Herodotus and the Ionian Revolt

Author(s): J. A. S. Evans
Source: Historia: Zeitschrift fr Alte Geschichte, Bd. 25, H. 1 (1st Qtr., 1976), pp. 31-37
Published by: Franz Steiner Verlag
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HERODOTUS AND THE IONIAN REVOLT

It has been remarked many times that Herodotus gives his readersa jaundiced
view of the Ionian Revolt. One could quote a good number of verdicts against
him, from Plutarch onwards. "Herodotus, after the event," wrote How and
Wells,1 "endorsed the shallow view that the revolt was a blunder, if not a crime."
"The imperfect character," wrote Grundy,2 "of the information which Herodotus furnishes with regard to the story of the great Revolt is so evident that the
historian himself must have been conscious of it," and a little later in his text,
Grundy3 lists the three main defects of the Herodotean account as omissions,
lack of chronological data and anti-Ionian bias. This antipathy towards the
Ionians, he notes, is less apparent in other parts of the Histories which do not
deal with the Revolt, but in his account of the Revolt itself, he has "hardly a good
word to say of them in any departmentof life."4A. R. Burn's judgment is a pithy
"grudging and less than fair,"5and Russell Meiggs speaks of a "strong prejudice
against the lonians, which is elsewhere made explicit" that pervades Herodotus'
account.6 In the several articles which have appeared on the Revolt in the last
decade or so,' it is assumed that Herodotus has misunderstood or deliberately
twisted the information he found; one of these, by Mabel Lang, attempts to
document the historian's prejudices against Histiaeus and Aristagoras in particular, and against the Revolt in general.
However, the reasons given for Herodotus' bias differ widely. A great
number of scholars have centred their suspicions on Herodotus' sources.
Grundy8 suspected traditions current in the historian's city of origin, Halikarnassos, and other Dorian cities in Asia Minor, which played no greatpart, if any,
in the Revolt. "Those who have failed to fight the fight of liberty are not apt to be
well-disposed to those who have fought and failed. . ." Burn9notes not merely
the neutrality of Halikarnassos, but also the dubious role of Samos, which
IW. W. How and J. Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus (Oxford, 1912) II, 66 ad 6.3.
2

G. B. Grundy, The Great Persian Warand its Preliminaries (London, 1901) 79.

4 op. cit. 560-61.

3op. cit. 80.
SA. R. Burn, Persia and the Greeks, The Defence of the West 546-478 B. C. (London, 1962) 197.

Russell Meiggs, The Athenian Empire (Oxford, 1972) 24.

'Cf. A. Blamire, "Herodotus and Histiaeus", CQ 9, n.s. (1959) 142-54; J. A. S. Evans,
"Histiaeus and Aristagoras: Notes on the Ionian Revolt", AJP, 84 (1963) 113-128; Mabel Lang,
"Herodotus and the Ionian Revolt", Historia, 17 (1968) 24-36; A. French, "Topical Influences on
Herodotus' Narrative", Mnemosyne 25 (ser. 4) 1972, 9-27; G. A. R. Chapman, "Herodotus and
Histiaeus' R6le in the Ionian Revolt", Historia, 22 (1972) 546-68.
8 op. cit. 561.
op. cit. 197.
6

