Histories

In Book 6, Herodotus continues his account of the Persian suppression of the Ionian revolt, which included the destruction of Miletus, the home city of Aristagoras and Histiaeus, the chief instigators of the rebellion. After the revolt is quashed, Darius launches an invasion of mainland Greece from the north to punish Athens and Eretria for their support of the Ionians. The campaign fails when the Persian fleet is wrecked off the coast near Mount Athos. Two years later, the Persians send a fleet across the Aegean Sea to subdue the Greek islands and attack Athens and Eretria. This invasion culminates in the Athenian defeat of the Persians at Marathon in 490 BCE.

After Aristagoras fled to Thrace, Histiaeus, the tyrant of Miletus, arrived in Sardis. Darius gave him permission to leave Susa in order to suppress the Ionian revolt; in Sardis, however, the Persian governor Artaphernes accused Histiaeus of having incited Aristagoras to rebel. Alarmed, Histiaeus crossed over to Chios that night, where he was taken prisoner by the Chians, who assumed he was involved in a Persian plot against them. Histiaeus convinced the Chians of his hostility towards Darius and told them he had urged Aristagoras to revolt because the Persians were intending to transfer the populations of Ionia and Phoenicia to each other’s lands—a false but effective claim. Histiaeus then sent letters to some Persians in Sardis, which implied they had intimate knowledge of the revolt; his messenger, however, took the letters to Artaphernes, who executed most of the recipients, suspecting them of treason. Histiaeus next attempted to return to Miletus but was rebuffed by the Milesians, who, having tasted freedom, had no interest in returning to tyranny. He made his way to Lesbos, where the islanders gave him eight ships with crews. He then sailed to the Bosphorus where he established a base in Byzantium and began to blockade the maritime traffic coming out of the Black Sea.

Meanwhile, the Milesians were preparing for a heavy Persian attack by land and sea. The Ionian assembly, called to consider the matter, decided to invest all their resources in a naval engagement off the coast of Miletus leaving the Milesians to defend their city on land by themselves. The Ionians assembled a fleet of 353 ships to counter the 600 ships of the Persian navy, which was largely made up of Phoenicians. The Persians were surprised at the size of the Greek fleet, however, and called together the tyrants of the Ionian cities expelled by Aristagoras and instructed them to persuade their countrymen to detach themselves from the Ionian alliance. Promising their citizens clemency in exchange for leaving the resistance and returning home, the exiled tyrants sent letters to their countrymen urging defection and warning of the punishment Darius would exact if they did not comply. The effort failed, however, because each recipient assumed he was the only one to receive such a request, and all refused the invitation to treachery.

The Phocaean commander, Dionysius, took charge of the Ionian fleet and began a rigorous training regimen to prepare the Greeks for the battle. After a week, however, the Ionians balked at the onerous work and refused to participate further. When they saw the collapse of discipline among the Ionians, the Samians withdrew from the Ionian confederacy and sailed for home, just as the battle was about to begin. The Lesbian contingent soon followed, joined by the majority of the Ionian fleet, just as the Phoenician squadron of the Persian navy pressed the attack. Herodotus notes that among the remaining Ionians, the Chians fought most courageously until nearly all their ships were destroyed. Those remaining under sail headed for Chios; the crippled ships made for Mycale on the Asian coast, where the crews were killed by Ephesians while fleeing from Persian pursuers.

After their victory over the Ionian fleet, the Persians laid siege to Miletus and overwhelmed it. Most of the Milesian men were killed, and the women and children reduced to slavery. Men who were captured alive were treated leniently by Darius and relocated to a settlement near the mouth of the Persian Gulf. Herodotus notes that the Athenians were greatly distressed at Miletus’ destruction, and the Athenian dramatist Phrynichus’ play, The Capture of Miletus, moved the audience to tears. The author must have implicated the Athenians in the town’s ruin, because he was fined for “reminding them of their own evils” (331) and the play was banned from being performed again. The Samian aristocrats, upset with their fleet’s accommodation of the Persians, abandoned Samos, resettling in Sicily. The Persians restored a tyrant to Samos and spared the island for withdrawing from the Ionian confederation during the naval battle of Miletus. The rest of the Ionian rebels were severely punished over the course of the next year.

