hat he
could collect, and sailed away for Athens. The Phoenicians fell in with
him, and chased him hard along the north of the AEgean. One of his
galleys, on board of which was his eldest son Metiochus, was actually
captured. But Miltiades, with the other four, succeeded in reaching the
friendly coast of Imbros in safety. Thence he afterward proceeded to
Athens, and resumed his station as a free citizen of the Athenian
commonwealth.

The Athenians, at this time, had recently expelled Hippias the son of
Pisistratus, the last of their tyrants. They were in the full glow of
their newly recovered liberty and equality; and the constitutional
changes of Clisthenes had inflamed their republican zeal to the utmost.
Miltiades had enemies at Athens; and these, availing themselves of the
state of popular feeling, brought him to trial for his life for having
been tyrant of the Chersonese. The charge did not necessarily import any
acts of cruelty or wrong to individuals: it was founded on no specific
law; but it was based on the horror with which the Greeks of that age
regarded every man who made himself arbitrary master of his fellow-men,
and exercised irresponsible dominion over them.

The fact of Miltiades having so ruled in the Chersonese was undeniable;
but the question which the Athenians assembled in judgment must have
tried, was whether Miltiades, although tyrant of the Chersonese,
deserved punishment as an Athenian citizen. The eminent service that he
had done the state in conquering Lemnos and Imbros for it, pleaded
strongly in his favor. The people refused to convict him. He stood high
in public opinion. And when the coming invasion of the Persians was
known, the people wisely elected him one of their generals for the year.

Two other men of high eminence in history, though their renown was
achieved at a later period than that of Miltiades, were also among the
ten Athenian generals at Marathon. One was Themistocles, the future
founder of the Athenian navy, and the destined victor of Salamis. The
other was Aristides, who afterward led the Athenian troops at Plataea,
and whose integrity and just popularity acquired for his country, when
the Persians had finally been repulsed, the advantageous preeminence of
being acknowledged by half of the Greeks as their imperial leader and
protector. It is not recorded what part either Themistocles or Aristides
took in the debate of the council of war at Marathon. But, from the
charac