraved on it to Sparta, showed the king the route to Susa, and lost the case when asked how long the journey took.
- Year: 499 BCE
- Category: Military
