With all his wiles, and all his dishonesty, Miltiades had the art, not only of rendering authority firm, but popular.

Driven from his state by the Scythian Nomades, he was voluntarily recalled by the very subjects over whom he had established an armed sovereignty--a rare occurrence in that era of republics.

Surrounded by fierce and restless foes, and exercised in constant, if petty warfare, Miltiades had acquired as much the experience of camps as the subtleties of Grecian diplomacy; yet, like many of the wise of small states, he seems to have been more crafty than rash--the first for flight wherever flight was the better policy -- but the first for battle if battle were the more prudent.

He had in him none of the inconsiderate enthusiasm of the hero--none of the blind but noble subservience to honour.

Valour seems to have been for his profound intellect but the summation of chances, and when we afterward find him the most daring soldier, it is only because he was the acutest calculator.
On seeing the Phoenician fleet, raider Persia, arrive off the Isle of Tenedos, which is opposite the Chersonesus, Miltiades resolved not to wait the issue of a battle: as before he had fled the Scythian, so now, without a struggle, he succumbed to the Phoenician sword.