Erato   

him, and he wanted to be beyond the tyrant's reach. He therefore
went straightway to Delphi, and inquired of the oracle whether he
should do as the Dolonci desired.
As the Pythoness backed their request, Miltiades, son of
Cypselus who had already won the four-horse chariot-race at Olympia,
left Athens, taking with him as many of the Athenians as liked to join
in the enterprise, and sailed away with the Dolonci. On his arrival at
the Chersonese, he was made king by those who had invited him. After
this his first act was to build a wall across the neck of the
Chersonese from the city of Cardia to Pactya, to protect the country
from the incursions and ravages of the Apsinthians. The breadth of the
isthmus at this part is thirty-six furlongs, the whole length of the
peninsula within the isthmus being four hundred and twenty furlongs.
When he had finished carrying the wall across the isthmus, and had
thus secured the Chersonese against the Apsinthians, Miltiades
proceeded to engage in other wars, and first of all attacked the
Lampsacenians; but falling into an ambush which they had laid he had
the misfortune to be taken prisoner. Now it happened that Miltiades
stood high in the favour of Croesus, king of Lydia. When Croesus
therefore heard of his calamity, he sent and commanded the men of
Lampsacus to give Miltiades his freedom; "if they refused," he said,
"he would destroy them like a fir." Then the Lampsacenians were
somewhile in doubt about this speech of Croesus, and could not tell
how to construe his threat "that he would destroy them like a fir";
but at last one of their elders divined the true sense, and told
them that the fir is the only tree which, when cut down, makes no
fresh shoots, but forthwith dies outright. So the Lampsacenians, being
greatly afraid of Croesus, released Miltiades, and let him go free.
Thus did Miltiades, by the help of Croesus, escape this danger.
Some time afterwards he died childless, leaving his kingdom and his
riches to Stesagoras, who was the son of Cimon, his half-brother. Ever
since his death the people of the Chersonese have offered him the
customary sacrifices of a founder; and they have further established
in his honour a gymnic contest and a chariot-race, in neither of which
is it lawful for any Lampsacenian to contend. Before the war with
Lampsacus was ended Stesagoras too died childless: he was sitting in
the hall of justice when he was struck upon the head with a hatchet by
a man who pretended to be a deserter, but was in good sooth an
enemy, and a bitter one.
Thus died Stesagoras; and upon his death the Pisistratidae
fitted out a trireme, and sent Miltiades, the son of Cimon, and
brother of the deceased, to the Chersonese, that he might undertake
the management of affairs in that quarter. They had already shown
him much favour at Athens, as if, forsooth, they had been no parties
to the death of his father Cimon- a matter whereof I will give an
account in another place. He upon his arrival remained shut up
within the house, pretending to do honour to the memory of his dead
brother; whereupon the chief people of the Chersonese gathered
themselves together from all the cities of the land, and came in a
procession to the place where Miltiades was, to condole with him
upon his misfortune. Miltiades commanded them to be seized and
thrown into prison; after which he made himself master of the
Chersonese, maintained a body of five hundred mercenaries, and married
Hegesipyla, daughter of the Thracian king Olorus.
This Miltiades, the son of Cimon, had not been long in the country
when a calamity befell him yet more grievous than those in which he
was now involved: for three years earlier he had had to fly before
an incursion of the Scyths. These nomads, angered by the attack of
Darius, collected in a body and marched as far as the Chersonese.
Miltiades did not await their coming, but fled, and remained away
until the Scyths retired, when the Dolonci sent and fetched him
back. All this happened three years before the events which befell
Miltiades at the present time.
He now no sooner heard that the Phoenicians were attacking Tenedos