Ionian Revolt - Persian Counter-offensive (497–495 BC)

Persian Counter-offensive (497–495 BC)

Herodotus's narrative after the Battle of Ephesus is ambiguous in its exact chronology; historians generally place Sardis and Ephesus in 498 BC. Herodotus next describes the spread of the revolt (thus also in 498 BC), and says that the Cypriots had one year of freedom, therefore placing the action in Cyprus to 497 BC. He next says that

"Daurises, Hymaees, and Otanes, all of them Persian generals and married to daughters of Darius, pursued those Ionians who had marched to Sardis, and drove them to their ships. After this victory they divided the cities among themselves and sacked them."

This passage implies these Persian generals counter-attacked immediately after the Battle of Ephesus. However, the cities that Herodotus describes Daurises as besieging were on the Hellespont, which (by Herodotus's own reckoning) did not become involved in the revolt until after Ephesus. It is therefore easiest to reconcile the account by assuming that Daurises, Hymaees, and Otanes waited until the next campaigning season (i.e. 497 BC), before going on the counter-offensive. The Persian actions that Herodotus describes at the Hellespont and in Caria seem to be in the same year, and most commentators place them in 497 BC.