FOOTNOTES
[1] Herodot. vii, 3, 4.
[2] Herodot. vii, 1-4. He mentions—simply as a report, and seemingly without believing it himself—that Demaratus the exiled king of Sparta was at Susa at the moment when Darius was about to choose a successor among his sons (this cannot consist with Ktesias, Persic. c. 23): and that he suggested to Xerxes a convincing argument by which to determine the mind of his father, urging the analogy of the law of regal succession at Sparta, whereby the son of a king, born after his father became king, was preferred to an elder son born before that event. The existence of such a custom at Sparta may well be doubted.
Some other anecdotes, not less difficult of belief than this, and alike calculated to bestow a factitious importance on Demaratus, will be noticed in the subsequent pages. The latter received from the Persian king the grant of Pergamus and Teuthrania, with their land-revenues, which his descendants long afterwards continued to occupy (Xenoph. Hellen. iii, 1-6): and perhaps these descendants may have been among the persons from whom Herodotus derived his information respecting the expedition of Xerxes. See vii, 239.
Plutarch (De Fraterno Amore, p. 488) gives an account in many respects different concerning the circumstances which determined the succession of Xerxes to the throne, in preference to his elder brother.
[3] Herod. vii, 187. The like personal beauty is ascribed to Darius Codomannus, the last of the Persian kings (Plutarch, Alexand. c. 21).
[4] Herodot. vii, 6; viii, 20, 96, 77. Ὀνομάκριτος—κατέλεγε τῶν χρησμῶν· εἰ μέν τι ἐνέοι σφάλμα φέρον τῷ Πέρσῃ, τῶν μὲν ἔλεγε οὐδέν· ὁ δὲ τὰ εὐτυχέστατα ἐκλεγόμενος, ἔλεγε τόν τε Ἑλλήσποντον ὡς ζευχθῆναι χρέον εἴη ὑπ’ ἀνδρὸς Πέρσεω, τήν τε ἔλασιν ἐξηγεόμενος, etc.
An intimation somewhat curious respecting this collection of prophecies; it was of an extremely varied character, and contained promises or threats to meet any emergency which might arise.
[5] Æschylus, Pers. 761.
[6] Herodot. vii, 5. ὡς ἡ Εὐρώπη περικαλλὴς χώρη, καὶ δένδρεα παντοῖα φέρει τὰ ἥμερα, βασιλέϊ τε μούνῳ θνητῶν ἀξίη ἐκτῆσθαι—χώρην παμφορωτέρην (vii, 8).
[7] Herodot. v, 49.
[8] Homer, Iliad, i, 3. Διὸς δ’ ἐτελείετο βουλή. Herodotus is characterized as Ὁμήρου ζηλωτὴς—Ὁμηρικώτατος (Dionys. Halic. ad Cn. Pompeium, p. 772, Reiske; Longinus De Sublim. p. 86, ed. Pearce).
[9] While Plutarch—if indeed the treatise De Herodoti Malignitate be the work of Plutarch—treats Herodotus as uncandid, malicious, corrupt, the calumniator of great men and glorious deeds,—Dionysius of Halikarnassus, on the contrary, with more reason, treats him as a pattern of excellent dispositions in an historian, contrasting him in this respect with Thucydides, to whom he imputes an unfriendly spirit in criticizing Athens, arising from his long banishment: Ἡ μὲν Ἡροδότου διάθεσις ἐν ἅπασιν ἐπιεικὴς, καὶ τοῖς μὲν ἀγαθοῖς συνηδομένη, τοῖς δὲ κακοῖς συναλγοῦσα· ἡ δὲ Θουκυδίδου διάθεσις αὐθέκαστός τις καὶ πικρὰ, καὶ τῇ πατρίδι τῆς φυγῆς μνησικακοῦσα· τὰ μὲν γὰρ ἁμαρτήματα ἐπεξέρχεται καὶ μάλα ἀκριβῶς, τῶν δὲ κατὰ νοῦν κεχωρηκότων καθάπαξ οὐ μέμνηται ἢ ὥσπερ ἠναγκασμένος. (Dionys. Hal. ad. Cn. Pompeium de Præcip. Historicis Judic. p. 774, Reisk.)
Precisely the same fault which Dionysius here imputes to Thucydides (though in other places he acquits him, ἀπὸ παντὸς φθόνου καὶ πάσης κολακείας, p. 824), Plutarch and Dio cast far more harshly upon Herodotus. In neither case is the reproach deserved.
