court and existed largely for the purpose of alerting the Babylonian king to potential dangers allegedly
foretold by the observed celestial phenomena. In Miletus, however, and in other Ionian cities, scientists
and thinkers could expect their theories to be subjected to radical challenges that questioned not only their
validity but even the underlying premises on which their theories were based.

OLIGARCHY   Literally   “rule   by  the few,”   it  denotes a   type    of  government  that,   unlike  democracy,

excludes    the majority    of  citizens    from    participation,  generally   restricting political   power   to  a   small

number  of  wealthier   citizens.

Ionia in the sixth century BC was the birthplace not only of philosophy and of a kind of scientific inquiry
with which we today are familiar. There are hints that, had the Ionian poleis been allowed to develop
without interference from outside, they might also have introduced democracy to the world, an
accomplishment that is, instead, generally credited to fifth-century Athens. For example, there survives a
fragmentary inscription from Chios, an Ionian island just off the western coast of Asia Minor. The
inscription dates from the first half of the sixth century BC and refers to the existence on Chios of a
“public council,” consisting of 50 members elected from each of the tribes (probably six in number) and
having the authority to overturn decisions of the highest magistrates in cases of appeal. It is only a matter
of chance that this inscription has survived, and experts are not in agreement over the extent to which the
inscription provides evidence of genuinely democratic institutions. In any event, there are striking
similarities between the institutions reflected in the inscription and those of Athens, about which we are
much better informed, in roughly the same period. It is usually assumed that democracy originated in
Athens, but it is perhaps equally possible that the idea of some form of democratic government was
something that was “in the air” in Athens and in other Greek cities in the sixth century BC. We have ample
evidence that, in Athens, this idea was allowed to take hold in practice; for the Ionian cities of Asia
Minor the evidence is meager and, in any case, the cities of Ionia were not free to develop as they wished.

The Ionian Revolt (499–494 BC)

What prevented the Ionians from developing as the Athenians were able to do was, precisely, the
proximity of those foreigners, contact with whom influenced the intellectual and cultural development of
Ionia. This proximity resulted in various parts of Ionia, at various times, coming under the power, first of
the Lydians and later of the Persians. As we have seen, most of the Ionian cities (and most of the other
Greek cities on the Aegean coast of Asia Minor) were required to pay tribute to the Lydians by the middle
of the sixth century BC. After the conquest of Lydia in 546 BC by Cyrus and the Persians, those Greek
cities became absorbed into the Persian Empire and now paid tribute to the SATRAP, or governor, who
administered for the Persian king the province that had previously been the Lydian Empire. The Greeks
had been in awe of the wealth and power of King Croesus, and one wealthy Athenian father even named
his son after the Lydian king (see p. 75); now Lydia was merely a small part of an empire the magnitude of
which the Greeks could scarcely comprehend. Considering its vast extent, the Persian Empire was
administered with remarkable efficiency. Its territory was divided into administrative districts, or
satrapies, each overseen by a satrap whose responsibility it was to exact revenues and transmit them to
the king. The satrap owed his position and his allegiance to the king, and he was allowed considerable
latitude in how he governed the non-Persian population of his satrapy, provided that peace was
maintained and the tribute collected. For the most part, the satrap permitted the native population a good
deal of self-governance, for which reason the Hebrew Bible praises Cyrus as the restorer of religious
independence to the Jews following the Babylonian captivity. When dealing with native populations the