The Historians' History of the World 03

The expedition of Miltiades to the Chersonesus, as described in the previous chapter, must have occurred early after the first usurpation of Pisistratus, since even his imprisonment by the Lampsacenes happened before the ruin of Crœsus (546 B.C.). But it was not till much later,—probably during the third and most powerful period of Pisistratus,—that the latter undertook his expedition against Sigeum in the Troad. This place appears to have fallen into the hands of the Mytileneans: Pisistratus retook it, and placed there his illegitimate son Hegesistratus as despot. The Mytileneans may have been enfeebled at this time (somewhere between 537-527 B.C.), not only by the strides of Persian conquest on the mainland, but also by the ruinous defeat which they suffered from Polycrates and the Samians. Hegesistratus maintained the place against various hostile attempts, throughout all the reign of Hippias, so that the Athenian possessions in those regions comprehended at this period both the Chersonesus and Sigeum. To the former of the two, Hippias sent out Miltiades, nephew of the first œcist, as governor, after the death of his brother Stesagoras. The new governor found much discontent in the peninsula, but succeeded in subduing it by entrapping and imprisoning the principal men in each town. He further took into his pay a regiment of five hundred mercenaries, and married Hegesipyle, daughter of the Thracian king Olorus. It appears to have been about 515 B.C. that this second Miltiades went out to the Chersonesus. He seems to have been obliged to quit it for a time, after the Scythian expedition of Darius, in consequence of having incurred the hostility of the Persians; but he was there from the beginning of the Ionic revolt until about 493 B.C., or two or three years before the battle of Marathon, on which occasion we shall find him acting-commander of the Athenian army.

Both the Chersonesus and Sigeum, though Athenian possessions, were, however, now tributary and dependent on Persia. And it was to this quarter that Hippias, during his last years of alarm, looked for support in the event of being expelled from Athens: he calculated upon Sigeum as a shelter, and upon Æantides, as well as Darius, as an ally. Neither the one nor the other failed him.

The same circumstances which alarmed Hippias, and rendered his dominion in Attica at once more oppressive and more odious, tended of course to raise the hopes of his enemies, the Athenian exiles, with the powerful Alcmæonidæ at their head. Believing the favourable moment to be come, they even ventured upon an invasion of Attica, and occupied a post called Leipsydrion in the mountain range of Parnes, which separates Attica from Bœotia. But their schemes altogether failed: Hippias defeated and drove them out of the country. His dominion now seemed confirmed, for the Lacedæmonians were on terms of intimate friendship with him; and Amyntas, king of Macedon, as well as the Thessalians were his allies. Yet the exiles whom he had beaten in the open field succeeded in an unexpected manœuvre, which, favoured by circumstances, proved his ruin.

[548-514 B.C.]