Ionian Revolt: territorial changes

These are my notes about the territorial changes shown in the Ionian Revolt videos:

Start of the revolt

The Ionian Revolt starts with Miletos leaving the Persian Empire in 499 BC, followed by the rest of Ionia, and some parts of Karia and Aiolis in Hdt 5.37

Ionia: Herodotus doesn't specify which Ionians cities rebelled, but I'm assuming that it's the entire 12-city pan-Ionian alliance introduced in 1.142, even though Kolophon and Lebedos never show up during the revolt (the other 10 cities are all mentioned at some point). 

• I also include the territory of Smyrna, even though the city probably lies in ruins at this point, but Strabo 14.1.37 says the nation still existed in the surrounding villages.
• I include the other Greek cities that lie between the main 12 Ionian polises, so Marathesion, Pygela, Airai, Myonnesos etc are included as part of Ionia. I'm assuming that all of these were dependencies of the main 12 Ionian polises, but for some of them this is only known for certain in later time periods. 
• I show the mainland Khios peraia around Atarneus (1.160) joining at the same time as the island of Khios, but it's never explicitly stated that this area took part in the revolt.
• Lebedos and Kolophon are the 2 of the 12 Ionian cities that don't make an appearance during the Ionian Revolt in Herodotus. That they didn't send ships to the Battle of Lade is in itself not really suspicious: Kolophon was practically land locked and - unlike the other Ionians - it was famous for its cavalry, not its seafaring. Lebedos was one of the smallest Ionian cities, comparable to Priene and Myous based on the Athenian tribute lists, cities that only sent a handful of ships to Lade, and it's easy to imagine that Lebedos had no triremes at all, as it was a relatively recent invention. References like 5.98 that say "all Ionia has revolted from the king" imply that Kolophon and Lebedos were part of the revolt too.

Aiolians: Herodotus mentions Mytilene and Kyme deposing their tyrants when the revolt starts

• I treat Mytilene as representing the entire island of Lesbos with its 5 polises, as well as its extensive peraia on the mainland, although Herodotus never explicitly says this, but he uses "Lesbos" and "Mytilene" interchangeably. Most of the peraia is known from the Athenian tribute lists, Herodotos only mentions a few of them like Achilleion in 5.94
• Kyme is interpreted as representing the entire 11-polis alliance introduced in 1.149, both here and when the city is recaptured by Otanes. Kyme was a very large city based on e.g. the Athenian tribute payments, while the other 10 cities seem to have been tiny. I'm assuming that the Notion of Aiolis is a different place from Notion the port of Kolophon.
• I show the Aiolians of the Troas (as well as Aiolian Tenedos, and the Gergithes) joining at the same time as Kyme and Lesbos, but they only show up later in Herodotus's narrative when the Persians recapture them, so it's not certain that they joined here.

Karia: Herodotus has Termara and Mylasa losing their tyrants when the revolt starts 

• I assume these 2 cities represent the main part of Karia joining the revolt, but the exact border between the Karians that joined early and those that joined later with Kaunos in 5.103 is impossible to determine. It's also not clear why these two towns were singled out by Herodotus to represent the Karians. Mylasa becomes the capital of Karia in the 4th century under the Hekatomnos dynasty, but there is no reason to assume it was the capital earlier. Termera's peninsula and the surrounding region is ruled from Halikarnassos under the Lygdamids from at least the 480s, and possibly earlier, not from Termera. 

The status of the other Greek cities of the Asian coast, that were not Ionian or Aiolian but were cut off from Persia by the revolt (e.g. Iasos, Elaia), is uncertain during the revolt, so I show the main ones in grey color. Some, like Sigeion, wouldn't join the revolt voluntarily, since it was at this time ruled by Hippias who is already planning his restoration to Athens with Persian support even before the revolt starts (5.96)

Greek cities that never joined the lDelian League and apparently always sided with the Persians, like Adramyttion and Magnesia, are shown as remaining outside the revolt.

Expansion phase of the revolt

Ephesos is still part of the Ionian Revolt during the Sardis campaign (5.100), but clearly not part of it at the time of the battle of Lade when the survivors of the battle are killed in Ephesos's territory (6.16). The only candidate for when it might have changed sides is when the Persians "chased the Greeks back to their ships" after the burning of Sardis (5.102 and 5.116). 5.100 has the Ionians leaving their ships at Koresos, which the ancient writers place 7 kilometers outside Ephesos, but based on some inscriptions modern historians think it was the port district of the city of Ephesos instead. This would make Ephesos the first Ionian city recaptured by the Persians, and it would also mean that the Ionians had already lost one of their 12 main cities even before the Hellespontos and others joined the revolt.

