Ionian Revolt - Start of The Ionian Revolt (499 BC)

Start of The Ionian Revolt (499 BC)

With the failure of his attempt to conquer Naxos, Aristagoras found himself in dire straits; he was unable to repay Artaphernes, and had, moreover, alienated himself from the Persian royal family. He fully expected to be stripped of his position by Artaphernes. In a desperate attempt to save himself, Aristagoras chose to incite his own subjects, the Milesians, to revolt against their Persian masters, thereby beginning the Ionian Revolt.

In autumn 499 BC, Aristagoras held a meeting with the members of his faction in Miletus. He declared that in his opinion the Milesians should revolt, to which all but the historian Hecataeus agreed. At the same time, a messenger sent by Histiaeus arrived in Miletus, imploring Aristagoras to rebel against Darius. Herodotus suggests that this was because Histiaeus was desperate to return to Ionia, and thought he would be sent to Ionia if there was a rebellion. Aristagoras therefore openly declared his revolt against Darius, abdicated from his role as tyrant, and declared Miletus to be a democracy. Herodotus has no doubt that this was only a pretence on Aristagoras's part of giving up power. Rather it was designed to make the Milesians enthusiastically join the rebellion. The army that had been sent to Naxos was still assembled at Myus and included contingents from other Greek cities of Asia Minor (i.e. Aeolia and Doris) as well as men from Mytilene, Mylasa, Temera and Cyme. Aristagoras sent men to capture all the Greek tyrants present in the army and handed them over to their respective cities in order to gain the cooperation of those cities. Some of the tyrants were executed by their cities, but most were simply banished. It has also been suggested (Herodotus does not explicitly say so) that Aristagoras incited the whole army to join his revolt, and also took possession of the ships that the Persians had supplied. If the latter is true, it may explain the length of time it took for the Persians to launch a naval assault on Ionia, since they would have needed to build a new fleet.

Although Herodotus presents the revolt as a consequence of Aristagoras and Histiaeus's personal motives, it is clear that Ionia must have been ripe for rebellion anyway. The primary grievance was the tyrants installed by the Persians. While Greek states had in the past often been ruled by tyrants, this was a form of government on the decline. Moreover, past tyrants had tended (and needed) to be strong and able leaders, whereas the rulers appointed by the Persians were simply the representatives of the Persians. Backed by Persian military might, these tyrants did not need the support of the population, and could thus rule absolutely. Aristagoras's actions have thus been likened to tossing a flame into a kindling box; they incited rebellion across Ionia, and tyrannies were everywhere abolished, and democracies established in their place.

Aristagoras had brought all of Hellenic Asia Minor into revolt, but evidently realised that the Greeks would need other allies in order to successfully fight the Persians. In the winter of 499 BC, he first sailed to Sparta, the pre-eminent Greek state in matters of war. However, despite Aristagoras's entreaties, the Spartan king Cleomenes I turned down the offer to lead the Greeks against the Persians. Aristagoras therefore turned instead to Athens.

Athens had recently become a democracy, overthrowing its own tyrant Hippias. In their fight to establish the democracy, the Athenians had asked the Persians for aid (which was not in the end needed), in return for submitting to Persian overlordship. Some years later, Hippias had attempted to regain power in Athens, assisted by the Spartans. This attempt failed and Hippias fled to Artaphernes, and tried to persuade him to subjugate Athens. The Athenians dispatched ambassadors to Artaphernes to dissuade him from taking action, but Artaphernes merely instructed the Athenians to take Hippias back as tyrant. Needless to say, the Athenians had baulked at this, and resolved instead to be openly at war with Persia. Since they were already an enemy of Persia, Athens was already in a position to support the Ionian cities in their revolt. The fact that the Ionian democracies were inspired by the example of the Athenian democracy no doubt helped persuade the Athenians to support the Ionian Revolt, especially since the cities of Ionia were (supposedly) originally Athenian colonies.

Aristagoras was also successful in persuading the city of Eretria to send assistance to the Ionians for reasons that are not completely clear. Possibly commercial reasons were a factor; Eretria was a mercantile city, whose trade was threatened by Persian dominance of the Aegean. Herodotus suggests that the Eretrians supported the revolt in order to repay the support the Milesians had given Eretria some time previously, possibly referring to the Lelantine War.