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Fall of Miletus
<html><p xmlns:dct=“http://purl.org/dc/terms/”><a rel=“license” href=“http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/”><img src=“http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png” style=“border-style: none;” alt=“Public Domain Mark” /></a><br />This work (by <a href=“https://lucianofsamosata.info/wiki” rel=“dct:creator”>https://lucianofsamosata.info/wiki</a>), identified by <a href=“http://meninpublishing.org” rel=“dct:publisher”><span property=“dct:title”>Frank Redmond</span></a>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</p></html>
Authored by Frank Redmond, 2006
For the fall of Miletus, Herodotus employs dramatic narrative. He tells us that Miletus is expecting to be heavily attacked by the Persians both by land and sea. The Persians are uniting their forces together to attack Miletus, which means they are ignoring smaller engagements. Meanwhile the Ionians gather together and decide to uniformally defend Miletus by taking up position on the island of Lade, which is opposite the coast of Miletus. Upon arrival, the Persians see that the Ionians have a greater force than they expected, so they try to use the former tyrants of the Ionians to convince the Ionian people to surrender or else their towns will all be reduced to rubble and slavery. The narrative heightens as the Ionians firmly refuse the offer. The Ionian leader Dionysius says that “our fate balances on a razor's edge between being free men or slaves” ( 6.11). He also says that the Ionians must fight against the Persian threat and therefore he begins to train and condition the Ionian forces. However, after seven days under Dionysius' brutal command, the Ionians begin to grumble and come to the conculsion that they are being treated like slaves by Dionysius, so they rebel against him. Upon hearing about this, the Samian contingent, becoming aware of the undisciplined character of the Ionians, withdraw their forces. Eventually, after all this preparation, a Phoenican fleet comes forward to battle the Ionians. They are soon in close quarters and choas ensues. (Herodotus is unsure of the details, “for the reports are confused, everybody blaming everybody else”( 6.14)). The sight of the Samian retreat became a call for the other Ionians to retreat and eventually the majority of the Ionian fleet withdraws from battle. So, after the defeat of the Ionian fleet, the Persians took over Miletus and reduced it to slavery. For Herodotus, this emptying of Miletus is the fulillment of a prophecy made by the Delphic oracle, which states that “Miletus, contriver of wicked deeds, / Shall be a feast for many, and a splendid prize; / Your wives shall wash the feet of many a long-haired man, / and others shall care for our shrine at Didyma” ( 6.19). The fact that all of this comes true adds to the intense nature of the narrative.