Historia, Band XXV/1 (1976) ? Franz Steiner Verlag GmbH, Wiesbaden, BRD

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32

J.A.S. EVANS

betrayedthe revoltin the end. Herodotusknew Samoswell, for he livedtherea

shortperiod,andmodernscholarsaregenerallysuspiciousthatSamiansources
vilifiedthe Revolt. Herodotus'"primarymotive,"wrote How andWells,"for
insistingon the insubordinationand effeminacyof the Ioniansis to whitewash
the Samians."-IThehistorian'streatmentseemstoo kind,for it does appearthat,
if the Samiancontingenthad remainedloyal at the battleof Lade,the Ionians
could have won, and even if they had merelyheld their own and deniedthe
Persianscommandof the sea, the fallof Miletuswas not a foregoneconclusion.
But in fact, Herodotus does treat the failure of the Revolt as a foregone
conclusion. When king Darius heard that the lonians had risen, he paid no
attentionto them, but concentratedhis wrathon the Atheniansinstead."'The
Revolt was not worthy of the king's attention.The Samianadmiralswere
convertedto the view thattheRevoltwashopelessjustbeforethebattleof Lade,
and the argumentgoes that Samospassedthis view on to Herodotus.
has pointedout an additionalreasonwhich may help account
Immerwahr"2
for Herodotus' kind treatmentof Samos. The Samiansusually acted with
independence.Beforethe battleof Mycale,they were the first to come overto
the Helleniccause,andduringthe battle,theytook the initiativein opposingthe
Persians.In the IonianRevolt, they were the first to desertthe Ionianranks.
Theirindependencemay havecausedHerodotus"to excusetheirbehaviourat
Ladesomewhat."Yet, if Herodotusexcusesthe Samians,it is moreby whathe
does not say thanby whathe does. He does not minimizetheirroleatLade.He
merelyfailsto condemnit, andif he himself,on othergrounds,believedthatthe
IonianRevoltwas a foolish, ill-starredventure,he mightwell find it difficultto
blamethe Samiansfor actingon a presumptionhe himselfshared.We should
note too that there was a patriot group in Samoswhich disapprovedof the
betrayalof the Samiancommandersat Lade, and the Samiansourcesfor the
Revolt may havebeen mixedin theirviews.
It is true, however, that there is an implicit contrastbetween the Samian
behaviourat Ladeandat whatHerodotusrefersto in his lastbook asthesecond
IonianRevolt,when, on Samianinitiative,the Ioniansturnedon the Persiansat
the battleof Mycale.3 The two revoltsframethe story of the Persianoffensive
againstGreece.But we shouldbe cautiousbeforewe placespecialemphasison
the contrastingroles of the Samiansin both revolts. Herodotushad already
remarkedon the mutabilityof humanfortune,14andhis cross-referenceto the
lonian Revolt at the conclusionof his accountof Mycalemaybe intendedonly
as a reflectionalongthe sameline.
Recently Cawkwell has suggested that the Herodotean bias betrays an
influenceas the sourAthenian,isolationistview, andpointedto Alkmnaeonid
" Hdt. 5. 105.
op. cit., ad 6.13.
Henry R. Immerwahr, "The Samian Stories of Herodotus", CJ 52 (1957) 312-22, esp. pp.
4 Hdt. 1. 5. 4.
13 Hdt. 9. 104.
320-1.
10

12

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Herodotusandthe IonianRevolt

