CHAPTER I.
The Character and Popularity of Miltiades .-- Naval Expedition .-- Siege of Paros .-- Conduct of Miltiades .-- He is Accused and Sentenced .-- His Death.
I.

History is rarely more than the biography of great men.

Through a succession of individuals we trace the character and destiny of nations.

THE PEOPLE glide away from us, a sublime but intangible abstraction, and the voice of the mighty Agora reaches us only through the medium of its representatives to posterity.

The more democratic the state, the more prevalent this delegation of its history to the few; since it is the prerogative of democracies to give the widest competition and the keenest excitement to individual genius: and the true spirit of democracy is dormant or defunct, when we find no one elevated to an intellectual throne above the rest.