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Persians as over-elaborate: they might well have been mistaken in some of their assumptions.

The fact that the cavalry ultimately reembarked seems proved by the agreement of Herodotus and Nepos upon the point that the battle ended by the Persians being pursued to their ships: they were routed ut naves peterent says Nepos; είποντο κόπτοντες ἐς ὅ ἐπὶ τὴν θάλασσαν ἀπικόμενοι, πῦρ τε αἴτεον καὶ ἐπελαμβάνοντο τῶν νεῶν, says Herodotus: and they could hardly have done this if the Persian cavalry had been on the foreshore so eminently suited to their tactics.

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The problem of the cavalry at Marathon is not solved by assuming that they were never intended to be landed at all, but were destined for Phalerum and were to start as soon as the Athenian forces were lured out of their city: there still remains this very definite assertion of Herodotus that they were especially brought to Marathon because it was so suited to their tactics. Herodotus, it is true, makes no further mention of them. But Nepos definitely assumes their presence. Suidas1) gives the story that the Ionians in the Persian fleet made a signal to the Athenians to the effect that the horses are gone". According to Pausanias the field of Marathon in his time was said to be haunted by the noise of combatants and the snorting of horses: so that there is considerable authority for the presence of cavalry at some time during the battle. They were undoubtedly absent at the end and at the height of the battle as well, but there seems every probability that they were landed just before the battle but re-embarked as soon as they realised the unsuitability of the place. It was this re-embarkation that was signalled by the Ionians, and it was not necessarily due in the first instance to any prearranged plan to convey them to Phalerum: they may ultimately have gone there, but they were intended for use at Marathon. In appears, therefore, that the cavalry upon which the Persians had decided to place most reliance turned out to be useless either for defence or offence. The plain was no doubt diótator Ériatečõa in some places, but it was certainly not so in the particular place where the Persians found they would have to fight if they were to pass the Athenians and get to Athens. In fact, they had made a grave strategical error, despite the advice which Hippias, from his experience of the locality, might have been supposed to give them. In their account of the Parian expedition, however, Herodotus and Cornelius Nepos show most clearly both the nature of the sources they drew from and their respective prepossessions and prejudices.

Both historians agree that the expedition consisted of seventy ships. and that it set out from Athens. After this, however. the two versions

1) See Macan's edition of Herodotus II p. 231.

diverge and differ in so marked a way that it seems incredible that they both claim to represent the same facts.

The reason given for this expedition according to Herodotus was a definite promise on the part of Miltiades that he could put Athens in the way of a 'good thing' from the financial point of view-gae avtove καταπλουτιεῖν ἢν οἱ ἔπωνται ἐπὶ γὰρ χώρην τοιαύτην δή τινα ἄξειν ὅθεν χρυσὸν εὐπετέως ἄφθονον οἴσονται. Miltiades thereby assumed the whole responsibility for the undertaking: it was, in short, his idea and due to his initiative, or rather his arrogance as Herodotus makes it out to be. In other words, Miltiades and the Parian expedition are delineated in Herodotus exactly as Alcibiades and the Sicilian expedition are in Thucydides. There is the same overweening self-confidence on the part of the leader. the same failure of the expedition, and a showing up of the leader in his true light. In short, all the best traditions of the Greek historical formula for the tragic drama of 9:0ẞháßea are faithfully carried out.

But Nepos, with his usual matter-of-fact tabulation of events, brings us down from the clouds of tragi-history and gives a much more convincing and likely representation of the expedition.

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Whereas Herodotus states that Miltiades on his own initiative 'asked for seventy ships', οὐ φράσας ἐπ ̓ ἣν ἐπιστρατεύεται χώρην, Nepos makes it quite clear that Miltiades was a servant rather than a master. hoc proelium (Marathon), he says, classem septuaginta navium Athenienses eidem Miltiadi dederunt, ut insulas, quae barbaros adiuverant, bello persequeretur, and later on reference is made to this mission as an imperium.

