Tom Holland

And you could see the appeal of that to the Persians if they ever want to launch an attack on mainland Greece.

Naxos would be very useful to them.

And so Aristagoras goes to Artafernes.

Yes.

And his name means the splendor of Arta.

So anyone getting muddled up between Aristagoras and Artafernes, if it's got Arta in it, it's a Persian.

Okay, perfect.

So Artafernes, the governor, says, yeah, all right.

Okay, fair enough.

I'll need to check it with my brother.

So he checks with Darius and Darius says, yeah, okay, why not?

And so Aristagoras is able to go to launch an expedition with the deployment of 200 ships that have been given to him by the Persians for the expedition.

and he's accompanied by a Persian admiral called Megabetes, basically to kind of keep an eye on Aristagoras, and he's Artaferne's cousin, so it's again all very much being kept in the family.

And so Megabetes and Aristagoras set sail with these 200 ships for Naxos in 499.

But it's an absolute disaster.

The main city of Naxos is put under siege and it just drags by one month, two months, three months, four months,

And after four months, Aristagoras has used up all his money.

The Naxians are still holding out.

And Megabetes says, look, come on, this is hopeless.

We're giving up.