33

ce.'5 Everyone who has studied Greek history knows that the Alkmaeonids

were great contaminators of historical tradition; indeed, one wonders how they
did it all. In this case, the argument goes that the Alkmaeonids were pro-Persian
in the first decade of the fifth century, and thus had an interest in vilifying the
Revolt. Now it is true that in this period, the Alkmaeonids were sufficiently
pro-Persian to be suspected of treason at the battle of Marathon. It is equally
true that Herodotus attributed disdain for the lonians to Cleisthenes,'6 and
thought this was his ruling motive for reforming the Athenian tribes: a remark
which may be more understandable if he knew that the Alkmaeonids had taken
an anti-Ionian line about this time. We can take it as very probable that the
Alkmaeonids did support Athens' withdrawal of assistance to the Revolt, and
there is a modern tendency, which I cannot share, to treat Herodotus as a "house
historian" of the Alkmaeonids.'7 Yet, even if there were some truth to this,
would the Alkmaeonids still have any interest in propagating their isolationist
view a couple of generations after the Revolt was over, when Herodotus was
putting together his account? Athens was then in her imperial heyday, and I
cannot believe there was any political gain for the Alkmaeonids in the moral of
Herodotus' story: that Athenian interference in the quarrelbetween Ionians and
Persians was foolish and the beginning of calamity.'8
In this discussion of Herodotus' sources for the Ionian Revolt, little attention
has been given to the old view of Grote and Busolt'9 that Herodotus used
Hecataeus of Miletus and hence may have derived his bias partly from him.
Herodotus brings Hecataeus twice on stage as a "wise counselor" figure. He
advised against the uprising before it took place, and as Grote pointed out, his
advice does not betray wisdom after the event, for Hecataeus seemed to assume
erroneously that the revolt would not spread beyond Miletus. Add to this the
information preserved in Diodorus20 that Hecataeus was sent as an envoy to
Artaphrenes whom he persuaded to treat the vanquished lonians generously,
and it would appearthat, while Hecataeus was in the inner councils of the rebels,
he was not compromised with the Persians. The fact that he disapproved of the
Revolt may have been widely known. A final point: when the king of Sparta,
15
G. L. Cawkwell, Auckland Classical Essays Presented to E. M. Blaiklock, ed. B. F. Harris
(Auckland, N. Z./Oxford, 1970) p. 55, note 12.
16 Hdt. 5. 69.
17 cf. Daniel Gillis, "Marathon and the Alkmaeonids", GRBS 18 (1969) 133-145.
Is R. W. Macan, Herodotus, the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Books, I (London, 1895) 247, remarks
that Athens blundered not in sending help to the lonians, but in later withdrawing it, and states that
Herodotus' comment on the gullibility of the Athenians at 5.97 was "certainly not Athenian".
9 G. Grote, History of Greece (Everyman edition, London/New York) V, 21, 29; G. Busolt,
Gniechische Geschichte II2 (Gotha, 1895) 452. G. Nenci, "Le fonti di Erodoto sull' insurrezione
ionica" RAL (ser. 8) 5 (1950) 106-8, doubts Herodotus' use of Hecataeus on the grounds that there is
no reference to the Revolt in the surviving fragments of Hecataeus. However, Nenci does argue that
Herodotus' general condemnation of the Revolt as the beginning of evils betrays an Ionian,
particularly a Milesian viewpoint, for the Revolt marked the end of Ionian, and especially Milesian,
20 10. 25. 4.
prosperity.

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J.A. S. EVANS

Cleomenes, declined Aristagoras' invitation to support the rebels, what turned

him against the venture was his realization of how vast the Persian Empire was.
Herodotus approved of Cleomenes' shrewdness, which he contrasted with the
gullibility of the Athenians.2' It was this same fact: the sheer might of Persia,
which Hecataeus had tried to impress upon the lonians. If Hecataeus took the
same pessimistic view of the revolt that Herodotus did, he may have been
responsible, at least in part, for Herodotus' bias against the whole venture.
But sources cannot be the whole explanation, for Herodotus must have had
access to a number of traditions and viewpoints about the Ionian Revolt, and yet
he has chosen to give what Grundy22 called an "excessively fragmentary"
account. The later fifth century had reasons of its own for denigrating the
lonians. Macan remarkedthat the story of the Revolt looked like a justification
of Athenian imperialism, and Gomme23 has observed that when Herodotus
described the lonians as "by far the weakest of the Greek peoples and of little
account" he was talking "the language of the fifth century," although observe
that when Herodotus24speaks of the lonians in the passage just quoted, he seems
to include the Athenians among them. However the Athenians, he adds, did not
like to be called lonians.
This dislike of the label "Ionian" is not apparent in something as early as
Aeschylus' Persians, and as long as the Delian League was under the patronage
of a pan-Ionian god, Apollo of Delos, it is hard to think that Athens made a great
deal of her disdain for lonians. But as the fifth century wore on, there is a good
deal of evidence that lonians were considered effete and unwarlike: fit for
slavery and inferior to the free Dorians. This is a theme which Thucydides puts
in the mouths of Athens' enemies, who count the Athenians as Ionians.
Brasidas, Hermocrates and Gylippus25all use it. The author of On Airs, Waters
and Places arguedthat a fruitful, mild land could not breed courageous, vigorous
men, and compared, for example, Europe with Asia where the lonians dwelt.26
Herodotus was aware of the theory that soft climates made soft men; indeed,
he ends his Histories with a story of Cyrus which illustratesthe theme.27He also
notes the splendid climate of Ionia.28But he does not connect it directly with
Ionian softness. To be sure, some moderns have supplied the connective for him,
since not long after his remark on the Ionian climate, he notes the weakness of
the Ionians.29But Herodotus' very failure to seize this opportunity to connect
the two is surely of some significance. Moreover, Herodotus does not deny the
lonians'courage as warriors as the later fifth-century did: witness their brave
resistance against Harpagus30in the first book, their efforts both at Salamis
22 op. cit. 559.
Hdt. 5. 97.
Macan, op. cit. I, lxvii; A. W. Gomme, A Historical Commenta?y on Thucydides I (Oxford,
25 Thuc. 5.9.1; 6.7.7; 7.5.4.
24 1. 143.
1959) 127.
27 Hdt. 9. 122.
26 Hippocrates, Airs, Waters, Places, 12.
28 Cf. 1. 142.
29 Cf. Carl Roebuck, Ionian Trade and Colonization, (New York, 1959) 1-4.
21

