Battle of Mycale (479 BC): The Greeks Strike Back in Ionia

The Battle of Mycale was fought in August 479 BC on the coast of Ionia, in western Anatolia, below Mount Mycale opposite the island of Samos. A Greek fleet under the Spartan king Leotychidas landed, stormed a fortified Persian camp and burned the ships beached inside it. Coming in the same season as the Battle of Plataea, it ended the Persian threat at sea and turned the Greeks from defenders into attackers.

Background

After the Greek naval victory at the Battle of Salamis in 480 BC, what remained of Xerxes’ fleet withdrew to Samos to keep watch over Ionia, the Greek cities of the Anatolian coast that were Persian subjects. In spring 479 BC a Greek fleet of about 110 triremes gathered at Aegina and then moved east to Delos.

There envoys from Samos arrived in secret and urged the Greeks to come over and free Ionia, promising that the Ionians would revolt as soon as a Greek fleet appeared. Leotychidas accepted. The memory of the failed Ionian Revolt two decades earlier made such appeals a serious matter for both sides.

What happened

When the Greek fleet approached, the Persian commanders decided not to fight at sea. They had already sent the Phoenician squadron away, and they doubted the loyalty of their remaining ships. Instead they sailed to the mainland at Mycale, where a Persian land army under Tigranes was stationed, said by Herodotus to number 60,000. They hauled their ships ashore and protected them with a rampart of stones and timber.

The Greeks followed and, seeing the enemy would not fight at sea, landed their crews. Leotychidas sent a herald along the shore to call on the Ionians serving with the Persians to remember their freedom. The Persians, suspicious, disarmed the Samian contingent and sent the Milesians to guard the mountain paths, away from the camp.

The Greeks attacked in two wings. The Athenians, Corinthians, Sicyonians and Troezenians advanced along the beach, while the Spartans took a longer route over broken ground inland. Herodotus says a rumour of the victory at Plataea ran through the army before the attack and raised its spirits.

The beach division broke through the wall of shields, pursued the defenders into the stockade and fought their way in before the Spartans arrived. The disarmed Samians joined the attack, other Ionians turned on the Persians, and the Milesians guarding the paths led fleeing troops astray. Tigranes and the naval commander Mardontes were killed. The Greeks burned the Persian ships and the camp.

Consequences

After the battle the Greeks held a council on Samos. The Peloponnesian leaders proposed moving the Ionians to mainland Greece, since the Ionian coast would be hard to defend against Persia. The Athenians objected, and instead Samos, Chios, Lesbos and other islands were taken into the Greek alliance by oath.

The fleet then sailed to the Hellespont to destroy the bridges Xerxes had built, only to find them already broken. Leotychidas and the Peloponnesians went home, but the Athenians under Xanthippus stayed and besieged Sestos, which fell in the winter of 479/478 BC. Herodotus ends his history at this point.

The split between Spartan caution and Athenian ambition was already visible. Within a year the Ionians and islanders turned to Athens for leadership, creating the Delian League.

Key people

• Leotychidas II: Eurypontid king of Sparta and commander of the Greek fleet. He was later exiled after being accused of taking bribes during a campaign in Thessaly.
• Xanthippus: Athenian general and father of Pericles, who led the Athenian squadron and the siege of Sestos.
• Tigranes: Persian commander of the land army at Mycale, killed in the battle.

Sources and problems of dating

Almost everything known about Mycale comes from Herodotus, writing a generation later, with a shorter account in the much later historian Diodorus Siculus. Herodotus presents the battle as a deliberate mirror of Plataea: both fought on the same day, both near a sanctuary of the goddess Demeter, and both decided by the courage of the Greek infantry.

Modern historians accept the outline of his story but question some details. The size of the Persian land army is probably exaggerated, as with most Persian figures in ancient sources. The claim that news of Plataea crossed the Aegean within hours is usually explained as a later legend or as a rumour deliberately spread to encourage the troops, rather than real news.

Timeline

• 480 BC, September: Persian fleet defeated at Salamis; survivors withdraw to Samos.
• 479 BC, spring: Greek fleet of about 110 ships gathers at Aegina and moves to Delos.
• 479 BC, summer: Samian envoys urge the Greeks to liberate Ionia.
• 479 BC, August: Persians beach their fleet at Mycale; Greeks land and storm the camp.
• 479 BC, autumn: Island states join the alliance; the fleet sails to the Hellespont.
• 479/478 BC, winter: Athenians capture Sestos.

Why it matters

Mycale removed the last organised Persian naval force from the Aegean and started the liberation of the eastern Greeks. It was the first major Greek offensive of the Persian Wars, and the decisions taken in its aftermath set Athens on the path to naval leadership and, in time, empire.