Twenty years later, Artaphernes, the man who had struck down Bardiya, could feel well-rewarded for his service. He had been given the stewardship of Sardis, the old capital of Lydia in the west. While it meant dealing the occasional squabble between the Ionian Greek cities, it was as lovely a post as he could have asked for. Sardis, after all, had been the old home of the fabulously wealthy Croesus, and he had lavished his gold upon the city. Even those familiar with mighty Babylon (or the new city Darius was building as a royal capital, Persepolis) could hardly sniff at Sardis. In the center of the city there was an awesome temple to Cybele, a mother goddess who was capable of inspiring such extremes of devotion amongst her followers that they might end up dancing on a mountain side, or writhing in orgies, or (should the festivities be going with a particular swing) hacking off their own testicles.
Beyond the temple, rising in rings like those of Ecbatana, loomed the celebrated walls of Sardis. The largest, and innermost, was so immense that Croesus had believed (erroneously) it to be impregnable. The palace of Croesus was now a brooding stronghold of Persian power. Artaphernes lived like a king.
But he was no king. Darius had come to the throne amidst an inferno of rebellions and uprisings across the empire in the chaos of Bardiya’s revolt, and it had taken him the better part of a decade to fully re-establish his authority over the empire. He had no intention of allowing anyone – brother or not – pretensions of kingship ever again. And so Bardiya was only the “Guardian of the Great King’s Power” – a satrap.
He enforced his will on the fractious Greek cities within his satrapy the only way he could – by using tyrants. He propped up one or another Greek warlord over others, and so made the man dependent on his power. The tyrant, in turn, would keep the city in line and loyal to Persia. It was a sea of miniature Pisistratuses, as it were.
The tyrants were not happy as to the arrangements. They had an unhappily lot. They were often reviled by their own people, utterly dependent on the Great King to prop them up – so they had the choice of ruling as traitors, or being lynched by the mob. Could they ever reassert their independence against the Great King’s power?
In 513, the possibility had become suddenly, tantalizingly real. Darius had rolled in to Sardis with a vast army. He was bound to Thrace, and then north of the Danube – through modern Bulgaria into what is now Romania – to fight and conquer the barbarian tribes there. Since coming to the throne 9 years previously Darius had proclaimed it the mission of Persia to bring all people under the reign of Ahura-Mazda and Truth. To be a slave of the Great King was to be free from the Lie.
Darius had conscripted the tyrants of Ionia for his project, and ordered them to provide ships for his fleet, which would help the army cross the Danube and keep it supplied in the field. This they did.
Now, however, some of the Ionians whispered of treason. Miltiades, the Athenian aristocrat who had been driven out of his home city by Pisistratus, and had conquered the Hellespont and established himself as tyrant there, argued that this was their chance. Should the Ionian fleet abandon the project and sail home, Darius would be trapped on the wrong side of the river, without supplies, in barbarian lands, and with the winter coming on. But reason had prevailed – the tyrants could not betray the man whom they owed their positions and their lives, argued Histaeus, the tyrant of Miletus. The tyrants embraced Histaeus’s view and not Miltiades, decided not to betray Darius, and duly welcomed the Great King upon his return.
That was ten years ago. Now, it was 500, and the specter of revolt came again.
A man by the name of Aristagoras, the tyrant of Miletus, successor to his father Histaeus, in an attempt to improve his standings with Artaphernes in Sardis, was able to convince the Persian on a joint venture to conquer the island of Naxos, midway across the Aegean.
The enterprise had not gone well, however – Aristagoras, the commander of the fleet, had had a falling out with the Persian commander, and the siege had failed. Aristagoras, fearing that if he returned empty handed he would lose his position and his life, embarked on a different course.