Both the moralists and the rhetoricians of ancient times were very apt to treat history, not as a series of true matters of fact, exemplifying the laws of human nature and society, and enlarging our knowledge of them for purposes of future inference,—but as if it were a branch of fiction, so to be handled as to please our taste or improve our morality. Dionysius, blaming Thucydides for the choice of his subject, goes so far as to say that the Peloponnesian war, a period of ruinous discord in Greece, ought to have been left in oblivion and never to have passed into history (σιωπῇ καὶ λήθῃ παραδοθεὶς, ὑπο τῶν ἐπιγιγνομένων ἠγνοῆσθαι, ibid. p. 768),—and that especially Thucydides ought never to have thrown the blame of it upon his own city, since there were many other causes to which it might have been imputed (ἑτέραις ἔχοντα πολλαῖς ἀφορμαῖς περιάψαι τὰς αἰτίας, p. 770).
[10] Herodot. viii, 99. Μαρδόνιον ἐν αἰτίῃ τιθέντες: compare c. 100.
[11] Herodot. vii, 9.
[12] Herodot. vii, 10.
[13] Herodot. vii, 15. Εἰ ὦν θεός ἐστι ὁ ἐπιπέμπων καὶ οἱ πάντως ἐν ἡδονῇ ἐστι γενέσθαι στρατηλασίην ἐπὶ τὴν Ἑλλάδα, ἐπιπτήσεται καὶ σοὶ τὠυτὸ τοῦτο ὄνειρον, ὁμοίως καὶ ἐμοὶ ἐντελλόμενον. Εὑρίσκω δὲ ὧδε ἂν γινόμενα ταῦτα, εἰ λάβοις τὴν ἐμὴν σκευὴν πᾶσαν, καὶ ἐνδὺς, μετὰ τοῦτο ἵζοιο ἐς τὸν ἐμὸν θρόνον, καὶ ἔπειτα ἐν κοίτῃ τῇ ἐμῇ κατυπνώσειας. Compare vii, 8. θεὸς τε οὕτω ἄγει, etc.
[14] See Brissonius, De Regno Persarum, lib. i, p. 27.
[15] Herodot. vii, 16. Οὐ γὰρ δὴ ἐς τοσοῦτό γε εὐηθείης ἀνήκει τοῦτο, ὅτι δή κοτέ ἐστι τὸ ἐπιφαινόμενόν τοι ἐν τῷ ὕπνῳ, ὥστε δόξει ἐμὲ ὁρῶν σὲ ὁρᾷν, τῇ σῇ ἐσθῆτι τεκμαιρόμενον. ... εἰ γὰρ δὴ ἐπιφοιτήσειέ γε συνεχέως, φαίην ἂν καὶ αὐτὸς θεῖον εἶναι.
[16] Herodot. vii, 18. Ἐπεὶ δὲ δαιμονίη τις γίγνεται ὁρμὴ, καὶ Ἕλληνας, ὡς ἔοικε, φθορὴ τις καταλαμβάνει θεήλατος, ἐγὼ μὲν καὶ αὐτὸς τράπομαι, καὶ τὴν γνώμην μετατίθεμαι. ... Ποίεε δὲ οὕτω ὅκως, τοῦ θεοῦ παραδίδοντος, τῶν σῶν ἐνδεήσεται μηδέν.
The expression τοῦ θεοῦ παραδίδοντος in this place denotes what is expressed by τὸ χρέον γίγνεσθαι, c. 17. The dream threatens Artabanus and Xerxes for trying to turn aside the current of destiny,—or in other words, to contravene the predetermined will of the gods.
[17] Herodot. vii, 12. Καὶ δή κου ἐν τῇ νυκτὶ εἶδε ὄψιν τοιήνδε, ὡς λέγεται ὑπὸ Περσέων.
Herodotus seems to use ὄνειρον in the neuter gender, not ὄνειρος in the masculine: for the alteration of Bähr (ad vii, 16) of ἐῶντα in place of ἐῶντος, is not at all called for. The masculine gender ὄνειρος is commonly used in Homer; but there are cases of the neuter ὄνειρον.
Respecting the influence of dreams in determining the enterprises of the early Turkish Sultans, see Von Hammer, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, book ii, vol. i, p. 49.
[18] Compare the dream of Darius Codomannus. Plutarch, Alexander, c. 18. Concerning the punishment inflicted by Astyagês on the Magians for misinterpreting his dreams, see Herodot. i, 128.
Philochorus, skilled in divination, affirmed that Nikias put a totally wrong interpretation upon that fatal eclipse of the moon which induced him to delay his retreat, and proved his ruin (Plutarch, Nikias, c. 23).
[19] Æschylus, Pers. 96, 104, 181, 220, 368, 745, 825: compare Sophocl. Ajax, 129, 744, 775, and the end of the Œdipus Tyrannus; Euripid. Hecub. 58; Pindar, Olymp. viii. 86; Isthm. vi, 39; Pausanias, ii, 33, 3. Compare the sense of the word δεισιδαίμων in Xenophon, Agesilaus, c. 11, sect. 8,—“the man who in the midst of success fears the envious gods,”—opposed to the person who confides in its continuance; and Klausen, Theologumena Æschyli, p. 18.
