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Historical person

Miltiades

555 BCE–490 BCE

Miltiades was an Athenian aristocrat and general best known for commanding at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC. He had earlier ruled in the Thracian Chersonese and possessed direct experience of Persian power.

At Marathon he helped persuade the Athenians to attack and became the principal hero of the victory in later memory. A failed expedition against Paros soon damaged his reputation; fined and imprisoned, he died from an infected wound. Miltiades was born in Athens.

Christian Cameron’s Marathon places Miltiades at the centre of the Athenian decision to confront the Persian landing in 490 BCE, using his generalship and the politics surrounding the battle as the historical frame for its soldiers. Conn Iggulden’s The Gates of Athens begins from the generation shaped by Marathon and returns to Miltiades’ victory as the achievement against which later Athenian commanders measure themselves when Xerxes launches the much larger invasion a decade later.

Series

Historical novels and book series featuring Miltiades (2 series)

The Long War in Order

by Christian Cameron 7 books 4.6(9,721)

The Long War follows Arimnestos of Plataea from the Ionian Revolt and slavery to the battles that decide the Persian invasions of Greece. Farmer, bronzesmith, hoplite, sailor and captain, he moves through Marathon, Salamis and Plataea while Greek cities struggle to cooperate against the Achaemenid Empire. The sequence…

All books in this series

Athenian in Order

by Conn Iggulden 2 books 4.5(12,318)

The Athenian series follows the struggle of Athens and its allies against the Persian Empire, moving from Marathon and the political battles of the intervening decade to Thermopylae, Salamis and Plataea. Xanthippus and Themistocles provide the principal viewpoints as military survival, democratic rivalry and competing Greek interests shape…

All books in this series