H. vi. 73.
Accompanied by Leutychides, Kleomenes paid a second visit to Ægina, and received ten of the chief citizens as hostages for the good behaviour of the state. These he gave into the charge of their “greatest enemies,” the Athenians.
It is impossible to say with confidence that the story is historical in all its details. The fact, however, remains that Ægina was absolutely passive during the Marathonian campaign, and that her attitude at the time can only be attributable to the fact that Athens had these hostages at her mercy.
Though Athenian tradition magnified Marathon into one of the greatest events in Hellenic history, till references to it became a tedious commonplace in Greek diplomacy, the actual records of the time are very meagre.[58]
The most remarkable characteristic of Herodotus’ account of the campaign is its brevity. It cannot, however, be supposed that he suffered in this instance from want of information. Of that there was, doubtless, enough and to spare. Herodotus must have found in Athens material sufficient for a much longer chapter in his history, had he chosen to make use of all that came to his hand. He had every temptation to do so. The Marathonian legend was regarded in his day as one of the most glorious pages in Athenian history. A full reproduction of it would have been an attractive feature in the historian’s work, when presented to an Athenian audience.
The cause or causes of this striking abstention may not have been simple or uniform.
Much of the material must have been unreliable. Popular imagination would be certain to come into play in dealing with the story of an event which, whatever its real nature, did greatly increase the reputation of Athens, raising her suddenly from a position of comparative obscurity into a place among Greek states but little inferior to that of Sparta itself.
What has become of all this mass of legend?
Herodotus has certainly rejected the greater part of it as unworthy of reproduction in history. It has survived in fragmentary references in the works of the orators of a later age. Its existence provoked historians like Theopompos to exaggerate on the side of depreciation.
Frag. Hist. Græc. Theop. 167.