[20] The manner in which Herodotus groups together the facts of his history, in obedience to certain religious and moral sentiments in his own mind, is well set forth in Hoffmeister, Sittlich—religiöse Lebensansicht des Herodotos, Essen, 1832, especially sects. 21, 22, pp. 112, seqq. Hoffmeister traces the veins of sentiment running through, and often overlaying, or transforming, the matters of fact through a considerable portion of the nine books. He does not, perhaps, sufficiently advert to the circumstance, that the informants from whom Herodotus collected his facts were for the most part imbued with sentiments similar to himself; so that the religious and moral vein pervaded more or less his original materials, and did not need to be added by himself. There can be little doubt that the priests, the ministers of temples and oracles, the exegetæ or interpreting guides around these holy places were among his chief sources for instructing himself: a stranger, visiting so many different cities must have been constantly in a situation to have no other person whom he could consult. The temples were interesting both in themselves and in the trophies and offerings which they exhibited, while the persons belonging to them were, as a general rule, accessible and communicative to strangers, as we may see both from Pausanias and Plutarch,—both of whom, however, had books before them also to consult, which Herodotus hardly had at all. It was not only the priests and ministers of temples in Egypt, of Hêraklês at Tyre, and of Bêlus at Babylon, that Herodotus questioned (i, 181; ii, 3, 44, 143), but also those of Delphi (Δελφῶν οἶδα ἐγὼ οὕτως ἀκούσας γενέσθαι, i, 20: compare i, 91, 92, 51); Dôdôna (ii, 52); of the Ismenian Apollo at Thebes (v, 59); of Athênê Alea at Tegea (i, 66); of Dêmêtêr at Paros (vi, 134—if not the priests, at least persons full of temple inspirations); of Halus in Achaia Phthiôtis (vii, 197); of the Kabeiri in Thrace (ii, 51); of persons connected with the Herôon of Protesilaus in the Chersonese (ix, 116, 120). The facts which these persons communicated to him were always presented along with associations referring to their own functions or religious sentiments, nor did Herodotus introduce anything new when he incorporated them as such in his history. The treatise of Plutarch—“Cur Pythia nunc non reddat Oracula Carmine”—affords an instructive description of the ample and multifarious narratives given by the expositors at Delphi, respecting the eminent persons and events of Grecian history, so well fitted to satisfy the visitors who came full of curiosity—φιλοθεάμονες, φιλόλογοι, and φιλομαθεῖς (Plutarch, ib. p. 394)—such as Herodotus was in a high degree. Compare pp. 396, 397, 400, 407, of the same treatise: also Plutarch, De Defectu Oraculorum, p. 417—οἱ Δελφῶν θεολόγοι, etc. Plutarch remarks that in his time political life was extinguished in Greece, and that the questions put to the Pythian priestess related altogether to private and individual affairs; whereas, in earlier times, almost all political events came somehow or other under her cognizance, either by questions to be answered, or by commemorative public offerings (p. 407). In the time of Herodotus, the great temples, especially those of Delphi and Olympia, were interwoven with the whole web of Grecian political history. See the Dissertation of Preller, annexed to his edition of Polemonis Fragmenta, c. 3, pp. 157-162; De Historiâ atque Arte Periegetarum; also K. F. Hermann, Gottesdienstliche Alterthümer der Griechen, part 1, ch. 12, p. 52.
The religious interpretation of historical phenomena is not peculiar to Herodotus, but belongs to him in common with his informants and his age generally, as indeed Hoffmeister remarks (pp. 31-136): though it is remarkable to notice the frankness with which he (as well as the contemporary poets: see the references in Monk ad Euripid. Alcestis, 1154) predicates envy and jealousy of the gods, in cases where the conduct, which he supposes them to pursue, is really such as would deserve that name in a man,—and such as he himself ascribes to the despot (iii, 80): he does not think himself obliged to call the gods just and merciful while he is attributing to them acts of envy and jealousy in their dealing with mankind. But the religious interpretation does not reign alone throughout the narrative of Herodotus: it is found side by side with careful sifting of fact and specification of positive, definite, appreciable causes: and this latter vein is what really distinguishes the historian from his age,—forming the preparation for Thucydides, in whom it appears predominant and almost exclusive. See this point illustrated in Creuzer, Historische Kunst der Griechen, Abschnitt iii, pp. 150-159.
