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

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.

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.

Common exam traps

Treating Marathon as a Spartan victory. It was not. Sparta arrived after the battle.

Forgetting the Plataeans. 1,000 Plataean hoplites fought alongside the Athenians.

The "marathon run" of 42 km. The running tradition in Herodotus is the 240 km run to Sparta, not the 42 km return to Athens. The classical marathon distance is a 1908 invention.

Underestimating the Ionian Revolt. Marathon is the second act of a Persian punitive policy that began with the burning of Sardis.

In one sentence

The Ionian Revolt (499 to 494 BC), led by Aristagoras of Miletus and supported by 20 Athenian and 5 Eretrian triremes, burned Sardis in 498 BC, was crushed by Persia at Lade in 494 BC with the sack of Miletus, and gave Darius the pretext for the punitive expedition of 490 BC that under Datis and Artaphernes sacked Eretria, landed at Marathon, and was defeated by an Athenian and Plataean force of around 10,000 hoplites under Miltiades whose tactical use of the thinned centre, the hoplite charge, and the absence of Persian cavalry produced a victory that Herodotus records as 6,400 Persian to 192 Athenian dead and that Athens would commemorate for a century.