In the time of Miltiades the island and the city of Paros were both very wealthy and very powerful. Miltiades conceived the design of making a descent upon the island, and levying an immense contribution upon the people, in the form of a fine, for what he considered their treason in taking part with the enemies of their countrymen. In order to prevent the people of Paros from preparing for defense, Miltiades intended to keep the object of his expedition secret for a time. He therefore simply proposed to the Athenians that they should equip a fleet and put it under his command. He had an enterprise in view, he said, the nature of which he could not particularly explain, but he was very confident of its success, and, if successful, he should return, in a short time, laden with spoils which would enrich the city, and amply reimburse the people for the expenses they would have incurred. The force which he asked for was a fleet of seventy vessels.
So great was the popularity and influence which Miltiades had acquired by his victory at Marathon, that this somewhat extraordinary proposition was readily complied with. The fleet was equipped, and crews were provided, and the whole armament was placed under Miltiades's command. The men themselves who were embarked on board of the galleys did not know whither they were going. Miltiades promised them victory and an abundance of gold as their reward; for the rest, they must trust, he said, to him, as he could not explain the actual destination of the enterprise without endangering its success. The men were all satisfied with these conditions, and the fleet set sail.
When it arrived on the coast of Paros, the Parians were, of course, taken by surprise, but they made immediate preparations for a very vigorous resistance. Miltiades commenced a siege, and sent a herald to the city, demanding of them, as the price of their ransom, an immense sum of money, saying, at the same time, that, unless they delivered up that sum, or, at least, gave security for the payment of it, he would not leave the place until the city was captured, and, when captured, it should be wholly destroyed. The Parians rejected the demand, and engaged energetically in the work of completing and strengthening their defenses. They organized companies of workmen to labor during the night, when their operations would not be observed, in building new walls, and re-enforcing every weak or unguarded point in the line of the fortifications. It soon appeared that the Parians were making far more rapid progress in securing their position than Miltiades was in his assaults upon it. Miltiades found that an attack upon a fortified island in the Ægean Sea was a different thing from encountering the undisciplined hordes of Persians on the open plains of Marathon. There it was a contest between concentrated courage and discipline on the one hand, and a vast expansion of pomp and parade on the other; whereas now he found that the courage and discipline on his part were met by an equally indomitable resolution on the part of his opponents, guided, too, by an equally well-trained experience and skill. In a word, it was Greek against Greek at Paros, and Miltiades began at length to perceive that his prospect of success was growing very doubtful and dim.
This state of things, of course, filled the mind of Miltiades with great anxiety and distress; for, after the promises which he had made to the Athenians, and the blind confidence which he had asked of them in proposing that they should commit the fleet so unconditionally to his command, he could not return discomfited to Athens without involving himself in the most absolute disgrace. While he was in this perplexity, it happened that some of his soldiers took captive a Parian female, one day, among other prisoners. She proved to be a priestess, from one of the Parian temples. Her name was Timo. The thought occurred to Miltiades that, since all human means at his command had proved inadequate to accomplish his end, he might, perhaps, through this captive priestess, obtain some superhuman aid. As she had been in the service of a Parian temple, she would naturally have an influence with the divinities of the place, or, at least, she would be acquainted with the proper means of propitiating their favor.
Miltiades, accordingly, held a private interview with Timo, and asked her what he should do to propitiate the divinities of Paros so far as to enable him to gain possession of the city. She replied that she could easily point out the way, if he would but follow her instructions. Miltiades, overjoyed, promised readily that he would do so. She then gave him her instructions secretly. What they were is not known, except so far as they were revealed by the occurrences that followed.
There was a temple consecrated to the goddess Ceres near to the city, and so connected with it, it seems, as to be in some measure included within the defenses. The approach to this temple was guarded by a palisade. There were, however, gates which afforded access, except when they were fastened from within. Miltiades, in obedience to Timo's instructions, went privately, in the night, perhaps, and with very few attendants, to this temple. He attempted to enter by the gates, which he had expected, it seems, to find open. They were, however, fastened against him. He then undertook to scale the palisade. He succeeded in doing this, not, however, without difficulty, and then advanced toward the temple, in obedience to the instructions which he had received from Timo. The account states that the act, whatever it was, that Timo had directed him to perform, instead of being, as he supposed, a means of propitiating the favor of the divinity, was sacrilegious and impious; and Miltiades, as he approached the temple, was struck suddenly with a mysterious and dreadful horror of mind, which wholly overwhelmed him. Rendered almost insane by this supernatural remorse and terror, he turned to fly. He reached the palisade, and, in endeavoring to climb over it, his precipitation and haste caused him to fall. His attendants ran to take him up. He was helpless and in great pain. They found he had dislocated a joint in one of his limbs. He received, of course, every possible attention; but, instead of recovering from the injury, he found that the consequences of it became more and more serious every day. In a word, the great conqueror of the Persians was now wholly overthrown, and lay moaning on his couch as helpless as a child.
He soon determined to abandon the siege of Paros and return to Athens. He had been about a month upon the island, and had laid waste the rural districts, but, as the city had made good its defense against him, he returned without any of the rich spoil which he had promised. The disappointment which the people of Athens experienced on his arrival, turned soon into a feeling of hostility against the author of the calamity. Miltiades found that the fame and honor which he had gained at Marathon were gone. They had been lost almost as suddenly as they had been acquired. The rivals and enemies who had been silenced by his former success were now brought out and made clamorous against him by his present failure. They attributed the failure to his own mismanagement of the expedition, and one orator, at length, advanced articles of impeachment against him, on a charge of having been bribed by the Persians to make his siege of Paros only a feint. Miltiades could not defend himself from these criminations, for he was lying, at the time, in utter helplessness, upon his couch of pain. The dislocation of the limb had ended in an open wound, which at length, having resisted all the attempts of the physicians to stop its progress, had begun to mortify, and the life of the sufferer was fast ebbing away. His son Cimon did all in his power to save his father from both the dangers that threatened him. He defended his character in the public tribunals, and he watched over his person in the cell in the prison. These filial efforts were, however, in both cases unavailing. Miltiades was condemned by the tribunal, and he died of his wound.