Chapter XXXV: Ionic Revolt (2)

I have not chosen to divest this instructive scene of the dramatic liveliness with which it is given in Herodotus,—the more so as it has all the air of reality, and as Hekatæus, the historian, was probably present in the island of Ladê, and may have described what he actually saw and heard. When we see the intolerable hardship which these nautical manœuvres and labors imposed upon the Ionians, though men not unaccustomed to ordinary ship-work,—and when we witness their perfect incapacity to submit themselves to such a discipline, even with extreme danger staring them in the face,—we shall be able to appreciate the severe and unremitting toil whereby the Athenian seaman afterwards purchased that perfection of nautical discipline which characterized him at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war. It will appear, as we proceed with this history, that the full development of the Athenian democracy worked a revolution in Grecian military marine, chiefly by enforcing upon the citizen seaman a strict continuous training, such as was only surpassed by the Lacedæmonian drill on land,—and by thus rendering practicable a species of nautical manœuvring which was unknown even at the time of the battle of Salamis. I shall show this more fully hereafter: at present, I contrast it briefly with the incapacity of the Ionians at Ladê, in order that it may be understood how painful such training really was. The reader of Grecian history is usually taught to associate only ideas of turbulence and anarchy with the Athenian democracy; but the Athenian navy, the child and champion of that democracy, will be found to display an indefatigable labor and obedience nowhere else witnessed in Greece, and of which even the first lessons, as in the case now before us, prove to others so irksome as to outweigh the prospect of extreme and imminent peril. The same impatience of steady toil and discipline, which the Ionians displayed to their own ruin before the battle of Ladê, will be found to characterize them fifty years afterwards as allies of Athens, as I shall have occasion to show when I come to describe the Athenian empire.

Ending in this abrupt and mutinous manner, the judicious suggestions of the Phôkæan leader did more harm than good. Perhaps his manner of dealing may have been unadvisedly rude, but we are surprised to see that no one among the leaders of the larger contingents had the good sense to avail himself of the first readiness of the Ionians, and to employ his superior influence in securing the continuance of a good practice once begun. Not one such superior man did this Ionic revolt throw up. From the day on which the Ionians discarded Dionysius, their camp became a scene of disunion and mistrust. Some of them grew so reckless and unmanageable, that the better portion despaired of maintaining any orderly battle; and the Samians in particular now repented that they had declined the secret offers made to them by their expelled despot,[567]—Æakês, son of Sylosôn. They sent privately to renew the negotiation, received a fresh promise of the same indulgence, and agreed to desert when the occasion arrived. On the day of battle, when the two fleets were on the point of coming to action, the sixty Samian ships all sailed off, except eleven, whose captains disdained such treachery. Other Ionians followed their example; yet amidst the reciprocal crimination which Herodotus had heard, he finds it difficult to determine who was most to blame, though he names the Lesbians as among the earliest deserters.[568] The hundred ships from Chios, constituting the centre of the fleet—each ship carrying forty chosen soldiers fully armed—formed a brilliant exception to the rest; they fought with the greatest fidelity and resolution, inflicting upon the enemy, and themselves sustaining, heavy loss. Dionysius, the Phôkæan, also behaved in a manner worthy of his previous language,—capturing with his three ships the like number of Phenicians. But these examples of bravery did not compensate the treachery or cowardice of the rest, and the defeat of the Ionians at Ladê was complete as well as irrecoverable. To the faithful Chians, the loss was terrible, both in the battle and after it. For though some of their vessels escaped from the defeat safely to Chios, others were so damaged as to be obliged to run ashore close at hand on the promontory of Mykalê, where the crews quitted them, with the intention of marching northward, through the Ephesian territory, to the continent opposite their own island. We hear with astonishment that, at that critical moment, the Ephesian women were engaged in solemnizing the Thesmophoria,—a festival celebrated at night, in the open air, in some uninhabited portion of the territory, and without the presence of any male person. As the Chian fugitives entered the Ephesian territory by night, their coming being neither known nor anticipated,—it was believed that they were thieves or pirates coming to seize the women, and under this error they were attacked by the Ephesians and slain.[569] It would seem from this incident that the Ephesians had taken no part in the Ionic revolt, nor are they mentioned amidst the various contingents. Nor is anything said either of Kolophon, or Lebedus, or Eræ.[570]

[567] Herodot. vi, 13.

