1. Herodotus, Histories, 6.34-6.36, 6.132-6.136, 9.26-9.27 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
| 6.34. The Phoenicians subdued all the cities in the Chersonese except Cardia. Miltiades son of Cimon son of Stesagoras was tyrant there. Miltiades son of Cypselus had gained the rule earlier in the following manner: the Thracian Dolonci held possession of this Chersonese. They were crushed in war by the Apsinthians, so they sent their kings to Delphi to inquire about the war. ,The Pythia answered that they should bring to their land as founder the first man who offered them hospitality after they left the sacred precinct. But as the Dolonci passed through Phocis and Boeotia, going along the Sacred Way, no one invited them, so they turned toward Athens. 6.35. At that time in Athens, Pisistratus held all power, but Miltiades son of Cypselus also had great influence. His household was rich enough to maintain a four-horse chariot, and he traced his earliest descent to Aeacus and Aegina, though his later ancestry was Athenian. Philaeus son of Ajax was the first of that house to be an Athenian. ,Miltiades was sitting on his porch when he saw the Dolonci go by with their foreign clothing and spears, so he called out to them, and when they came over, he invited them in for lodging and hospitality. They accepted, and after he entertained them, they revealed the whole story of the oracle to him and asked him to obey the god. ,He was persuaded as soon as he heard their speech, for he was tired of Pisistratus' rule and wanted to be away from it. He immediately set out for Delphi to ask the oracle if he should do what the Dolonci asked of him. 6.36. The Pythia also bade him do so. Then Miltiades son of Cypselus, previously an Olympic victor in the four-horse chariot, recruited any Athenian who wanted to take part in the expedition, sailed off with the Dolonci, and took possession of their land. Those who brought him appointed him tyrant. ,His first act was to wall off the isthmus of the Chersonese from the city of Cardia across to Pactye, so that the Apsinthians would not be able to harm them by invading their land. The isthmus is thirty-six stadia across, and to the south of the isthmus the Chersonese is four hundred and twenty stadia in length. 6.132. After the Persian disaster at Marathon, the reputation of Miltiades, already great at Athens, very much increased. He asked the Athenians for seventy ships, an army, and money, not revealing against what country he would lead them, but saying that he would make them rich if they followed him; he would bring them to a country from which they could easily carry away an abundance of gold; so he said when he asked for the ships. The Athenians were induced by these promises and granted his request. 6.133. Miltiades took his army and sailed for Paros, on the pretext that the Parians had brought this on themselves by first sending triremes with the Persian fleet to Marathon. Such was the pretext of his argument, but he had a grudge against the Parians because Lysagoras son of Tisias, a man of Parian descent, had slandered him to Hydarnes the Persian. ,When he reached his voyage's destination, Miltiades with his army drove the Parians inside their walls and besieged them; he sent in a herald and demanded a hundred talents, saying that if they did not give it to him, his army would not return home before it had stormed their city. ,The Parians had no intention of giving Miltiades any money at all, and they contrived how to defend their city. They did this by building their wall at night to double its former height where it was most assailable, and also by other devices. 6.134. All the Greeks tell the same story up to this point; after this the Parians themselves say that the following happened: as Miltiades was in a quandary, a captive woman named Timo, Parian by birth and an under-priestess of the goddesses of the dead, came to talk with him. ,Coming before Miltiades, she advised him, if taking Paros was very important to him, to do whatever she suggested. Then, following her advice, he passed through to the hill in front of the city and jumped over the fence of the precinct of Demeter the Lawgiver, since he was unable to open the door. After leaping over, he went to the shrine, whether to move something that should not be moved, or with some other intention. When he was right at the doors, he was immediately seized with panic and hurried back by the same route; leaping down from the wall he twisted his thigh, but some say he hit his knee. 6.135. So Miltiades sailed back home in a sorry condition, neither bringing money for the Athenians nor having won Paros; he had besieged the town for twenty-six days and ravaged the island. ,The Parians learned that Timo the under-priestess of the goddesses had been Miltiades' guide and desired to punish her for this. Since they now had respite from the siege, they sent messengers to Delphi to ask if they should put the under-priestess to death for guiding their enemies to the capture of her native country, and for revealing to Miltiades the rites that no male should know. ,But the Pythian priestess forbade them, saying that Timo was not responsible: Miltiades was doomed to make a bad end, and an apparition had led him in these evils. 6.136. Such was the priestess' reply to the Parians. The Athenians had much to say about Miltiades on his return from Paros, especially Xanthippus son of Ariphron, who prosecuted Miltiades before the people for deceiving the Athenians and called for the death penalty. ,Miltiades was present but could not speak in his own defense, since his thigh was festering; he was laid before the court on a couch, and his friends spoke for him, often mentioning the fight at Marathon and the conquest of Lemnos: how Miltiades had punished the Pelasgians and taken Lemnos, delivering it to the Athenians. ,The people took his side as far as not condemning him to death, but they fined him fifty talents for his wrongdoing. Miltiades later died of gangrene and rot in his thigh, and the fifty talents were paid by his son Cimon. 