page_title: Aristagoras
section_title: Defeat of the Athenians
hierarchical_section_title: Aristagoras / Defeat of the Athenians
context_page_description: Aristagoras, d. 497/496 BC, was the leader of the Ionian city of Miletus in the late 6th century BC and early 5th century BC and a key player during the early years of the Ionian Revolt against the Persian Achaemenid Empire. He was the son-in-law of Histiaeus, and inherited the tyranny of Miletus from him.
context_section_description: Aristagoras next went to Athens, where he made a convincing speech, promising “everything that came into his head, until at last he succeeded.” Won over, the Athenians agreed to send ships to Ionia and Aristagoras went before them. The Athenians subsequently arrived in Miletus with twenty triremes and five others that belonged to the Eretrians. Herodotus described the arrival of these ships as the beginning of troubles between Greeks and barbarians. Once all his allies had arrived, Aristagoras put his brother Charopinus and another Milesian, Hermophantus, in charge of the expedition, and the whole contingent set out for the provincial capital, Sardis, while Aristagoras remained to govern at Miletus.
  The first leg of the journey was to proceed along the coast to Ephesus. Using it as base, they went overland to Sardis, on which they descended by surprise. The satrap Artaphernes and his forces retreated to the acropolis immediately. A fire, started by accident in the town, accidentally burned down the temple of the Lydian goddess Cybebe (Cybele). Attributing the fire to Ionian maliciousness, the Persians later used it as an excuse for burning Greek temples.
  The fire forced the defenders of the acropolis to abandon it in favor of the marketplace. Its defence coincided fortuitously with the arrival of Persian reinforcements. Interpreting the tumult as a counter-attack, The Ionians retreated to Tmolus, a nearby elevation, from which they escaped by night. The reinforcements followed the Ionians, caught up with them near Ephesus and soundly defeated them.
  The Persians had obtained Lydia, including all the Greek cities, by defeating the last Anatolian-speaking kingdom of the same name. They made such a show of mercy as to win the hearts and minds of the Anatolians, as well as of some of the Greeks. In that sense, the "Ionian Revolt" was de facto an Anatolian civil war. A call for assistance went rapidly around the satrapy. Joint Persian-Anatolian forces hastened overnight to the assistance of the satrap.
  They arrived with such short notice and major fanfare as to frighten away the Ionian-Athenian forces. The Cambridge Ancient History article attributes this swift arrival to the Persian cavalry, which also had no trouble tracking and catching the Ionians before the gates of Ephesus. The losses of the East Greeks were so great that they slunk away, so to speak, leaving Aristagoras and the rebels to fend for themselves. An air of doom pervaded the revolt, but they fought with such spirit that the rebellion spilled over into the islands
  After this battle, the Athenians refused to continue to fight in the Ionian Revolt and returned to Athens. Because of their participation in this battle, however, the Persian king, Darius, swore vengeance on Athens and commanded a servant to repeat to him three times every day at dinner, “Master, remember the Athenians.” The story is somewhat and probably hypocritically naive (but not necessarily on that account false), as the Persians intended expansion into the Balkans all along. They still held parts of Thrace from their previous abortive expedition into Scythia, only stopped when they learned the true size of the country (most of Russia) and the danger of their position in it.
  The Ionians fought on, gaining control of Byzantium and the surrounding towns as well as the greater part of Caria and Caunus. They were not, however, alone. In this last phase of the conflict, almost all of Cyprus also rebelled against the Persians. Onesilus, the younger brother of Gorgus, the ruler of Salamis, tried to convince his brother to rebel against Persia and join in the Ionian Revolt. When his brother refused to support the revolt, Onesilus waited until he left Salamis and then shut the city gates on him. Gorgus fled to the Persians while Onesilus took over and convinced the Cyprians to revolt. They then proceeded to lay siege to the city of Amathus.
caption: Ruins of Ephesus
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