Tom Holland

You know, he will remain loyal to the Persians in Miletus, but if he can establish, you know, a kind of...

Saab Empire in the Aegean in Thrace so the northern coastline of the Aegean you know that'd be brilliant why not that'd be great but that doesn't work out right because he ends up with an unexpected promotion it does and I think possibly because the Persians are a little bit twitchy about this

You know, it's a good way to to stop his regional ambitions, which is essentially is to kick him upstairs.

So he gets promoted to the rank of royal table companion.

So that means he has to leave Miletus and head to Persia and kind of hang out in Persepolis and Susa, the other great palace complex that Darius has.

And it's essentially a kind of gilded cage because he enjoys tremendous wealth and all of that, the favor of the king.

But he's a long way from home.

He can't kind of build this empire that he'd been hoping to do.

However, all is not lost for his dears because his family retains its rule of Miletus.

So his replacement as Tyrannos is his nephew and son-in-law, a guy called Aristagoras.

And Aristagoras is very ambitious, very wily, very proactive.

So a chip off the old block.

And Aristagoras has essentially bought into this dream of a kind of family empire in the Aegean that he's inherited from his uncle.

He's very keen to do that.

He is also aware that there are all kinds of social tensions in Miletus itself, that there are conspiracies, that there are whisperings, that there are plots to topple the tyranny and introduce a democracy.

So these social tensions, you know, he feels like he's essentially sitting on the edge of a volcano and that's another incentive to try and go out into the Aegean and kind of carve out a small empire for himself because that would then generate more wealth which would enable him to kind of keep the lid on this pressure cooker.

He cooks up what seems to him a brilliant plan.

This plan is designed to boost his dynasty's power, to consolidate his relations with the Persians, and thereby to keep agitation for a democracy in Miletus firmly in check.

The plan is he will lead an expedition against the island of Naxos, which lies in the middle of the Aegean.

So it's a kind of stepping stone between what's now the Turkish coastline of the Aegean and mainland Greece.