[568] Herodot. vi, 14, 15.

[569] Herodot. vi, 16.

[570] Thucyd. viii, 14.

The Phôkæan Dionysius, perceiving that the defeat of Ladê was the ruin of the Ionic cause, and that his native city was again doomed to Persian subjection, did not think it prudent even to return home. Immediately after the battle he set sail, not for Phôkæa, but for the Phenician coast, at this moment stripped of its protecting cruisers. He seized several Phenician merchantmen, out of which considerable profit was obtained: then setting sail for Sicily, he undertook the occupation of a privateer against the Carthaginians and Tyrrhenians, abstaining from injury towards Greeks.[571] Such an employment seems then to have been perfectly admissible. A considerable body of Samians also migrated to Sicily, indignant at the treachery of their admirals in the battle, and yet more indignant at the approaching restoration of their despot Æakês. How these Samian emigrants became established in the Sicilian town of Zanklê,[572] I shall mention as a part of the course of Sicilian events, which will come hereafter.

[571] Herodot. vi, 17. ληϊστὴς κατεστήκεε Ἑλλήνων μὲν οὐδενὸς,
Καρχηδονίων δὲ καὶ Τυρσηνῶν.

[572] Herodot. vi, 22-25.

The victory of Ladê enabled the Persians to attack Milêtus by sea as well as by land; they prosecuted the siege with the utmost vigor, by undermining the walls, and by various engines of attack: in which department their resources seem to have been enlarged since the days of Harpagus. In no long time the city was taken by storm, and miserable was the fate reserved to it. The adult male population was chiefly slain; while such of them as were preserved, together with the women and children, were sent in a body to Susa, to await the orders of Darius,—who assigned to them a residence at Ampê, not far from the mouth of the Tigris. The temple at Branchidæ was burned and pillaged, as Hekatæus had predicted at the beginning of the revolt: the large treasures therein contained must have gone far to defray the costs of the Persian army. The Milesian territory is said to have been altogether denuded of its former inhabitants,—the Persians retaining for themselves the city with the plain adjoining to it, and making over the mountainous portions to the Karians of Pedasa. Some few of the Milesians found a place among the Samian emigrants to Sicily.[573] It is certain, however, that new Grecian inhabitants must have been subsequently admitted into Milêtus; for it appears ever afterwards as a Grecian town, though with diminished power and importance.

[573] Herodot. vi, 18, 19, 20, 22.

Μίλητος μέν νυν Μιλησίων ἠρήμωτο.

The capture of Milêtus, in the sixth year from the commencement of the revolt,[574] carried with it the rapid submission of the neighboring towns in Karia.[575] During the next summer,—the Phenician fleet having wintered at Milêtus,—the Persian forces by sea and land reconquered all the Asiatic Greeks, insular as well as continental. Chios, Lesbos, and Tenedos,—the towns in the Chersonese,—Selymbria and Perinthus in Thrace,—Prokonnêsus and Artakê in the Propontis,—all these towns were taken or sacked by the Persian and Phenician fleet.[576] The inhabitants of Byzantium and Chalkêdôn fled for the most part, without even awaiting its arrival, to Mesembria, and the Athenian Miltiadês only escaped Persian captivity by a rapid flight from his abode in the Chersonese to Athens. His pursuers were indeed so close upon him, that one of his ships, with his son Metiochus on board, fell into their hands. As Miltiadês had been strenuous in urging the destruction of the bridge over the Danube, on the occasion of the Scythian expedition, the Phenicians were particularly anxious to get possession of his person, as the most acceptable of all Greek prisoners to the Persian king; who, however, when Metiochus the son of Miltiadês was brought to Susa, not only did him no harm, but treated him with great kindness, and gave him a Persian wife with a comfortable maintenance.[577]

[574] Herodot. vi, 18, αἱρέουσι κατ᾽ ἄκρης, ἐν τῷ ἑκτῷ ἔτεϊ ἀπὸ
τῆς ἀποστάσιος τῆς Ἀρισταγόρεω. This is almost the only distinct
chronological statement which we find in Herodotus respecting the
Ionic revolt. The other evidences of time in his chapters are
more or less equivocal: nor is there sufficient testimony before
us to enable us to arrange the events, between the commencement
of the Ionic revolt, and the battle of Marathon, into the precise
years to which they belong. The battle of Marathon stands fixed
for August or September, 490 B. C.: the siege of Milêtus may
probably have been finished in 496-495 B. C., and the Ionic
revolt may have begun in 502-501 B. C. Such are the dates which,
on the whole, appear to me most probable, though I am far from
considering them as certain.

