Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/297

CAPTURE OF LEMNOS AND IMBROS. 278 as an excuse for delay before the courts of justice, so us to escape the penalties of contumacy, or departure from the country. 1 It is probable that a considerable number of poor Athenian citizens were provided with lots of land in these islands, though we have no direct information of the fact, and are even obliged to guess the precise time at which Miltiades made the conquest. Herodotus, according to his usual manner, connects the conquest with an ancient oracle, and represents it as the re- tribution for ancient legendary crime committed by certain Pe- Jasgi, who, many centuries before, had been expelled by the Athenians from Attica, and had retired to Lemnos. Full of this legend, he tells us nothing about the proximate causes or circum- stances of the conquest, which must probably have been accom- plished by the efforts of Athens, jointly with Miltiades from the Chersonese, during the period that the Persians were occupied in quelling the Ionic revolt, between 502-494 B.C., since it is hardly to be supposed that Miltiades would have ventured thus to attack a Persian possession during the time that the satraps had their hands free. The acquisition was probably facilitated by the fact, that the Pelasgic population of the islands had been weakened, as well by their former resistance to the Persian Otanes, as by some years passed under the deputy of a Persian Batrap. In mentioning the conquest of Lemnos by the Athenians and 1 Thucyd. iv, 28, v, 8, vii, 57 ; Phylarchus ap. Athenceum, vi, p. 255 ; Demosthen. Philippic. 1, c. 12, p. 17, R. : compare the Inscription, No. 1686, in the collection of Boeckh, with his remarks, p. 297. About the stratagems resorted to before the Athenian dikastery, to pro- cure delay by pretended absence in Lemnos or Skyros, see Isams, Or. vi, p. 58 (p. 80, Bek.); Pollux, via, 7, 81; Hesych. v, "I/i/3ptoc; Suidas, v, Arifivia diK-rj : compare also Carl Ehode, Res Lemnicae, p. 50 (Wratislatv 1829). It seems as if E If A?/p'oi> TT^ELV had come to be a proverbial expression at Athens for getting out of the way, evading the performance of duty : this geems to be the sense of Demosthenes, Philipp. i, c. 9, p. 14. aW elf [t'ev rbv nap' vfitiv iTmap%ov del nhelv, rCjv d' vnep rdv TTJS Tro'Xeur KTIJ~ from the passage of Isanis above alluded to. which Rhcule seems to ma construe incorrectly, it appears that there was a legal connubium between citizens and Lemnian women.