In today's episode we begin our look at the events that directly contributed to the beginnings of the Greco-Persian War. After a brief summation of the events that brought the early Persian Empire into contact with the Ionian Greeks, we take a look at the evidence and theories about what the naval situation was like in the Aegean during the late 6th century BCE. We then consider how and why Persia went about building up its navy, including how Ionian Greek cities fit into the Persian system once they were subjugated. We then meet a tyrant of Miletus, Aristagoras, who's ambition and cunning spurred an Ionian/Persian invasion of Naxos, where a fleet of 200 ships besieged the island. Following this attempted invasion, we conclude by seeing how Miletus and an Ionian confederation decided to instead seize part of the Persian navy and start revolt against the empire from the east. Somewhere in there we also consider a unique form of punishment aboard a trireme.

Sources

• Abulafia, David, The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean (2013).
• Casson, Lionel, The Ancient Mariners: Seafarers and Sea Fighters of the Mediterranean in Ancient Times (1959).
• Grant, Michael, The Rise of the Greeks (1987).
• Hale, John R., Lords of the Sea: The Epic Story of the Athenian Navy and the Birth of Democracy (2009).
• Herodotus, The Histories (Robert Strassler, Ed., Andrea Purvis, Transl., 2007).
• Morrison, J.S., et al, The Athenian Trireme: The History and Reconstruction of an Ancient Greek Warship (2nd edition, 2000).
• Paine, Lincoln, The Sea and Civilization: A Maritime History of the World (2013).
• Papalas, Anthony J., Polycrates of Samos and the First Greek Trireme Fleet, The Mariner's Mirror, 85:1, 3–19 (1999).
• Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War.
• Wallinga, H.T., The Ionian Revolt, Mnemosyne, Fourth Series, Vol. 37, Fasc. 3/4 (1984), pp. 401-437.