Siege of Eretria

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Siege of Eretria
Part of the Persian Wars

A map showing the invasion of 490 BC
Date 490 BC
Location Eretria, Euboea
Result Persian victory
Combatants
Eretria Persia,
Cyclades
Commanders
Aeschines Datis,
Artaphernes
Strength
UnknownEretria[›] 20,000-60,000 men,
Around 600 ships Numbers[›]
Casualties
Heavy Heavy
Greco-Persian Wars
1st Naxos – Sardis – Ephesus – Lade – 2nd Naxos – Eretria – Marathon – Thermopylae – Artemisium – Salamis – Potidea – Olynthus – Plataea – Mycale – Sestus – Byzantium – Eion – Doriskos – Eurymedon – Pampremis – Prosoptis – Salamis in Cyprus

The Siege of Eretria (490 BC), part of the Greco-Persian Wars, was fought by Eretrians against an invading force of the Persian Empire under the command of Datis and Artaphernes. It occurred as the second phase of a three phase military operation ordered by Darius the Great, which included attacks on Naxos, Eretria, and Athens in respective chronological order, in the context of the Ionian Revolt (499 BC). These cities had assisted the rebels in the sacking of Sardis. A six-day siege was concluded by a decisive Persian victory; the city was destroyed and its citizens enslaved.

In 490 BC, a fleet of around 600 ships accompanied by a large army mustered under the command of Datis and Artaphernes in Cilicia, proceeded to Samos and to Naxos, where they subjugated the island and burnt the city. They forced levies of soldiers from the other islands of the Cyclades and advanced towards Eretria, leading the Eretrians to appeal to Athens for help. 4,000 Athenian men arrived but were dismissed by the Eretrian commander, who did not want to lead them to their deaths.

The city held out against the Persian siege for six days before two eminent citizens opened the gates to the Persians, who looted it, enslaving the citizenry and then burning the city. The Eretrians were then loaded onto the ships and as the rest of the Persian fleet sailed to Marathon, where it was repulsed by the Athenians and Plataeans, too late to save the Eretrians. They were taken to Susa and forced to found a settlement in Bactria.

Contents

[edit] Prelude

In 500 BC, the Persian Empire with aid from the Ionian Greeks under the command of Aristagoras and some Naxian exiles attempted to capture the island of Naxos.[1] The attack failed as the Naxians were tipped off by the Persian admiral, Megabates after he had a dispute en route with Aristagoras.[2] The failed attack was naturally blamed on Aristagoras, for he was the only high-level Greek authority on the Persian expedition. Consequently, Aristagoras lost his favor in the Persian court so he decided to stir up a revolution amongst the Ionian Greek cities.[3]

Aristagoras, the instigator of the revolt, went to mainland Greece to seek support for the Ionians' cause, and the Athenians committed twenty ships while the Eretrians offered five.

To gain support for the revolt, Aristagoras traveled to mainland Greece. He first went to Sparta, where King Cleomenes I refused to take part in the operation.[4] He then went to Athens and Eretria who decided to give twenty and five ships to the revolt respectively.[5] The Eretrians and the Athenians assisted the Ionians in besieging Sardis. However, after they abandoned the city, the Ionian fleet was henceforth defeated at Ephesus.[6] The defeat consequently forced the Athenians and the Eretrians to leave Asia Minor and relocate back home.[7] In 494 BC, the Ionians were decisively defeated in the Battle of Lade and Aristagoras was killed in a battle against the Thracians after fleeing from Ionia to Thrace.[8]

[edit] Preparations and the Cyclades

The main type of ship used by the Greeks and Persians
The main type of ship used by the Greeks and Persians

Darius wanted revenge particularly on Eretria and Athens as well as Naxos because of the assistance they had previously provided to the Ionian rebels, but the Hellenes campaign would have to be post-poned until the sudden revolt in Thrace and Macedon had been crushed.[9] In 492 BC, Darius sent his son-in-law who was also his nephew, Mardonius, in an expedition to subdue Northern Greece and to then capture Eretria and Athens so that the Persians could have a location from which to attack the Peloponnese. However, the expedition ended in failure after a storm off Mt. Athos cost the Persians most of their fleet.[10] The army under Mardonius managed to subdue Thrace and make Macedon a vassal state, however, the Thracians campaigns were costly and Mardonius while victorious, was wounded in one of the skirmishes and forced to personally withdraw back to Asia.[11]

