What is aristagoras of Miletus?

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).

What is histiaeus's tattoo?

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.

What are wider causes?

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.

What is the appeal for help?

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.

What is the burning of Sardis?

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.

What is the Persian reconquest?

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.

What is athenian response?

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.

What is the runner to Sparta?

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.

What is hoplite equipment?

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.

NESA Practice (NESA)-style practice: Outline the causes, course, and consequences of the Ionian Revolt.

An 8-mark "outline" needs causes, the main events, and consequences. **Causes.** Persian rule was administered through Greek tyrants installed by the satrap of Sardis. The tyrants were unpopular. Aristagoras of Miletus, after the failed Persian expedition to Naxos (499 BC), feared punishment and incited revolt. Herodotus (5.30 to 38) emphasises Aristagoras's personal motives; modern historians (Cawkwell, Briant) also stress structural grievances over tribute and tyrant rule. **The revolt (499 to 494 BC).** Aristagoras deposed the tyrants and democratised the Ionian cities. He sought aid from Sparta (refused by King Cleomenes) and Athens (twenty triremes sent) and Eretria (five triremes). In 498 BC the rebels marched inland and burned Sardis, the capital of the Lydian satrapy. Athenian forces withdrew after the campaign. **Persian response.** Persian armies progressively reconquered Ionia. In 494 BC the Persian fleet defeated the Ionian fleet at Lade, off Miletus. Miletus was sacked and its population deported. **Consequences.** Persia reorganised Ionia under more moderate tribute. Darius vowed to punish Athens; according to Herodotus (5.105) he had a slave remind him at every meal: "Master, remember the Athenians." The Ionian Revolt gave Darius the pretext for the invasion of 490 BC. Markers reward causes (Aristagoras, structural grievances), the burning of Sardis, Lade, and the consequence (the path to Marathon).

NESA Practice (NESA)-style practice: Account for the Athenian victory at Marathon in 490 BC.

A 20-mark essay needs the campaign, the battle, and the reasons for victory. **Thesis.** Athens won at Marathon because of Miltiades's tactics, hoplite quality, Persian limitations, civic will, and the Spartan delay. **The campaign.** After Mardonius's 492 BC expedition (wrecked off Athos), Darius sent Datis and Artaphernes by sea in 490 BC. The expedition sacked Eretria and landed at Marathon, on the advice of the exiled tyrant Hippias. **Athenian decision.** The Assembly voted to march out, on the motion of Miltiades. Pheidippides ran to Sparta (240 km in two days); the Spartans pleaded the Karneia festival. Plataea sent 1,000 hoplites. Around 10,000 hoplites against perhaps 25,000 Persians. **The battle (August or September 490 BC).** Herodotus (6.111 to 117) records that Miltiades thinned his centre and reinforced the wings. The Athenians charged at a run across the last 200 metres. The wings broke the Persian flanks; the centre held just long enough to envelop the Persian centre. The Persians fled to their ships; 6,400 Persian dead to 192 Athenian (Herodotus's figures). **Reasons.** (1) Tactics: the thinned centre, the run across the killing ground. (2) Equipment: hoplite armour and spear against lighter Persian infantry. (3) Civic will: the new democracy fought for itself. (4) Persian limitations: a seaborne expedition with limited cavalry. (5) Luck: the Spartan delay forced engagement before reinforcement. **Historiography.** **Herodotus** dominant. **Peter Krentz** (The Battle of Marathon, 2010) reconstructs the battle. **Pierre Briant** (From Cyrus to Alexander, 2002) views the campaign as a limited punitive expedition. **Tom Holland** (Persian Fire, 2005) reads Marathon as the survival of the democratic experiment. **Conclusion.** Marathon was a tactical Athenian victory of hoplite quality and Miltiades's generalship with consequences out of all proportion to the expedition.

§-Syllabus dot point

NSWAncient HistorySyllabus dot point

What were the causes and course of the Ionian Revolt and the first Persian invasion of Greece culminating at Marathon?

The Ionian Revolt (499 to 494 BC), the burning of Sardis, the Battle of Lade, Darius's first invasion of Greece in 490 BC, and the Battle of Marathon

A focused answer to the HSC Ancient History dot point on the Ionian Revolt and Marathon. Aristagoras and Histiaeus, the burning of Sardis (498 BC), the Persian reconquest at Lade (494 BC), the Mardonian and Datis expeditions, and the Athenian victory at Marathon in August 490 BC.

