ambush and took him prisoner. Now Miltiades had come to be a
friend[22] of Crœsus the Lydian; and Crœsus accordingly, being
informed of this event, sent and commanded the people of Lampsacos to
let Miltiades go; otherwise he threatened to destroy them utterly like
a pine-tree.[23] Then when the people of Lampsacos were perplexed in
their counsels as to what that saying should mean with which Crœsus
had threatened them, namely that he would destroy them utterly like a
pine-tree, at length one of the elder men with difficulty perceived
the truth, and said that a pine alone of all trees when it has been
cut down does not put forth any further growth but perishes, being
utterly destroyed. The people of Lampsacos therefore fearing Crœsus
loosed Miltiades and let him go. 38. He then escaped by means of
Crœsus, but afterwards he brought his life to an end leaving no son to
succeed him, but passing over his rule and his possessions to
Stesagoras, who was the son of Kimon, his brother on the mother's
side:[24] and the people of the Chersonese still offer sacrifices to
him after his death as it is usual to do to a founder, and hold in his
honour a contest of horse-races and athletic exercises, in which none
of the men of Lampsacos are allowed to contend. After this there was
war with those of Lampsacos; and it happened to Stesagoras also that
he died without leaving a son, having been struck on the head with an
axe in the City Hall by a man who pretended to be a deserter, but who
proved himself to be in fact an enemy and a rather hot one moreover.
39. Then after Stesagoras also had ended his life in this manner,
Miltiades son of Kimon and brother of that Stesagoras who was dead,
was sent in a trireme to the Chersonese to take possession of the
government by the sons of Peisistratos, who had dealt well with him at
Athens also, pretending that they had had no share in the death of his
father Kimon, of which in another part of the history I will set forth
how it came to pass.[25] Now Miltiades, when he came to the