Darius sent envoys to Greece demanding earth and water, which symbolized capitulation.[12] Most of the islands surrendered because of the Persian's dominance at sea.[13] The greater number of the mainland city-states also surrendered, but when the envoys went to Athens they were thrown into a pit and told to get there own earth.[14] The envoys received a similar response in Sparta where they were thrown down a well and told to acquire their water. [15] This was the last time Darius tried to subdue the Greeks with diplomacy.

In 490 BC, Darius organized a fleet of around 600 ships and an army of between 20,000 to 60,000 men. The army was made up of men from the Levant, Persia, Media, Syria, Cilicia, Ionia and Cyprus. The commanders of this force were the Median admiral Datis and Darius' nephew Artaphernes whose father had sponsored the attack on Naxos ten years earlier.[16] Also part of the fleet was Hippias, the former tyrant of Athens who had been overthrown and expelled in 508 BC. Hippias had been promised the teritorial governance of Athens in return for cooperation and assistance provided to the Persians.[17] The fleet which consisted mainly of Phoenician and Ionian ships met the army in Cilicia and from there they sailed to Samos.[18] From Samos they sailed Icaria and from Icaria they attacked Naxos.[19] The Naxians were not prepared for the attack and when they noticed the Persian advance, they fled to the hills.[20] Once the Persians landed they looted and burnt the city and took anyone they captured as slaves.[21]

After Naxos they sailed from island to island collecting levies of soldiers from each island.[22] They soon reached Euboea and they demanded soldiers from the city of Carystus.[23] The Carystians refused to supply soldiers as they didn't want to be involved in a campaign against their neighbours, Eretria and Athens.[24] The Persians after a brief siege eventually forced the Carystians to surrender and supply troops to the growing Persian army.[25] The next stop after Carystus was Eretria.

[edit] Siege

A hoplite was the Greek heavy infantry and main type of soldier.
A hoplite was the Greek heavy infantry and main type of soldier.

When the Eretrians discovered that the Persian fleet was heading towards their city, they appealed to the Athenians to send some soldiers.[26] The Athenian government gladly sent 4,000 of their citizens from the settlement of Chalcis, which was also in Euboea.[27] However when the Athenians arrived the leader of Eretria, Aeschines, told the Athenians to leave because he didn't want them to be caught in the destruction of Eretria.[28] The Athenians followed Aeschines' advice and sailed to Oropus and saved themselves.[29]

Meanwhile, the people of Eretria were divided into three groups; One group wanted to surrender to the Persians, the other want to flee to the hills and the others wanted to fight.[30] They decided to fight when the Persians landed in their territory.[31] The Eretrian strategy was to not sally and fight the Persians outside the fortifications but to defend the walls.[32] The Persian army arrived and began besieging the city. The fighting was fierce and both sides suffered heavy losses.[33] After six days of fighting, two eminent citizens, Euphorbus and Philagrus opened the gates for the Persians.[34] Once inside the city, the Persians started looting as well as burning the temples and sanctuaries in revenge for the burning of sanctuaries in Sardis.[35] All the population was enslaved as Darius had ordered.[36]

[edit] Aftermath

The Delian League and Eretria
The Delian League and Eretria

The Persians stayed at Eretria for six days.[37] When the six days finished, the Persians loaded the Eretrians onto the ships and dropped them off at the island of Aegilia and they then sailed to Marathon in Attica being told to go their by Hippias.[38] From there they planned to besiege Athens. When the Athenians heard of the news, they advanced with their army of 10,000 men as well as 1,000 Plataean allies to fight the Persians at Marathon. The two armies met at Marathon and the Persians were defeated.[39] The retreating Persian army fled to their ships and then sailed to pick up the Eretrians.[40] After picking up the Eretrians, they sailed around Cape Sounion and tried to land near Athens before the Athenian army arrived.[41] As they reached Phaleron, they saw the Athenian army had marched back to the present location and the Persian forces decided to sail back to Asia Minor.[42]

