Ionian Revolt

“ Herodotus, as will be shown in dealing with his account of the Ionian revolt, is largely responsible for the mistaken impression of the nature of this people which has been handed down to after-time. His whole view of the Ionian Greek was coloured by the belief that he was originally responsible for all the trouble which fell upon European Hellas in the years succeeding the revolt ”

“ The city seems to have been more than once under tyrannical rule in the early Ionian period; and it fell thereafter first to Croesus of Lydia, and then to Cyrus, the Persian, and when the Ionian revolt against Persia broke out in the year 500 B.C. under the lead of Miletus, the city remained submissive to Persian rule. When Xerxes returned from the march against Greece, he honoured the temple of Artemis, although he sacked other Ionian shrines, and even left his children behind at Ephesus for safety’s sake. ”

“ The immediate circumstances which led to the Ionian Revolt belong to Greek rather than to Persian history, and have been so fully treated of by the historians of the Hellenic race that a knowledge of them may be assumed as already possessed by the reader. What is chiefly remarkable about them is, that they are so purely private and personal. ”

“ Hippias. Subsequently he took an important part in suppressing the Ionian revolt (see Ionia, Aristagoras, Histiaeus) , and after the war compelled the cities to make agreements by which all differences were to be settled by reference. ”

“ Like the Lydians, the Persians ruled the Greek colonies with a degree of moderation, and permitted them to retain their own form of government by paying tribute; yet the Greeks seized every opportunity to deliver themselves from this species of thraldom, and in 502 B.C. an insurrection broke out in one of the Ionian states, which soon assumed a formidable character. Before the Persians could collect sufficient forces to quell the revolt, the Ionians sought the aid of their Grecian countrymen, making application first to Sparta, but in vain, and then to Athens and the islands of the Ægean Sea. ”

“ The revolt was now in full swing, and though the attack on Sardis had failed, the Ionian fleet was as yet untouched. Some time was required by the Persians to bring ships from Phoenicia capable of contending with the rebel fleet, which accordingly coasted along as far as Byzantium, successfully persuading the towns to join the revolt, and then returned southwards as far as Caria and Cyprus. ”

“ Their presence fifty years later, at the time of the revolt, might have given the Ionian resistance that “stiffening” which it seems to have lacked; indeed, a member of the remnant they left behind them, that dare-devil old pirate Dionysius, is the one prominent person on the Greek side in that distressful time whom later historians consented to praise. One by one the other Ionian and Æolian cities fell into Persian power. There does not appear to have been any real combined resistance. Nature had made them units without unity. The islanders of Samos alone escaped subjection. ”

“ They sailed to the Hellespont, and reduced Byzantium, with the neighbouring cities. Their forces were joined by the Cyprians, aroused against the Persian yoke by Onesilus, a bold usurper, who had dethroned his brother, the prince of Salamis, in Cyprus; and the conflagration of Sardis dazzling the Carians, hitherto lukewarm, united to the Ionian cause the bulk of that hardy population. The revolt now assumed a menacing and formidable aspect. Informed of these events, Darius summoned Histiaeus: “The man,” said he, “whom you appointed to the government of Miletus has rebelled against me. ”

“ Other Greek cities on the coast took part in the revolt, including the island of Cyprus. The revolt now assumed a serious character. The Persians rallied their allies, among whom were the Phœnicians. An armament of Persians and Phœnicians sailed against Cyprus, and a victory on the land gave the Persians the control of the island. A large army of Persians and their allies collected at Sardis, and, under different divisions reconquered all their principal Ionian cities, except Miletus; but the Ionian fleet kept its ascendency at sea. ”

“ In the swiftest of the Athenian vessels Themistocles therefore repaired to a watering-place on the coast, and engraved upon the rocks these words, which were read by the Ionians the next day.
"Men of Ionia, in fighting against your ancestors, and assisting to enslave Greece, you act unworthily. Come over to us; or if that may not be, at least retire from the contest, and prevail on the Carians to do the same. If yet neither secession nor revolt be practicable, at least when we come to action exert not yourselves against us. ”

“ In the first, the Athenians had aided their countrymen in Asia Minor in a fruitless attempt to recover their independence. This the Persian government considered as aiding and abetting a rebellion. In the second, the Persians under Datis, one of Darius's generals, had undertaken a grand invasion of Greece, and, after landing in the neighborhood of Athens, were beaten, with immense slaughter, at the great battle of Marathon, near that city. The former of these wars is known in history as the Ionian rebellion; the latter as the first Persian invasion of Greece. ”

“ It was in a sense the completion of the work done in the suppression of the revolt, and a precaution against the recurrence of such an outbreak. Not merely must the European Greeks be taught the danger of interfering in the affairs of the empire, but the subjugation of the interfering states must show the Ionians that in future they could not expect help from their free kinsmen beyond the seas. ”

“ And, of all the Greeks, the Athenians exhibited these national characteristics in the strongest degree. This spirit of activity and daring, joined to a generous sympathy for the fate of their fellow-Greeks in Asia, had led them to join in the last Ionian war; and now, mingling with their abhorrence of the usurping family of their own citizens, which for a period had forcibly seized on and exercised despotic power at Athens, it nerved them to defy the wrath of King Darius, and to refuse to receive back at his bidding the tyrant whom they had some years before driven from their land. ”

“ The sympathy of the Ionians for Orthodox Russia was natural, especially as many Greeks from the Turkish provinces had settled in the islands without having forgotten their homes on the mainland. They took part in the sieges of Patras and Koron, while after the base desertion of the Greeks by the Russians the islands became the refuge of many defeated insurgents. These refugees were, however, delivered up by the Venetians to the Turks, and nothing but a vigorous Russian protest saved from punishment two Ionian nobles who had taken up arms on her side. ”

