page_title: Miltiades the Elder
section_title: In the Thracian Chersonese
hierarchical_section_title: Miltiades the Elder / In the Thracian Chersonese
context_page_description: Miltiades the Elder was an Athenian politician from the Philaid family. He is most famous for traveling to the Thracian Chersonese, where at the behest of the local peoples he ruled as a tyrant. During his reign, Miltiades' best-attested action is the construction of a defensive wall across the peninsula.
  Miltiades was the uncle of Miltiades the Younger, who was a prominent commander in the Battle of Marathon.
context_section_description: During this period, the Dolonci— a population from the Thracian Chersonese— suffered several military defeats against their rivals, the Apsinthians. They traveled to the Oracle of Delphi for advice, and were told to return to Thrace with a Greek colonist as their commander. The Dolonci asked Miltiades to take on this role, due to the hospitality he showed them on their return trip through Athens. Miltiades accepted this offer, although his motivations are ambiguous. The traditional view holds that Miltiades was dissatisfied with Peisistratus' rule and wanted to make his fortune elsewhere, but some scholars argue that Miltiades was actually participating in a Peisistratid foreign policy that sought to exert its influence in the region.
  Miltiades arrived in the Thracian Chersonese with a group of Athenian settlers, probably between 556 and 550, and these followers populated and fortified the city of Cardia. Miltiades is also credited with the founding of several other Thracian cities, including Pactye, Agora, and Crithote. Miltiades' most famous construction, however, was a wall stretching from Cardia to Pactye. This wall was completed relatively early in Miltiades' reign, most likely prior to 546, and was designed to keep the Apsinthians out of the peninsula.
  During his reign, Miltiades also went to war against the city of Lampsacus. This war was largely unsuccessful, and Miltiades himself was briefly taken captive in a Lampsacene ambush. However, Croesus of Lydia interceded on behalf of Miltiades, compelling the Lampsacenes to release him unharmed.
  Miltiades died, childless, around 525 BC. He was succeeded as tyrant by his nephew, Stesagoras, who was killed shortly afterward by the Lampsacenes. In the Thracian Chersonese, an annual contest in horse-racing and gymnastics was then inaugurated in Miltiades' memory; after Stesagoras' murder, Lampsacenes were barred from these games.
caption: Map of the Thracian Chersonese in antiquity. The cities that Miltiades is credited with founding are visible in the northeast.
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