Aristagoras

Map of the ancient Greek western coast of Anatolia. Ionia is in green. Miletus and Naxos are shown.

By the time extant history hears of him, Aristagoras is already serving as deputy governor of Miletus, a polis on the western coast of Anatolia around 500 BC. He was the son of Molpagoras, previous tyrant of an independent Miletus, and brother-in-law[1] (and nephew[2]) of Histiaeus, whom the Persians had set up as tyrant, but never quite trusted. After general Megabazus presented his complaints about Histiaeus to Darius I of Persia, the latter summoned Histiaeus to his court and detained him at Susa, the main reason being that he wanted a trustworthy advisor.[1] On the recommendation of Histiaeus, the Achaemenids then appointed Aristagoras as the new ruler of Miletus.[1] Aristagoras ruled Miletus while Histiaeus remained in Susa. The assignment was put forward as temporary. Privately, everyone knew that he was being kept under observation away from his troops.[3]

Aristagoras was the main orchestrator of the Ionian Revolt on secret instruction by Histiaeus, when the latter learned of Persian plans to interfere directly in Miletus. Aristagoras took advantage of Greek dissatisfaction with Persian rule to incite an alliance of the Greek poleis of Ionia. Soliciting assistance from the states of mainland Greece he failed to obtain the help of a major state, Sparta. He did obtain the half-hearted assistance of Athens. Their attack on the satrapy of Lydia having been defeated, they withdrew, abandoning Aristagoras to his fate.

In the last months of the failing revolt, the Persians were reconquering rebel country city by city. Choosing not to remain and make a stand alone, Aristagoras led a colony to Thrace, where he had negotiated a franchise to settle from the Thracians. No sooner did he arrive than he and all his men were massacred in a surprise attack by the Thracians, for reasons unspecified by Herodotus, whether loyal to the Great King, or influenced by the Scythians, who hated the Ionians for their rescue of the Great King, or just because they changed their minds about the number of Hellenes they would allow in their country. The revolt gained momentum briefly but then began to fail again. When all was nearly lost, the Great King allowed Histiaeus to convince him that he could settle the conflict and now should be sent back to Miletus. Aristagoras was gone. According to Herodotus, they never met again.

Histiaeus never succeeded in reaching Miletus. Reporting first to Sardis, undoubtedly still recovering from fire, whether with or without the Great King's complicity (Herodotus does not say), he was interrogated concerning his true loyalties. Histiaeus swore complete ignorance of the events of the revolt and unquestionable loyalty to the Persians. He admitted nothing, but the satrap, Artaphernes, was not in the least deceived. He said, "I will tell thee how the case stands, Histaeus: this shoe is of thy stitching; Aristagoras has but put it on."[4]

Seeing that the jig was up, Histiaeus escaped that night and took ship at the coast, probably at Ephesus. He had no trouble raising troops and finding ships, but he found that he was not trusted by the revolutionaries. Miletus would not have him back. He became a soldier of fortune in the Aegean until he was hunted down and executed by Artaphernes. The Ionian revolt was finally settled in 494/493 BC. The Persians went on to plot the conquest of Greece under the pretext of a punitive campaign against Athens.

Ruins of Miletus

Certain exiled citizens of Naxos came to Miletus to seek refuge. They asked Aristagoras to supply them with troops, so that they could regain control of their homeland. Aristagoras considered that if he was able to supply troops to the Naxians, then he could become ruler of Naxos. So he agreed to assist the Naxians.[3] He explained that he did not have enough troops of his own, but that Artaphernes, Darius’ brother and the Persian satrap of Lydia, who commanded a large army and navy on the coast of Asia, could help supply troops. The Naxians agreed to Aristagoras seeking Artaphernes' support and supplied him with money.

Aristagoras travelled to Sardis and suggested that Artaphernes attack Naxos and restore the exiles. The Persians would then gain control of the island. He explained to Artaphernes that Naxos “was a fine and fertile island, close to the Ionian coast, and rich both in treasures and slaves.”[5] It was also the gateway to the Cyclades, which the Persians did not yet rule. Aristagoras promised that he would both fund the expedition and give Artaphernes a bonus sum. He also tempted Artaphernes by adding that capturing the island would place other poleis of the Cyclades under his control. They would serve as bases for an invasion of Euboea.[5] After securing the permission of Susa, Artaphernes agreed and promised 200 ships.