Jäger (Disputationes Herodoteæ, p. 16. Göttingen, 1828) professes to detect evidences of old age (senile ingenium) in the moralizing color which overspreads the history of Herodotus, but which I believe to have belonged to his middle and mature age not less than to his latter years,—if indeed he lived to be very old, which is noway proved, except upon reasons which I have already disputed in my preceding volume. See Bähr, Commentatio de Vitâ et Scriptis Herodoti, in the fourth volume of his edition, c. 6, p. 388.
[21] Herodot. vii, 19. χῶρον πάντα ἐρευνῶν τῆς ἠπείρου.
[22] Herodot. vii, 106. Κατέστασαν γὰρ ἔτι πρότερον ταύτης τῆς ἐξελάσιος (i. e. the invasion by Xerxes) ὕπαρχοι ἐν τῇ Θρηΐκῃ καὶ τοῦ Ἑλλησπόντου πανταχῇ. vii, 108. ἐδεδούλωτο γὰρ, ὡς καὶ πρότερόν μοι δεδήλωται, ἡ μέχρι Θεσσαλίης πᾶσα, καὶ ἦν ὑπὸ βασιλῆα δασμοφόρος, Μεγαβάζου τε καταστρεψαμένου καὶ ὕστερον Μαρδονίου; also vii, 59, and Xenophon, Memorab. iii, 5, 11. Compare Æschylus Pers. 871-896, and the vision ascribed to Cyrus in reference to his successor Darius, covering with his wings both Europe and Asia (Herodot. i, 209).
[23] Herodot. vii, 26-31.
[24] Herodot. vii. 23-25.
[25] Æschylus, Pers. 731, 754, 873.
[26] Plutarch (De Tranquillitate Animi, p. 470), speaks of them as having had their noses and ears cut off.
[27] Herodot. vii, 34, 35. ἐνετέλλετο δὴ ὦν ῥαπίζοντας, λέγειν βάρβαρά τε καὶ ἀτάσθαλα, Ὦ πικρὸν ὕδωρ, δεσπότης τοι δίκην ἐπιτιθεῖ τήνδε, ὅτι μιν ἠδίκησας, οὐδὲν πρὸς ἐκείνου ἄδικον παθόν. Καὶ βασιλεὺς μὲν Ξέρξης διαβήσεταί σε, ἤν τε σύ γε βούλῃ, ἤν τε καὶ μή· σοὶ δὲ κατὰ δίκην ἄρα οὐδεὶς ἀνθρώπων θύει, ὡς ἐόντι καὶ δολερῷ καὶ ἁλμυρῷ ποταμῷ.
The assertion—that no one was in the habit of sacrificing to the Hellespont—appears strange, when we look to the subsequent conduct of Xerxes himself (vii, 53): compare vii, 113, and vi, 76. The epithet salt employed as a reproach, seems to allude to the undrinkable character of the water.
[28] See Stanley and Blomfield ad Æschyl. Pers. 731, and K. O. Müller (in his Review of Benjamin Constant’s work Sur la Religion), Kleine Schriften, vol. ii, p. 59.
[29] See Auguste Comte, Traité de Philosophie Positive, vol. v, leçon 52, pp. 40, 46.
[30] See vol. ii, part 2, c. i, p. 297 of the present work; and compare Wachsmuth, Hellenisch. Alterthümer, 2, i, p. 320, and K. F. Hermann, Griech. Staatsalterthümer, sect. 104.
For the manner in which Cyrus dealt with the river Gyndês, see Herodot. i, 202. The Persian satrap Pharnuchês was thrown from his horse at Sardis, and received an injury of which he afterwards died: he directed his attendants to lead the horse to the place where the accident had happened, to cut off all his legs, and leave him to perish there (Herodot. vii, 88). The kings of Macedonia offered sacrifice even during the time of Herodotus, to the river which had been the means of preserving the life of their ancestor Perdikkas; after he had crossed it, the stream swelled and arrested his pursuers (Herodot. viii, 138): see an analogous story about the inhabitants of Apollonia and the river Aöus, Valerius Maxim. i, 5, 2.
After the death of the great boxer, wrestler, etc., Theagenês of Thasus, a statue was erected to his honor. A personal enemy, perhaps one of the fourteen hundred defeated competitors, came every night to gratify his wrath and revenge by flogging the statue. One night the statue fell down upon this scourger and killed him; upon which his relatives indicted the statue for murder: it was found guilty by the Thasians, and thrown into the sea. The gods, however, were much displeased with the proceeding, and visited the Thasians with continued famine, until at length a fisherman by accident fished up the statue, and it was restored to its place (Pausan. vi, 11. 2). Compare the story of the statue of Hermês in Babrius, Fabul. 119, edition of Mr. Lewis.
[31] Herodot. vii, 35-54: compare viii, 109. Arrian, Exp. Alex. vii, 14. 9.
