Somewhere in the middle of the Aegean Sea, a man aboard a trireme is heading to Sparta.
He has a crucial task, to convince the King of Sparta to aid his compatriots who are about
to revolt against the largest Empire of the ancient world.
Just before Aristagoras embarked to his journey in mainland Greece, he had decided to stage
a wholesale rebellion against the Persian empire, one of his colleges Iatragoras was
send to capture the subordinate to the Persian king Greek tyrants who had campaigned against
Naxos and after the expeditions failure they had retreated to the city of Myus.
Iatragoras was remarkably successful and managed to capture them all, back at Miletus(2) Aristagoras
with his accomplishes had formulated an elaborate plan to deconstruct and loosen the grip of
the Persians on Ionia, in a shrewd political move he handed over to their respective communities
the Tyrants who were appointed by the Persians and he declared that Tyranny was to be abolished
and they were now under a new regime of equality, it seems that this kind of phrasing is an
all-time favourite of any political adventurist and there is reason to doubt the validity
of his declaration, but in any case he ordered the cities to appoint a general , boarded
a ship and left Miletus for Sparta, Sparta was perceived by the Greek world as being
the strongest of the city states even back then, when Aristagoras reached the homeland
of the famous hoplites(3) he was brought before the king, during that time the king of Sparta
was a man named Kleomenes, well Aristagoras staged a spectacular show for the king of
Sparta, we hear that he brought with him one of the treasures of Miletus a large bronze
map of the “world” or rather the extent of the world that was known to the ancient
Greeks.
After he appealed to the patriotic sentiment of the Spartans reminding them that the Ionians
were enslaved by a foreign power and that they were of the same “blood” with them,
he downplayed the power of the Persian military making them seem as an easy prey and then
presented the king of Sparta with the bronze map,he made a brief explanation of the particular
characteristics of each area that was between Ionia and the Persian capital at Susa and
concluded by saying to Kleomenes,(4) “if you capture Susa only Zeus himself would be
able to compete with you in wealth and gold” Kleomenes requested from Aristagoras to wait
for 3 days in order to give him his final answer.
When the time came Kleomenes asked Aristagoras “how many days march away from the sea is
this trip” Aristagoras blundering massively told the truth to Kleomenes and informed him
that the journey was three months inland.
Kleomenes send him packing refusing to listen to anything else from him.
The Spartans were never the “adventurous” type…
Aristagoras now turned to Athens the next major power of the Hellenic world, he spoke
to the people of Athens and repeated his show with the bronze map, and as Herodotus tells
us it proved easier to deceive 30.000 Athenians than one king(5),.
explanation for the exiled former tyrants who were inciting hostilities against the
The Athenians voted overwhelmingly in favour of sending 20 ships to aid the Ionians, it
may not look like a substantial force but considering the fact that we are talking about
the Athenians before they were a major naval power, that would make them quite committed.
As the admiral of the force the Athenians appointed a man of great repute named Melanthius,
and as a bonus the fleet was accompanied by 5 ships from the Greek city of Eretria, it
seems that the Eretreans were paying off a debt they owed to the miletians who assisted
them in a past war.
Back in Miletus Aristagoras who had embarked from Athens to Ionia earlier, was being busy
trying to wreak havoc to the coastal satrapies of the Persian king
when the fleet arrived Aristagoras had already planned a
march against Sardis the capital of the Lydian satrapy, he didn’t campaign with
the army though and appointed others to lead the assault, namely his own brother Charopinus
and a miletian named Hermophantus . Athenians, Eretrians, and the rest of the
Ionian allies headed towards Ephesus, there they left their ships and marched off inland
towards Sardis we know they were numerous eventhogh we don’t have exact numbers and
in general the expeditions description from our source is more sketchy than I would like
it to be, nonetheless the Ionians reached Sardis and one can imagine that the people
of the city and the Persian authorities were caught completely off guard.
The Greeks quickly overcame any kind or resistance which wasn’t serious and occupied the city,
the citadel could not be captured though, and was held by Artaphernes with a substantial
force of the city’s garrison, but Artaphernes did not attempt to confront the Greeks in
open battle, and barricaded himself high on the citadel.
