Athenian chief, and he now attacked Paros for the sake of
avenging himself on his ancient enemy. His pretext, as general
of the Athenians, was, that the Parians had aided the armament of
Datis with a war-galley. The Parians pretended to treat about
terms of surrender, but used the time which they thus gained in
repairing the defective parts of the fortifications of their
city; and they then set the Athenians at defiance. So far, says
Herodotus, the accounts of all the Greeks agree. But the
Parians, in after years, told also a wild legend, how a captive
priestess of a Parian temple of the Deities of the Earth promised
Miltiades to give him the means of capturing Paros: how, at her
bidding, the Athenian general went alone at night and forced his
way into a holy shrine, near the city gate, but with what purpose
it was not known: how a supernatural awe came over him, and in
his flight he fell and fractured his leg: how an oracle
afterwards forbad the Parians to punish the sacrilegious and
traitorous priestess, "because it was fated that Miltiades should
come to an ill end, and she was only the instrument to lead him
to evil." Such was the tale that Herodotus heard at Paros.
Certain it was that Miltiades either dislocated or broke his leg
during an unsuccessful siege of that city, and returned home in
evil plight with his baffled and defeated forces.

The indignation of the Athenians was proportionate to the hope
and excitement which his promises had raised. Xanthippus, the
head of one of the first families in Athens, indicted him before
the supreme popular tribunal for the capital offence of having
deceived the people. His guilt was undeniable, and the Athenians
passed their verdict accordingly. But the recollections of
Lemnos and Marathon, and the sight of the fallen general who lay