Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/383

 SUBSEQUENT CONDUCT OF MILTIADES. 3(53 Xanthippus, father of the great Perikles, became the spokesman of this feeling. He impeached Miltiades before the popular judicature as having been guilty of deceiving the people, and as having deserved the penalty of death. The accused himself, disabled by his injured thigh, which even began to show symp- toms of gangrene, was unable to stand, or to say a word in his own defence : he lay on his couch before the assembled judges, while his friends made the best case they could in his behalf. Defence, it appears, there was none ; all they could do, was to appeal to his previous services : they reminded the people largely and emphatically of the inestimable exploit of Marathon, coming in addition to his previous conquest of Lemnos. The assembled dikasts, or jurors, showed their sense of these powerful appeals by rejecting the proposition of his accuser to condemn him to death ; but they imposed on him the penalty of fifty talents " for his iniquity." Cornelius Nepos affirms that these fifty talents represented the expenses incurred by the state in fitting out the armament ; but we may more probably believe, looking to the practice of the Athenian dikastery in criminal cases, that fifty talents was the 'davu.Tov inrayayuv inrb TOV Srjfj.ov MiTiTiadea, idiuKE TTJ? 'A.&r}valuv UTTUTTK slveKsv. MtXrtad??f 6s, avrdf fj.ev napeuv, OVK wTreAoyeero rjv yap udvva- TOC, wore orjnofievov TOV firjpov. TipoK(ifj.evov tie avrov iv KMVTJ, VTrep- airo'XoyiovTo ol i7ioi, rrjf ^a^r TE TV? ev Mapaduvi yevofievric TroAAa kxi- fiffivrjuevoi, Kal rijv A.fjfivov olpEOLV tif i?t.uv h.r]pv6v re Kal Tiaapevoc roi)f Il?.affyot)f, itapiSuKe ^A.^rjvaioiai. Hpoayevopevov 6e TOV ftrifiov aiirCt xarti TTJV a.Tto'kvaiv rov davdrov, &niuaavTo; 6e KarH T'fjv udtKi7]v TrevrrjKOVTa Ta?MVToiot, Mi3.rid6r}<; fi'ev (J.STU ravra, aQaKehiaavrof re TOV fj.rjpoi> Kal (Tarevrof, TeAevr^- TU 6e irevrijKOVTa rdTiavTa i^ertaev 6 Trai'f avrov Kiftuv. Plato (Gorgias, c. 153, p. 516) says that the Athenians passed a vote to cast Miltiades into the barathrum (i/j./3a?ilv tiprii.aavTo), and that he would have been actually thrown in, if it had not been for the prytanis, t. e the president, by turn for that day, of the prytanizing senators and of the ekklesia. The prytanis may perhaps have been among those who spoke to the dikastery on behalf of Miltiades, deprecating the proposition made by Xanthippus ; but that he should have caused a vote once passed to be actually rescinded, is incredible. The Scholiast on Aristeides (cited by Valckenoer ad Herodot. vi, 136) reduces the exaggeration of Plato to something more reasonable "Ore yap kKpivsro Mt?.r<a<tyf inl ry if&eXijaav oii~3v KaTaKpijuviaai' 6 < Q&TOV.