Miltiades

Miltiades, son of Cimon, an Athenian, since by the antiquity of his lineage, the fame of his ancestors, and his own modesty he flourished beyond all others, and was of an age at which his fellow-citizens could not merely entertain good hopes of him but feel sure that he would prove to be such a man as they afterwards found him to be — it happened that the Athenians wished to send colonists to the Chersonese. As the number of those eligible for this kind of enterprise was large, and many sought a share in the migration, picked men of their number were sent to Delphi to consult Apollo, asking which leader they should especially employ; for at that time the Thracians held those regions, and arms would have to be matched against them. To these inquirers the Pythia gave the express command that they should take Miltiades as their commander: if they did so, their undertaking would prosper. In obedience to this oracular response Miltiades, setting out for the Chersonese with a chosen band and a fleet, put in at Lemnos and wished to bring the inhabitants of that island under the power of the Athenians. When he demanded that the Lemnians do this of their own accord, they answered in mockery that they would do so when he, having set out from home with his ships, should reach Lemnos before a north wind; for this wind, rising from the north, blows dead against those sailing from Athens. Miltiades, having no time to delay, steered the course toward which he was bound and reached the Chersonese.

There, having in a short time scattered the forces of the barbarians and gained possession of the whole region he had sought, he fortified the positions suited for strongholds, settled in the fields the multitude he had brought with him, and enriched them by frequent raids. In this affair he was aided no less by prudence than by good fortune. For when by the valour of his soldiers he had conquered the armies of the enemy, he ordered affairs with the utmost fairness and resolved to remain there himself. For he held among them a position of royal dignity, though he lacked the title, and he had won it not so much by his command as by his justice; nor for all that did he fail in his duties to the Athenians, from whom he had set out. By these means it came about that he held a lasting authority no less by the good will of those who had sent him than of those with whom he had set out. The Chersonese being thus settled, he returned to Lemnos and demanded, according to the agreement, that they surrender the city to him; for they had said that they would surrender it when he reached the island, setting out from home with a north wind, since he now had his home in the Chersonese. The Carians, who at that time inhabited Lemnos, although the matter had fallen out contrary to their expectation, nevertheless, caught not by their own word but by the favourable fortune of their adversaries, did not dare to resist and removed from the island. With equal good fortune he brought the other islands, which are called the Cyclades, under the power of the Athenians.

At about the same time Darius, king of the Persians, having transported an army from Asia into Europe, resolved to make war upon the Scythians. He built a bridge over the river Hister, by which to lead his forces across. As guards of that bridge, while he himself should be absent, he left the chief men whom he had brought with him from Ionia and Aeolis, to whom he had given perpetual rule over their several cities. For he thought that in this way he would most easily keep under his power those Greek-speaking peoples who inhabited Asia, if he entrusted the protection of the towns to his friends, who, should he himself be overthrown, would be left no hope of safety. Among this number at that time was Miltiades, to whom that guard had been committed. When frequent messengers brought word that Darius was faring badly and was hard pressed by the Scythians, Miltiades urged the guardians of the bridge not to let slip the chance, granted by fortune, of freeing Greece. For if Darius perished together with the forces he had taken across, not only would Europe be safe, but those too who inhabited Asia and were Greek by race would be free from the domination and the peril of the Persians. This could easily be brought about: for once the bridge was cut, the king would perish within a few days, either by the enemy's sword or by want. When most assented to this plan, Histiaeus of Miletus opposed it, lest it be carried out, saying that the same course was not expedient for those who held supreme power as for the common multitude, since their own rule rested upon the kingdom of Darius; were he destroyed, they themselves would be driven from power and would pay the penalty to their own fellow-citizens. He therefore so shrank from the counsel of the rest that he thought nothing more useful to them than that the kingdom of the Persians be made secure. When the greater number had followed his opinion, Miltiades, not doubting that with so many privy to the plan his designs would reach the king's ears, left the Chersonese and removed once more to Athens. Although his counsel did not prevail, it is greatly to be praised, since he was more a friend to the liberty of all than to his own dominion.

Darius, however, when he had returned from Europe into Asia, urged by his friends to bring Greece under his power, fitted out a fleet of five hundred ships and set Datis and Artaphernes over it, and gave them two hundred thousand foot and ten thousand horse, putting forward as his pretext that he was an enemy to the Athenians, because with their aid the Ionians had stormed Sardis and slain his garrisons. Those royal commanders, having put in with their fleet off Euboea, quickly took Eretria and, dragging off all the citizens of that people, sent them to the king in Asia. Thence they advanced upon Attica and led their forces down into the plain of Marathon, which is about ten miles from the city. Roused by an alarm so near and so great, the Athenians sought help nowhere except from the Lacedaemonians, and sent Phidippus, a runner of the class called day-couriers, to Lacedaemon to announce that aid was needed with all speed. At home they created ten generals to command the army, and among them Miltiades. Among these there was a great dispute, whether to defend themselves within the walls or to go out to meet the enemy and decide the issue in battle. Miltiades alone strove most earnestly that a camp be pitched at the earliest possible moment: if this were done, both their citizens' courage would rise, when they saw that men did not despair of their valour, and the enemy would for the same reason be the slower, if they perceived that the Athenians dared to fight against them with so small a force.

