Quick questions on Persia, the Ionian Revolt and Marathon from the imperial side: HSC Ancient History

The Greek cities of Ionia had been Persian subjects since Cyrus II's conquest of Lydia (traditionally 546 BC). They formed a rich, coastal part of the empire, administered from the satrapal capital at Sardis and governed on Persia's behalf through Greek tyrants. From the imperial view the revolt of 499 BC was not a clash of civilisations but a serious internal crisis: a wealthy tribute district in open rebellion, its pro-Persian rulers deposed, and, in 498 BC, a satrapal capital (Sardis, seat of Darius's own brother Artaphernes) attacked and its lower city, including the temple of Cybele, burned. That two mainland states, Athens with 20 ships and Eretria with 5, had shared in the raid added a second, external problem to the first.

Persia's response to the revolt was methodical and, importantly, two-part: military reconquest followed by administrative settlement.

Darius's son-in-law Mardonius led the first campaign in 492 BC. Its aim was consolidation of the land route into Europe: it re-secured Thrace and reduced Macedon under Alexander I to a Persian vassal (Herodotus 6.43 to 45). On land the campaign succeeded. At sea it suffered a serious accident: the fleet was wrecked rounding Cape Athos in a storm, with heavy losses (Herodotus 6.44 gives 300 ships and 20,000 men, ancient figures to be treated as illustrative rather than exact), and Mardonius himself was wounded in a Thracian attack.

At Marathon (August or September 490 BC) the expeditionary force was defeated by an Athenian and Plataean hoplite army under Miltiades, whose tactics (a thinned centre, a rapid charge to close before the archers told) broke the Persian wings. From the Persian perspective three things matter for assessment.