The Hellespontos joins the revolt after the battle of Sardis (5.103). Herodotus only names Byzantion here, the other cities are mentioned later when the region is recaptured.

The rest of Karia joins in 5.103 too, but the only city named is Kaunos.

Cyprus joins the revolt in 5.104 right after Sardis is destroyed.

Lemnos and Imbros are captured by Miltiades either in 498 BC or c. 510 BC, see the notes on Part II of the Ionain Revolt video.

The Dorian Greeks are never mentioned by Herodotus in relation to the revolt. The the Siege of Lindos from the Lindos Chronicle is usually dated to 490 BC, which means that Rhodos, the main Dorian island, wasn't even part of the Persian Empire at the time of the revolt. But some Dorians like Knidos certainly were Persian, so I mark them as gray for unknown status.

But I show Halikarnassos as part of the revolt, assuming that when Herodotus writes "the Karians" it includes this city too, even though it's often grouped with the Dorians instead. Halikarnassos had a mixed Dorian-Karian population, it was the capital of the 5th century Karian dynasties, it was expelled from the Dorian hexapolis (1.144), it must be one of the unnamed Karian cities mentioned in 5.121, and it apparently struck coins for the Ionian Revolt (see "The Ketos coins of Karia" paper)

First Persian counter-offensive

Daurises:

• in the Hellespontos he recaptures Dardanos, Abydos, Perkote, Lampsakos, and Paisos in 5.117 but leaves Parion untouched.
• the absence of Arisbe, a significant city in the Athenian tribute lists, is strange, but I assume it revolted and was recaptured like the other cities of the region.
• Daurises enters Karia with the battle where the Maiandros and Marsyas rivers merge, wins at Labraunda, then is defeated on the road to Pedasa. (5.118-121)
• Daurises must have captured the Marsyas valley after the first battle, and the territories of Mylasa after the battle at Labraunda and before marching towards Pedasa, but the exact border changes are impossible to determine, and given how complete the destruction of the Persian army was, it's possible that the Karians recaptured some or all of these. But I show most of the Karian territories that the Persians must have marched through as remaining Persian after this campaign.
• every ancient author agrees that the Maiandros river was the northern border of Karia, and this fits well with the location of the battle of the Marsyas river. But the eastern border of Karia is impossible to determine in the classical era: all the eastern Karian cities like Aphrodisias, Apollonia, Herakleia etc. only show up in the Hellenistic or Roman era Karia province. All the easternmost Karian locations mentioned in the classical era are in the Marsyas valley (Alabanda, Idrias, Leukai Stelai), the Karia of the Delian League didn't extend beyond this region either, and the Karian language finds are restricted to this area too, everything east of this is terra incognita in this time period. Therefore, I show the Karia of the Ionian Revolt restricted to this region, excluding the eastern half of the later Karia province. 

Hymaies: 

• he recaptures Kios then heads for the Hellespontos to retake the Troas in 5.112
• he must have passed through Parion as he was going from Kios to the Hellespontos and Troas (since the road went along the coast), so I show him recapturing it after Daurises left without taking it.
• the southern coast of the Propontis had several other Greek cities not mentioned by Herodotus during the revolt, like Astakos, Myrleia, Priapos etc. In theory these could have joined to revolt, or they could have been dependencies of cities that joined, but I show them as remaining Persian due to the lack of information. This is the only region where the territory of the Ionain Revolt is significantly smaller than that of the later Delian League.
• Herodotus is quite ambiguous here about the extent of the Aiolian territory and what exactly was recaptured. My interpretation is that "the Aiolians who occupy the region of Ilion" refers to the entire Troas, that is to the region of ancient Troy, not just to the territory of the later Aiolian city of Ilion. This would then be the same as the "Aiolians of Mount Ida" from 1.151. Other places that seem to use "the region of Ilion" to refer to the entire Troas are 5.94 with the dispute about Sigeion, and 7.42 where Xerxes "went by the left-hand side of the mountain [Ida] into the land of Ilion". I include not just the coastal cities (most of which were Mytilene's peraia) but the Aiolian cities of the Skamander river valley that are deep inland, since 5.112 says "he conquered all the Aeolians who lived in the region of Ilion", and also because if the non-Greek inland Gergithes joined the revolt, then it would be strange if the inland Aiolians didn't do the same.