[32] Herodot. vii, 36. The language in which Herodotus describes the position of these ships which formed the two bridges, seems to me to have been erroneously or imperfectly apprehended by most of the commentators: see the notes of Bähr, Kruse, Wesseling, Rennell, and especially Larcher: Schweighäuser is the most satisfactory—τοῦ μὲν Πόντου ἐπικαρσίας, τοῦ δὲ Ἑλλησπόντου κατὰ ῥόον. The explanation given by Tzetzes of ἐπικαρσίας by the word πλαγίας seems to me hardly exact: it means, not oblique, but at right angles with. The course of the Bosphorus and Hellespont, flowing out of the Euxine sea, is conceived by the historian as meeting that sea at right angles; and the ships, which were moored near together along the current of the strait, taking the line of each from head to stern, were therefore also at right angles with the Euxine sea. Moreover, Herodotus does not mean to distinguish the two bridges hereby, and to say that the ships of the one bridge were τοῦ Πόντου ἐπικαρσίας, and those of the other bridge τοῦ Ἑλλησπόντου κατὰ ῥόον, as Bähr and other commentators suppose: both the predicates apply alike to both the bridges,—as indeed it stands to reason that the arrangement of ships best for one bridge must also have been best for the other. Respecting the meaning of ἐπικάρσιος in Herodotus, see iv, 101; i, 180. In the Odyssey (ix, 70: compare Eustath. ad loc.) ἐπικάρσιαι does not mean oblique, but headlong before the wind: compare ἐπίκαρ, Iliad, xviii, 392. The circumstance stated by Herodotus—that in the bridge higher up the stream, or nearest to the Euxine, there were in all three hundred and sixty vessels, while in the other bridge there were no more than three hundred and fourteen—has perplexed the commentators, and induced them to resort to inconvenient explanations,—as that of saying, that in the higher bridge the vessels were moored not in a direct line across, but in a line slanting, so that the extreme vessel on the European side was lower down the stream than the extreme vessel on the Asiatic side. This is one of the false explanations given of ἐπικαρσίας (slanting, schräg): while the idea of Gronovius and Larcher, that the vessels in the higher bridge presented their broadside to the current, is still more inadmissible. But the difference in the number of ships employed in the one bridge compared with the other seems to admit of an easier explanation. We need not suppose, nor does Herodotus say, that the two bridges were quite close together: considering the multitude which had to cross them, it would be convenient that they should be placed at a certain distance from each other. If they were a mile or two apart, we may well suppose that the breadth of the strait was not exactly the same in the two places chosen, and that it may have been broader at the point of the upper bridge,—which, moreover, might require to be made more secure, as having to meet the first force of the current. The greater number of vessels in the upper bridge will thus be accounted for in a simple and satisfactory manner.
In some of the words used by Herodotus there appears an obscurity: they run thus,—ἐζεύγνυσαν δὲ ὧδε· Πεντηκοντέρους καὶ τριήρεας συνθέντες, ὑπὸ μὲν τὴν (these words are misprinted in Bähr’s edition) πρὸς τοῦ Εὐξείνου Πόντου ἐξήκοντά τε καὶ τριηκοσίας, ὑπὸ δὲ τὴν ἑτέρην τέσσερες καὶ δέκα καὶ τριηκοσὶας (τοῦ μὲν Πόντου, ἐπικαρσίας, τοῦ δὲ Ἑλλησπόντου κατὰ ῥόον), ἵνα ἀνακωχεύῃ τὸν τόνον τῶν ὅπλων· συνθέντες δὲ, ἀγκύρας κατῆκαν περιμήκεας, etc.
There is a difficulty respecting the words ἵνα ἀνακωχεύῃ τὸν τόνον τῶν ὅπλων,—what is the nominative case to this verb? Bähr says in his note, sc. ὁ ῥόος, and he construes τῶν ὅπλων to mean the cables whereby the anchors were held fast. But if we read farther on, we shall see that τὰ ὅπλα mean, not the anchor-cables, but the cables which were stretched across from shore to shore to form the bridge; the very same words τῶν ὅπλων τοῦ τόνου, applied to these latter cables, occur a few lines afterwards. I think that the nominative case belonging to ἀνακωχεύῃ is ἡ γεφύρα (not ὁ ῥόος), and that the words from τοῦ μὲν Πόντου down to ῥόον are to be read parenthetically, as I have printed them above: the express object for which the ships were moored was, “that the bridge might hold up, or sustain, the tension of its cables stretched across from shore to shore.” I admit that we should naturally expect ἀνακωχεύωσι and not ἀνακωχεύῃ, since the proposition would be true of both bridges; but though this makes an awkward construction, it is not inadmissible, since each bridge had been previously described in the singular number.
Bredow and others accuse Herodotus of ignorance and incorrectness in this description of the bridges, but there seems nothing to bear out this charge.
