The Historians' History of the World 03

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 dicastery in criminal cases, that fifty talents was the minor penalty actually proposed by the defenders of Miltiades themselves, as a substitute for the punishment of death. In those penal cases at Athens, where the punishment was not fixed beforehand by the terms of the law, if the person accused was found guilty, it was customary to submit to the jurors, subsequently and separately, the question as to amount of punishment: first, the accuser named the penalty which he thought suitable; next, the accused person was called upon to name an amount of penalty for himself, and the jurors were constrained to take their choice between these two—no third gradation of penalty being admissible for consideration. Of course, under such circumstances, it was the interest of the accused party to name, even in his own case, some real and serious penalty—something which the jurors might be likely to deem not wholly inadequate to his crime just proved; for if he proposed some penalty only trifling, he drove them to prefer the heavier sentence recommended by his opponent. Accordingly, in the case of Miltiades, his friends, desirous of inducing the jurors to refuse their assent to the punishment of death, proposed a fine of fifty talents as the self-assessed penalty of the defendant; and perhaps they may have stated, as an argument in the case, that such a sum would suffice to defray the costs of the expedition. The fine was imposed, but Miltiades did not live to pay it: his injured limb mortified, and he died, leaving the fine to be paid by his son Cimon.

According to Cornelius Nepos, Diodorus, and Plutarch, he was put in prison, after having been fined, and there died. But Herodotus does not mention this imprisonment, and the fact appears improbable: he would hardly have omitted to notice it, had it come to his knowledge.

Thus closed the life of the conqueror of Marathon. The last act of it produces an impression so mournful, and even shocking—his descent from the pinnacle of glory to defeat, mean tampering with a temple-servant, mortal bodily hurt, undefended ignominy, and death under a sentence of heavy fine, is so abrupt and unprepared—that readers, ancient and modern, have not been satisfied without finding some one to blame for it: we must except Herodotus, our original authority, who recounts the transaction without dropping a single hint of blame against any one. To speak ill of the people, as Machiavelli has long ago observed, is a strain in which every one at all times, even under a democratical government, indulges with impunity and without provoking any opponent to reply; and in this instance, the hard fate of Miltiades has been imputed to the vices of the Athenians and their democracy—it has been cited in proof, partly of their fickleness, partly of their ingratitude. But however such blame may serve to lighten the mental sadness arising from a series of painful facts, it will not be found justified if we apply to those facts a reasonable criticism.

What is called the fickleness of the Athenians on this occasion is nothing more than a rapid and decisive change in their estimation of Miltiades; unbounded admiration passing at once into extreme wrath. To censure them for fickleness is here an abuse of terms; such a change in their opinion was the unavoidable result of his conduct. His behaviour in the expedition of Paros was as reprehensible as at Marathon it had been meritorious, and the one succeeded immediately after the other: what else could ensue except an entire revolution in the Athenian feelings? He had employed his prodigious ascendency over their minds to induce them to follow him without knowing whither, in the confidence of an unknown booty; he had exposed their lives and wasted their substance in wreaking a private grudge; in addition to the shame of an unprincipled project, comes the constructive shame of not having succeeded in it. Without doubt, such behaviour, coming from a man whom they admired to excess, must have produced a violent and painful revulsion in the feelings of his countrymen. The idea of having lavished praise and confidence upon a person who forthwith turns it to an unworthy purpose, is one of the greatest torments of the human bosom; and we may well understand that the intensity of the subsequent displeasure would be aggravated by this reactionary sentiment, without accusing the Athenians of fickleness.