Generated by Claude Opus 4.812 min answerUpdated 2026-07-01

Reviewed by: AI editorial process; not yet individually human-reviewed

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How to read a source on this topic

What this dot point is asking

NESA expects you to describe the Ionian Revolt (499 to 494 BC), the first Persian expedition under Mardonius in 492 BC, the Datis and Artaphernes campaign of 490 BC, and the Athenian and Plataean victory at Marathon, with the causes, the course of the battle, and the reasons for the Greek victory.

In plain English

Imagine a franchise business where the head office (Persia) installs local managers (tyrants) in every branch (the Ionian Greek cities), and those managers are more interested in keeping head office happy than in looking after their own staff. One branch manager, Aristagoras, botches an expensive project (the Naxos expedition), panics about being sacked or worse, and instead of waiting to be punished he tears up his contract and calls the other branches to revolt. He asks two big interstate chains (Sparta and Athens) for backup; only Athens (plus tiny Eretria) sends a small support crew. The revolt burns down part of head office's regional headquarters (Sardis) before collapsing when head office sends in reinforcements and crushes the original branch (Miletus) at Lade.

Head office is furious, not at the branches, but specifically at Athens for helping. Two follow-up "collection agencies" are sent: the first (Mardonius) never makes it, wrecked by a storm; the second (Datis and Artaphernes) burns down the smaller support branch (Eretria) and then lands a strike force near Athens itself, at Marathon. Everyone expects the small local team to be crushed by the much bigger head-office force. Instead, a sharp local manager, Miltiades, works out a clever formation and a fast, aggressive charge, and the underdog wins decisively. It is the first time anyone has beaten head office in a straight fight, and it makes the small chain famous and confident, even though head office will try again a decade later with a much bigger force.

The answer

Causes of the Ionian Revolt

The Greek cities of Ionia had been Persian subjects since 546 BC. Persian rule was administered through Greek tyrants installed by the satrap at Sardis. The tyrants were unpopular: they ruled in Persian interest and were the principal beneficiaries of Persian protection.

Aristagoras of Miletus: 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).
Histiaeus's tattoo: 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.
Wider causes: 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.

The course of the revolt

The appeal for help (498 BC): 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. Herodotus (5.97) calls this Athenian vote "the beginning of evils for Greeks and barbarians."
The burning of Sardis (498 BC): 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. The Greeks withdrew and were defeated near Ephesus on their return. The Athenians sailed home and took no further part.
The Persian reconquest (497 to 494 BC): 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. Its population was deported to Ampe near the Tigris. The historian Hecataeus had warned against the revolt; the playwright Phrynichus wrote a tragedy on the sack and was fined by the Athenians for "reminding them of their own disasters" (Herodotus 6.21).
Aftermath: Persia reorganised the Ionian cities, replaced the tyrants with democracies in some cases, and revised the tribute. Darius vowed to punish Athens.

The first Persian expedition (492 BC)

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.

The 491 BC ultimatum

Darius sent heralds to the Greek cities demanding "earth and water" (the tokens of submission). Most islands and several mainland states gave them. Athens threw the heralds into a pit; Sparta threw them down a well, telling them to fetch earth and water for the king (Herodotus 7.133).

The Datis and Artaphernes expedition (490 BC)

Darius sent a fleet-borne expedition under Datis (a Mede) and Artaphernes (Darius's nephew), with the exiled Athenian tyrant Hippias as adviser.

Route. 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.

Landing at Marathon. Hippias advised landing at the plain of Marathon, 40 km north-east of Athens, suitable for Persian cavalry and within Hippias's old Peisistratid territory.

The Battle of Marathon (August or September 490 BC)

Athenian response: 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.
The runner to Sparta: 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.
The battle: 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. The Persian centre (Persian and Saka troops) drove back the thin Athenian centre. The Athenian wings broke the Persian flanks, then wheeled inward and enveloped the Persian centre. The Persians fled to their ships, pursued through the marsh. Seven Persian ships were captured.
Casualties: 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.

The aftermath

After the battle the Persian fleet sailed for Phaleron to land at the Athenian port. The Athenian phalanx force-marched back to Athens, around 40 km, and arrived in time to deter a Persian landing. Datis withdrew. Athens commemorated the dead with a polyandreion (mass grave mound) on the battlefield and an annual festival, the Marathonomachoi.

The legend of the runner Pheidippides who ran from Marathon to Athens to announce the victory and died is a later tradition (Plutarch, Lucian); the contemporary account in Herodotus knows only the run to Sparta.

