Ionian Revolt Causes

The event that directly led to the first Persian invasion of Greece was the Ionian Revolt, which lasted from 499 BC to 493 BC. The revolt began with Aristogoras, who was eager to secure himself a position of power. He thought that the way to do this would be to ingratiate himself with the Persians, and thought that he could do this by securing the Persians a great victory. Aristogoras convinced the Persians to attempt to siege Naxos, but when the siege failed, the Persians blamed Aristogoras. Looking to protect himself, Aristogoras persuaded the citizens of Miletus to rebel. With the citizens already unhappy with Persian rule, they were quick to support Aristogoras. The people of Miletus killed the local Persian garrison, and by doing this,

Luckily, Greece was looking for an excuse to rebel, and after encouragement from Aristogoras, followed Miletus and rebelled. The Ionian revolt then spread through many cities, and by 499 B.C., most Ionian cities were independent again. However, the success was only temporary. While the Persian army was slow to mobilize, they were effective once they were in motion. Aristogoras, having planned for this, appealed to the mainland Greeks to help. Sparta refused, but Athens agreed, and sent an entire army plus a navy to help. In 496 B.C., the Ionians and Athenians burned Sardis, and drove the Persians out of Asia Minor. Herodotus says that, “When King Darius was informed that Sardis had been captured and burned by the Athenians and the Ionians… He put the question, “Who are the Athenians?” and, having his answer, asked for a bow. He took it, fitted an arrow to it, and shot it into the sky, and as he sent it up he prayed, ‘Zeus, grant me the chance of punishing the Athenians.’ Having said that, he ordered one of his servants that, as often as a meal was set before him, the man should say three times, ‘Master, remember the

Within hours, news had reached Athens of the landing, and they had to make the decision about what to do. After a debate about what should be done, the decision was made to go to Marathon and fight the Persians. A strength of about 10,000 Athenians and 1,000 Plataeans faced a force of about 26,000 Persians. One of the reasons why this was such a significant battle for the Athenians was the way they strategized and overcame the Persians. Instead of using the typical phalanx formation, Miltiades ordered that the middle of the line had only a depth of four soldiers, while the flanks both had a depth of eight soldiers. This meant that the Greek line was as long as the Persian line, and was not able to be outflanked. The line of Greeks walked forward at a steady pace until they reached the line of archer effectiveness (200-400m, according to different sources). From here, they broke into a run to the Persian line. As expected, the middle of the Greek line had started to be pushed back fairly early on into the fight. However, the flanks were able to engulf the Persians. Herodotus says, “They fought a long time at Marathon. In the centre of the line the foreigners prevailed, where the Persians and Sacae were arrayed. The foreigners prevailed there and broke through in pursuit inland, but on each wing the Athenians and Plataeans prevailed. In victory they let the routed foreigners flee, and brought the