Ionian Revolt

Xerxes I (/ˈzɜːrksiːz/ ZURK-seez; c. 518 – August 465 BC), commonly known as Xerxes the Great, was a Persian ruler who served as the fourth King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 486 BC until his assassination in 465 BC. He was the son of Darius the Great and Atossa, a daughter of Cyrus the Great.

In Western history, Xerxes is best known for his invasion of Greece in 480 BC, which ended in Persian defeat. Xerxes was designated successor by Darius over his elder brother Artobazan and inherited a large, multi-ethnic empire upon his father's death. He consolidated his power by crushing revolts in Egypt and Babylon, and renewed his father's campaign to subjugate Greece and punish Athens and its allies for their interference in the Ionian Revolt. In 480 BC, Xerxes personally led a large army and crossed the Hellespont into Europe. He achieved victories at Thermopylae and Artemisium before capturing and razing Athens. His forces gained control of mainland Greece north of the Isthmus of Corinth until their defeat at the Battle of Salamis. Fearing that the Greeks might trap him in Europe, Xerxes retreated with the greater part of his army back to Asia, leaving behind Mardonius to continue his campaign. Mardonius was defeated at Plataea the following year, effectively ending the Persian invasion.

The first Persian invasion of Greece took place from 492 BC to 490 BC, as part of the Greco-Persian Wars. It ended with a decisive Athenian-led victory over the Achaemenid Empire during the Battle of Marathon. Consisting of two distinct campaigns, the invasion of the independent Greek city-states was ordered by the Persian king Darius the Great, who sought to punish Athens and Eretria after they had supported the earlier Ionian Revolt. Additionally, Darius also saw the subjugation of Greece as an opportunity to expand into Southeast Europe and thereby ensure the security of the Achaemenid Empire's western frontier.

The first campaign, in 492 BC, was led by the Persian commander Mardonius, who re-subjugated Thrace and forced Macedon to become a fully subordinate client kingdom within the Achaemenid Empire; it had been a Persian vassal as early as the late 6th century BC—probably in 512 BC. However, further progress was prevented when Mardonius' fleet was wrecked in a storm off the coast of Mount Athos. The following year, having demonstrated his intentions, Darius sent envoys to all parts of Greece, demanding their submission. He received it from almost all of them, but not from Athens and Sparta, both of which executed the envoys sent to them. With Athens still defiant, and Sparta now effectively at war with the Persians, Darius ordered a further military campaign for the following year.

Darius I (Old Persian: 𐎭𐎠𐎼𐎹𐎺𐎢𐏁 Dārayavaʰuš; c. 550 – 486 BCE), commonly known as Darius the Great, was the third King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 522 BCE until his death in 486 BCE. He ruled the empire at its territorial peak, when it included much of West Asia, parts of the Balkans (Thrace–Macedonia and Paeonia) and the Caucasus, most of the Black Sea's coastal regions, Central Asia, the Indus Valley in the far east, and portions of North Africa and Northeast Africa including Egypt (Mudrâya), eastern Libya, and coastal Sudan.

Darius ascended the throne after overthrowing the Achaemenid monarch Bardiya (or Smerdis), who he claimed was in fact an imposter named Gaumata. The new king met with rebellions throughout the empire but quelled each of them; a major event of Darius's career described in Greek historiography was his punitive expedition against Athens and Eretria for their participation in the Ionian Revolt.

Artaphernes (Greek: Ἀρταφέρνης, Old Persian: Artafarna, from Median Rtafarnah) was a brother of the Achaemenid king Darius I and held power circa 513–492 BC. He was appointed satrap of Lydia, which he governed from its capital of Sardis. As satrap of Lydia he had to deal with the Greeks, and played an important role in both the Siege of Naxos and in suppressing the Ionian Revolt.

The Battle of Ephesus took place in 498 BC between Persian and Greek forces during the Ionian revolt. The Persians defeated the Greek army and compelled the Athenians and Eretrians to abandon their alliance with the Ionians.

Greek refugees is a collective term used to refer to the more than one million Greek Orthodox natives of Asia Minor, Thrace and the Black Sea areas who fled during the Greek genocide (1914-1923) and Greece's later defeat in the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922), as well as remaining Greek Orthodox inhabitants of Turkey who were required to leave their homes for Greece shortly thereafter as part of the population exchange between Greece and Turkey, which formalized the population transfer and barred the return of the refugees. This Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations was signed in Lausanne, on January 30, 1923 as part of the peace treaty between Greece and Turkey and required all remaining Orthodox Christians in Turkey, regardless of what language they spoke, be relocated to Greece with the exception of those in Istanbul and two nearby islands. Although the term has been used in various times to refer to fleeing populations of Greek descent (primarily after the Ionian Revolt, the Fall of Constantinople or the Greek Civil War), the population strength and the influence of the Asia Minor Greeks in Greece itself, has attached the term to the Anatolian Greek population of the early 20th century. At least 300,000 Greek refugees were from Eastern Thrace, whereas at least 900,000 were from Asia Minor. At least 150,000 were from Istanbul, who left the city in three years before 1928.

Eion (Ancient Greek: Ἠϊών, Ēiṓn), one of two ancient cities named Chrysopolis, was an ancient Greek Eretrian colony in Thracian Macedonia specifically in the region of Edonis. It sat at the mouth of the Strymon River which flows into the Aegean from the interior of Thrace. It is referred to in Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War as a place of considerable strategic importance to the Athenians during the Peloponnesian War.

Athenians for the first time attempted to capture Eion in 497 BC during the Ionian Revolt, which was unsuccessful as the revolt ended with Persians re-establishing control over the Thrace, including Eion, and a Persian fortress meant for permanent stay was built there, probably in 492 BC. Eion functioned as one of the main Achaemenid cities in Thrace where food was stored for the Persian king Xerxes I and his great armies. Herodotus and Diodorus speak of Persian garrisons, of which the one at Eion was amongst them, which meant that its senior commander was apparently ethnically Persian. Xerxes had recalled most of the Persian troops from the area in the winter of 480/479 BC. It was then captured by the Delian League in 476 BC under the leadership of the Athenian general Cimon, the son of Miltiades the Younger, who started a siege on the city. Refusing Cimon's offer of an honorable withdrawal, the Persian commander Boges destroyed the treasure, killed his family, and committed suicide as the food ran out. Cimon turned the course of the River Strymon so that it flowed against the city walls, causing the mud brick fortifications to dissolve. The inhabitants were enslaved. The capture of Eion was the beginning of a military campaign undertaken by the newly formed Delian League, whose objective was to clear the Aegean Sea of Persian fleets and pirates in order to facilitate Athenian access to the Hellespont.

Artaphernes (Greek: Ἀρταφέρνης, Old Persian: Artafarna, from Median Rtafarnah), son of Artaphernes, was the nephew of Darius the Great, and a general of the Achaemenid Empire.

He was appointed, together with Datis, to take command of the expedition sent by Darius to punish Athens and Eretria for their support for the Ionian Revolt. Artaphernes and Datis besieged and destroyed Eretria, but were beaten by the Athenians at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC.