Miltiades son of Kimon

Family: Athenian · Role: commander and despot of the men of the Chersonese · First appears: Book 4 · §135–142

Miltiades son of Kimon, brother of the dead Stesagoras and son of Kimon, was descended originally from Aiacos and Egina, though his family had more recently been Athenian. After Stesagoras died, the sons of Peisistratos sent him to the Chersonese to take possession of the government. When its chief men gathered to condole with him, he bound them; he then ruled there with five hundred mercenaries and married Hegesipyle, daughter of Oloros. He fled the Chersonese from the Scythians and returned after they departed. At the time of the Scythian campaign, he urged the Ionians to follow their advice and free Ionia, while Histiaios opposed him.

Later, the Phenicians pursued him from the Chersonese: Miltiades escaped to Imbros with four ships, while the ship commanded by his eldest son Metiochos, born of another woman, was captured. Miltiades then came to Athens. In the events leading to the battle at Marathon, he persuaded Callimachos to support fighting; generals who favored battle handed their commands over to him, but he waited until his own turn to command before engaging. The Athenians and Plataians won, and the Athenians captured seven Persian ships.

At an earlier time, Miltiades had led the Athenians to take Lemnos: the men of Hephaistia departed when he ordered them to leave, and the people of Myrina submitted after a siege. Later, at Paros, he besieged the city for twenty-six days but failed to conquer it; while escaping from a temple wall, he dislocated his thigh. At Athens, Xanthippos prosecuted him and sought the death penalty. The people acquitted him of that penalty but fined him fifty talents; after his thigh became gangrenous, Miltiades died.