The following spring, Aristagoras and the Naxian exiles sailed with the fleet. Unfortunately for the success of the invasion, Aristagoras quarrelled with the Persian admiral Megabates. He interfered in the discipline of the latter over the ship captains to save a friend from harsh punishment for an infraction (failure to set a watch on his ship). Aristagoras saved his friend but lost the friendship and loyalty of the Persian admiral, who expected to be in overall command. The schism was irreparable, being the very first incident of the subsequent Ionian revolt. Megabates sabotaged the entire operation by secretly informing the Naxians that they were about to be attacked, taking away the element of surprise. Naxos then had enough time to prepare for a siege. Four months later, the siege still held, the Persians were out of supplies and had only limited funds remaining. The expedition was then considered a failure and the Persians sailed home.[6]

The burning of Sardis, capital of the Asia Minor Satrapy of Lydia, during the Ionian Revolt in 498 BC.

Due to his failure to make good on his Naxian promises, Aristagoras’ political position was at risk. He began to plan a revolt with the Milesians and the other Ionians. Meanwhile, Histiaeus, still detained at Susa, had tattooed a message upon the shaved head of a slave. Once his hair had grown back, he sent him to Aristagoras. The message told Aristagoras to revolt. Histiaeus, desperate to resume his authority at Miletus, hoped Darius would send him to deal with a Milesian revolt.

Both leaders being of the same mind, Aristagoras conferred with a council of his supporters, who agreed to a rebellion in Miletus in 499 BC. Aristagoras was supported by most of the citizens in council, except the historian Hecataeus.[7] Hecataeus voted against the revolt because he believed that the Ionians would be out-matched. Defeat would be inevitable. Once the vote was taken, however, there is no evidence that he recused himself from the revolt. In fact, he had suggestions to make. Once the war began, the Ionians did not allow any fence-sitting among themselves, although they could not stop the larger allies from withdrawing. In general knowledge, warring nations do not allow citizens of any social status to comment from the sidelines without participating in the war effort.

As soon as the vote for war was certain, Aristagoras took steps to secure Persian military assets. The Naxos fleet was recovering from its ordeal at Myus. Now in a position of command – Herodotus is not specific – Aristagoras sent a party under Iatragoras to arrest the admirals still with the fleet, some several men. Ironically, these were mainly Greek. They were later released and sent home. Now that the rebellion was in the open, Aristagoras “set himself to damage Darius in every way he could think of.”[8]

The scope of the revolt spread rapidly to all Ionia. Aristagoras foresaw that one city would soon be crushed. He therefore set about to create an alliance of all the Ionian cities, but the members also came from regions beyond Ionia. He made a number of constitutional changes, not all of which are clear. First he relinquished his own tyranny. Approaching the other states, he convinced them to end theirs.[8] Finally he ordered all of the states to create a board of generals[9] to report, apparently, to him. When his government was in place he sailed to Lacedaemon and other states of Greece in search of allies.

There has been some question as to the exact meaning of Herodotus' governmental terms, and as to the form of government of the Ionian alliance. The most fundamental question is where Aristagoras got his authority over the Ionians in the first place. They were all under the satrapy of Lydia, not under Miletus. The satrap was Persian. The tyrant of Miletus was appointed by the satrap, but he also appointed all the other tyrants. For reasons not specified in Herodotus, Miletus had the upper hand.[10]

One can only assume a leadership role of some kind of Aristagoras over the other tyrants, whether personal or according to some unspecified convention. In order to gain the participation of the people in the revolt, we are told, Aristagoras "let go" the tyranny and established isonomia, which the translators translate variously with imprecise terms, such as "equality of government." According to Liddell and Scott, a standard dictionary of ancient Greek, Thucydides uses it to mean the "equality of rights" in a democracy.

Apparently Aristagoras established democracy, but then he went on to "put a stop to tyranny" in all the other Ionian cities, and moreover to insist that they select boards of generals reporting to him, which are not democratic powers. No voting is mentioned. Apparently a new sovereign state had been formed with Aristagoras as its chief. He had not stepped down, but up. The state had the power to levy taxes and troops. Aristagoras was commander of the joint armed forces. Miletus was to be the new capital. In fact the new sovereign Ionia issued its own coinage between 499 and its destruction by the Persians in 494.

