The Ionic Revolts: Epic Failure

Though Herodotus claims the hostilities between Greece and Persia started with a series of woman snatching, which then evolved into a bunch of "NO U STARTED IT U POOPIEHEAD!" whiny crap, the first fighting started around 499 B.C. These were the Ionic revolts, in which the Greek city-states currently under Persian rule tried to throw off the tyrants. Sounds really cool, but in actuality, it was a pretty epic failure.

So the king of Persia at this time was Dareios, presumably a kooky bastard, whose father had previously conquered the Greek city-states on the Ionian peninsula. The Persians had installed tyrants who answered to Persian governors, or satraps, and collected tributes to the citizens. These tributes were usually used for things that didn't help the conquered Greeks at all, so needless to say the Greeks were like, "Dudes, WTF."

In 499 Aristagoras, the tyrant of Miletos, caused some aristocrats to BAWWWWW when he exiled them (possibly for being cuntbags, but I dunno). The Persians sent some of their navy over to lay the smackdown on Aristagoras, but Naxos, the island on which Miletos was located, sucessfully held off the Persians and forced them to retreat due to lack of good l00t. Thus, Aristagoras was like, "Holy shit, I'm AWESOME!" and gave up his position as tyrant to help his citizens throw off Persian rule and install a government based on isonomia, or equal rights for all citizens. Soon other Ionian city-states were throwing off their tyrants as well, but knew that they would be pwned out of existence without some aid.

Aristagoras, being totally awesome, travelled to mainland Greece to appeal to the city-states there for help. Unfortunately, most of them were fucktards and refused to help because they were preoccupied being douchebags to other city-states (I'm looking at YOU, Sparta and Argos), warned by the Oracles that it was a bad idea (the Oracles should've seen that they possibly could've stopped Persia from invading the mainland, but noooooooooo), or other equally pansy excuses. Only Athens and Eretria agreed to send some troops, out of diplomatic, cultural, and economic ties, or they had nothing better to do.

So in 498 Athenians and Eretrians joined with the mostly Milesian army at Ephesos, and attacked the Persian strong-hold of Sardis. They threwdown pretty good on the Persians until Dareios sent some reinforcements their way. The Greeks were utterly defeated, and the mainland Greeks, being bitches, ran home bawwing to their mommies about how the Persians were mean and they didn't want to play with them anymore. Now the Ionian city-states have to rely on each other.

King Dareios was getting tired of these whiny Greeks at this point. Because I mean, tyranny is totally awesome, why couldn't they understand that? Bastards. Anyway, Dareios decided it was time to show these bitches some tough-love oppression, and launched a massive land and sea campaign against the stronghold of the revolt, Miletos. The Ionians, now all alone in the world, only had 353 warships and their awesomesauce leader Aristagoras had been killed by political rivals, and zombification had not worked out well.

So there were 353 Ionian ships against 600 Persian ships. Herodotus says the Ionians let out a collective "Oh shit, we are FUCKED." (Okay, so I definitely made that up.) Samos and Lesbos (tee hee hee...the Lesbians. BAWAHAHAHHA) deserted first, knowing that there was no way in hell they would see victory. That pretty much ended the battle right there. Miletos was pretty much anihilated, and the other city-states were forced into submission and punished severely for their backtalk. We're talking killing men, forcing women into harems, castrating boys...Dareios didn't fuck around.

However, the Persians felt kind of bad for all of this after the raping and pillaging was finished. In 493 the Persians reaccessed the amount of tribute the city-states had to pay, mediated any inter-city disputes, and removed tyrants and allowed the Greeks to install democratic governments. So in a nutshell, Persia cooperated with the Greeks, but they wanted to kill a few bitches first, just to show how awesome they were.

But then Dareios saw all these other nice Greek city-states on the mainland, and got to thinking...