Reasons for the Athenian victory

Tactics: Miltiades's thinning of the centre and his use of the run across the killing ground to close before the Persian archery told.
Hoplite equipment: 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.
Persian limitations: A seaborne expedition meant limited cavalry on the day. Some sources (the Suda, late) report that the Persian cavalry had re-embarked when the battle began. The Persian force was a punitive expedition, not the main royal army.
Political will: The new Athenian democracy fought for itself, not under a tyrant. The Athenian dead became civic heroes, buried where they fell rather than at the public cemetery.
Spartan absence: The Karneia festival delayed Sparta. Two thousand Spartans arrived after the battle, viewed the dead, and departed. This made Marathon a uniquely Athenian victory.

Sources for Marathon

Herodotus, Histories 6.94 to 117: The major source. Written in the 440s and 430s BC, drawing on Athenian oral tradition.
Cornelius Nepos, Miltiades: A Latin biography from the first century BC.
Pausanias, Description of Greece 1.32: A second-century AD travelogue describing the Soros and the battlefield.
Archaeology: The Soros mound (excavated by Heinrich Schliemann in 1884; modern study by Peter Krentz). Persian arrowheads from the plain. The trophy column.
Inscriptions: The Athenian Marathon stele (epigram by Simonides), the Plataean dedication at Delphi.

How to read a source on this topic

Section IV sources on Marathon typically include extracts from Herodotus 6, modern reconstructions, or archaeological reports. Three reading habits.

First, distinguish Herodotus's narrative from his ethical framing. Herodotus presents the wars as the triumph of Greek freedom over Persian despotism. The narrative is broadly reliable; the framing is rhetorical.

Second, watch the numbers. Herodotus's 6,400 to 192 is propaganda. The proportion was probably much closer.

Third, integrate the Ionian Revolt with Marathon. They are one campaign in Persian eyes, the punishment of Athens for Sardis.

Model exam responses

1. Source-analysis response (usefulness and reliability). "Source A, an owned reconstruction of a dedicatory inscription recording losses 'off Lade, where the Chian squadron alone fought on,' is useful evidence that the Ionian fleet fractured under pressure, since it implies desertion by other contingents consistent with Herodotus's report of the Samian and Lesbian withdrawal. Its reliability is limited by its fragmentary, commemorative genre, which preserves only the Chian perspective and cannot by itself establish the wider tactical picture; it should be corroborated against Herodotus's fuller narrative of Lade (494 BC) and against the consequence that followed, the fall and sack of Miletus."

Marker's note: markers reward explicit use of the source's implied detail, a stated limitation tied to genre, and corroboration with a dated event rather than a bare description of the inscription.

2. Essay paragraph (Persian weakness as a factor at Marathon). "Persian limitations shaped the battlefield before a single spear was thrown. Datis and Artaphernes commanded a punitive, sea-borne expedition, not the main royal army, and it had already been reduced storming Eretria after a six-day siege before it ever landed at Marathon. A maritime force restricted cavalry numbers on the day, a limitation later tradition (the Suda) sharpens into a claim that the cavalry had re-embarked when the Athenians attacked. As Briant argues, viewing 490 BC as a limited punitive raid rather than a full invasion, Persia's structural constraints created the opening; it took Miltiades's tactics to exploit it."

Marker's note: this paragraph scores because it names the specific limitation (a sea-borne punitive force, not the main army), dates it, and integrates a named historian as argument, not decoration.

Command words and how to use a source

Command words: "Outline" wants sequenced points with brief development; "explain" wants a causal mechanism, not narration; "assess" or "evaluate" or "to what extent" demand a sustained JUDGEMENT defended in every paragraph, not a description of events. For a 20-mark essay, plan a one-line thesis and three argument lines before writing.
Using a source: Work through content (what does it show), then reliability (origin, authorship, date, genre, distance from the event), then usefulness (what it can and cannot tell a historian), then perspective (whose interest does it serve). For the Ionian Revolt and Marathon this usually means weighing Herodotus's Athenocentric narrative and rhetorical framing (the triumph of Greek freedom over "barbarian" despotism) against his generally reliable factual detail, and checking his numbers (6,400 to 192) against the likelihood of exaggeration.
Weaving historiography: Do not drop a historian's name at the end of a paragraph as decoration. Use it to sharpen your argument: "Briant frames the 490 BC campaign as a limited punitive raid, which supports the Persian-weakness reading but does not by itself explain the Athenian victory," is stronger than "Briant also studied this campaign."

