s, and it was in this attack
that the Greeks suffered their principal loss.]

The Greeks of that time believed in the existence of eastern realms
teeming with gold, as firmly as the Europeans of the sixteenth century
believed in El Dorado of the West. The Athenians probably thought that
the recent victor of Marathon, and former officer of Darius, was about
to lead them on a secret expedition against some wealthy and unprotected
cities of treasure in the Persian dominions. The armament was voted and
equipped, and sailed eastward from Attica, no one but Miltiades knowing
its destination until the Greek isle of paros was reached, when his true
object appeared. In former years, while connected with the Persians as
prince of the Chersonese, Miltiades had been involved in a quarrel with
one of the leading men among the Parians, who had injured his credit
and caused some slights to be put upon him at the court of the Persian
satrap Hydarnes. The feud had ever since rankled in the heart of the
Athenian chief, and he now attacked Paros for the sake of avenging
himself on his ancient enemy.

His pretext, as general of the Athenians, was, that the Parians had
aided the armament, of Datis with a war-galley. The Parians pretended to
treat about terms of surrender, but used the time which they thus gained
in repairing the defective parts of the fortifications of their city,
and they then set the Athenians at defiance. So far, says Herodotus, the
accounts of all the Greeks agree. But the Parians in after years told
also a wild legend, how a captive priestess of a Parian temple of the
Deities of the Earth promised Miltiades to give him the means of
capturing Paros; how, at her bidding, the Athenian general went alone at
night and forced his way into a holy shrine, near the city gate, but
with what purpose it was not known; how a supernatural awe came over
him, and in his flight he fell and fractured his leg; how an oracle
afterward forbade the Parians to punish the sacrilegious and traitorous
priestess, "because it was fated that Miltiades should come to an ill
end, and she was only the instrument to lead, him to evil." Such was the
tale that Herodotus heard at Paros. Certain it was that Miltiades either
dislocated or broke his leg during an unsuccessful siege of the city,
and returned home in evil plight with his baffled and defeated forces.

The indignation of the Athenians was proportionate to the hope and
excitement which his pro