The Greco-Persian Wars

The Greek cities of Ionia had fallen under Persian rule since Cyrus the Great's conquest of Lydia around 546 BCE. The Ionian Revolt broke out in 499 BCE, beginning at Miletus under the local tyrant Aristagoras, with Athens sending twenty ships and Eretria five, while Sparta refused to intervene. The rebel forces burned Sardis, the regional Persian capital, in 498 BCE, an act Darius I considered a grave insult. The Persians gradually crushed the rebellion, culminating in the decisive naval Battle of Lade (494 BCE), after which Miletus, the birthplace of the revolt, was harshly punished: sacked, its temple burned, and much of its population deported.