9.26. During the drawing up of battle formation there arose much dispute between the Tegeans and the Athenians, for each of them claimed that they should hold the second wing of the army, justifying themselves by tales of deeds new and old. ,First the Tegeans spoke: “We, among all the allies, have always had the right to hold this position in all campaigns, of the united Peloponnesian armies, both ancient and recent, ever since that time when the Heraclidae after Eurystheus' death attempted to return to the Peloponnese. ,We gained because of the achievement which we will relate. When we marched out at the Isthmus for war, along with the Achaeans and Ionians who then dwelt in the Peloponnese, and encamped opposite the returning exiles, then (it is said) Hyllus announced that army should not be risked against army in battle, but that that champion in the host of the Peloponnesians whom they chose as their best should fight with him in single combat on agreed conditions. ,The Peloponnesians, resolving that this should be so, swore a compact that if Hyllus should overcome the Peloponnesian champion, the Heraclidae should return to the land of their fathers, but if he were himself beaten, then the Heraclidae should depart and lead their army away, not attempting to return to the Peloponnese until a hundred years had passed. ,Then our general and king Echemus, son of Phegeus' son Eeropus, volunteered and was chosen out of all the allied host; he fought that duel and killed Hyllus. It was for that feat of arms that the Peloponnesians granted us this in addition to other great privileges which we have never ceased to possess, namely that in all united campaigns we should always lead the army's second wing. ,Now with you, men of Lacedaemon, we have no rivalry, but forbear and bid you choose the command of whichever wing you want. We do, however, say that our place is at the head of the other, as it has always been. Quite apart from that feat which we have related, we are worthier than the Athenians to hold that post, ,for we have fought many battles which turned out favorably for you, men of Lacedaemon, and others besides. It is accordingly we and not the Athenians who should hold the second wing, for neither at some earlier period nor recently, have they achieved such feats of arms as we.” 9.27. To these words the Athenians replied: “It is our belief that we are gathered for battle with the barbarian, and not for speeches; but since the man of Tegea has made it his business to speak of all the valorous deeds, old and new, which either of our nations has at any time achieved, we must prove to you how we, rather than Arcadians, have by virtue of our valor a hereditary right to the place of honor. These Tegeans say that they killed the leader of the Heraclidae at the Isthmus. ,Now when those same Heraclidae had been rejected by every Greek people to whom they resorted to escape the tyranny of the Mycenaeans, we alone received them. With them we vanquished those who then inhabited the Peloponnese, and we broke the pride of Eurystheus. ,Furthermore, when the Argives who had marched with Polynices against Thebes had there made an end of their lives and lay unburied, know that we sent our army against the Cadmeans and recovered the dead and buried them in Eleusis. ,We also have on record our great victory against the Amazons, who once came from the river Thermodon and broke into Attica, and in the hard days of Troy we were second to none. But since it is useless to recall these matters—for those who were previously valiant may now be of lesser mettle, and those who lacked mettle then may be better men now— ,enough of the past. Supposing that we were known for no achievement (although the fact is that we have done more than any other of the Greeks), we nevertheless deserve to have this honor and more beside because of the role we played at Marathon, seeing that alone of all Greeks we met the Persian singlehandedly and did not fail in that enterprise, but overcame forty-six nations. ,Is it not then our right to hold this post, for that one feat alone? Yet seeing that this is no time for wrangling about our place in the battle, we are ready to obey you, men of Lacedaemon and take whatever place and face whatever enemy you think fitting. Wherever you set us, we will strive to be valiant men. Command us then, knowing that we will obey.” |
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4. Xenophon, Hellenica, 6.3.6, 6.5.46-6.5.48 (5th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE)
| 6.3.6. The right course, indeed, would have been for us not to take up arms against one another in the beginning, since the tradition is that the first strangers to whom Triptolemus, Triptolemus of Eleusis had, according to the legend, carried from Attica throughout Greece both the cult of Demeter and the knowledge of her art — agriculture. Heracles was the traditional ancestor of the Spartan kings (cp. III. iii.) while the Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux, were putative sons of Tyndareus of Sparta. our ancestor, revealed the mystic rites of Demeter and Core were Heracles, your state’s founder, and the Dioscuri, your citizens; and, further, that it was upon Peloponnesus that he first bestowed the seed of Demeter’s fruit. How, then, can it be right, 371 B.C. either that you should ever come to destroy the fruit of those very men from whom you received the seed, or that we should not desire those very men, to whom we gave the seed, to obtain the greatest possible abundance of food? But if it is indeed ordered of the gods that wars should come among men, then we ought to begin war as tardily as we can, and, when it has come, to bring it to an end as speedily as possible. 6.5.46. I see also the Thebans, who then See 35 above, and cp. note on iii. 13. did not succeed in persuading the Lacedaemonians to enslave you, now requesting you to allow those who saved you to perish. It is truly a noble deed that is told of your ancestors, when they did not suffer those Argives who died at the Cadmea to go unburied; After the defeat of the legendary expedition of the Seven against Thebes it was only the intervention of the Athenians which compelled the Thebans to permit the burial of the enemy’s dead. but you would achieve a far nobler deed if you did not suffer those Lacedaemonians who still live either to incur insult or to perish. 6.5.47. And while that other deed was also noble, when you checked the insolence of Eurystheus and preserved the sons of Heracles, The sons of Heracles, driven from Peloponnesus by Eurystheus, found protection and aid at Athens. would it not surely be an even nobler one if you saved from perishing, not merely the founders, but the whole state as well? And noblest of all deeds if, after the Lacedaemonians saved you then by a 370 B.C. vote, void of danger, you shall aid them now with arms and at the risk of your lives. 6.5.48. Again, when even we, who by word urge you to aid brave men, are proud of doing so, it would manifestly be generous of you, who are able to aid by act, if, after being many times both friends and enemies of the Lacedaemonians, you should recall, not the harm you have suffered at their hands, but rather the favours which you have, received, and should render them requital, not in behalf of yourselves alone, but also in behalf of all Greece, because in her behalf they proved themselves brave men. |
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