Histories

of him:. 36. and as the Pythian prophetess also bade him do so, Miltiades the son of Kypselos, who had before this been victor at Olympia with a four-horse chariot, now taking with him of the Athenians everyone who desired to share in the expedition, sailed with the Dolonkians and took possession of the land: and they who had invited him to come to them made him despot over them. First then he made a wall across the isthmus of the Chersonese from the city of Cardia to Pactye, in order that the Apsinthians might not be able to invade the land and do them damage. Now the number of furlongs860 across the isthmus at this place is six-and-thirty, and from this isthmus the Chersonese within is altogether four hundred and twenty furlongs in length. 37. Having made a wall then across the neck of the Chersonese and having in this manner repelled the Apsinthians, Miltiades made war upon the people of Lampsacos first of all others; and the people of Lampsacos laid an ambush and took him prisoner. Now Miltiades had come to be a friend861 of Croesus the Lydian; and Croesus accordingly, being informed of this event, sent and commanded the people of Lampsacos to let Miltiades go; otherwise he threatened to destroy them utterly like a pine-tree.862 Then when the people of Lampsacos were perplexed in their counsels as to what that saying should mean with which Croesus had threatened them, namely that he would destroy them utterly like a pine-tree, at length one of the elder men with difficulty perceived the truth, and said that a pine alone of all trees when it has been cut down does not put forth any further growth but perishes, being utterly destroyed. The people of Lampsacos therefore fearing Croesus loosed Miltiades and let him go. 38. He then escaped by means of Croesus, but afterwards he brought his life to an end leaving no son to succeed him, but passing over his rule and his possessions to Stesagoras, who was the son of Kimon, his brother on the mother’s side:863 and the people of the Chersonese still offer sacrifices to him after his death as it is usual to do to a founder, and hold in his honour a contest of horse-races and athletic exercises, in which none of the men of Lampsacos are allowed to contend. After this there was war with those of Lampsacos; and it happened to Stesagoras also that he died without leaving a son, having been struck on the head with an axe in the City Hall by a man who pretended to be a deserter, but who proved himself to be in fact an enemy and a rather hot one moreover. 39. Then after Stesagoras also had ended his life in this manner, Miltiades son of Kimon and brother of that Stesagoras who was dead, was sent in a trireme to the Chersonese to take possession of the government by the sons of Peisistratos, who had dealt well with him at Athens also, pretending that they had had no share in the death of his father Kimon, of which in another part of the history I will set forth how it came to pass.864 Now Miltiades, when he came to the Chersonese, kept himself within his house, paying honours in all appearance865 to the memory of his brother Stesagoras; and the chief men of the inhabitants of the Chersonese in every place, being informed of this, gathered themselves together from all the cities and came in a body to condole with him, and when they had come they were laid in bonds by him. Miltiades then was in possession of the Chersonese, supporting a body of five hundred mercenary troops; and he married the daughter of Oloros the king of the Thracians, who was named Hegesipyle.

40. Now this Miltiades son of Kimon had at the time of which we speak but lately returned866 to the Chersonese; and after he had returned, there befell him other misfortunes worse than those which had befallen him already; for two years before this he had been a fugitive out of the land from the Scythians, since the nomad Scythians provoked by king Darius had joined all in a body and marched as far as this Chersonese, and Miltiades had not awaited their attack but had become a fugitive from the Chersonese, until at last the Scythians departed and the Dolonkians brought him back again. These things happened two years before the calamities which now oppressed him:. 41. and now, being informed that the Phoenicians were at Tenedos, he filled five triremes with the property which he had at hand and sailed away for Athens. And having set out from the city of Cardia he was sailing through the gulf of Melas; and as he passed along by the shore of the Chersonese, the Phoenicians fell in with his ships, and while Miltiades himself with four of his ships escaped to Imbros, the fifth of his ships was captured in the pursuit by the Phoenicians. Of this ship it chanced that Metiochos the eldest of the sons of Miltiades was in command, not born of the daughter of Oloros the Thracian, but of another woman. Him the Phoenicians captured together with his ship; and being informed about him, that he was the son of Miltiades, they brought him up to the king, supposing that they would lay up for themselves a great obligation; because it was Miltiades who had declared as his opinion to the Ionians that they should do as the Scythians said, at that time when the Scythians requested them to break up the bridge of boats and sail away to their own land. Darius however, when the Phoenicians brought up to him Metiochos the son of Miltiades, did