Herodotus (iv, 85), Strabo (xiii, p. 591), and Pliny (H. N. iv, 12; vi, 1) give seven stadia as the breadth of the Hellespont in its narrowest part. Dr. Pococke also assigns the same breadth: Tournefort allows but a mile (vol. ii, lett. 4). Some modern French measurements give the distance as something considerably greater,—eleven hundred and thirty or eleven hundred and fifty toises (see Miot’s note on his translation of Herodotus). The Duke of Ragusa states it at seven hundred toises (Voyage en Turquie, vol. ii, p. 164). If we suppose the breadth to be one mile, or five thousand two hundred and eighty feet, three hundred and sixty vessels at an average breadth of fourteen and two thirds feet would exactly fill the space. Rennell says, “Eleven feet is the breadth of a barge: vessels of the size of the smallest coasting-craft were adequate to the purpose of the bridge.” (On the Geography of Herodotus, p. 127.)
The recent measurements or estimates stated by Miot go much beyond Herodotus: that of the Duke of Ragusa nearly coincides with him. But we need not suppose that the vessels filled up entirely the whole breadth, without leaving any gaps between: we only know, that there were no gaps left large enough for a vessel in voyage to sail through, except in three specified places.
[33] For the long celebrity of these cables, see the epigram of Archimêlus, composed two centuries and a half afterwards, in the time of Hiero the Second, of Syracuse, ap. Athenæum, v, 209.
Herodotus states that in thickness and compact make (παχυτὴς καὶ καλλονὴ) the cables of flax were equal to those of papyrus; but that in weight the former were superior; for each cubit in length of the flaxen cable weighed a talent: we can hardly reason upon this, because we do not know whether he means an Attic, an Euboic, or an Æginæan talent: nor, if he means an Attic talent, whether it be an Attic talent of commerce, or of the monetary standard.
The cables contained in the Athenian dockyard are distinguished as σχοίνια ὀκτωδάκτυλα, ἐξδάκτυλα,—in which expressions, however, M. Boeckh cannot certainly determine whether circumference or diameter be meant: he thinks probably the former. See his learned book, Das Seewesen der Athener, ch. x, p. 165.
[34] For a specimen of the destructive storms near the promontory of Athos, see Ephorus, Fragment. 121, ed. Didot; Diodor. xiii, 41.
[35] Herodot. vii, 22, 23, 116; Diodor. xi. 2.
[36] Herodot. vii, 24: ὡς μὲν ἐμὲ συμβαλλεόμενον εὑρίσκειν, μεγαλοφροσύνης εἵνεκα αὐτὸ Ξέρξης ὀρύσσειν ἐκέλευε, ἐθέλων τε δύναμιν ἀποδείκνυσθαι, καὶ μνημόσυνα λιπέσθαι· παρεὸν γὰρ, μηδένα πόνον λαβόντας, τὸν ἰσθμὸν τὰς νέας διειρύσαι, ὀρύσσειν ἐκέλευε διώρυχα τῇ θαλάσσῃ, εὖρος ὡς δύο τριήρεας πλέειν ὁμοῦ ἐλαστρευμένας.
According to the manner in which Herodotus represents this excavation to have been performed, the earth dug out was handed up from man to man from the bottom of the canal to the top—the whole performed by hand, without any aid of cranes or barrows.
The pretended work of turning the course of the river Halys, which Grecian report ascribed to Crœsus on the advice of Thales, was a far greater work than the cutting at Athos (Herodot. i, 75).
As this ship-canal across the isthmus of Athos has been treated often as a fable both by ancients (Juvenal, Sat. x) and by moderns (Cousinéry, Voyage en Macédoine), I transcribe the observations of Colonel Leake. That excellent observer points out evident traces of its past existence: but in my judgment, even if no such traces now remained, the testimony of Herodotus and Thucydides (iv, 109) would alone be sufficient to prove that it had existed really. The observations of Colonel Leake illustrate at the same time the motives in which the canal originated: “The canal (he says) seems to have been not more than sixty feet wide. As history does not mention that it was ever kept in repair after the time of Xerxes, the waters from the heights around have naturally filled it in part with soil, in the course of ages. It might, however, without much labor, be renewed: and there can be no doubt that it would be useful to the navigation of the Ægean: for such is the fear entertained by the Greek boatmen, of the strength and uncertain direction of the currents around Mount Athos, and of the gales and high seas to which the vicinity of the mountain is subject during half the year, and which are rendered more formidable by the deficiency of harbors in the gulf of Orfaná, that I could not, as long as I was on the peninsula, and though offering a high price, prevail upon any boat to carry me from the eastern side of the peninsula to the western. Xerxes, therefore, was perfectly justified in cutting this canal, as well from the security which it afforded to his fleet, as from the facility of the work and the advantages of the ground, which seems made expressly to tempt such an undertaking. The experience of the losses which the former expedition under Mardonius had suffered suggested the idea. The circumnavigation of the capes Ampelus and Canastræum was much less dangerous, as the gulfs afford some good harbors, and it was the object of Xerxes to collect forces from the Greek cities in those gulfs as he passed. If there be any difficulty arising from the narrative of Herodotus, it is in comprehending how the operation should have required so long a time as three years, when the king of Persia had such multitudes at his disposal, and among them Egyptians and Babylonians, accustomed to the making of canals.” (Leake, Travels in Northern Greece, vol. iii, ch. 24, p. 145.)