Ruins of Sparta

Aristagoras appealed to the Spartan king, Cleomenes I, to help them throw off the Persian yoke. He praised the quality of the Spartan warriors, and argued that a pre-emptive invasion of Persia would be easy. To illustrate his view, he had brought along a "bronze tablet on which a map of all the earth was engraved, and all the sea, and all the rivers."[11] No more information is given about the map, but the circumstantial evidence suggests it was most likely the world map of Hecataeus of Miletus, an important player in Milesian political life of the times.

Aristagoras claimed that the Persians would be easy to defeat, as they fought in “trousers and turbans,” clearly not a sign of good warriors.[12] He also tempted him with Persian riches. Cleomenes asked Aristagoras to wait two days for an answer. When they next met, Cleomenes asked how long it would take to reach Susa, and upon learning that it was a three months’ journey, he firmly refused Spartan assistance as his troops would be gone for too long. At the time, Sparta was concerned over possible attacks from the Argives.[13] The Greek historian Herodotus claimed that Aristagoras attempted to change Cleomenes’ mind with bribes, until the king's young daughter Gorgo warned that Aristagoras would corrupt him.[14] Aristagoras left without the requested assistance.

Aristagoras next went to Athens, where he made a convincing speech, promising “everything that came into his head, until at last he succeeded.”[15] 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.[16] 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.

Ruins of Ephesus

The acropolis at Sardis, now forested and eroded, with a few pinnacles of ruins.

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.[17] The reinforcements followed the Ionians, caught up with them near Ephesus and soundly defeated them.[18]

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.”[19] 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.[20]

Herodotus’ account is the best source we have on the events that amounted to a collision between Persia, which was expanding westward, and classical Greece at its peak. Nevertheless, its depictions are often scanty and uncertain, or incomplete. One of the major uncertainties of the Ionian revolt in Herodotus is why it occurred in the first place.

In retrospect the case seems obvious: Persia disputed the Hellenes for control of cities and territories. The Hellenes had either to fight for their freedom or submit. The desirability of these material objects was certainly economic, although considerations of defence and ideology may well have played a part. These are the motives generally accepted today, after long retrospect.

Herodotus apparently knew of no such motives, or if he did, he did not care to analyse history at that level. J D Manville characterizes his approach as the attribution of “personal motivation” to players such as Aristagoras and Histiaeus. In his view, Herodotus “may seem to overemphasize personal motivation as a cause,” but he really does not. We have either to fault Herodotus for his lack of analytical perspicacity or try to find credible reasons in the historical context for actions to which Herodotus gives incomplete explanations.

Manville suggests that the unexplained places mark events in a secret scenario about which Herodotus could not have known, but he records what he does know faithfully. It is up to the historian to reconstruct the secret history by re-interpretation and speculation, a technique often used by historical novelists. Manville puts it forward as history.

The main players are portrayed by Herodotus as naturally hypocritical. They always have an ulterior motive which they go to great lengths to conceal behind persuasive lies. Thus neither Aristagoras nor Histiaeus are fighting for freedom, nor do they cooperate or collaborate. Each has a personal motive related to greed, ambition, or fear. Manville fills in the uncertainties with hypothetical motives. Thus he arrives, perhaps less credibly for his invention, at a behind-the-scenes struggle for dominance between Aristagoras and Histiaeus. They can best be described as rivals or even enemies.[21] Some of the high points of the argument are as follows.

While Histiaeus was away serving Darius, Aristagoras acted in his stead as deputy of Miletus where, it is argued, he worked on securing his own power. The word for deputy is epitropos, which he was when the Naxian deputation arrived. By the time the fleet departs for Naxos, Aristagoras has promoted himself to “tyrant of Miletus.” There is no explicit statement that he asked Histiaeus’ permission or was promoted by Histaeus. Instead, Aristagoras turned to Artaphernes, who was said to be jealous of Histiaeus. It is true that Artaphernes would not move without consulting the Great King, and that the latter's advisor on Greek affairs was Histiaeus. However, Manville sees a coup by Aristagoras, presuming not only that the Great King's advisor did not advise, but was kept in the dark about his own supersession.

When the expedition failed, Histiaeus sent his tattooed slave to Aristagoras, not as encouragement to revolt, but as an ultimatum. Manville provides an underlying value system to fill in the gap left by Herodotus: revolt was so unthinkable that Histiaeus could bring the fantasies of his opponent back to reality by suggesting that he do it, a sort of “go ahead, commit suicide.” Histiaeus was, in Manville's speculation, ordering Aristagoras to give up his rule or suffer the consequences. Apparently, he was not being kept in the dark by the king after all. Manville leaves us to guess why the king did not just crush the revolt by returning the supposedly loyal Histiaeus to power.

