Histories

Herodotus

Herodotus. Godley, Alfred Denis, translator. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press; William Heinemann, Ltd., 1920-1925 (printing).

Miltiades was present but could not speak in his own defense, since his thigh was festering; he was laid before the court on a couch, and his friends spoke for him, often mentioning the fight at Marathon and the conquest of +Lemnos [25.25,39.916] (island), Lesvos, Aegean Islands, Greece, Europe Lemnos: how Miltiades had punished the Pelasgians and taken +Lemnos [25.25,39.916] (island), Lesvos, Aegean Islands, Greece, Europe Lemnos, delivering it to the Athenians.

The people took his side as far as not condemning him to death, but they fined him fifty talents for his wrongdoing. Miltiades later died of gangrene and rot in his thigh, and the fifty talents were paid by his son Cimon.

Miltiades son of Cimon took possession of +Lemnos [25.25,39.916] (island), Lesvos, Aegean Islands, Greece, Europe Lemnos in this way: When the Pelasgians [*](The Pelasgians were driven into Attica [23.5,38.83] (department), Central Greece and Euboea, Greece, Europe Attica by the Boeotian immigration, about sixty years after the Trojan war according to legend.) were driven out of Attica [23.5,38.83] (department), Central Greece and Euboea, Greece, Europe Attica by the Athenians, whether justly or unjustly I cannot say, beyond what is told; namely, that Hecataeus the son of Hegesandrus declares in his history that the act was unjust;

for when the Athenians saw the land under +Imittos [23.816,37.95] (inhabited place), Attica, Central Greece and Euboea, Greece, Europe Hymettus, formerly theirs, which they had given to the Pelasgians as a dwelling-place in reward for the wall that had once been built around the acropolis—when the Athenians saw how well this place was tilled which previously had been bad and worthless, they were envious and coveted the land, and so drove the Pelasgians out on this and no other pretext. But the Athenians themselves say that their reason for expelling the Pelasgians was just.