began in 499 BC. Aristagoras was himself tyrant of Miletus, but he stepped down in that year and
encouraged the other Ionian cities to rid themselves of their tyrants. Aristagoras knew that he was inciting
rebellion against the most massive empire on the face of the earth, and he sought support for his efforts
from some of the Greek cities on the mainland, especially Sparta and Athens. At this time, these were the
two most powerful Greek poleis; Sparta’s army had no equal in the Greek world and Athens was a
regional naval power. Sparta was never comfortable committing its soldiers to serve very far from home
and declined to provide any support. Athens, however, was willing to contribute a small fleet of 20 ships,
and the Euboean city of Eretria sent an additional five. The Athenians and the Eretrians were themselves
Ionian Greeks, and they seem to have been motivated in part by a special feeling of kinship with the
Ionians on the other side of the Aegean Sea.
Map 10 The Persian Empire at its greatest extent under Darius 1 (ca. 500 BC).
The Athenian and Eretrian forces sailed to Miletus, where they joined up with the troops of the Ionian
cities that were prepared to revolt from Persia. The Greeks then marched on Sardis, which they were able
to capture with relative ease. They could not, however, seize the citadel at the heart of the city, which was
defended by the troops of the Persian satrap. Before the Greeks could mount an assault on the citadel, a
fire broke out in the city; whether the fire was deliberately set by the Greek invaders is not known. At any
rate, because of the type of construction used in Sardis at the time, the fire spread quickly and soon
engulfed the entire city. The Greeks retreated hastily and returned to the coast, pursued by the satrap and
his army, which was soon joined by other Persian troops from the nearby satrapies. After a battle in
which the Persian forces inflicted heavy casualties on the rebellious Greeks, the Athenians sailed back
home, leaving their Ionian kinsmen to a fate which, by this point, must have been abundantly clear. It took
some years, however, before the Persians were able finally to put down the Ionian Revolt. In 494 BC, a
naval battle took place just off Miletus in which the Ionian fleet was resoundingly defeated by a navy that
consisted largely of ships provided by the Phoenicians, who were loyal subjects of the Persian Empire.
After the battle, the Persians captured and destroyed the city of Miletus, enslaving those of its inhabitants