On hearing of the events at Miletus, Histiaeus sailed to Chios and forced himself onto the island with the help of his Lesbian supporters. When word came that the Phoenician fleet was now sailing to attack the other Ionian states, Histiaeus hurried to Lesbos with a force of Ionian and Aeolian troops. Collecting food on the mainland opposite Lesbos, his party was surprised by the Persian army under the command of Harpagus. Histiaeus was captured after a day-long battle between the Greek and Persian forces, during which most of the Ionians were killed. Fearing that Darius would show leniency and once more restore Histiaeus to an influential position in Susa, Artaphernes impaled him and sent his head to the Persian king. Angered by this, Darius had the head of Histiaeus washed and buried with the honor befitting a noble servant of the Persian empire.

The following year, the Persian fleet conquered the islands of Chios, Lesbos, and Tenedos, while the Persian army took the Ionian cities on the mainland. Punishment for the rebels was harsh; the most attractive boys were castrated, the most beautiful girls sent to Darius’ court, and the Ionian towns were burnt to the ground. The Persian fleet then subdued all the towns around the Hellespont and surrounding the Bosphorus. At this time, Miltiades, an Athenian, was ruler of the Chersonese peninsula on the Hellespont. When he heard that the Persian fleet was at Tenedos, he shipped his property on five vessels and headed toward Athens. Just as he entered the Aegean, he met with the Phoenician squadrons of Darius, who captured a vessel carrying Miltiades’ son Metiochus. The Phoenicians took Metiochus to Darius, expecting a sizeable reward, but Darius treated him with generosity, giving him property and a Persian woman to marry. Miltiades arrived safely in Athens.

During the rest of the year, the Persians took no more hostile actions against the Asiatic Greeks and tried to stabilize the region. Artaphernes, the governor of Sardis, compelled the Ionians to settle their internal disputes by arbitration, rather than raids, and he conducted a survey of all their territories for equitable taxation. The following spring, Darius dispatched a young general, Mardonius, at the head of a large army to take Athens and as much of the Greek mainland as possible. When Mardonius reached Ionia, he expelled all the tyrants and set up democratic governments in their place, presumably to win the favor of the Ionians and weaken their sympathies toward their Hellenic neighbors. Proceeding westward, the Persians subdued Macedonia, but their fleet was wrecked off the coast of Athos, in northern Greece, by a violent gale. Herodotus reports that approximately 300 ships were lost, as well as over 20,000 men. Crippled by this loss, and weakened by a Thracian attack on land, Mardonius retreated to Asia.

The next year, Darius began to test the Greeks to see whether they were likely to resist or surrender. He sent heralds to the Greek states on the mainland demanding earth and water, the customary gift symbolizing subjection to the Persian empire. At the same time, he ordered the Asiatic coast towns to begin building ships to supply and ferry his army. Many of the Greek city-states, and all the islands—including Aegina, an island neighboring Athens—complied with his demand for their submission. The Athenians, who assumed the Aeginetans were allying themselves with the Persians in order to attack their city, appealed to Sparta to help punish the Aeginetans for treachery to Greece. Cleomenes crossed to Aegina intending to arrest those responsible but was fiercely opposed by the Aeginetans. Meanwhile, Demaratus, the other Spartan king, remained at home and attempted to discredit Cleomenes by spreading malicious stories about him. When Cleomenes returned to Sparta, he devised a plan to have Demaratus removed from his throne, based on a doubt about his rival’s paternity.

Cleomenes approached Leotychides, Demaratus’ kinsman, with an offer to make him king if he would support Cleomenes in attacking Aegina. Demaratus had angered Leotychides by marrying a woman to whom Leotychides was engaged, and the two men were enemies. Leotychides now swore under oath that Demaratus was not the son of the late Spartan king Ariston and had no claim to the throne. The Spartan elders consulted the Delphic oracle to resolve the dispute; bribed by Cleomenes, the priestess declared Demaratus was not the former king’s son and he was subsequently deposed and succeeded by Leotychides. Humiliated, Demaratus begged his mother for the truth about his parentage, and she assured him that he was, in fact, Ariston’s child. Demaratus then made his way to Susa, where Darius gifted him with land and cities. Herodotus notes he had been a man of the highest distinction in Sparta, both in action and counsel, and, moreover, had won a four-horse chariot race at Olympia.

