to the house of Miltiades, on a visit of condolence. As soon as he had
thus got them in his power, he made them all prisoners. He then asserted
and maintained his own absolute authority in the peninsula, taking into
his pay a body of five hundred regular troops, and strengthening his
interest by marrying the daughter of the king of the neighboring
Thracians.

When the Persian power was extended to the Hellespont and its
neighborhood, Miltiades, as prince of the Chersonese, submitted to King
Darius; and he was one of the numerous tributary rulers who led their
contingents of men to serve in the Persian army, in the expedition
against Scythia. Miltiades and the vassal Greeks of Asia Minor were left
by the Persian king in charge of the bridge across the Danube, when the
invading army crossed that river, and plunged into the wilds of the
country that now is Russia, in vain pursuit of the ancestors of the
modern Cossacks. On learning the reverses that Darius met with in the
Scythian wilderness, Miltiades proposed to his companions that they
should break the bridge down and leave the Persian king and his army to
perish by famine and the Scythian arrows. The rulers of the Asiatic
Greek cities, whom Miltiades addressed, shrank from this bold but
ruthless stroke against the Persian power, and Darius returned in
safety.

But it was known what advice Miltiades had given, and the vengeance of
Darius was thenceforth specially directed against the man who had
counselled such a deadly blow against his empire and his person. The
occupation of the Persian arms in other quarters left Miltiades for some
years after this in possession of the Chersonese; but it was precarious
and interrupted. He, however, availed himself of the opportunity which
his position gave him of conciliating the good-will of his
fellow-countrymen at Athens, by conquering and placing under the
Athenian authority the islands of Lemnos and Imbros, to which Athens
had ancient claims, but which she had never previously been able to
bring into complete subjection.

At length, in B.C. 494, the complete suppression of the Ionian revolt by
the Persians left their armies and fleets at liberty to act against the
enemies of the Great King to the west of the Hellespont. A strong
squadron of Phoenician galleys was sent against the Chersonese.
Miltiades knew that resistance was hopeless, and while the Phoenicians
were at Tenedos, he loaded five galleys with all the treasure t