Miltiades
3 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Miltiades. All 3 are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
1000 Classical Characters (1900)
Son of Simon, was sent by the Athenians to take possession of the Chersonesus. On his arrival he seized some of the principal inhabitants of the country, made himself absolute in Chersonese, and married the daughter of Olorus, king of the Thracians. He was present at the celebrated battle of Marathon , where the command was ceded to him, owing to his superior abilities. He obtained the victory, but an olive crown, which he demanded from his fellow-citizens as a reward for his valor, was refused. Afterwards he was intrusted with a fleet of seventy ships, with which he proceeded to attack the Isle of Paros. At first he was successful, but afterward fortune frowned on him. He was accused of treason and condemned to death, but his sentence was, owing to his great services, commuted to a fine of fifty talents. Being unable to pay this, he was thrown into prison, where he died. In Childe Harold, canto ii., Lord Byron alludes to Marathon as "The battle-field where Persia's victim horde First bow'd beneath the brunt of Hellas' sword."
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
an Athenian general, hero of Marathon. He was the youngest son of Cimon, and succeeded his brother Stesagoras about 515 b. c., as tyrant of the Chersonese. He took part in the invasion of Scythia by Darius, held his government of the Chersonese at least 22 years, and retired to Athens in 493. He distinguished him self by a great victory over the Persians at Marathon. Having persuaded the Athenians to give him the command of a fleet, he used it for private ends in an attack on Paros. The attack failed, Miltiades was severely wounded, and on his return to Athens was prosecuted and imprisoned. His death took place in prison about 489 b. c.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
. See Marathon
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The bare narrative these entries give is still the one told today, because it still comes almost entirely from Herodotus, and nothing found since 1921 contradicts it. Where the accounts differ, modern scholarship sides with Collier's: the man sent out to seize the Chersonese was the elder Miltiades, son of Cypselus, so the 1900 entry's claim that the hero of Marathon "was sent by the Athenians to take possession of the Chersonesus" folds two relatives into one person. What has shifted is the weight given to his generalship: historians now stress that Athens fielded ten generals at Marathon in 490 BC with the polemarch Callimachus holding formal command, and that the tradition of Miltiades as sole architect of the victory owes much to the later political career of his son Cimon, who also paid off the fifty-talent fine. A bronze helmet inscribed as Miltiades' dedication to Zeus, recovered from Olympia, is now among the best-known objects associated with him.
Written for this edition, 2026.