Chronological critics differ considerably in their arrangement of
the events here alluded to among particular years. See Appendix,
No. 5, p. 244, in Mr. Clinton’s Fasti Hellenici; Professor
Schultz, Beyträge zu genaueren Zeitbestimmungen von der 63n zur
72n Olympiade, pp. 177-183, in the Kieler Philologische Studien;
and Weissenborn, Beyträge zur genaueren Erforschung der alten
Griechischen Geschichte, Jena, 1844, p. 87, _seqq._: not to
mention Reiz and Larcher. Mr. Clinton reckons only ten years from
the beginning of the Ionic revolt to the battle of Marathon;
which appears to me too short; though, on the other hand,
the fourteen years reckoned by Larcher—much more the sixteen
years reckoned by Reiz—are too long. Mr. Clinton compresses
inconveniently the latter portion of the interval,—that portion
which elapsed between the siege of Milêtus and the battle of
Marathon. And the very improbable supposition to which he is
obliged to resort,—of a confusion in the language of Herodotus
between Attic and Olympic years,—indicates that he is pressing
the text of the historian too closely, when he states, “that
Herodotus specifies a term of three years between the capture of
Milêtus, and the expedition of Datis:” see F. H. ad ann. 499. He
places the capture of Milêtus in 494 B. C.; which I am inclined
to believe a year later—if not two years later—than the reality.
Indeed, as Mr. Clinton places the expedition of Aristagoras
against Naxos (which was _immediately before_ the breaking out of
the revolt, since Aristagoras seized the Ionic despots while that
fleet yet remained congregated immediately at the close of the
expedition) in 501 B. C., and as Herodotus expressly says that
Milêtus was taken in the sixth year after the revolt, it would
follow that this capture ought to belong to 495, and not to 494
B. C. I incline to place it either in 496, or in 495; and the
Naxian expedition in 502 or 501, leaning towards the earlier of
the two dates: Schultz agrees with Larcher in placing the Naxian
expedition in 504 B. C., yet he assigns the capture of Milêtus
to 496 B. C.,—whereas, Herodotus states that the last of these
two events was in the sixth year after the revolt, which revolt
immediately succeeded on the first of the two, within the same
summer. Weissenborn places the capture of Milêtus in 496 B. C.,
and the expedition to Naxos in 499,—suspecting that the text in
Herodotus—ἑκτῷ ἔτεϊ—is incorrect, and that it ought to be τετάρτῳ
ἔτεϊ, the fourth year (p. 125: compare the chronological table
in his work, p. 222). He attempts to show that the particular
incidents composing the Ionic revolt, as Herodotus recounts
it, cannot be made to occupy more than four years; but his
reasoning is, in my judgment, unsatisfactory, and the conjecture
inadmissible. The distinct affirmation of the historian, as to
the entire interval between the two events, is of much more
evidentiary value than our conjectural summing up of the details.

It is vain, I think, to try to arrange these details according to
precise years: this can only be done very loosely.

[575] Herodot. vi, 25.

[576] Herodot. vi, 31-33. It may perhaps be to this burning and
sacking of the cities in the Propontis, and on the Asiatic side
of the Hellespont, that Strabo (xiii, p. 591) makes allusion;
though he ascribes the proceeding to a different cause,—to the
fear of Darius that the Scythians would cross into Asia to avenge
themselves upon him for attacking them, and that the towns on the
coast would furnish them with vessels for the passage.

[577] Herodot. vi, 41.

Far otherwise did the Persian generals deal with the reconquered cities on and near the coast. The threats which had been held out before the battle of Ladê were realized to the full. The most beautiful Greek youths and virgins were picked out, to be distributed among the Persian grandees as eunuchs, or inmates of the harems; the cities with their edifices, sacred as well as profane, were made a prey to the flames; and in the case of the islands, Herodotus even tells us, that a line of Persians was formed from shore to shore, which swept each territory from north to south, and drove the inhabitants out of it.[578] That much of this hard treatment is well founded, there can be no doubt. But it must be exaggerated as to extent of depopulation and destruction, for these islands and cities appear ever afterwards as occupied by a Grecian population, and even as in a tolerable, though reduced, condition. Samos was made an exception to the rest, and completely spared by the Persians, as a reward to its captains for setting the example of desertion at the battle of Ladê; at the same time, Æakês the despot of that island was reinstated in his government.[579] It appears that several other despots were also replaced in their respective cities, though we are not told which.