These remarks upon the enterprise are more judicious than those of Major Rennell (Geogr. of Herodot. p. 116). I may remark that Herodotus does not affirm that the actual cutting of the canal occupied three years,—he assigns that time to the cutting with all its preliminary arrangements included,—προετοιμάζετο ἐκ τρίων ἐτέων κου μάλιστα τὰ ἐς τὸν Ἄθων (vii, 22).
[37] Herodot. vii, 22: ὤρυσσον ὑπὸ μαστίγων παντοδαποὶ τῆς στρατιῆς· διάδοχοι δ’ ἐφοίτων.—vii, 56: Ξέρξης δὲ, ἐπεί τε διέβη ἐς τὴν Εὐρώπην, ἐθηεῖτο τὸν στρατὸν ὑπὸ μαστίγων διαβαίνοντα:—compare vii, 103, and Xenophon, Anabasis, iii, 4-25.
The essential necessity, and plentiful use, of the whip, towards subject-tributaries, as conceived by the ancient Persians, finds its parallel in the modern Turks. See the Mémoires du Baron de Tott, vol. i, p. 256, seqq., and his dialogue on this subject with his Turkish conductor Ali-Aga.
[38] Herodot. vii, 57. Τέρας σφι ἐφάνη μέγα, τὸ Ξέρξης ἐν οὐδενὶ λόγῳ ἐποιήσατο, καίπερ εὐσύμβλητον ἐόν· ἵππος γὰρ ἔτεκε λαγόν. Εὐσύμβλητον ὦν τῇδε ἐγένετο, ὅτι ἔμελλε μὲν ἐλᾶν στρατιὴν ἐπὶ τὴν Ἑλλάδα Ξέρξης ἀγαυρότατα καὶ μεγαλοπρεπέστατα, ὀπίσω δὲ περὶ ἑωϋτοῦ τρέχων ἥξειν ἐς τὸν αὐτὸν χῶρον.
The prodigy was, that a mare brought forth a hare, which signified that Xerxes would set forth on his expedition to Greece with strength and splendor, but that he would come back in timid and disgraceful flight.
The implicit faith of Herodotus, first in the reality of the fact,—next, in the certainty of his interpretation,—deserves notice, as illustrating his canon of belief, and that of his age. The interpretation is doubtless here the generating cause of the story interpreted: an ingenious man, after the expedition has terminated, imagines an appropriate simile for its proud commencement and inglorious termination (Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus), and the simile is recounted, either by himself or by some hearer who is struck with it, as if it had been a real antecedent fact. The aptness of this supposed antecedent fact to foreshadow the great Persian invasion (τὸ εὐσύμβλητον of Herodotus) serves as presumptive evidence to bear out the witness asserting it; while departure from the established analogies of nature affords no motive for disbelief to a man who admits that the gods occasionally send special signs and warnings.
[39] Compare the description of the processional march of Cyrus, as given in the Cyropædia of Xenophon, viii, 2, 1-20.
[40] Herodot. vii, 41. Μετὰ δὲ τὴν ἵππον διελέλειπτο καὶ δύο σταδίους, καὶ ἔπειτα ὁ λοιπὸς ὅμιλος ἤϊε ἀναμίξ.
[41] The incident respecting Pythius is in Herodot. vii, 27, 28, 38, 39. I place no confidence in the estimate of the wealth of Pythius; but in other respects, the story seems well entitled to credit.
[42] Herodot. vii, 42.
[43] Herodot. vii, 43. θεησάμενος δὲ, καὶ πυθόμενος κείνων ἕκαστα, etc.
[44] Herodot. vii, 45, 53, 56. Ὦ Ζεῦ, τί δὴ ἀνδρὶ εἰδόμενος Πέρσῃ, καὶ οὔνομα ἀντὶ Διὸς Ξέρξην θέμενος, ἀνάστατον τὴν Ἑλλάδα ἐθέλεις ποιῆσαι, ἄγων πάντας ἀνθρώπους; καὶ γὰρ ἄνευ τουτέων ἐξῆν τοι ποιέειν ταῦτα.