Exam-style practice questions

Practice questions written in the style of NESA exam questions on this dot point, with worked answer explainers. The year tag is the paper they imitate, not the source.

Practice (NESA)8 marksOutline the causes, course, and consequences of the Ionian Revolt.

Show worked answer →

An 8-mark "outline" needs causes, the main events, and consequences.

Causes: Persian rule was administered through Greek tyrants installed by the satrap of Sardis. The tyrants were unpopular. Aristagoras of Miletus, after the failed Persian expedition to Naxos (499 BC), feared punishment and incited revolt. Herodotus (5.30 to 38) emphasises Aristagoras's personal motives; modern historians (Cawkwell, Briant) also stress structural grievances over tribute and tyrant rule.
The revolt (499 to 494 BC): Aristagoras deposed the tyrants and democratised the Ionian cities. He sought aid from Sparta (refused by King Cleomenes) and Athens (twenty triremes sent) and Eretria (five triremes). In 498 BC the rebels marched inland and burned Sardis, the capital of the Lydian satrapy. Athenian forces withdrew after the campaign.
Persian response: Persian armies progressively reconquered Ionia. In 494 BC the Persian fleet defeated the Ionian fleet at Lade, off Miletus. Miletus was sacked and its population deported.
Consequences: Persia reorganised Ionia under more moderate tribute. Darius vowed to punish Athens; according to Herodotus (5.105) he had a slave remind him at every meal: "Master, remember the Athenians." The Ionian Revolt gave Darius the pretext for the invasion of 490 BC.

Markers reward causes (Aristagoras, structural grievances), the burning of Sardis, Lade, and the consequence (the path to Marathon).

Practice (NESA)20 marksAccount for the Athenian victory at Marathon in 490 BC.

Show worked answer →

A 20-mark essay needs the campaign, the battle, and the reasons for victory.

Thesis: Athens won at Marathon because of Miltiades's tactics, hoplite quality, Persian limitations, civic will, and the Spartan delay.
The campaign: After Mardonius's 492 BC expedition (wrecked off Athos), Darius sent Datis and Artaphernes by sea in 490 BC. The expedition sacked Eretria and landed at Marathon, on the advice of the exiled tyrant Hippias.
Athenian decision: The Assembly voted to march out, on the motion of Miltiades. Pheidippides ran to Sparta (240 km in two days); the Spartans pleaded the Karneia festival. Plataea sent 1,000 hoplites. Around 10,000 hoplites against perhaps 25,000 Persians.
The battle (August or September 490 BC): Herodotus (6.111 to 117) records that Miltiades thinned his centre and reinforced the wings. The Athenians charged at a run across the last 200 metres. The wings broke the Persian flanks; the centre held just long enough to envelop the Persian centre. The Persians fled to their ships; 6,400 Persian dead to 192 Athenian (Herodotus's figures).
Reasons: (1) Tactics: the thinned centre, the run across the killing ground. (2) Equipment: hoplite armour and spear against lighter Persian infantry. (3) Civic will: the new democracy fought for itself. (4) Persian limitations: a seaborne expedition with limited cavalry. (5) Luck: the Spartan delay forced engagement before reinforcement.
Historiography: Herodotus dominant. Peter Krentz (The Battle of Marathon, 2010) reconstructs the battle. Pierre Briant (From Cyrus to Alexander, 2002) views the campaign as a limited punitive expedition. Tom Holland (Persian Fire, 2005) reads Marathon as the survival of the democratic experiment.
Conclusion: Marathon was a tactical Athenian victory of hoplite quality and Miltiades's generalship with consequences out of all proportion to the expedition.

Practice questions

Original practice questions graded from foundation to exam level, each with a full worked solution. Try them before revealing the solution.

foundation4 marksOutline the causes of the Ionian Revolt (499 BC).

Show worked solution →

A 4-mark "outline" wants several correct, sequenced causes with brief development, roughly one mark per developed point.

Point 1: Unpopular tyrants: Persia governed Ionia through Greek tyrants answerable to the satrap at Sardis, who ruled in Persian interest rather than their own city's.
Point 2: Aristagoras's personal position: Aristagoras, tyrant of Miletus deputising for Histiaeus (held at Susa), led a failed Persian-backed expedition against Naxos in 500 BC and feared punishment for its cost and failure.
Point 3: Structural grievances: The tribute burden set under Darius's reorganisation (Miletus and the Ionian cities paid into the 400-talent Ionian tribute district) and Persian interference in succession at the tyrannies bred resentment.
Point 4: Trigger: In 499 BC Aristagoras deposed the tyrants, proclaimed isonomia (equal political rights), and appealed to mainland Greece for aid.