At that point a fire began to spread throughout the city and since the buildings were mostly
made out of reeds it quickly engulfed almost all of it ,seeing this most of the inhabitants
began gathering beside the Pactolus river which run through the city and it seemed at
least to the greeks that they were attempting to make their last stand there, the accumulating
mass of Lydian and Persian defenders spooked the Ionian assailants and they decided to
retreat through the mountains in a night march.
During the chaos and while the fire was spreading, a temple of the local goddess Cybele was burned,
it would prove to be a perfect pretext for deeds to come…
So the Ionians retreated towards Ephesus, it seems that the escalation of hostilities
frightened more the attackers than the defenders for some reason, the impression that someone
gets from the description is that the retreat was disorderly, and just before the army reached
the city of Ephesus a considerable Persian force from the eastern side of Asia minor
that had been hot on their hills caught up with them, unfortunately there is no detailed
tactical description of what actually happened but it is fair to assume that the Persian
force would have been composed mostly of cavalry since they were fast enough to catch the Ionians
on the march before they even reached their destination.
From the brief description we know that the Ionians were crashed and many renowned men
were slayed including the general of the Eretrean force a man named Evalcides , the
individual contingents that survived fled to their respective cities, the remaining
forces of the Athenians after this defeat didn’t want to have anything to do with
their former allies and departed immediately despite the repeated requests from Aristagoras
who was urging them to stay, probably they realized that they were sold a bill of goods
and that the Persians weren’t the easy prey Aristagoras made them appear to be.
The Ionians though did not despair, on the contrary they doubled down on their war against
the King, probably motivated both by a desire of freedom but also of fear since they were
quite committed now especially after the burning of Sardis.
A fleet was send towards the Hellespont and in a display of relentless energy they
proceeded to capture most of the area including Byzantium and the coastal cities of the region,
then sailed out towards Caria which also gained to their cause . It really seemed that the
greatest part of the eastern coastal Aegean had risen up against Persia, the spirits were
high.
Around the same time the Island of Cyprus decided to rise up against the Persians, and
it was because of a single man with an iron resolve named Oniselus, he was the brother
of the king of the city of Salamis, Gorgus , Oniselus was eager to rebel
against the Persians for quite some time but his brother seems to have been quite a willing
accomplish of the Persian authorities and systematically refused to rise up against
Darius, when Oniselus heard about the Ionian revolt. his resolve became even stronger,
he hatched a plan to remove his brother from power and take over, his plan was really simple,
together with his faction waited for Gorgus to venture outside the walls and when he did
Oniselus with his faction closed him behind the gates of the city and took over, the revolt
in Cyprus spread like fire after that and the whole Island took up arms save the city
of Amathus which Onesilus immediately besieged, the situation now in the western provinces
of the Persian empire looked like it was getting out of control and leaks were appearing everywhere,
the Persians were slow to respond but relentless once they began to mobilize, a large Persian
host gathered in Cilicia which included a multitude of land and naval forces commanded
by a Persian named Artybius.
, Back in Cyprus Onesilus heard of the Persian
preparations and immediately sent heralds to the Ionians to request their assistance
in this dire circumstance, the Ionians after no long deliberation recruited a large armada
of ships and set off towards Cyprus, in a continuation of that remarkable vitality , campaigning
non stop even after a crushing defeat in a pitched battle, bringing over to their cause
half of the Aegean and now heading straight into an uncertain fight against the imperial
navy hundreds of miles away from their main bases.
The two forces reached the Island around the same time, from the north the Persian fleet
which was mainly composed by Phoenicians disembarked the land forces and from the south the
Ionians informed Oniselus that they are going to face the Persian naval forces while Oniselus
was going to face Artybius’s imperial army.
Almost simultaneously land and naval forces mobilized to face each other, the two fleets
collided somewhere near a headland Herodotus calls they keys of Cyprus at the easternmost
edge of the Island, the
specifics of the naval battle that took place are quite sketchy and barely elaborated upon,
but nonetheless we know that the ionians were triumphant and routed the Persian fleet, it
was indeed a glorious victory for the Ionian cause and it was the first time that Greeks
took on a Persian force and managed to defeat it, this would come to reinforce the belief
of the Greeks in their naval prowess, and will be a decisive factor for engagements
in the future.
While the Ionian fleet was victorious against the Phoenician fleet of the Persians, Oniselus
was deploying his forces to face the might of the imperial army of Artybius near the
plain of the city of Salamis…