Dates

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Datis ( pers. Dâtish) was a Median general in the 5th century BC. Chr.

The Persian great king Darius I commissioned him with a punitive expedition against those Greek poles of the motherland who had supported the Ionian uprising against Persian rule on the west coast of Asia Minor . Datis led a smaller expeditionary force, which probably did not have more than a few thousand men. On the journey through the Aegean Sea , he subjugated Rhodes and Naxos and visited the Apollo shrine in Delos - this episode shows that the Persians also tried to accompany their campaign with propaganda. The target of the campaign, however, were Eretria and Athens . In Eretria, according to a relatively late report by Plato, the Persian army is said to have systematically combed the entire landscape with human chains on the hunt for man and sold the entire population into slavery. The historical reliability of this report is controversial, as sources from the fifth century BC. To report nothing about it.

Then the Persian expeditionary force landed in Attica. The expelled Athenian tyrant Hippias , who accompanied the Persian campaign and which was to be restituted in Athens, advised Datis to land in Marathon because he was hoping for the arrival of old supporters of the tyranny in Athens. Several days later the battle of Marathon broke out , which was lost by the Persians. The expedition des Datis had thus failed, but had nevertheless expanded Persian rule over the Cyclades. Later reports, which can be found in Diodorus , according to which Datis is said to have offered the Athenians an alliance - with reference to a common mythical ancestry - are historically not credible. They may represent a projection of later events before the Battle of Plataiai , when the Persian commander in chief Mardonios actually wanted to persuade the Athenians to defeat. Nothing is known about the further fate of the date. Later Greek sources who want to know of Dati's death at the Battle of Marathon are unlikely to be believed.

The expression “song of the date” was proverbial - especially in the comedies of Aristophanes - later in Athens. This meant a Greek that broke the wheel. It probably goes back to the fact that Datis endeavored during his campaign to address the Greeks - for example on Delos - in their own language.

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SURNAME Dates
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Median general of the Persian king Dareios I.
DATE OF BIRTH 6th century BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH 5th century BC Chr.