Markers reward correct dated detail (500 to 499 BC) and the causal link from Persian administration to Aristagoras's personal motive.

foundation3 marksWhy did Sparta refuse Aristagoras's request for help in 498 BC, while Athens and Eretria agreed?

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A 3-mark "why" question needs explanation, not narration.

Sparta's refusal. King Cleomenes initially considered helping until Aristagoras, questioned on the distance to Susa, admitted the Persian capital lay three months' march from the coast (Herodotus 5.50). Sparta's conservative, land-based military culture and its reluctance to commit hoplites so far from the Peloponnese outweighed any sympathy for fellow Ionian Greeks.

Athens and Eretria's support. Athens had an ethnic and colonial connection to Miletus (traditionally its mother-city) and recent grievances against Persia over the exiled tyrant Hippias; the Assembly voted 20 triremes. Eretria, which owed Miletus a past military debt, sent 5.

Markers reward the specific Herodotus detail (the three-month march) as the proximate cause of Sparta's refusal.

core5 marksSource A (owned reconstruction): a fragment of a dedicatory inscription of the type set up by an Ionian city after 494 BC records a list of ships and crews lost 'off Lade, where the Chian squadron alone fought on after the Samians and others withdrew.' Using Source A and your own knowledge, explain the significance of the Battle of Lade (494 BC).

Show worked solution →

A 5-mark "explain" with a source needs the data USED, causal explanation, and own knowledge beyond the source.

Use the source: Source A points to a fractured Ionian fleet: the Chians fighting on alone implies desertion or withdrawal by other contingents (Herodotus reports the Samian and Lesbian squadrons abandoning the line), which explains why a large allied fleet (around 350 triremes by Herodotus's count) still lost decisively.
Own knowledge: Lade was the last major fleet action of the revolt. The Persian fleet, mostly Phoenician, exploited the Ionians' lack of unified command and training. Defeat at Lade opened Miletus, the revolt's leading city, to siege; it fell soon after, was sacked, and its population deported to Ampe near the Tigris.
Significance: Lade effectively ended organised Ionian resistance and let Persia methodically reconquer the remaining rebel cities by 494/493 BC, closing the revolt and setting up Darius's punitive turn toward the Greek mainland.

Markers reward use of the source's implied disunity, the correct sequence (Lade then the fall of Miletus), and the causal link to Darius's subsequent policy.

core6 marksSOURCE ANALYSIS. Source B (owned paraphrase): a later Greek writer, composing a moralising account of the Ionian Revolt for a fourth-century BC audience, blames the disaster entirely on Aristagoras's personal cowardice and ambition, presenting the Ionian cities as innocent victims led astray by a single reckless leader. Assess the usefulness and reliability of Source B for a historian investigating the causes of the Ionian Revolt.

Show worked solution →

A 6-mark source-analysis task needs balanced usefulness AND reliability, anchored in origin/motive/audience, plus own knowledge and a historian.

Origin, motive, audience: Source B is a later, moralising composition aimed at a fourth-century audience, written well after the events and shaped to draw a didactic lesson about individual folly rather than to record structural causes accurately.
Usefulness: It is useful evidence for how later Greeks REMEMBERED and moralised the revolt, and it echoes a real ancient tradition, since Herodotus (5.28 to 38) himself gives Aristagoras's personal motives (fear after the Naxos failure) heavy weight.
Reliability: It is unreliable as a full causal account because it flattens genuine structural grievances (tyranny, tribute, Persian interference) into a single villain narrative, and because hindsight and moral purpose distort the emphasis. It should be corroborated against Herodotus's fuller narrative and against modern analysis of Persian administration.
Historian: Modern historians such as George Cawkwell and Pierre Briant stress structural causes (tribute, tyrant rule, Persian succession politics) alongside Aristagoras's personal role, which both supports the source's core claim (Aristagoras mattered) and exposes its distortion (he was not the sole cause).

Markers reward origin/motive/audience analysis, BALANCED usefulness and limitations, corroboration, and a named historian.

exam20 marksESSAY. To what extent was Persian military and strategic weakness, rather than Athenian strength, responsible for the Greek victory at Marathon in 490 BC?