Herodotus prefaces this account of the dispute between Cleomenes and Demaratus with a discussion of Spartan kingship and government. Alone among the Greek cities, Sparta has a dual kingship, with two royal houses descending from related families, but of unequal prestige. The Spartan kings have the power of declaring war on whomever they please, and no Spartan may attempt to oppose the decision. Prior to Cleomenes’ expedition to Athens to install Isagoras as ruler of the city, both Spartan kings accompanied the army during war; afterwards, however, a law was passed requiring one king to remain at home while the other campaigned. The Spartan kings sit with 28 Elders in the council chamber, and each king has two votes. Herodotus notes that public mourning is extravagant and compulsory when a king dies, and the new king cancels all outstanding public debts of the citizens when entering office.

After forcing Demaratus out, Cleomenes and Leotychides went to Aegina and seized 10 of its wealthiest citizens as hostages, whom they handed over to be imprisoned by the Athenians. Cleomenes’ plot against Demaratus soon became known in Sparta, and he fled to Arcadia where he tried to recruit the Arcadians for an attack on Sparta. Alarmed when they discovered this, the Spartans recalled Cleomenes and restored him to full power. Cleomenes now began acting erratically and was imprisoned in the stocks by his relatives. Securing a knife from his guard, he mutilated himself and died of self-inflicted wounds. Herodotus says that most of the Greeks believe this was a punishment for his having corrupted the Delphic priestess; the Argives maintain it was nemesis visited upon him for destroying a sacred wood in Argos and murdering the Argive troops who were seeking sanctuary there. Herodotus believes Cleomenes came to grief as retribution for his crime against Demaratus. Leotychides, who succeeded Demaratus, had an ignoble end, as well. While campaigning in Thessaly, he was caught taking a bribe just as he was about to secure a large victory. He was tried and banished by the Spartans and fled to Tegea where he died.

After Cleomenes died, the Aeginetans sent envoys to Sparta asking redress for the kidnapping of their nobles, who were being held prisoners by the Athenians. The Spartans found that Leotychides had monstrously abused the Aeginetans in the matter and voted to turn him over to them. Rather than punishing Leotychides, however, the Aeginetans employed him as a negotiator with the Athenians to urge the release of the captives. The Athenians rejected Leotychides’ appeal, and he returned to Sparta.

The Aeginetans then seized a ship carrying several leading Athenians on route to a festival at Cape Sunium and imprisoned them. The Athenians responded immediately, conspiring with a populist leader on Aegina to plan an attack. They requested ships from the Corinthians to supplement their own fleet, but the allied vessels arrived late, and the popular uprising on Aegina failed without the promised Athenian support. The Aeginetans suppressed the insurrection and executed 700 of the revolutionaries. When the Athenian fleet arrived, it defeated the Aeginetans; somewhat later, however, the Aeginetans caught the Athenians off guard and captured several of its ships.

Meanwhile, Darius prepared to launch another invasion of Greece under the command of Datis, a Mede, and his own nephew Artaphernes, son of the governor of Sardis of the same name. Their object was to reduce Athens and Eretria to slavery for supporting the Ionian rebellion and bring the slaves before the king. A well-equipped army, supported by cavalry, embarked on 600 ships from Samos and sailed across the Aegean toward Attica and the adjacent island of Euboea. The Persian forces took Naxos, enslaved the island’s inhabitants, and burnt the city; they also subdued the other Cycladic islands in their path, taking children as hostages and impressing the men into military service. The sacred island of Delos, the birthplace of Apollo and Artemis, was spared, however, and Herodotus reports that after the Persians left, an earthquake struck the island.

At the news of the Persian approach, the Eretrians appealed to Athens for help. The Athenians responded by sending 4,000 men to the town, located across the narrow strait separating Attica from Euboea. The Eretrian leaders were divided as to whether they should resist or submit to the overwhelming Persian force, however, and the situation was chaotic. Realizing their predicament was dire, an Eretrian commander advised the Athenians to leave rather than suffer in the inevitable catastrophe. The Persians landed and besieged the city, and after six days of intense fighting, two Eretrians betrayed the town to the enemy. The Persians burned the temples and carried the inhabitants off as slaves.