Otanes:

• he recaptures Kyme and Klazomenai in 5.123.
• Kyme here again is interpreted as representing the entire 11-city Aiolian alliance, which is reinforced by the paragraph mentioning "that part of Aiolia which bordered upon it [Ionia]"
• the territory of Smyrna must have been retaken too to get to these two cities

Cyprus is recaptured in 5.115

Second Persian counter-offensive:

• Samos exits the revolt at the Battle of Lade in 6.14
• Miletos is recaptured after a siege in 6.18
• Karia is retaken right after Miletos in 6.25
• Khios, Lesbos, Tenedos are retaken the next year together with the remaining mainland Ionians in 6.31
• Kyzikos rejoins the Persians in 6.33
• the Persians burn the cities of the Hellespontos in 6.33, including the Chersonesos, Perinthos, "the forts", Selymbria, Byzantion, Kalkhedon, Prokonnesos, and Artake 

The territory of Perinthos stretched as far as the Chersonesos, as shown in 7.25 which assigns Tyrodiza to Perinthos, so presumably the many forts (-Teichos) on the coast and Bisanthe all belonged to Perinthos too. With this, Herodotus covers the entire north coast of the Propontis (unlike with the south, where he only mentions Kios), and from the sea itself only the status of the small island of Bysbikos remains uncertain.

I show the recapture of Myous and Priene in 494 when Samos, Miletos, and Karia around them are all becoming Persian. Myous and Priene are effectively under a sea blockade when Miletos is, and the Persian army probably passed through Myous's territory when besieging Miletos. But it's possible that this event belongs to 493 BC instead as one of the unnamed cities of 6.31

Khios and Lesbos had a peraia on the mainland opposite Lesbos, which included Atarneus, Malene and some other towns. Its status during the revolt remains a mystery, they only show up in the last year of the revolt, when Histiaios crosses over to feed his troops (6.28-29), but it's not clear if these were already occupied territories for some time, or if Harpagos happens to be there because he is recapturing them at the same time when the other mainland Ionian cities were being retaken. I interpret it as the latter, and show the area changing sides in 493.

Chronology:

• 6.18 places the fall of Miletos in the sixth year of the revolt - year 6
• 6.31 places the retaking of the rest of Ionia one year later - year 7
• 6.43 has Mardonios's campaign the following spring - year 8
• 6.46 has Darius preparing the first Persian invasion of mainland Greece one year later - year 9
• 6.95 has the Persian invasion starting 1 year after the preparations began - year 10
• but in this paragraph Herodotus contradicts himself, placing the same event 1 year after Mardonios's campaign too, and it can't be both 1 and 2 years later.
• The Battle of Marathon was in 490 BC. Then - if Herodotosus's self-contradiction in 6.95 is ignored - "year 1" of the revolt must have been 499 BC.
• 5.34 has the Siege of Naxos lasting 4 months, which was immediately followed by the outbreak of the revolt (the ships from the Naxos campaign are still at Myous during the coup), so the siege must be placed in 499 BC too.
• 5.31 has the Naxos campaign planned for next spring, so the exiled Naxos oligarchs must have arrived in Miletos in 500 BC
• The campaign against Sardis was probably in 498 BC, presumably at the beginning of the spring campaigning season: the revolt starts in 499 BC, 4 months after spring (see Naxos references above), so in the second half of that year one has to fit organizing the revolt, preparing an army, and Aristagoras travelling to Sparta and Athens to recruit them - there is probably not enough time left after these in 499 BC to launch and finish a military campaign before winter, so Sardis is placed in 498. Also, Plutarch has Miletos under siege when the Sardis campaign begins, implying that a considerable amount of time has passed since the start of the revolt.
• The Battle of Ephesos in 5.102 follows Sardis seemingly immediately, and if this is the same event as 5.116 where the 3 son-in-laws of Darius chase the Greeks who burned Sardis back to their ships, then their Persian counter-offensive starts in early 498 BC too.
• 5.117 has Daurises recapturing the 5 cities of the southern Hellespontos in less than a week, then he hears the news that Karia revolted too so he heads there. This must be happening concurrently with 5.103 where Hellespontos then Karia join the revolt soon after Sardis is destroyed - so the Ionians sail north to the Hellespontos, but by the time Daurises's army gets there on foot, the Ionians have already sailed south to Karia. Hymaies recapturing Kios and the Troas in 5.122 also happens in parallel to these, because he heads to the Hellespontos when he learns that Daurises left its recapture unfinished. All these references make it clear that Daurises and Hymaies's campaigns followed Sardis immediately, and must be placed still in 498 BC.
• 5.105 has Cyprus revolting when Darius learns about Sardis, so 498 BC
• 5.116 states that Cyprus was free for 1 year, so the Battle of Salamis must have been in 497 BC. I'm assuming the one year freedom doesn't include the 5-month long siege of Soloi and other places.
• Thuc 4.102 dates the death of Aristagoras to 496 BC. That means Aristagoras fleeing to Thrace after the territorial losses happens some time in the 498-6 range.  
• There are no clues provided about the timing of Otanes's recapture of Kyme and Klazomenai in 5.123: it could be as early as 498, concurrently with Daurises's and Hymaies's campaigns in 498, or it could be as late as 496, since the only limit is Aristagoras's death in 496 BC, which happens after these defeats. I assigned it to 497 BC in the middle, so that the Persian offensive of 498 would be exhausted after the death of the 2 leading generals and the annihilation of the army in Karia, and the next year Otanes is appointed (presumably by Darius) with a newly formed army. 
• The Battle of Lade took place in 495 or 494 BC, depending on how long the siege of Miletos lasted, and when Ephesos's Thesmophoria festival was held. In most cities Thesmophoria is an autumn festival associated with sowing, and cities of similar size to Miletos have long sieges (Naxos: 4 months before attackers give up, Soloi: 5 months, Barka: 9 months), so the default estimate should be 495 autumn for the Battle of Lade, and 494 BC for the fall of Miletos. But in some cities the Thesmophoria is placed at the beginning of the harvest season instead, and Miletos could be an outlier by having a short siege, so it's possible to put the 2 events in the same year at 494 BC, but I find this unrealistic: 6.25 has the reconquest of Karia after the fall of Miletos but still in the same year, and some of the Karian cities resisted, which has to mean sieges, probably lasting months, so now you would have to fit the combined length of 2 sieges between the Thesmophoria and the end of the year.

