THE DATE OF MILTIADES1 PARIAN EXPEDITION
The following note is a pendant to my recent article in this journal 1 dealing with some aspects of the Marathon campaign and its aftermath.
An essential feature of my reconstruction was the dating of Miltiades' Parian expedition to the end of the campaigning season of 490/89, after Athens' Marathon victory. I argued that Aristeides2, political associate of the Alkmeonidai, was elected archon for 489/8 at a time of widespread disenchantment with Miltiades, which, after his return from the Kyklades, had made it possible for the Alkmeonid circle to have him tried and condemned by the ekklesia.
As immediate justification for my date for the Parian expedition I offered only the apparent drift of Herodtos' narrative at 6.132. A further argument, a strong one I think, can be adduced.
According to Ephoros' 3 account of the post-Marathon Athenian against Paros, an account which differs considerably from that of Herodotos 4, Miltiades was on the point of receiving the surrender of the Parians when a forest fire broke out one night spontaneously on the island of Mykonos. The Parians thought that Datis was signalling that Persian help was on the way, and abandoned any thought of capitulation. The detail of the fire seems too circumstantial to be a fourth century invention and we must suppose that Ephoros got his non-Herodotean material from either Hellanikos or Charon of Lampsakos who had at their disposal some authentic information. Herodotos, friend of the Perikles-Alkmeo-
1 Ant. Class. 39 (1970), p. 427-442.
2 Whom I took to be Aristeides Lysimachou Alopekethen, the Aristeides, Aristeides "the Just". Such is the generally accepted view. On this I must confess to increasing uneasiness because of the evidence of Demetrios of Phaleron (see Plutarch, Aristeides 1.2 and 5.7). It is just possible that Demetrios correctly held that the great Aristeides occupied one of the lesser archonships after Plataiai and that the eponymous archon of 489/8 was a different Aristeides. If so, a plausible candidate would be Aristeides Xenophilou (PA 1687), choregos in 477/6 and named on a Kerameikos ostrakon (see F. W. Willemsen, Deltion Archaiologikon 23 [1968], Chronika, p. 28-9) probably of the 480s. This Aristeides belonged to the phyle Antiochis. In the fourth century we meet an Areopagite named Xenophilos (PA 11289) whose deme is Alopeke. I would guess that Aristeides Xenophilou was a cousin of the Aristeides. If Aristeides Xenophilou was after all the eponymous of 489/8 we would still in all probability have a figure from the Alkmeonid circle in office.
8 Ephoros, FGH 70 F 63. 4 Herodotos, 6.132-6.
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