The real features of Miltiades are blurred in the historical portrait. But, inasmuch as the most reliable part of the story is that which is most favourable to him, it may be that the modern world will judge most truly of him if it thinks of him at his best.
The extant history both of Greece and Persia during the years which intervened between the Marathonian campaign and the great invasion of 480 is very fragmentary; but, as it was Herodotus’ object to tell the tale of the relations between the two, such facts as he does mention have in nearly every instance a direct bearing on those relations, and the gaps in the story are not of the embarrassing character of those which are so apparent in the narrative of the years preceding the Ionian revolt, or, indeed, in that of the revolt itself.
H. vii. 1.
The failure at Marathon made Darius more desirous than ever to prosecute his designs against Greece. In spite of the suppression of the Ionian revolt, the events of the last twenty-five years must have seriously shaken the prestige of Persia in the extreme western parts of his territory. Darius’ life-work remained unfinished if he could not consolidate this one corner of the great empire he had reconquered so rapidly in the first years of his reign. That consolidation was manifestly incomplete if the free kin of his turbulent subjects in the far west were to be allowed to enjoy the reputation of having defied his power.
He went to work slowly, for the task was great; and it was all to do, since Datis and Artaphernes had failed to establish a footing on the western mainland. Moreover, that expedition had shown him the difficulty, if not the impossibility of isolating the immediate object of attack. Pan-Hellenic sentiment may not at the time have been stronger west than east of the Ægean; but its practical expression, in the form of combination among the states, was infinitely easier on the European than on the Asiatic side. The years of the revolt had furnished him with all the data for an estimate of the formidable character of this sentimental factor in the politics of this western border of his empire. The punishment of the free Ionians, and the establishment of a tête-du-pont on the European shore, could only be accomplished by a force sufficiently large to meet a formidable combination among the Greek states.
In the years following Marathon,—the last years of his eventful life,—he set to work to prepare for the great expedition. The work was necessarily a work of time. Apart from the magnitude of the undertaking, the last ten years must have severely strained even the great resources of his empire. Moreover, those resources were, owing to the methods on which the government of the empire was organised, potential rather than active. Persia possessed the materials for a great army; but she did not keep that army in commission. Prompt action was impossible with her when the action was to be on a large scale.
Some years passed, and yet the blow did not fall on Greece. The exhausted state of the empire, apart from the habitual slowness in the working of its military machinery, must have delayed the progress of the preparations. H. vii. 2. Darius, too, was in the decline of his days; and it may well be that a failure in his health, apparent some years before his actual death, led to those quarrels about the succession, the story of which reached Greece, and is reproduced by Herodotus, after his custom, with much circumstantial detail. This failure of energy at the centre of the empire would entail a corresponding lack of energy in the outlying parts of it.
DEATH OF DARIUS.
Whatever the progress made in the years immediately succeeding Marathon,[87] an event took place in 486 which diverted the attention of Darius to another part of the world. Egypt revolted.
But the old king was dying; and before the work of suppressing the revolt was carried out, he passed away in 485.