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Flight and death of Aristagoras. H., who consistently depreciates the Ionic revolt (ch. 28, 97 n.; vi. 3 n.), naturally regards its authors as untrustworthy adventurers. Aristagoras is moved to action by his own financial difficulties, and fear of losing his tyranny (ch. 35). He has a glib tongue to deceive the multitude (v. 97) and a bribe for the Spartan king (v. 51), but he takes no active part in warfare, e.g. in the march on Sardis (v. 99) or the expedition to Cyprus (v. 108 f.). Here he is represented as a coward deserting those he has led into danger. But it would seem probable that discontent had been rife in Western Asia Minor since 512 B. C. (iv. 137), and that there was a widespread movement against the local tyrants imposed by Persia (v. 37), the message of Histiaeus (v. 35) being merely the signal and the expedition to Naxos the opportunity for a premeditated rising (cf. ch. 36 n.; Grundy, p. 84 f.). Aristagoras may have been merely the mouthpiece of the general discontent or the agent of Histiaeus, but the wide extent and initial success of the revolt shows that it was something more than a plot of selfish intriguers.

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