part and had fallen in the battle. [It is probable that the
Greek light-armed irregulars were active in the attack on the
Persian ships and it was in this attack that the Greeks suffered
their principal loss.] There was also a distinct sepulchral
monument to the general to whose genius the victory was mainly
due. Miltiades did not live long after his achievement at
Marathon, but he lived long enough to experience a lamentable
reverse of his popularity and good fortune. As soon as the
Persians had quitted the western coasts of the AEgean, he
proposed to an assembly of the Athenian people that they should
fit out seventy galleys, with a proportionate force of soldiers
and military stores, and place them at his disposal; not telling
them whither he meant to proceed, but promising them that if they
would equip the force he asked for, and give him discretionary
powers, he would lead it to a land where there was gold in
abundance to be won with ease. The Greeks of that time believed
in the existence of Eastern realms teeming with gold, as firmly
as the Europeans of the sixteenth century believed in Eldorado of
the West. The Athenians probably thought that the recent victor
of Marathon, and former officer of Darius, was about to guide
them on a secret expedition against some wealthy and unprotected
cities of treasure in the Persian dominions. The armament was
voted and equipped, and sailed eastward from Attica, no one but
Miltiades knowing its destination, until the Greek isle of Paros
was reached, when his true object appeared. In former years,
while connected with the Persians as prince of the Chersonese,
Miltiades had been involved in a quarrel with one of the leading
men among the Parians, who had injured his credit and caused some
slights to be put upon him at the court of the Persian satrap,
Hydarnes. The feud had ever since rankled in the heart of the