The Second Enslavement

 Herodotus called it The Second Enslavement: the rule of the Persians over the Greeks of Asia Minor. 

In Herodotus’ telling, all Greeks were free until Croesus conquered the Ionians in Asia Minor. (Many Aegean islanders and the Athenians also considered themselves Ionian.)

When Cyrus the Persian defeated Croesus, the Ionians, certain they could rule themselves without the oversight of a superpower, briefly enjoyed not having a master.

Cyrus was going to subjugate the Ionians again, but revolts broke out in other parts of his empire. Cyrus sent Harpagus, a general, to put an end to the idea that the Ionians could rule themselves.

Each Greek city considered itself distinct from — and independent from — the others. Each guarded that independence jealously, meaning that the Ionians didn’t cooperate in a common defense, ignoring the advice of Bias and Thales.

Harpagus, a patient and methodical fellow, crushed each city, one by one. 

Each community, faced with overwhelming force, reacted in its own way. The Phocaeans loaded their families on ships, abandoned their property and sailed for Sardinia. The Xanthians fought it out to the last man. (Herodotus commented acidly on the people of a later day who claimed to be Xanthians, people who had arrived after the fighting was over and who claimed a name associated with heroism.) The Cnidians, who lived on a peninsula, thought they could cut a channel at the isthmus, making an island for themselves.

No community was safe. Many gave up without a fight.

You can’t really read Herodotus twice, in the same way you can’t step in the same river twice.

I’d read the passage on The Second Enslavement many times, but it means something different to me today, facing a second inauguration.

• Sources and notes: Herodotus, The Histories, translated by Robin Waterfield; Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 74-8.