Having reached this peninsula, and having been constituted despot of the mixed Thracian and Athenian population, he lost no time in fortifying the narrow isthmus by a wall reaching all across from Kardia to Paktya, a distance of about four miles and a half; so that the Absinthian invaders were for the time effectually shut out,[227] though the protection was not permanently kept up. He also entered into a war with Lampsakus, on the Asiatic side of the strait, but was unfortunate enough to fall into an ambuscade and become a prisoner. Nothing preserved his life except the immediate interference of Crœsus king of Lydia, coupled with strenuous menaces addressed to the Lampsakenes, who found themselves compelled to release their prisoner; Miltiadês having acquired much favor with this prince, in what manner we are not told. He died childless some time afterwards, while his nephew Stesagoras, who succeeded him, perished by assassination, some time subsequent to the death of Peisistratus at Athens.[228] [227] Thus the Scythians broke into the Chersonese even during the government of Miltiadês son of Kimôn, nephew of Miltiadês the œkist, about forty years after the wall had been erected (Herodot. vi, 40). Again, Periklês reëstablished the cross-wall, on sending to the Chersonese a fresh band of one thousand Athenian settlers (Plutarch, Periklês, c. 19): lastly, Derkyllidas the Lacedæmonian built it anew, in consequence of loud complaints raised by the inhabitants of their defenceless condition,—about 397 B. C. (Xenophon. Hellen. iii, 2, 8-10). So imperfect, however, did the protection prove, that about half a century afterwards, during the first years of the conquests of Philip of Macedon, an idea was entertained of digging through the isthmus, and converting the peninsula into an island (Demosthenês, Philippic ii, 6, p. 92, and De Haloneso, c. 10, p. 86); an idea, however, never carried into effect. [228] Herodot. vi, 38, 39.