Herodotos and Politics

Extract

Herodotos in Book V tells us how in 499 b.c. came to Athens the smooth-talking political adventurer, Aristagoras, formerly tyrant of Miletus; he was seeking support from that city, under its democratic government now a mere decade old, for the revolt of the Ionian states against the rule of the Persian King. Aristagoras had it seems initiated the revolt (though its basic causes naturally had nothing to do with individuals), and it had in theory, if not in actual fighting, clearly broken out. The Milesian ex-tyrant explained to the Athenian demos, meeting in their sovereign assembly, the great economic advantages that would flow from this participation by subsequent exploitation of the rich domains of the king. He also, as is customary in these matters, belittled the military prowess of the Persians (despite the fact that they had in half a century overthrown all the great empires of the known world); also (what may have been slightly more effective) he appealed to national sentiment, since Miletus, and some of the other coastal settlements of Ionia, claimed to be colonial offshoots of Athens herself. With these and other (unspecified) inducements Aristagoras succeeded in getting a promise of support for the Confederates—which shows, observes Herodotos, how much easier it is to fool thirty thousand people than one man. The one man, of course, was Kleomenes king of Sparta, whom Aristagoras had narrowly failed (the story went) to induce to provide support from Sparta. That the story of Aristagoras at Sparta has many implausible features does not affect the situation. Athens sent help to Ionia, Sparta did not, and whatever the hidden policies concerned, Herodotos chose the occasion to make a criticism of direct democracy.