The citizens of Miletus had always been notoriously rambunctious. They had followed the recent upheaval and revolt in Athens as closely as all the islands of the Aegean. For years, they had demanded an overthrow to the tyrants, an end to the rule of the barbarian, and the establishment of democracy. Aristagoras, arriving back in his city, took to the streets. He issued a call for revolt, and the establishment of democracy, as well – and the citizens enthusiastically supported him. He brought with him almost the entire fleet of Ionia, the entire Persian naval strength in the waters. The commander of the expedition naturally protested, but was trapped on the island. The citizens fell on him and his soldiers, slaughtering them. Aristagoras dispatched ships to mainland Greece and to Ionia to raise allies, and began planning for an expedition to Sardis to destroy the Persian regional capital and so win Greek freedom.
The Ionian Revolt, whose consequences would shape millennia, had begun.
When the messengers arrived in Athens, they were greeted enthusiastically by the young democracy. The Athenians were fresh from their triumph over the alliance of Thebans, Spartans, and Euboeans, and so were perhaps a bit more reckless than they otherwise would have been. Why shouldn’t Greek cities live freely, as was the natural order of things? Why not establish democracy – friendly, grateful democracies no doubt! – across the Ionian, instead of the rule of the barbarian? Could the effeminate, trouser-wearing Persians really stand against good Greek men? The Athenians, and their colony in Euboea, called Eretria, enthusiastically voted to send aid to Miletus. Sparta refused, wanting to focus on its rivals within the Peloponnese. And so it was that 20 Athenian and Eretrian ships sailed to attack the mightiest empire in the world.
At first, things went well. The allied armies of Athens, Eretria, and the cities of Ionia drove back the Persians into their capital of Sardis. The allies then stormed the city and put it to the torch. However, Artaphernes had managed to flee with most of the garrison to the mighty acropolis, where the citadel of Croesus still stood. Unable to take the citadel, and with Persian reinforcements approaching, the Greeks fell back towards Miletus. Artaphernes pursued, gathering with him the famous Lydian cavalry, still the best in the world. At Ephesus, three days march from Miletus, he caught up to the Greeks and fell upon them. Many Athenians fell. Soured on the entire enterprise by these unexpected casualties, the democracy withdrew, becoming stubbornly isolationist and refusing any more entreaties for aid from the rebels.
Nevertheless, the sparks of revolution, which Artaphernes had been frantically trying to suppress, now flared into open flames following the sack of Sardis. The entire coast of Asia Minor, and the Greek cities on the island of Cyprus to the east, rose up against their Persian masters.
The wrath of the Great King, Darius, was terrible. He gathered an enormous army and put it under the command of his brother, Artaphernes, and called out the navies of Tyre, Sidon, and Egypt, whose 600 ships were twice the number of the Ionians. And, for the next six years, the Ionians were systematically destroyed. Cyprus was the first to be crushed, and afterwards each city on the coast followed. They didn’t stand a chance. The Persian Empire at this time encompassed the land areas of modern Turkey, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan. Darius did not concern himself with only his own rebellious subjects, however. He did not forget who was responsible for the burning of Sardis, one of the greatest cities of his empire. Three times a day, at every meal, he paid a servant to whisper in his ear, “Master, remember the Athenians!” He would.
At last, after six years, the battered, rotting Ionian fleet was harbored at Lade, near Miletus, the final city to be attacked. There, they prepared for one last attempt to stop the Persian fleet in the narrow straits, where their numbers would count for nothing.
It was not to be. The commander of the contingent from Samos, as the Persians approached, ordered his fleet to withdraw – 70 ships. He felt the battle was already lost, and his actions ensured the result. Next the ships of Lesbos, seeing their comrades fleeing, also pulled out of line, another 60 ships gone. The fleet fell apart into squabbling and dissension, and so the Persians rowed to the attack.
The Ionian fleet was annihilated. The Milesians fought to the death. So, too, did 11 ships of Samos which disobeyed the order to withdraw. No quarter was asked or given, and at the end of the day, the Ionian fleet lay at the bottom of the sea or scattered across its face. With its death, so too died the Ionian revolt. Miletus was sacked, its inhabitants slaughtered, or carried off into slavery deep within the Persian Empire. A play on the subject, performed the next year in Athens’ City Dionysa, reduced the entire auditorium to tears.
Now, the eyes of the Great King turned across the sea, to the infant democracy. “Master, remember the Athenians!”
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