However, at this time Histiaeus was still required to remain in Susa and, despite his threat, he was unable to do anything if Aristagoras did revolt. Realizing that this would be his last chance to gain power Aristagoras started the revolt despite Histiaeus’ threat. This is a surprise to Manville's readers, as we thought he already had power via a coup. Manville does note the contradiction mentioned above, that Aristagoras gave up tyranny, yet was able to force democracy on the other cities and command their obedience to him. We are to see in this paradox a strategy to depose Histiaeus, whom we thought was already deposed.

The tale goes on to an attempt by Histiaeus to form an alliance with Artaphernes to depose the usurper and regain his power at Miletus. Artaphernes, though he was involved in open war with Aristagoras, refuses.[22] The tale told by Manville thus contains events related by Herodotus supplemented by non-events coming from Manville's imagination.

John Myres, classical archaeologist and scholar, whose career began in the reign of Queen Victoria and did not end until 1954, close friend and companion of Arthur Evans, and intelligence officer par excellence of the British Empire, developed a theory of the Ionian Revolt that explains it in terms of the stock political views of the empire, balance of power and power vacuum. Those views, still generally familiar, assert that peace is to be found in a region controlled by competing geopolitical powers, none of which are strong enough to defeat the others. If a power drops from the roster for any reason, a “vacuum” then exists, which causes violent competition until the balance is readjusted.

In a key article of 1906, while Evans was excavating Knossos, the Ottoman Empire had lost Crete due to British intervention, and questions of the “sick man of Europe” were being considered by all the powers. Referring to the failing Ottoman Empire and the power vacuum that would be left when it fell, the young Myres published an article studying the balance of what he termed “sea-power” in the eastern Mediterranean in classical times. The word "sea-power" was intended to define his “thalassocracy.”

Myres was using sea-power in a specifically British sense for the times. The Americans had their own idea of sea power, expressed in Alfred Thayer Mahan’s great strategic work, ‘’The Influence of Sea Power upon History’’. which advocated maintaining a powerful navy and using it for strategic purposes, such as “command of the sea,” a kind of domination. The United States Naval Academy used this meaning for its motto, ‘’ex scientia tridens’’, “sea-power through knowledge.” It named one of its buildings, Mahan Hall.

Far different is Myres’ “sea-power” and the meaning of thalassocracy, which means “rule of the seas.“ In contrast to “tridens,” rule of the seas is not a paternalistic but democratic arrangement. Where there are rulers, there are the ruled. A kind of exclusivity is meant, such as in Rule, Britannia!. Specifically, in a thalassocracy, the fleets of the ruler may go where they will and do as they please, but the ruled may go nowhere and engage in no operation without express permission of the ruler. You need a license, so to speak, to be on ruled waters, and if you do not have it, your ships are attacked and destroyed. “Shoot on sight” is the policy. And so Carthaginian ships sank any ships in their waters, etc.

The Hellenes had obtained a foothold on the coast of Anatolia by siding with rebel coastal Anatolian states against the Hittite Empire.[33] Their position was made more solid by the fall of Troy against a coalition of mainland Greek kings. The coastal cities managed to retain their positions against the subsequent Phrygian invasion of Anatolia by joining with the rump Anatolian states, while the Hittites withdrew into neo-Hittite states in Syria. The coastal cities, now entirely Hellenic, continued to receive immigrants from mainland Greece.

The massive transfer of Persian-speaking population from the steppes of Central Asia to the range they now occupy presented the Anatolian Hellenes with an impossible strategic problem. They could not hope to oppose their small armies against the resources of the vast Persian empire unless they could once again receive major support from the mainland Greek states, especially the maritime power of Athens. Those states, however, were reluctant to take on the might of ancient Persia.

Consequently, the Hellenic states in Anatolia submitted reluctantly to Persian rule, and were placed in the new satrapy of Lydia, with capital at Sardis. The satrap of Lydia allowed self-rule as long as taxes were paid and the supremacy of ancient Persia was granted. Many of the Anatolian cities proved loyal subjects. However, underlying resentment against Persian rule was universal.

Persia was not interested in the status quo. Their desire to expand to the west brought them into conflict with Ionia over the question of self-rule, one of the principles of the agreement of the city-states to submit. Their interference in Miletus was the spark that set off the Ionian revolt. Aristagoras, the first rebel ruler, appeared then as the champion of Greek freedom. The Ionians had high hopes of independence.

