Miltiades the Younger

Miltiades the Younger (c. 550–489 BC) was an Athenian general and politician of the prominent Philaid clan who served as tyrant of the Thracian Chersonese before returning to Athens. His intimate firsthand knowledge of Persian military tactics gained while participating in Darius I's Scythian expedition proved indispensable to Greek survival during the first Persian invasion of Greece.

Elected one of the ten Athenian strategoi in 490 BC, Miltiades persuaded the War Archon Callimachus to engage the landed Persian forces on the plains of Marathon. Deploying a revolutionary tactical formation that thinned his center to reinforce his wings, Miltiades enveloped and shattered Datis and Artaphernes' numerically superior Persian army. His triumph at Marathon preserved Greek democracy and demonstrated that hoplites could overcome Persian arms.