[578] Herodot. vi, 31, 32, 33.

[579] Herodot. vi, 25.

Amidst the sufferings endured by so many innocent persons, of every age and of both sexes, the fate of Histiæus excites but little sympathy. Having learned, while carrying on his piracies at Byzantium, the surrender of Milêtus, he thought it expedient to sail with his Lesbian vessels to Chios, where admittance was refused to him. But the Chians, weakened as they had been by the late battle, were in little condition to resist, so that he defeated their troops and despoiled the island. During the present break-up of the Asiatic Greeks, there were doubtless many who, like the Phôkæan Dionysius, did not choose to return home to an enslaved city, yet had no fixed plan for a new abode: of these exiles, a considerable number put themselves under the temporary command of Histiæus, and accompanied him to the plunder of Thasos.[580] While besieging that town, he learned the news that the Phenician fleet had quitted Milêtus to attack the remaining Ionic towns; and he left his designs on Thasos unfinished, in order to go and defend Lesbos. But in this latter island the dearth of provisions was such, that he was forced to cross over to the continent to reap the standing corn around Atarneus and in the fertile plain of Mysia near the river Kaïkus. Here he fell in with a considerable Persian force under Harpagus,—was beaten, compelled to flee, and taken prisoner. On his being carried to Sardis, Artaphernês the satrap caused him to be at once crucified: partly, no doubt, from genuine hatred, but partly also under the persuasion that, if he were sent up as a prisoner to Susa, he might again become dangerous,—since Darius would even now spare his life, under an indelible sentiment of gratitude for the maintenance of the bridge over the Danube. The head of Histiæus was embalmed and sent up to Susa, where Darius caused it to be honorably buried, condemning this precipitate execution of a man who had once been his preserver.[581]

[580] Herodot. vi, 26-28. ἄγων Ἰώνων καὶ Αἰολέων συχνούς.

[581] Herodot. vi, 28, 29, 30.

We need not wonder that the capture of Milêtus excited the strongest feeling, of mixed sympathy and consternation, among the Athenians. In the succeeding year (so at least we are led to think, though the date cannot be positively determined), it was selected as the subject of a tragedy,—The Capture of Milêtus,—by the dramatic poet Phrynichus; which, when performed, so painfully wrung the feelings of the Athenian audience, that they burst into tears in the theatre, and the poet was condemned to pay a fine of one thousand drachmæ, as “having recalled to them their own misfortunes.”[582] The piece was forbidden to be afterwards acted, and has not come down to us. Some critics have supposed that Herodotus has not correctly assigned the real motive which determined the Athenians to impose this fine.[583] For it is certain that the subjects usually selected for tragedy were portions of heroic legend, and not matters of recent history; so that the Athenians might complain of Phrynichus on the double ground,—for having violated an established canon of propriety, as well as for touching their sensibilities too deeply. Still, I see no reason for doubting that the cause assigned by Herodotus is substantially the true one; but it is very possible that Phrynichus, at an age when tragic poetry had not yet reached its full development, might touch this very tender subject with a rough and offensive hand, before a people who had fair reason to dread the like cruel fate for themselves. Æschylus, in his Persæ, would naturally carry with him the full tide of Athenian sympathy, while dwelling on the victories of Salamis and Platæa. But to interest the audience in Persian success and Grecian suffering, was a task in which much greater poets than Phrynichus would have failed,—and which no judicious poet would have undertaken. The sack of Magdeburg, by Count Tilly, in the Thirty Years’ war, was not likely to be endured as the subject of dramatic representation in any Protestant town of Germany.

[582] Herodot. vi, 21, ὡς ἀναμνήσαντα οἰκηΐα κακὰ: compare vii,
152; also, Kallisthenês ap. Strabo, xiv, p. 635, and Plutarch,
Præcept. Reipubl. Gerend. p. 814.

[583] See Welcker Griechische Tragödien, vol. i, p. 25.