At this crisis no state came to the aid of the Athenians except the Plataeans. These sent a thousand soldiers; and so by their arrival the ten thousand armed men were made up, a band that blazed with a wonderful eagerness for battle. Hence it came about that Miltiades carried more weight than his colleagues. Impelled therefore by his authority, the Athenians led their forces out of the city and pitched camp in a suitable place. Then on the next day, having drawn up their line at the foot of the mountains in ground not entirely open (for in many places the trees were scattered), they joined battle with this design: that they might both be sheltered by the height of the mountains and have the enemy's cavalry hindered by the line of trees, so as not to be hemmed in by their numbers. Datis, although he saw that the ground was not favourable to his men, nevertheless, relying on the multitude of his forces, was eager to engage, and the more so because he judged it expedient to fight before the Lacedaemonians should come to the rescue. And so he brought into the line a hundred thousand foot and ten thousand horse and joined battle. In this engagement the Athenians so far prevailed by valour that they routed ten times their own number of the enemy, and struck them with such terror that the Persians made not for their camp but for their ships. No more glorious deed than this battle has yet appeared: for never did so small a band lay low such great power.

Of this victory it seems not amiss to relate what reward was bestowed on Miltiades, that it may the more easily be understood that the nature of all states is the same. For just as the honours of the Roman people were once rare and modest, and for that very reason glorious, but now are lavished and cheapened, so we find it once was among the Athenians. For to this Miltiades, who had freed Athens and all Greece, such honour was paid that, when the battle of Marathon was being depicted in the portico which is called the Painted Porch, his image was set first among the number of the ten generals, urging on the soldiers and joining battle. Yet that same people, after it had obtained a greater empire and had been corrupted by the bribery of its magistrates, decreed three hundred statues to Demetrius of Phalerum.

After this battle the Athenians gave the same Miltiades a fleet of seventy ships, to make war upon the islands that had aided the barbarians. In this command he compelled most of them to return to their duty, and some he took by force. Among these, when he could not by speech bring back to allegiance the island of Paros, puffed up by its wealth, he led his forces out of the ships, shut in the city with siege-works, deprived it of all supplies, and then, having set up mantlets and sheds, drew nearer to the walls. When he was now on the point of taking the town, a grove on the mainland at a distance, which could be seen from the island, was set ablaze in the night by some chance or other. When its flame was seen by the townsmen and the besiegers alike, both parties came to the opinion that a signal had been given by the king's fleet. Hence it came about both that the Parians were deterred from surrender, and that Miltiades, fearing that the king's fleet was approaching, burned the works he had set up and returned to Athens with the same number of ships as he had set out with, to the great displeasure of his fellow-citizens. He was therefore accused of treason, on the ground that, when he could have stormed Paros, he had been bribed by the king and had withdrawn without accomplishing his purpose. At that time he was sick from the wounds he had received in the assault on the town. And so, since he could not plead for himself, his brother Stesagoras spoke for him. The case being heard, he was acquitted of the capital charge but fined money, and that suit was assessed at fifty talents, the amount of the expenditure that had been laid out upon the fleet. Because he could not pay this money at the time, he was cast into the public prison, and there he met his last day.

Although he was accused on the Parian charge, yet another was the true cause of his condemnation. For the Athenians, on account of the tyranny of Pisistratus, which had existed a few years before, dreaded any excessive power in their citizens. Miltiades, much engaged in commands and magistracies, did not seem capable of being a private man, especially since by habit he seemed drawn toward a desire for power. For in the Chersonese, throughout all the years he had dwelt there, he had held a perpetual dominion and had been called tyrant — but a just one. For he had won it not by force but by the good will of his subjects, and he kept that power by his goodness. Now all are both called and held to be tyrants who hold perpetual power in a state that has enjoyed liberty. But in Miltiades there was both the utmost kindliness and a marvellous accessibility, so that no one was so humble that he could not have access to him; great was his authority among all states, his name was noble, and his renown in war the greatest. Regarding these things, the people preferred that he, though innocent, should suffer, rather than that they themselves should remain longer in fear.