Free The First Clash by Jim Lacey

slaves, to be the most fond of servility and the least likely to turn from their masters. 2
    Eventually, Darius and his haggard army reached the Danube. In the darkness, he was unable to see that only a portion of the bridge had been disassembled. With the Scythians closing in, there were a few panicked minutes before he realized the Greeks were still there and the bridge was being extended back to the north shore.
    What makes this story important is that it is the first time Herodotus calls our full attention to Miltiades, who was later heralded as Athens’s savior and served as a senior commander against the Persian army at Marathon. As we will see, upon his much later return to Athens, Miltiades was put on trial for his life, accused of being a tyrant and a supporter of the Persian king. The keystone of his defense was the claim that he had been the only Greek to advocate destroying the Danube bridge and therefore to leave the Persian army and its king to face certain destruction. It was a strong defense at the time and helped him pull off a surprise acquittal.
    Historians have long puzzled over the truthfulness of Miltiades’ account. How likely was it that he could have advocated stranding the Great King and then survived in power for almost another decade? One would assume such a traitor would have felt Darius’s wrath soon after the king had returned to safety. This alone is sufficient reason to doubt Herodotus’s account of what took place at the bridge and to believe instead that it is a fabrication Miltiades crafted to secure his acquittal. 3
    Most likely Miltiades fully supported the decision to hold the bridge for Darius. Word must certainly have reached the Greeks that Darius was in trouble somewhere deep in the Scythian hinterland. This news must have stirred the camp with excitement, and there were likely enough Greeks present to overpower whatever Persians Darius had left behind, although they could not be certain of success. The revolts of the Greek cities nearthe Bosporus, including Byzantium and Chalcedon, attest to the fact that news of the Persian army having met some kind of disaster in Scythia was spreading rapidly throughout the empire. It is unlikely these cities would have considered such a course if they feared the Persian army was still intact in nearby Thrace. However, the Greeks on the Danube lost nothing by staying in place a bit longer and risked much by sailing away. In the end, practical, selfish concerns won out and they stayed.
    Several points of evidence lead us to conclude that Miltiades was lying at his trial. First, upon his return, Darius appeared to have been in a hurry to show himself alive and well in the heart of the empire. As the revolt in the Bosporus made it impossible to return by the most practical route, he instead crossed the Hellespont at Sestos, in the heart of Miltiades’ domain. Darius, who returned to his western capital, Sardis, with only a small bodyguard, surely would not have been able to move through Miltiades’ territory if his loyalty had been in doubt. Moreover, there were no Greek tyrants of this era who did not have enemies, and Miltiades had more than his share. In fact, some of his foremost rivals were at the bridgehead with him. If Miltiades had campaigned publicly for the destruction of the bridge, it would surely have come to Darius’s attention. Given Darius’s proven ruthlessness to his enemies, one would expect Miltiades’ well-being to have suffered dramatically soon after Darius’s return to the heart of his empire. Instead, Miltiades was soon back at the Chersonese, resuming his role as tyrant. Here he remained for at least the next fifteen years, a loyal supplicant of the Great King.
    As Darius hastened to Sardis and eventually on to Susa, presumably to make sure reports of disaster did not spark a new round of civil war, he left a large force behind under a Persian general, Megabazos. 4 This force was charged with subjugating the rest of