Due to the disparity in resources and the reluctance of the mainland states to involve themselves, the tide soon turned in favour of the Persians. After only one year, the Cyprians were once again forced into submission by Persia. The cities around the Hellespont fell one after another to Daurises, the son-in-law of king Darius. The Carians fought the Persians at the Maeander River and were defeated with severe casualties.

Aristagoras, seeing the rebellion falling to pieces around him, and little help forthcoming from the Greeks, began looking for a shelter to which he could execute a strategic retreat. He and his men resolved on Myrcinus in Thrace, which had been an Ionian stronghold in the abortive Persian invasion of Scythia. He put Pythagoras, “a man of distinction,” in charge of Miletus and set sail for Thrace, where he attempted to establish a colony on the Strymon river, at the same site as the later Athenian colony of Amphipolis.

The Thracians, not now disposed to tolerate any further presence of Greeks in their country, opposed this incursion. He gained control of the territory but later, while besieging a neighbouring town, Aristagoras was killed in battle.[34]

Expecting a swift Persian victory, Aristagoras had hoped to establish a redoubt of Ionians, who would come to the assistance of Miletus at a later time.[35] By an accidental sequence of historical events his reputation drew the ire of his main historian, Herodotus of Halicarnassus, an Ionian partisan, to such a degree that it suffers yet. Although a champion of freedom, Aristagoras is the only man in all his histories that Herodotus openly calls a coward, blaming his supposed flight for the defeat of the revolt. The revolt apparently intensified and spread into the islands. Aristagoras had no way of knowing that he would have been in the van of it, or that the Thracians would not allow a redoubt.

The revolt was over by 494/493 BC. Going directly for Miletus in 494, the Persians defeated the Ionians with their own weapon, the ship, in the Battle of Lade, an island off Miletus. The city was then subject to a siege and the war lost at its fall. Although there was some mild devastation of rebel cities (except for Miletus, which was razed and the population decimated and transported), the Persians were interested in ruling rather than revenge. They began to plan forthwith for the largest invasion of Greece yet undertaken, executed starting 490 BC in a series of conflicts called the Greco-Persian Wars, which are yet famous. Unfortunately for the Persians, they were forced to adopt contingents of Ionian Greeks into their armies and navies.

Most of the information on Aristagoras and his actions comes from the writings of the ancient Greek historian Herodotus. On the one hand he is virtually the only literary source for the events he presents as history. While in many ways he reflects some of the best of ancient historiography, on the other hand, his work is sprinkled with motivational and logical lacunae, creating textual paradoxes everywhere, causing some scholars to be critical of his value as a historical source, especially regarding the Ionian Revolt. For purposes of this presentation, textual criticism may be polarized into two camps: the cynical, discrediting Herodotus as an unreliable source, and the affirmative, which credits him with being reliable as far as he goes.

• Boardman, John; Hammond, NGL; Lewis, DM; Ostwald, M, eds. (1988). The Cambridge Ancient History. Volume IV: Persia, Greece and the Western Mediterranean c. 525 to 479 B.C. (2nd ed.). Cambridge [England]: Cambridge University Press.
• Bury, J. B.; Meiggs, Russell (1975). A History of Greece (Fourth Edition). London: MacMillan Press. ISBN 0-333-15492-4.
• Dandamaev, M. A. (1989). A Political History of the Achaemenid Empire. BRILL. ISBN 978-9004091726.
• Georges, Pericles B. (2000). "Persian Ionia Under Darius: The Revolt Reconsidered". Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte. 49 (1): 1–39.
• Herodotus; Sélincourt, Aubrey de, Translator (1954). The Histories. London: Penguin Books.
• Lang, Mabel (1968). "Herodotus and the Ionian Revolt". Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte. 17 (1): 24–36. JSTOR 4435012.
• Manville, P.B. (1977). "Aristagoras and Histiaios: The Leadership Struggle in the Ionian Revolt". The Classical Quarterly. 27: 80–91. JSTOR 638371.
• Myres, JL (1906). "On the 'List of Thalassocracies' in Eusebius". The Journal of Hellenic Studies. XXVI: 84–130.

• "Herodotus, The Histories; A. D. Godley, Ed., Book V". Perseus Digital Library. Retrieved 1 May 2017.