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You may have the impression that Darius was nothing but a violent conqueror —
and indeed, he crushed all who opposed him with brutal force — but he was also an admirable administrator.
Once the slaughter was over,
he divided his empire into provinces known as satrapies, to be governed by trusted men.
On the western edge of the empire lay the satrapy of Lydia, which Darius gave to his half-brother Artaphernes.
A remote posting, though not an unpleasant one:
Lydia was a wealthy land of fine horses,
gold-bearing rivers,
and wine to rival any Mediterranean vintage.
Along Lydia’s western coast was a region called Ionia,
and here dwelt Greeks, who many centuries ago had planted colonies along the Ionian shore.
These Greeks rarely caused trouble for their Persian masters —
and so long as they paid their tribute on time,
the Persians were happy to leave their foreign subjects to their own devices.
Enter Aristagoras, ruler of the Greek city of Miletus,
a man whose ambitions regularly outstripped his capacities.
His head filled with imagined glories, Aristagoras went to the court of the satrap Artaphernes,
and proposed a scheme to his master:
if the Persians would provide Aristagoras with a fleet, he would conquer the island of Naxos for the Great King.
Artaphernes was intrigued.
Naxos was a gem that would surely please his half-brother the king.
And so Artaphernes summoned all that the expedition might require:
shipwrights and steersmen; baggage-handlers and quartermasters;
cedar wood for triremes and cornel wood for spears;
plump goats for eating and white lambs for sacrifice.
A glorious conquest seemed sure to follow.