jugated and enslaved. The Persian fleet proceeded to subdue
all the towns and territories to the left of the Hellespont. At this
time their success in the Chersonesus drove from that troubled isthmus
a chief, whose acute and dauntless faculties made him subsequently the
scourge of Persia and the deliverer of Greece.
XI. We have seen Miltiades, nephew to the first of that name, arrive
at the Chersonesus--by a stroke of dexterous perfidy, seize the
persons of the neighbouring chieftains--attain the sovereignty of that
peninsula, and marry the daughter of a Thracian prince. In his
character was united, with much of the intellect, all the duplicity of
the Greek. During the war between Darius and the Scythians, while
affecting to follow the Persian army, he had held traitorous
intercourse with the foe. And proposed to the Grecian chiefs to
destroy the bridge of boats across the Danube confided to their
charge; so that, what with the force of the Scythians and the pressure
of famine, the army of Darius would have perished among the Scythian
wastes, and a mighty enemy have been lost to Greece--a scheme that,
but for wickedness, would have been wise. With all his wiles, and all
his dishonesty, Miltiades had the art, not only of rendering authority
firm, but popular. Driven from his state by the Scythian Nomades, he
was voluntarily recalled by the very subjects over whom he had
established an armed sovereignty--a rare occurrence in that era of
republics. Surrounded by fierce and restless foes, and exercised in
constant, if petty warfare, Miltiades had acquired as much the
experience of camps as the subtleties of Grecian diplomacy; yet, like
many of the wise of small states, he seems to have been more crafty
than rash--the first for flight wherever flight was the better policy
--but the first for battle if battle were the more prudent. He had in
him none of the inconsiderate enthusiasm of the hero--none of the
blind but noble subservience to honour. Valour seems to have been for
his profound intellect but the summation of chances, and when we
afterward find him the most daring soldier, it is only because he was
the acutest calculator.
On seeing the Phoenician fleet, raider Persia, arrive off the Isle of
Tenedos, which is opposite the Chersonesus, Miltiades resolved not to
wait the issue of a battle: as before he had fled the Scythian, so
now, without a struggle, he succumbed to the Phoenician sword. He
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