Now the account not only differs from, but in a sense contradicts. the account of Herodotus, and at the same time seems to be a far more plausible and probable version. The battle of Marathon was a great victory, no doubt, but no intelligent city would be likely to leave it at that: a further movement to consolidate its effects and to take more elaborate precautions against a similar crisis seems to have been inevitable. The Parian expedition, as Messrs. Mitchell and Caspari1) suggest, may have had as its object the establishment of an outer line of defence: Naxos was still unsubdued by Persia and the acquisition of the neighbouring and next greatest island of Paros would then have provided the Athenians with an excellent nucleus for an advanced line of resistance among the Cyclades. Miltiades, further, was just the man for such an undertaking. for he had achieved success in the previous expedition to Lemnos, which cannot be looked on as anything else than a political move of the greatest importance. That the Parian expedition had a precisely similar motive is at least the inference from the account of Nepos. Instead of a wild

1) p. 159, note 2.

goose chase for an unexplained reason we have a definite policy of defence: Miltiades is given a commission-an imperium exactly the same as that of Pompey or Antonius in later days- ut insulas quae barbaros adiuverant bello persequeretur. Perhaps this is too much in the spirit of Athens during the critical time of the secession of members from the Delian league. but there is no other reason against it. Herodotus at any rate agrees on one point with Nepos, for he declares that Miltiades went to Paros (no other of the Cyclades is mentioned) πρόφασιν ἔχων ὡς οἱ Πάριοι ὑπῆρξαν πρότεροι στρατευόμενοι τριήρεσι ἐς Μαραθώνα ἅμα τῷ Πέρση—a reason which might well represent a policy instead of a personal spite. But Herodotus hastens to dispel any such idea concerning his narrative by adding that τοῦτο μὲν δὴ πρόσχημα λόγων ἦν, and proceeding to explain how it was all due to a private grudge that Miltiades held for the Parians because a certain Lysagoras son of Teisias had spread scandal about him to Hydarnes the Persian-a truly reasonable excuse for such an enterprise! The expedition, however, seems to have been partially successful. Pleras ad officium redire coegit, nonnullas vi expugnavit, says Nepos: that is to say the formation of a ring of defensive bases was not only the intention but also the result of the expedition.

Herodotus represents him as going immediately to Paros. Nepos more reasonably includes Paros among other visitations: ex his Parum insulam opibus elatam, cum oratione reconciliare non posset, copias e navibus eduxit, and not only entirely ignores the 'private grudge' story, but says that Paros was opibus elatam and arrogant-the usual prelude to subjugation.

The siege then began, and, says Herodotus, a messenger was sent by Miltiades to the Parians, demanding a hundred talents. Nepos makes no mention of this demand, but it obviously falls into line with his statement that the island was opibus elata, though Herodotus uses it rather to depreciate Miltiades and show him in the light of a bandit.

The siege, however, was not destined to be a success, and it was abruptly brought to a close. The two rival versions, however, differ in such an extraordinary way on this point that we are driven to the deepest scepticism in regard to our knowledge of Greek history which depends on such variable sources.

Herodotus relates that Miltiades owing to the failure of the siege and his despair of ever taking the city, commenced negotiations for its betrayal with the priestess Timo. Then follows the well-known story of his sacrilege in the precincts of Demeter - εἴτε κινήσοντά τι τῶν ἀκινήτων εἴτε ὃ τι δή κότε πρήξοντα (a charge the very vagueness of which seems to make it seem more serious). and then his accident and abandonment of the siege.

Now Nepos gives the following account of the crisis in the siege. So far from the siege being a failure, he says that Miltiades was 'just on the point of taking Paros': but that one night a forest on the island suddenly for some unknown reason caught fire: both the besiegers and the besieged instantly jumped to the conclusion that it was the Persians come to the help of the Parians, and that the fire was the Persian signal to the besieged. Miltiades therefore burnt his engines of siege and fled in a panic.

Now the sensational element in each narrative seems to be unduly emphasised and each differs so entirely from the other that there is no question of their being rival interpretations of the same story. They have no single element in common, except, perhaps, the suddenness of the abandonment of the siege.

But though it seems hard to adhere to either version, yet Cornelius Nepos seems in some respects to give the more reliable story. Thus Herodotus, while he states that the siege was a failure, yet gives no reason for its sudden abandonment. His story of the negotiations with Timo is a mere interpolation: it neither explains the alleged failure, nor yet the sudden abandonment: it is, in short, but a scandalous story about a man whom Herodotus had been briefed to depreciate.

