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DAVID BRANSCOME

Florida State University

Along with his fellow Milesian Histiaeus, Aristagoras was the main instigator of the IONIAN REVOLT (499–493 BCE). A hostile tradition, in which IONIANS sought to make Aristagoras a scapegoat for the revolt, may lie behind Herodotus’ uniformly negative portrayal of Aristagoras as self‐serving, duplicitous, and cowardly. Aristagoras is entrusted (epitropos, 5.30.2) with the rule of MILETUS by his father‐in‐law and first cousin (or uncle), the tyrant Histiaeus, while the latter was being kept in SUSA by the Persian king DARIUS I. Following the request of Naxian EXILES to restore them to their island (c. 500), Aristagoras entices Artaphernes, the satrap of SARDIS, with the possibility of adding to the Persian king’s domain not only NAXOS, but also other Cycladic islands and even EUBOEA; Artaphernes therefore sends a fleet under the general MEGABATES (5.30–31). The ensuing SIEGE of Naxos fails because the Naxians were forewarned by Megabates, following a quarrel he had with Aristagoras (5.32–34). Hard‐pressed by this failure, Aristagoras receives a secret message (tattooed on the head of a slave) from Histiaeus urging him to revolt (5.35). All of Aristagoras’ partisans agree to the revolt, except for the Milesian logographer HECATAEUS, who recounts “all the nations that Darius ruled and his power” (5.36.2). To drum up popular support, Aristagoras gives up his rule in Miletus, deposes other Ionian TYRANTS, and establishes ISONOMIA (“equality before the law”) in Miletus and other Ionian CITIES (5.37–38; cf. 6.5, 9, 13).

Aristagoras travels to SPARTA in an attempt to secure military aid (c. 499–498); he brings a BRONZE map of the world, with which he shows king CLEOMENES—in a reverse from Hecataeus’ warning—all the nations that the Lacedaemonians could seize from the Persians if they invaded ASIA (5.49; cf. Aristagoras’ holding out Greek ISLANDS for the Persian Artaphernes to conquer, 5.31.2–3). GORGO’s timely advice enables her father Cleomenes to resist Aristagoras’ ever‐increasing bribes (5.51). As Aristagoras gives his geographical and ethnographical description with the help of his map, he takes on the appearance of the historian Herodotus himself; Herodotus will build upon Aristagoras’ presentation when he offers his own account of the ROYAL ROAD from Ionia to Susa (5.52–54; Branscome 2013, 105–49). After leaving Sparta empty‐handed, Aristagoras goes to ATHENS and persuades an Athenian assembly to contribute ships to the revolt (5.97). Herodotus associates two words with Aristagoras: eupetēs/eupeteōs (“easy/easily”: 5.31.3, twice; 5.49.3 and 4 and 8; 5.97.1) and diaballein (“deceive”: 5.35.1, 50.2, 97.1); he combines the two words when he says that “it seems it is easier to deceive many than one, since [Aristagoras] was unable to deceive Cleomenes the Lacedaemonian alone, but he did it to thirty thousand Athenians” (5.97.2; see Pelling 2007, 183–85; Hornblower 2013, 132, 167, 276–77).

When Ionian fortunes in the revolt have decisively turned, Aristagoras ponders flight; he rejects Hecataeus’ advice to fortify the island of LEROS, but instead heads for the city in THRACE founded by Histiaeus, MYRCINUS, where he and his army are killed by Thracians in 497/6 (5.124–26; cf. Thuc. 4.102.2; Hornblower 1996, 320–22, and 2013, 307–8).

SEE ALSO: Artaphernes son of Hystaspes; Causation; Deception; Democracy; Display; Histiaeus son of Lysagoras; Maps; Molpagoras; Rebellion