The Persians then sailed for Athens, flush with victory. Hippias, the exiled Peisistratid, was accompanying the campaign and advised the Persians to land at Marathon where there was an ample plain for cavalry maneuver. The Athenians sent a messenger, Pheidippides, to Sparta to request aid against the Persian invasion. Pheidippides covered the 140 miles to Sparta in two days, and his passionate appeal moved the Spartans, who agreed to send a force once the moon was full. The Spartans were celebrating a religious festival at the time which prevented them from fighting until the observance concluded. Meanwhile, Hippias had a dream that he was sleeping with his mother. He interpreted this to mean that the venture would be successful, and that he would return to power in Athens and die there comfortably. While acting as guide to the Persian invaders the next day, however, he had a sneezing fit which dislodged one of his teeth. Unable to find it in the sand, he realized that the Persian attack was doomed: “This land is not ours; we shall never be able to conquer it. The only part I ever had in it my tooth possesses” (359).

The Athenian troops positioned themselves on a piece of ground sacred to Heracles, where they were joined by their allies, the Plataeans. The Athenian commanders were divided as to whether they should risk battle against the superior Persian numbers. Miltiades, one of their generals, strongly urged it, feeling time was of the essence to ensure a unified attack and a reasonable chance of success. When the vote of the 10 generals was evenly split, Miltiades implored the Athenian war archon, Callimachus, to lend his support to the hawkish side. Herodotus records Miltiades’ speech to Callimachus: “Never in our history have we Athenians been in such peril as now. If we submit to the Persians, Hippias will be restored to power—and there is little doubt what misery must then ensue: but if we fight and win then this city of ours may well grow to pre-eminence amongst all the cities of Greece” (361). Callimachus voted to fight.

The command of the Athenian forces rotated each day among the 10 generals. When Miltiades’ day came, he led a running charge against the Persian line. The wings of the Greek army held strong, forcing the Persians into retreat, but the Persians broke through the Athenian corps in the center. After routing the Persians at the ends of the line, the Greek wings collapsed upon those caught in the middle and chased them back to their ships. The Athenians captured seven Persian vessels, but the rest of the Persian fleet got off and headed toward Athens, south of Cape Sunium. The Athenians, meanwhile, raced back over land and succeeded in reaching Athens before the Persian ships. The Persian fleet lay anchored off the Athenian harbor for a few days and then returned to Asia. Herodotus reports that 6,400 Persians and 192 Athenians were killed at Marathon.

When the Persian army arrived at Susa, Darius spared the Eretrian prisoners and repatriated them on a tract of land several miles from the city. Meanwhile, 2,000 Spartan soldiers marched to Athens after the full moon, arriving in three days. They surveyed the battlefield at Marathon where the bodies of the Persians lay, then returned to Sparta. The Athenians lauded Miltiades for the Greek victory, and, at his request, outfitted him with a fleet of 70 ships and crews. Miltiades claimed he was planning a secret mission that would make Athens rich; Herodotus reports that he wanted to settle a personal score with the Parians. Miltiades laid siege to the town of Paros, but the Parians refused his demand for ransom money. Severely injuring his leg during the attack, Miltiades was forced to abandon the adventure and returned in disgrace to Athens where he was tried for defrauding the Athenians. The jury voted to spare his life, considering the service he had done for the city at Marathon and by previously capturing the island of Lemnos, but it imposed a huge fine. Miltiades died shortly thereafter from complications from his injury.

Among the Athenians, a rumor spread that, during the battle of Marathon, a member of the Alcmaeonid family signaled the Persian ships with his shield in an act of treachery. Herodotus vehemently defends the Alcmaeonids against this charge, insisting they were a distinguished and honorable family known for their patriotism and distinction. Alcmaeon was honored by Croesus for the hospitality he showed the Lydians when they traveled to Delphi, and the family’s early fortune derived from the treasure Croesus gave him. Cleisthenes, the tyrant of Sicyon, married his daughter to Alacmaeon’s son Megacles after a much-publicized competition drawing suitors from all over Greece. Megacles’ son Cleisthenes reformed the Athenian government and instituted democracy in the city after the Pisistratid tyrants were expelled.