Quick questions on The Ionian Revolt and the Battle of Marathon: HSC Ancient History

Mardonius, Darius's son-in-law, led an expedition through Thrace and Macedonia to bring them firmly into the empire. The fleet was wrecked rounding Cape Athos (Herodotus 6.44): 300 ships and 20,000 men lost. The land army suffered Thracian attacks. The expedition retreated.

Tyrant of Miletus, deputising for his father-in-law Histiaeus (held at the Persian court). In 500 BC Aristagoras led a Persian expedition against Naxos that failed. Fearing punishment, he raised revolt in 499 BC, deposed the tyrants of the Ionian cities, and proclaimed isonomia (equal political rights).

Herodotus (5.35) reports that Histiaeus, at Susa, encouraged the revolt by tattooing the message on the shaved head of a slave, which grew back hair to conceal it.

The tribute burden under Darius's reorganisation (the Ionian cities paid 400 talents annually), Persian interference in succession at the tyrannies, and the loss of trade outlets after Persian campaigns in Thrace and Scythia.

Aristagoras visited Sparta. King Cleomenes refused after Aristagoras admitted that Susa was three months' march from the coast (Herodotus 5.50). Aristagoras then visited Athens, which voted 20 triremes, and Eretria, which sent five.

The Ionian and Athenian force marched inland from Ephesus and seized Sardis, the capital of the Lydian satrapy. The lower city burned, including the temple of Cybele. The Persian garrison held the acropolis.

Persian armies systematically recovered Ionia and Caria. The decisive battle was at Lade (494 BC), off Miletus, where the Persian fleet (mostly Phoenician) defeated a Greek fleet of around 350 triremes. Miletus was sacked.

Persia reorganised the Ionian cities, replaced the tyrants with democracies in some cases, and revised the tribute. Darius vowed to punish Athens.

Across the Aegean from Samos to Naxos (sacked), Delos (spared and honoured), Karystos (forced submission), to Eretria. After a six-day siege Eretria fell through treachery and was destroyed; the population was deported.

The Assembly voted to march out, on the motion of Miltiades (one of the ten elected generals, formerly tyrant of the Thracian Chersonese, with personal knowledge of Persian methods). The Athenian army of around 9,000 hoplites moved to the plain. Plataea sent 1,000 hoplites in solidarity.

Pheidippides ran the 240 km to Sparta (Herodotus 6.105 to 106). The Spartans pleaded the Karneia festival, which forbade marching before the full moon, and promised to come later. The legend of the "marathon run" of 42 km after the battle is later.

Miltiades commanded on the day his turn as president of the generals came round (Herodotus 6.110). The Athenian phalanx, around 10,000 hoplites, was deployed with the centre thinned to extend the line to match the Persian front. The army then ran (or jogged) across the last 200 metres or so to close before the Persian archers could do significant damage.

Herodotus (6.117) reports 6,400 Persian dead and 192 Athenian. The Athenian dead were buried under the Soros, a mound still visible on the plain. The Athenian war polemarch Callimachus died in the battle.

Miltiades's thinning of the centre and his use of the run across the killing ground to close before the Persian archery told.

Bronze helmet, breastplate, large hoplon shield, the long thrusting doru spear, and a heavy phalanx formation. Persian infantry wore tunics and carried wicker shields. In a close-quarters engagement the hoplite was unmatched.