When the Persian fleet arrived in Asia Minor, Datis and Artaphernes took the Eretrians before Darius in Susa.[43] Darius did no further harm to them and he decided to settle them in his outpost of Ardericca in Cissia.[44] The Persians attacked Greece again in 480 BC but once again the Persian were defeated.[45] Eretria was resettled by Athenians and later became part of the Delian League, which was dominated by Athens.

[edit] Notes

^  Numbers:  The numbers of soldiers and ships is unknown. Herodotus claims that the Persians had 600 triremes and an unknown number of transport ships. Ancient sources claim that there were between 200,000 to 600,000 Persian soldiers in the campaign. Modern sources put the number of soldiers to between 20,000 to 60,000 and 300 triremes and 300 transport ships. Alan Lloyd claims that the army had around 30,000 citing that each trireme had 50 marines and there were 600 trimeres. He also suggests that the number of trimeres were 600.[46]
^  Eretria:  Eretria was a small city by even Greek standards. Eretria wouldn't have been able to field a large army or deploy a large fleet even nearly comparable to that of Persia's.[47]


[edit] Citations

  1. ^ Herodotus 1920, V,33
  2. ^ Herodotus 1920, V,32
  3. ^ Herodotus 1920, V,36
  4. ^ Herodotus 1920, V,51
  5. ^ Herodotus 1920, V,99
  6. ^ Herodotus 1920, V,100, and V,102
  7. ^ Herodotus 1920, V,103
  8. ^ Herodotus 1920, V,126, and VI,18
  9. ^ Lloyd 2004, p. 154
  10. ^ Herodotus 1920, VI,44
  11. ^ Lloyd 2004, p. 154; Herodotus 1920, VI,45
  12. ^ Bradford 1980, p. 49
  13. ^ Bradford 1980, p. 49
  14. ^ Bradford 1980, p. 49
  15. ^ Bradford 1980, p. 49
  16. ^ Herodotus 1920, VI,94
  17. ^ Lloyd 2004, p. 165
  18. ^ Lloyd 2004, p. 163; Herodotus 1920, VI,95
  19. ^ Herodotus 1920, VI,96
  20. ^ Herodotus 1920, VI,44
  21. ^ Herodotus 1920, VI,96
  22. ^ Herodotus 1920, VI,99
  23. ^ Herodotus 1920, VI,99
  24. ^ Herodotus 1920, VI,99
  25. ^ Herodotus 1920, VI,99
  26. ^ Herodotus 1920, V,100
  27. ^ Herodotus 1920, V,100
  28. ^ Herodotus 1920, V,100
  29. ^ Herodotus 1920, V,101
  30. ^ Herodotus 1920, V,100
  31. ^ Herodotus 1920, V,101
  32. ^ Herodotus 1920, V,101
  33. ^ Herodotus 1920, V,101
  34. ^ Herodotus 1920, V,101
  35. ^ Herodotus 1920, V,101
  36. ^ Herodotus 1920, V,101
  37. ^ Herodotus 1920, VI,102
  38. ^ Herodotus 1920, VI,107
  39. ^ Herodotus 1920, VI,115
  40. ^ Herodotus 1920, V,115
  41. ^ Herodotus 1920, VI,115
  42. ^ Herodotus 1920, VI,116
  43. ^ Herodotus 1920, VI,119
  44. ^ Herodotus 1920, VI,119
  45. ^ Herodotus 1920, VII,55
  46. ^ Lloyd 2004, p. 164,179
  47. ^ Lloyd 2004, p. 167

[edit] References

[edit] Primary sources

[edit] Secondary sources

  • Ernle Bradford, (1980). Thermopylae: The Battle For the West. USA: Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-81360-2
  • Alan Lloyd, (2004). Marathon:The Crucial Battle That Created Western Democracy. London: Souvenir Press. ISBN 0-285-63688-X
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