“ As for traitors, he was sure, that whatever treachery might lurk among some of the higher-born and wealthier Athenians, the rank and file whom he commanded were ready to do their utmost in his and their own cause. With regard to future attacks from Asia, he might reasonably hope that one victory would inspirit all Greece to combine against common foe; and that the latent seeds of revolt and disunion in the Persian empire would soon burst forth and paralyse its energies, so as to leave Greek independence secure. ”

“ If Darius had ever entertained doubts as to the necessity for occupying European Greece to ensure the preservation of peace in her Asiatic sister-country, the revolt of Ionia must have completely dissipated them. It was a question whether the cities which had so obstinately defied him for six long years, would ever resign themselves to servitude as long as they saw the peoples of their race maintaining their independence on the opposite shores of the Ægean, and while the misdeeds of which the contingents of Eretria and Athens had been guilty during the rebellion remained unpunished. ”

“ Meanwhile the Greeks had been doing nothing for themselves. But a new day was now dawning. After more than three centuries of humiliation and oppression, once again Hellas was beginning to realise her national existence. It has often been shown in history that revolutions do not occur when the people who revolt are suffering most severely from oppression. In those dark and dismal days the power of tyranny is too great to allow of any hope of successful resistance, and the misery of its victims simply benumbs their minds and paralyses their energies. ”

“ It is worth while to consider the probable effect upon the acute and critical Greek mind of the conflict of ideas, social, political, and theological, which arose out of the conditions of life in the Asiatic colonies. The Ionian polities had passed through the whole gamut of social and political changes, from patriarchal and occasionally oppressive kingship to rowdy and still more burdensome mobship—no doubt with infinitely eloquent and copious argumentation, on both sides, at every stage of their progress towards that arbitrament of force which settles most political questions. ”

“ The Ionian cities, called "allies" of Athens, were subjects in reality, and held in subjection by tyrannical measures which made the yoke odious, as is plainly explained by Xenophon, who says: "Some person might say, that it is a great support to the Athenians that their allies should be in a condition to contribute money to them. ”

“ The disarmed Samians, as soon as the fortunes of the battle became apparent, gave all the assistance they could render to the Greeks; the other Ionians seized the same opportunity to revolt and turn their arms against their allies. In the mountain defiles the Milesians intercepted their own fugitive allies, consigning them to the Grecian sword, and active beyond the rest in their slaughter. So relentless and so faithless are men, compelled to servitude, when the occasion summons them to be free. ”

“ When Dionysius saw the Ionians assembled at Ladê, willing, eager, full of talk and mutual encouragement, but untrained and taking no thought of discipline, or nautical practice, or coöperation in the hour of battle,—he saw the risk which they ran for want of these precautions, and strenuously remonstrated with them: “Our fate hangs on the razor’s edge, men of Ionia: either to be freemen or slaves,—and slaves too, caught after running away. Set yourself at once to work and duty,—you will then have trouble indeed at first, with certain victory and freedom afterwards. ”

“ From this time they passed under the dominion of the successive Macedonian rulers of Asia, but continued, with the exception of Miletus (q.v.) , to enjoy great prosperity both under these Greek dynasties and after they became part of the Roman province of Asia.
Ionia has laid the world under its debt not only by giving birth to a long roll of distinguished men of letters and science (see Ionian School of Philosophy) , but by originating the distinct school of art which prepared the way for the brilliant artistic development of Athens in the 5th century. ”

“ The Ionian cities thus conquered consisted of twelve states—three in Caria, seven in Lydia, and two islands. [1] Of these the most populous and powerful were Ephesus and Miletus, and the latter had made such a strenuous resistance to Croesus and his predecessors that it obtained specially favourable terms upon its submission. Though never politically powerful, the Ionians of Asia had been an adventurous, busy, and thriving mercantile people. ”

“ You all know how the leading power gradually encroached upon the liberties of the allies, who really became subjects paying tribute; and when they attempted reassertion of their former independence, it was treated by Athens as revolt, and crushed with military and naval force. ”

“ Now the Ionian cities, when they saw their independence threatened, ought to have combined together and made a joint stand against their enemies, but each separate city so prized its independence and so feared anything that might even seem to lessen it, that they stood alone, and when Croesus, being at peace with the Medes, determined to get possession of these Ionian cities, he was able to attack them one by one and to overpower them. ”

“ The Athenians, however, neglected to take possession of Amphipolis, being engaged in a struggle to regain the island of Eubœa, then under the dominion of Thebes. It also happened that a revolt of a large number of the islands of the Ægean, which belonged to the confederacy of which Athens was chief, took place—Lesbos, Chios, Samos, Cos, and Rhodes, including Byzantium. This [pg 358] revolt is called the social war, caused by the selfishness of Athens in acting more for her own interest than that of her allies, and neglecting to pay the mercenaries in her service. ”

“ It was terminated by the capture of Miletus, the capital of the Ionian Confederacy, in 495 B.C. The inhabitants of this city who escaped the sword were carried into captivity by the conquerors, and the subjugation of Ionia was complete.
The principal achievement of the allied Grecians during this war was the burning of Sardis, the capital of the old Lydian monarchy. When Darius was informed of it he burst into a paroxysm of rage, directing his wrath chiefly against the Athenians and Euboeans who had dared to invade his dominions. "The Athenians!" he exclaimed, "who are they?" ”

“ Under this state of circumstances, the Chian oligarchy had themselves conspired with Sparta, to trick and constrain their Demos by surprise into revolt, through the aid of five Peloponnesian ships. The like would have happened at Samos, had the people remained quiet. But they profited by the recent warning, forestalled the designs of their oligarchy, and rose in insurrection, with the help of three Athenian triremes which then chanced to be in the port. The oligarchy were completely defeated, but not without a violent and bloody struggle ”