Campaigns of Darius I - Ionian Revolt

Ionia, on the central Western coast of Asia Minor and the adjacent islands was settled by the Greeks about 1000 BC. Between the 8th and 6th centuries BC, the Ionian cities of Miletus, Shmos, Ephesus, led the rest of Greece in trade, colonization, and culture. The region was dominated by Lydia from 550 BC and then by Persian rule after Cyrus the Great's conquest in 546 BC. The Ionian revolt against Persian rule in 499 BC was to last for 6 years and end, not only in defeat for the Ionians but with the enslavement of much of its people, economic ruin, subjugation, and the comparative eclipse of a once thriving culture.