23

3C

Hdt. 1. 169.

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Herodotusandthe IonianRevolt

35

(admittedly on the wrong side) and at Mycale.32 The anti-Ionian slurs cited
above from Thucydides are to be found in one instance in Herodotus: in the
mouths of the Scythians, enraged because the lonians saved Darius at the
Danube crossing.33 But this is an anachronism for effect; the Scythians had
reason to be angry, and Herodotus has lent them some fifth-century Dorian
insults so that they could make their point to a fifth-century reader.
There is one famous instance before the battle of Lade where Ionian dislike of
hard work seems apparent indeed.34The lonians rebel against the basic training
administered by the Phocaean admiral,Dionysius. Yet, I doubt if the main point
of this story is Ionian softness. Anyone who trains at rowing too hard and too
suddenly will get inflamed hands and blistered buttocks. Every spring, as the
sailing season started, the Peiraeus must have been full of sailors with stiff
muscles. It is Ionian lack of resolution and unity, and the irresponsibility of her
leaders that Herodotus scores. One does not want to split hairs, but it appears
that the Ionians in Herodotus were quite capable of courage and hard work
when they put their minds to it. They suffered from no inherent inferiority.
Herodotus' estimate of the Ionians is not quite that of the later fifth century. It
does not coincide with the Athenian justification for imperialismwhich Thucydides has Euphemos voice at Syracuse: that the lonians did not have the
hardihood to revolt from the Medes and see their homes and belongings
destroyed, but chose slavery instead,35nor does it agree with the pejorative
estimate put forward by Brasidas, Hermocrates and Gylippus. But neither does
it coincide with the earlier fifth-century view found in Aeschylus' Persians,
where "Ionian" may refer equally to Athenian, or Ionian under Persian rule,
and there is no pejorative connotation attached to the word.36 Herodotus
acknowledged contemporary Athenian disdain for the Ionians, and he anachronistically projected backwards into the sixth century Ionia's weakness in his
own day. But he does not deny the lonians'courage, or willingness to fight for
their freedom. Consequently, I find it hard to believe that Herodotus was
influenced unduly by any fifth-century propaganda line, Athenian or Dorian,
much less taken in by it.
There remains the possibility that Herodotus' prejudice was based on his
estimate of the Revolt's place in the historical chain of events: that is, that he
judged it by its results and the manner they were achieved. In this connection, I
want to direct attention to three passages which may shed some light on the
question if reexamined. The first is 5.97.3, where the twenty ships, which
Athens sent to help the lonians at Aristagoras' request, are called the beginning
31 Hdt. 5. 112.

32 Hdt. 8. 90; 9. 103.

Hdt. 4. 142. Cf. Macan, op. cit. I, lxvi - lxvii, who points out the "anachronistic spirit" with
which the lonians are treated here and throughout the Revolt generally. We should not overlook the
possibility that Herodotus used anachronism in this instance simply for effect.
34 Hdt. 6. 11.
36 Cf. Pers. 178; 563; 771; 899; 950; 1011; 1025.
35 Thuc. 6. 82.

