Miltiades, noted general and victor of the Battle of Marathon (490), was the son of Cimon. He was a member of Athens' rich and powerful Philaidai family. The family acquired interests in the Chersonese when the elder Miltiades, a second cousin of Miltiades Kimonos was invited there by the Dolonci to fortify a settlement for their protection.
Biography
Although Miltiades' father had been murdered by Hippias and Hipparchus, sons of Pisistratus, he was treated well by Hippias, who gave him his daughter in marriage. Hippias then sent Miltiades from Athens c. 524 to the Chersonese to take possession of the family's inheritance, left vacant upon the death of his brother, the younger Stesagoras. There, while continuing a policy of Athenian hegemony, Miltiades acted as virtual tyrant, arresting all of the leading men in the town upon his arrival and hiring a bodyguard of mercenary forces.
In c. 516 King Darius of Persia invaded Scythia, taking with him several Greeks, including Miltiades. At the river Danube, Darius left the Greeks to guard the bridge which they had constructed for sixty days, and he led the Persian army into Scythia. The King decided to return, since the expedition did not produce a major engagement. The Scythians pursued him by an alternate route and reached the Danube first. Miltiades is said to have argued for the destruction of the bridge, but the Greeks were won over by Histiaeus of Miletus, and the bridge was left intact, thus allowing Darius to return safely to Persia. A problem with the Herodotean account is that Miltiades would not have been spared his life had he actually urged betrayal of the Persians. Miltiades was brought back to the Chersonese by its inhabitants sometime before 499
Perhaps during this period Miltiades divorced the daughter of Hippias, who had become a political liability with that tyrant's fall in 510, and married the Thracian princess, Hegesipyle, daughter of Olorus; she was the mother of Cimon. At about this time Miltiades took the strategically important island of Lemnos, part of the Persian dominions in Ionia, and gave it to the Athenians. He possibly took the island of Imbros at the same time, for he found safe haven there in the aftermath of the Ionian Revolt in 493 when the Phoenician fleet approached the Chersonese. Miltiades escaped to Athens with four ships, but a fifth ship containing his older son Metiochos was captured by the Persians
Upon his return to Athens, Miltiades was put on trial for tyranny in the Chersonese and acquitted (Hdt. 6.104.2). Historians build a case for an alliance between Miltiades and Themistocles based on an anti-Persian stance the two may have held in common. One scenario holds it possible that Themistocles was Miltiades' judge, and that he biased the trial in Miltiades' favor. Darius was determined to punish the Athenians and the Eretrians for their part in the Ionian Revolt. The Persian fleet then made for the Bay of Marathon, on the east coast of Attica. At the time of the invasion Miltiades was serving as one of the ten generals of Athens. The Athenians made the crucial decision to send out a force to oppose the Persians; they were joined by a contingent of Plataeans. The board of generals, which operated by concensus, was deadlocked whether or not to fight. Herodotus attributes to Miltiades a speech in which he persuades the Polemarch to cast his vote to fight, thereby turning the majority in favor of Miltiades' opinion.
Two issues are whether Callimachus and not Miltiades was actually in charge on the day of the battle, and if Miltiades, exactly how the command passed him. In an attempt to cover the entire Persian front, the Athenians drew up in a line across the plain. The Persians broke though the middle, but the Athenians and Plataeans routed the Persians on the flanks. Then, in a pincer movement, the Athenians turned their wings to crush the Persians who had broken through the center. The Persians, having lost 6800 men, withdrew to the fleet. Of the Athenians, 192 fell.
After the battle of Marathon, Miltiades was greatly esteemed in Athens. The historian goes on to allege that the real reason for the expedition was a grudge Miltiades held against a certain Parian, Lysagoras son of Tisias. Upon his return charges were leveled against Miltiades that the Parian expedition had been an attempt to defraud the public. He was prosecuted by Xanthippus son of Ariphron, who called for the death penalty ; it is probable that this Xanthippus was the father of Pericles. Miltiades, weak from his wound and unable to defend himself, lay on a couch as his friends conducted his defence. Miltiades was fined 50 talents of silver, but died-in prison according to legend in 489 before he could pay the fine, which his son Cimon paid for him.