In the resulting timeline there is a gap at 496 BC, a year when nothing happens in Ionia: I'm assuming it took the Persians a year to gather a large enough army for the grand invasion after the failure of the first Persian offensive. A similar year-long break spent on preparations happens in 491 BC after Mardonios's failed campaign. This gap grows to 2 or 3 years long if one moves the capture of Kyme and Klazomenai to 498 and the Battle of Lade to 494 BC, and such a long break in the war is harder to explain.

Histiaios's activities in Ionia:

• he must have arrived at Sardis still in 498, since he is dispatched as soon as news of the destruction of Sardis reach the royal court
• his failed restoration as tyrant of Miletos was some time after Aristagoras fled, but that doesn't help much with establishing the year. His failed attempt to incite a revolt in Sardis, and his machinations at Khios and Lesbos then leaving to become a pirate at Byzantion are also impossible to date, they can happen basically any time between 498 and 495, the dates I display in the corner of the video during these events are just guesses.
• his return to Khios resulting in its takeover is triggered by the fall of Miletos (6.28) so it must be in 494 BC
• his aborted siege of Thasos and subsequent death in 6.28 are triggered by the Persian fleet's advance in spring 493 (6.31) but happen before the Persians reach Lesbos. He is captured still in spring since the crops he wants to steal in Mysia haven't been harvested yet.

Final timeline:

500

- Naxos oligarchs exiled and go to Miletos

499

- Siege of Naxos

- Ionia revolts, joined by Aiolis and Karia 

498

- Siege of Sardis, Battle of Ephesos, Hellespontos and Kaunos revolt, along with Cyprus

- Daurises's campaign in Hellespontos and Karia, Hymaies's in Hellespontos and Troas

- Histiaios arrives in Sardis

497

- Otanes takes Kyme & Klazomenai

- Aristagoras flees from Ionia

- Battle of Salamis, Cyprus recaptured

496

- Aristagoras dies at Myrkinos

495

- Battle of Lade

494

- Miletos sacked

- Karia recaptured

- Histiaios takes over Khios

493

- Histiaios besieges Thasos, captured at Malene, dies at Sardis

- Persians recapture Ionia, Lesbos, and the Hellespontos. Miltiades flees

492

- Mardonios recaptures Thrace

491

- Darius demands earth and water from Greece, begins preparations for the invasion 

490

- First Persian invasion and Battle of Marathon