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A band-6 essay sustains a judgement on "to what extent," marshals precise dated evidence, and weaves historiography. This is a PLAN plus a model paragraph.

Thesis: Persian limitations (a small punitive expeditionary force, restricted cavalry use, and no unified command with Hippias only an adviser) created the conditions for victory, but the decisive factor was positive Athenian strength: Miltiades's generalship, hoplite equipment and discipline, and the political will of the new democracy. Marathon was won, not merely not lost.
Argument line 1: Persian limitations: Datis and Artaphernes led a seaborne punitive force, not the main royal army; it had already been reduced fighting at Eretria (six-day siege, betrayal, destruction) before landing at Marathon. A maritime expedition restricted cavalry numbers and mobility on the day, a limitation later tradition (the Suda) sharpens by claiming the cavalry had re-embarked when the Athenians attacked.
Argument line 2: Miltiades's generalship: Miltiades, an elected general with direct experience of Persian methods from his time as tyrant in the Thracian Chersonese, persuaded the polemarch Callimachus to fight. He thinned the Athenian centre to match the wider Persian front and used the run across roughly 200 metres of open ground to minimise exposure to Persian archery (Herodotus 6.111 to 113).
Argument line 3: Hoplite quality and civic will: Bronze-armoured hoplites with the hoplon shield and doru spear against lighter-armed Persian infantry decided the close-quarters fight on the wings, which then enveloped the weaker Persian centre. The new Athenian democracy, only 18 years old, fought for its own survival, reinforced by 1,000 Plataean hoplites; Sparta's absence (delayed by the Karneia festival) made the victory uniquely Athenian.
Historiography: Peter Krentz (The Battle of Marathon, 2010) reconstructs a shorter charge and a battle won substantially on hoplite discipline. Pierre Briant (From Cyrus to Alexander, 2002) frames the Persian side as a limited punitive raid rather than a full invasion, supporting the "Persian weakness" reading. Tom Holland (Persian Fire, 2005) foregrounds Athenian political will, reading the battle as the fragile democracy's fight for survival.
Model paragraph (argument line 2): It was Miltiades who turned a defensive stand into a victory. Recognising that a static line would be outflanked by the wider Persian front, he thinned his centre and extended his wings, then ordered the Athenians to close the final stretch, perhaps 200 metres, at a run, so as to spend the least possible time under Persian archery (Herodotus, Histories 6.111 to 113). The gamble paid off exactly where he had planned it to fail: the weakened Athenian centre gave ground, but the reinforced wings shattered the Persian flanks and wheeled inward to trap the Persian centre in the field. As Krentz argues, the tactical decision, not numerical superiority, explains the lopsided outcome.
Conclusion: Persian structural weakness made victory possible, but Miltiades's tactics, hoplite superiority in close combat, and Athenian civic will made it happen. The extent claim should be qualified: both factors mattered, but Athenian agency was decisive on the day.

Marker's note: band 6 answers commit to a stated extent, deploy precise dated evidence (the Eretria siege, the 200-metre charge, the casualty figures), and integrate at least two named historians as argument rather than decoration.

exam8 marksExplain the significance of the Ionian Revolt (499 to 494 BC) for the origins of the Persian Wars.

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An 8-mark "explain the significance" needs the causal chain from the revolt to the invasions of 490 and 480 to 479 BC, not a retelling of the revolt itself.

The immediate pretext: The burning of Sardis in 498 BC, with Athenian and Eretrian help, gave Darius a direct grievance against mainland Greece. Herodotus (5.105) records Darius having a servant remind him "Master, remember the Athenians" at every meal, a literary device signalling a deliberate policy of retribution.
The escalation: Persian reconquest of Ionia (497 to 494 BC), culminating at Lade and the sack of Miletus, freed Persian resources for a westward campaign. Mardonius's 492 BC expedition (wrecked off Athos) and the 490 BC Datis and Artaphernes campaign (which sacked Eretria before landing at Marathon) were framed explicitly as punishment for Sardis and Eretria's involvement.
The longer chain: Marathon (490 BC) did not end Persian ambitions; Darius's death (486 BC) and Xerxes's succession led to the far larger invasion of 480 to 479 BC (Thermopylae, Salamis, Plataea). The Ionian Revolt is therefore the structural origin of two decades of Greco-Persian conflict, not an isolated episode.

Markers reward the explicit causal chain (Sardis to Marathon to Xerxes's invasion) with correct dates, not a narrative of the revolt alone.