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 Decisive Persian victory;
Eretria is razed to the ground.
Territorial
changes		 Persia establishes first base in mainland Greece.
Belligerents
Eretria Achaemenid Empire,
Cyclades
Commanders
Unknown Datis,
Artaphernes
Strength
8,000 men,
40 ships		 20,000-60,000 men,
600 ships Numbers[›]
Casualties and losses
Heavy Unknown
v • d • e
Greco-Persian Wars
lonia – 1st Naxos – Sardis – Ephesus – Mylasa – Pedasa – Lade – 2nd Naxos – Eretria – Marathon – Thermopylae – Artemisium – Salamis – Potidea – Olynthus – Plataea – Mycale – Sestos – Byzantium – Eion – Doriskos – Eurymedon – Pampremis– Memphis(naval) – Prosoptis– Citium– 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.

During the Ionian Revolt, the Eretrians as well as the Athenians sent ships full of soldiers to support their Ionian brethren. However, the revolt failed and the Eretrians and the Athenians were forced to return to mainland Greece.

Wanting revenge against both Eretria and Athens, the Persian Emperor, Darius I sent a navy of around 600 ships under the command of Datis and Artaphernes to attack and subdue both the cities. On the way to Eretria, the Persian fleet captured the Cyclades islands before attacking Eretria. Eretria held out for six days only before it was betrayed by several citizens. The city was sacked and all the citizens taken hostage.

The Persian fleet then tried to attack Athens but it was decisively defeated by the Athenians at the Battle of Marathon. The Eretrian prisoners were taken to Persia and brought before Darius who sent them to inhabit a town 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, who was the only high-level Greek authority on the Persian expedition. Consequently, Aristagoras lost favour in the Persian court and later went on to instigate a revolution amongst the Ionian Greek cities.[3]

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 defeated at Ephesus.[6] This debacle 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

Darius wanted revenge on Eretria, Athens and Naxos because of the assistance they had previously provided to the Ionian rebels. However the Hellenes campaign had to be post-poned until the sudden revolt in Thrace and Macedon had been quelled.[9] In 492 BC, Darius sent his son-in-law, Mardonius, who was also his nephew, in an expedition to subdue Northern Greece and then to capture Eretria and Athens. This would give the Persians 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, though victorious, was wounded in one of the skirmishes and forced to personally withdraw back to Asia.[11]

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

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 their own earth.[14] The envoys received a similar response in Sparta where they were thrown down a well and told to fetch their own water.[15] This was the last time that 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.[16] 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.[17] 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 territorial governance of Athens in return for cooperation and assistance provided to the Persians.[18] The fleet which consisted mainly of Phoenician and Ionian ships met the army in Cilicia and continued on to Samos.[19] From Samos they sailed to Icaria before attacking the Naxos.[20] The Naxians were not prepared for the attack and when they noticed the Persian landing, they fled to the hills.[21] The Persians looted and burnt the city and took anyone they captured as slaves.[22]

After Naxos, the Persians sailed from island to island collecting levies of soldiers from each island.[23] They soon reached Euboea and demanded soldiers from the city of Carystus.[24] The Carystians refused to supply soldiers as they didn't want to be involved in a campaign against their neighbours, Eretria and Athens.[25] A brief siege forced the Carystians to surrender and supply troops to the growing Persian army.[26] The next stop after Carystus was Eretria.

[edit] Siege of Eretrea

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.[27] The Athenian government gladly sent 4,000 of their citizens from the settlement of Chalcis, which was also in Euboea.[28] However when the Athenians arrived the leader of Eretria, Aeschines, told the Athenians to leave because he did not want them to be caught in the destruction of Eretria.[29] The Athenians followed Aeschines' advice and sailed to Oropus and saved themselves.[30]

Meanwhile, the people of Eretria were divided into three groups; One group wanted to surrender to the Persians, another wanted to flee to the hills and yet others wanted to fight.[31] However, when the Persians landed in their territory the Eretreans decided to fight.[32] The Eretrian strategy was to not sally and fight the Persians outside the fortifications but to defend the walls.[33] The Persian army arrived and began besieging the city. The fighting was fierce and both sides suffered heavy losses.[34] After six days of fighting, two eminent citizens, Euphorbus and Philagrus opened the gates for the Persians.[35] 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.[36] All the population was enslaved as Darius had ordered.[37]

[edit] Aftermath

The Delian League and Eretria
The Delian League and Eretria

After staying at Eretria for six days,[38] 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 there by Hippias[39] from where 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. In the ensuing battle, the Persians were defeated.[40] The retreating Persian army fled to their ships, picked up the Eretrians[41] and sailed around Cape Sounion in an attempt to land near Athens before the Athenian army returned.[42] As they reached Phaleron, they saw the Athenian army had marched back to their previous location which forced them to cease operations and sail back to Asia Minor.[43]

When the Persian fleet arrived in Asia Minor, Datis and Artaphernes took the Eretrians before Darius in Susa.[44] The Eretreans were not harmed by Darius who decided to settle them in his outpost of Ardericca in Cissia.[45] The Persians attacked Greece again in 480 BC but were once again repulsed.[46] Eretria was later resettled by Athenians and it became part of the Delian League, which was dominated by Athens.

[edit] Notes

^ Numbers: The numbers of soldiers and ships is uncertain. 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 as between 20,000 to 60,000 in addition to 300 triremes and 300 transport ships. Alan Lloyd claims that the number of triremes was 600 and suggests that the army had around 30,000 troops citing that each trireme had 50 marines.[47]
^ Eretria: Eretria was a small city by even Greek standards and would not have been able to field a large army or deploy a large fleet even nearly comparable to that of Persia's.[48]

[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. ^ Lloyd 2004, p. 164,179
  17. ^ Herodotus 1920, VI,94
  18. ^ Lloyd 2004, p. 165
  19. ^ Lloyd 2004, p. 163; Herodotus 1920, VI,95
  20. ^ Herodotus 1920, VI,96
  21. ^ Herodotus 1920, VI,44
  22. ^ Herodotus 1920, VI,96
  23. ^ Herodotus 1920, VI,99
  24. ^ Herodotus 1920, VI,99
  25. ^ Herodotus 1920, VI,99
  26. ^ Herodotus 1920, VI,99
  27. ^ Herodotus 1920, V,100
  28. ^ Herodotus 1920, V,100
  29. ^ Herodotus 1920, V,100
  30. ^ Herodotus 1920, V,101
  31. ^ Herodotus 1920, V,100
  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, V,101
  38. ^ Herodotus 1920, VI,102
  39. ^ Herodotus 1920, VI,107
  40. ^ Herodotus 1920, VI,115
  41. ^ Herodotus 1920, V,115
  42. ^ Herodotus 1920, VI,115
  43. ^ Herodotus 1920, VI,116
  44. ^ Herodotus 1920, VI,119
  45. ^ Herodotus 1920, VI,119
  46. ^ Herodotus 1920, VII,55
  47. ^ Lloyd 2004, p. 164,179
  48. ^ 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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