33

3:-"

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36

J.A.S. EVANS

of calamity for the Greeks and the barbarians.The passage recalls the ships of
Paris in the Iliad3' which brought Helen of Troy, and it begs comparison with
two other passages in Herodotus. In the first,38 he concludes the Scythian
expedition with a remark that there was a respite of calamities, and then they
began again, instigated by Miletus. In the second,39Herodotus remarksthat the
earthquake at Delos in 490 B.C. foretold calamities to come, for in the reigns of
Darius, Xerxes and Artaxerxes, more ills befell Greece than in the twenty
previous generations. If I may connect these three passages, then Herodotus did
not regard the Ionian revolt as the beginning of Strife between Greek and
barbarian- that went back to Croesus - but he did think of it as the startof a new
chapter in which all Greeks, and not merely those in Asia, would be involved.
And I suspect that the portent of the Delos earthquakewas that the chain of evils
begun by the Revolt continued into Herodotus' own day.
The second passage comes from the famous scene before the battle of Lade,
where Dionysius of Phocaea presents the lonians with a choice between liberty
and subjection: "Our affairs are on the razor's edge, whether we are to be free
men or slaves. . ."'4 On two other occasions, Greeks are presented with equally
clear-cut choices, once before Marathon,4'where the choice is put tO Callimachus, and once before Salamis,42where Themistocles puts it to Eurybiades. As at
Marathon and Salamis, there is the suggestion that, if the right choice is made,
the lonians can be free. Failure was not inevitable after all. The lonians made the
right choice, but then irresolution and disunity set in. The lonians saw their duty
and performed it, but for a space of only seven days.
The final passage is 6.42.2. The revolt had been crushed, and Artaphrenes
made a fresh assessment based on a new land-survey. Evidence from Babylon
indicates that Darius reformed tax- and tribute-payments there, borrowing
from the old Assyrian system and basing his assessments not merely on the
amount of land, but also on its potential for producing profits.43We may suspect
that Artaphrenes took this opportunity to regularizeand reform the assessments
in Ionia along a similar model. Herodotus says nothing about that. His
comments are two. First is the cryptic remark that Artaphrenes' results were
valid down to his own time, and second is his statement that the tribute
payments were much the same as before the Revolt. The latter remarkseems to
indicate that nothing significant had changed. The Revolt had achieved nothing,
and achieved it expensively, for Herodotus does record its disastrous outcome
with care. Herodotus' other remark about Artaphrenes' land survey: that it
remained valid to his own time, is a special problem I have dealt with elsewhere ;44 here I submit only that whether Herodotus is referringto tribute due to
Persia or to Athens in his own day, his comment would serve to remind his
3' Iliad, 5. 62-3.
Hdt. 6. 98.

39
43

3
40

Hdt. 5. 27.

Hdt. 6. 11. 2.

4'

Hdt. 6. 109.

cf. R. N. Frye, 7he Heritageof Persia(London,1962)113.

42
44

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Hdt. 8.60.

CP(forthcoming).

Herodotusandthe IonianRevolt

37

audience of the status of Ionia in the fifth century. To most Greeks, tribute
symbolized the absence of freedom.
Taken together, these three passages suggest that the Revolt's place in history
was this: First, it opened a new chapter in the chain of evils which led directly to
Xerxes' offensive, and continued down to Herodotus' own day. Second, it
presented the Ionians with an opportunity to choose freedom for themselves,
which they recognized at the time. But, although Herodotus does not deny the
lonians' courage, they failed to muster enough unity or purpose during the
Revolt to make a decision and abide by it. They rallied behind Dionysius of
Phocaea when he presented them with a clear choice between liberty and
servitude before the battle of Lade, but they quickly grew dissatisfied with their
leader. Finally, as far as Ionia was concerned, the Revolt was a futile enterprise, if
it was to be judged by its results. After the Revolt, the Ionian cities had to pay
about as much tribute as before, and they continued to be liable for tribute down
to Herodotus' own day.
Solon had advised Croesus: "We must look to the end in everything, and see
how it turns out".45 By that standard, the Revolt was a useless gesture, for it
achieved nothing. Its importance lay in the calamities that it brought in its wake.
The University of British Columbia
45 Hdt. 1. 32. 9.

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J. A. S. Evans