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 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:⁠—

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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

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:⁠—