Nepos, however extravagant he may seem, yet gives a perfectly logical account. The siege was going on perfectly successfully—-cum iam in eo esset ut oppido potiretur--but a sudden catastrophe sent Miltiades flying headlong back to Athens: the flight, moreover, was caused through a fear of precisely those enemies whom Miltiades was sent to oppose, and so perhaps the sensational nature of the story can be minimised, considering the immense number of parallel instances of panics at night time both in ancient and modern warfare. In any case it is coherent and consistent, while the version of Herodotus is neither the one nor the other, for it leaves much that is unexplained and postulates much that is unnecessary.

As one might expect, on his sudden return to Athens, whence he had set forth with such an important commission, Miltiades arrived magna cum offensione civium suorum. He had not only not redeemed his promise whether it was χρήματα Αθηναίοις ἄγειν, or whether it was the formation of the Second Line of defence-but in addition he had wasted time and money in a worthless and fruitless venture of twenty-six days' duration. At this point Herodotus attempts to remould his version by continuing the story of Timo, the priestess. The Parians, he says, sent 9εолооло to Delphi to ask for advice as to her conduct. The oracle replied that it was no fault of the priestess, but the working of the fate of Miltiades. However this may be, it has little bearing on the outlines of the story.

Klio, Beiträge zur alten Geschichte XIV 1.

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Miltiades returned in disgrace: that is admitted by both authorities. Further, this disgrace took a severely practical form, and he was impeached. Here Herodotus is very definite: the Athenians, he says, were talking hard things of Miltiades-εἶχον ἐν στόμασι, οἵ τε ἄλλοι καὶ μάλιστα Ξάνθιππος ὁ ̓Αρίφρονος ὅς θανάτου ὑπαγαγὼν ὑπὸ τὸν δῆμον Μιλτιάδεα ἐδίωκε τῆς ̓Αθηναίων ἀπάτης εἵνεκεν.

The two rival narratives now seem to come together again. Nepos likewise says that the magna offensio caused by Miltiades' ignominious return led to an accusation-accusatus ergo est proditionis, quod, cum Parum expugnare posset, a rege corruptus infectis rebus discessit. But he differs from Herodotus in three points. First, Herodotus says the trial was draτng eirezer, while Nepos says that it was for proditio. Secondly, Nepos adds a further charge of corruption. Thirdly, the incidental references to the Persian King and to Miltiades' abandonment of an otherwise successful siege are both consistent with the reason for and the progress of the expedition as previously narrated.

Now άлáτŋ is just the vague sort of reason that Herodotus usually gives for political trials such as this. Proditio-no doubt a species of dлáτn-is, on the other hand, much more likely if the reason for the expedition was an anti-Persian plan of action.

Miltiades, however, fell ill-from the wound received on the occasion of his sacrilege, according to Herodotus: according to Nepos, from wounds received during the siege-eo tempore aeger erat vulneribus, quae in oppugnando oppido ceperat. He was unable therefore to conduct his own case and left it to his gi20-(Nepos says to Stesagoras or to a certain Dagoras, according to the reading: but Stesagoras had been assassinated years before, so it may have been another member of the family of that name).

He was accused chiefly by Xanthippus the son of Ariphron, says Herodotus, who demanded a death sentence. Nepos is silent on this point. In any case, however, the part played by the Alcmaeonidae in this trial may well have been played in the previous trial of 493, and both are palpably political coups: the power of the Alcmaeonidae had been considerably lessened by the growing popularity of the Philaidae, and this was an admirable opportunity for recovering their lost prestige.

Miltiades was condemned, but not on the capital charge, and he was fined fifty talentsa sum which was κατὰ τὴν ἀδικίην according to Herodotus or quantus in classem sumptus factus erat according to the more exact statement of Nepos.

He was, however, unable to pay the fine and in vincla publica coniectus est. Herodotus makes no mention of this latter fact, but it is given by Diodorus1) and Plutarch2). In prison, however, diem obiit 1) frag. lib. X. 2) Kimon 4 and Aristides 26.

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