[45] Tacitus, Histor. iii, 24. “Undique clamor, et orientem solem, ita in Syriâ mos est, consalutavêre,”—in his striking description of the night battle near Cremona, between the Roman troops of Vitellius and Vespasian, and the rise of the sun while the combat was yet unfinished: compare also Quintus Curtius (iii, 3, 8, p. 41, ed. Mützel).
[46] Herodot. vii, 54. ταῦτα οὐκ ἔχω ἀτρεκέως διακρῖναι, οὔτε εἰ τῷ Ἡλίῳ ἀνατιθεὶς κατῆκε ἐς τὸ πέλαγος, οὔτε εἰ μετεμέλησέ οἱ τὸν Ἑλλήσποντον μαστιγώσαντι, καὶ ἀντὶ τούτων τὴν θάλασσαν ἐδωρέετο.
[47] Herodot. vii, 55, 56. Διέβη δὲ ὁ στρατὸς αὐτοῦ ἐν ἑπτὰ ἡμέρῃσι καὶ ἐν ἑπτὰ εὐφρόνῃσι, ἐλινύσας οὐδένα χρόνον.
[48] Herodot. vii, 58-59; Pliny, H. N. iv, 11. See some valuable remarks on the topography of Doriskus and the neighborhood of the town still called Enos, in Grisebach, Reise durch Rumelien und nach Brussa, ch. vi, vol. i, pp. 157-159 (Göttingen, 1841). He shows reason for believing that the indentation of the coast, marked on the map as the gulf of Ænos, did not exist in ancient times, any more than it exists now.
[49] Herodot. vii, 20-21.
[50] See the enumeration in Herodotus, vii, 61-96. In chapter 76, one name has dropped out of the text (see the note of Wesseling and Schweighäuser), which, in addition to those specified under the head of the land-force, makes up exactly forty-six. It is from this source that Herodotus derives the boast which he puts into the mouth of the Athenians (ix, 27) respecting the battle of Marathon, in which they pretend to have vanquished forty-six nations,—ἐνικήσαμεν ἔθνεα ἓξ καὶ τεσσαράκοντα: though there is no reason for believing that so great a number of contingents were engaged with Datis at Marathon.
Compare the boasts of Antiochus king of Syria. (B. C. 192) about his immense Asiatic host brought across into Greece, as well as the contemptuous comments of the Roman consul Quinctius (Livy, xxxv, 48-49). “Varia enim genera armorum, et multa nomina gentium inauditarum, Dahas, et Medos, et Cadusios, et Elymæos—Syros omnes esse: haud paulo mancipiorum melius, propter servilia ingenia, quam militum genus:” and the sharp remark of the Arcadian envoy Antiochus (Xenophon, Hellen. vii, 1, 33). Quintus Curtius also has some rhetorical turns about the number of nations, whose names even were hardly known, tributary to the Persian empire (iii, 4, 29; iv, 45, 9), “ignota etiam ipsi Dario gentium nomina,” etc.
[51] Herodot. vii, 89-93.
[52] Herodot. vii, 61-81.
[53] The army which Darius had conducted against Scythia is said to have been counted by divisions of ten thousand each, but the process is not described in detail (Herodot. iv, 87).
[54] Herodot. vii, 60, 87, 184. This same rude mode of enumeration was employed by Darius Codomannus a century and a half afterwards, before he marched his army to the field of Issus (Quintus Curtius, iii, 2, 3, p. 24, Mutzel).
[55] Herodot. vii, 89-97.
[56] Herodot. vii, 185-186. ἐπάγων πάντα τὸν ἠῷον στρατὸν ἐκ τῆς Ἀσίης (vii, 157). “Vires Orientis et ultima secum Bactra ferens,” to use the language of Virgil about Antony at Actium.
[57] Even Dahlmann, who has many good remarks in defence of Herodotus, hardly does him justice (Herodot, Aus seinem Buche sein Leben, ch. xxxiv, p. 176).
[58] Only one hundred and twenty ships of war are mentioned by Herodotus (vii, 185) as having joined afterwards from the seaports in Thrace. But four hundred were destroyed, if not more, in the terrible storm on the coast of Magnesia (vii, 190); and the squadron of two hundred sail, detached by the Persians round Eubœa, were also all lost (viii, 7); besides forty-five taken or destroyed in the various sea-fights near Artemisium (vii, 194; viii, 11). Other losses are also indicated (viii, 14-16).
As the statement of Æschylus for the number of the Persian triremes at Salamis appears well-entitled to credit, we must suppose either that the number of Doriskus was greater than Herodotus has mentioned, or that a number greater than that which he has stated joined afterwards.
See a good note of Amersfoordt, ad Demosthen. Orat. de Symmoriis, p. 88 (Leyden, 1821).