The position of Miltiades during the years of the revolt is another of the many obscure points of the history of the time. H. vi. 40. According to Herodotus, he had been driven out of his principality somewhere about the year 496 by a Scythian raid, which is alleged to have been an act of revenge for Darius’ expedition; and had only been restored to it subsequently by the aid of the Dolonki, the race which had originally handed over the district to the rule of his family. He appears at Marathon as a practised general; yet there is no trace whatever of his part in the revolt having been other than purely passive. His act seems, indeed, to have been rather defection than revolt.[50]
On the evidence available, nothing is clear but that Miltiades considered that he had hopelessly compromised himself with the insurgents; so much so, that, when he heard the Persian fleet was at Tenedos, he placed his movable property on five triremes and set sail for Athens.
His position as ruler of this little principality must have been a very difficult one while the revolt was in progress. On the one hand, he had to watch the wild Thracian tribes on the north; and this may account for his apparent inactivity at the time. On the other hand, he had to decide between the prospective dangers of defection from Persia and the more immediate peril of an attack from the Ionian fleet, when, early in 497, it appeared in the Hellespont. The sense of the certain danger of the moment seems to have overcome whatever feeling he may have had with regard to the risk of throwing off the Persian yoke.
Of his five ships, four reached Athens in safety; but the fifth, with his son Metiochos on board, was overtaken by the Phœnicians, and captured. The youth was sent up to Darius at Susa, who treated him with kindness.[51]
H. vi. 42.
The hostilities upon the Asian coast had been brought to a close by the complete submission of the Ionian districts. REORGANIZATION OF GREEK ASIA. The peculiar enlightenment of the Persia of this age in contrast with other Oriental monarchies is shown by the settlement of affairs in Asia made when the fighting was all over. There seems to be a certain irony in the attitude taken towards the Greeks. It is assumed that the Ionian cities had been, if not their own, at any rate each other’s worst enemies; and the most prominent feature of the reorganization is the regulation of their relations to one another.
Artaphernes summoned representatives from the various cities to Sardes, and compelled them to make mutual agreements providing means for the settlement of disputes, whether public or private, between the states, and for the discontinuance of raids on neighbour’s property. The last provision casts a somewhat lurid light on the unruly character of these subjects of the empire.
He further caused a survey to be made of the territories of the cities, on which was founded a new assessment of tribute, which, so Herodotus says, differed but little from the previous assessment, and continued in force until his own time.[52]
The reconquest of Thrace and Macedonia was the next object of the king. The absence of evidence as to the nature of the attitude of these regions towards Persia at the time of the revolt, renders it impossible to say whether they had actually thrown off the yoke, or whether it had not rather fallen from them in consequence of the European shore being denuded of Persian troops for the operations in Asia. They seem to have lapsed rather than revolted. This view is supported by the fact that, though they had to be reconquered, that reconquest, apart from a disaster due to natural causes, seems to have been carried out without much difficulty, and yet effectively.
It might have been supposed that the large naval and military force which must have been present in Western Asia during the last year of the revolt, would have been sufficient for the operations in Europe; but, apart from the inevitable losses in the war, a large number of the available troops may have been required for the occupation of the recently conquered districts.