[59] See on this point Volney, Travels in Egypt and Syria, ch. xxiv, vol. ii, pp. 70, 71; ch. xxxii, p. 367; and ch. xxxix, p. 435, (Engl. transl.).

Kinneir, Geographical Memoir of the Persian Empire, pp. 22-23. Bernier, who followed the march of Aurungzebe from Delhi, in 1665, says that some estimated the number of persons in the camp at three hundred thousand, others at different totals, but that no one knew, nor had they ever been counted. He says: “You are, no doubt, at a loss to conceive how so vast a number both of men and animals can be maintained in the field. The best solution of the difficulty will be found in the temperance and simple diet of the Indians.” (Bernier, Travels in the Mogul Empire, translated by Brock, vol. ii, App. p. 118).

So also Petit de la Croix says, about the enormous host of Genghis-Khan: “Les hommes sont si sobres, qu’ils s’accommodent de toutes sortes d’alimens.”

That author seems to estimate the largest army of Genghis at seven hundred thousand men (Histoire de Genghis, liv. ii, ch. vi, p. 193).

[60] Thucydid. v, 68. Xenophon calls the host of Xerxes innumerable,—ἀναρίθμητον στρατιάν (Anabas. iii, 2, 13).

It seems not to be considered necessary for a Turkish minister to know the numbers of an assembled Turkish army. In the war between the Russians and Turks in 1770, when the Turkish army was encamped at Babadag near the Balkan, Baron de Tott tells us: “Le Visir me demanda un jour fort sérieusement si l’armée Ottomane étoit nombreuse. C’est à vous que je m’adresserois, lui dis-je, si j’étais curieux de le savoir. Je l’ignore, me repondit-il. Si vous l’ignorez, comment pourrois-je en être instruit? En lisant la Gazette de Vienna, me répliqua-t-il. Je restai confondu.”

The Duke of Ragusa (in his voyage en Hongrie, Turquie, etc.), after mentioning the prodigiously exaggerated statements current about the numbers slain in the suppressed insurrection of the Janissaries at Constantinople in 1826, observes: “On a dit et répété, que leur nombre s’étoit élévé a huit ou dix mille, et cette opinion s’est accréditée (it was really about five hundred). Mais les Orientaux en général, et les Turcs en particulier, n’ont aucune idée des nombres: ils les emploient sans exactitude, et ils sont par caractère portés à l’exagération. D’un autre coté, le gouvernement a dû favoriser cette opinion populaire, pour frapper l’imagination et inspirer une plus grande terreur.” (Vol. ii, p. 37.)

[61] Ktesias, Persica, c. 22, 23; Ælian, V. H. xiii, 3; Diodorus, xi, 2-11.

Respecting the various numerical statements in this case, see the note of Bos ad Cornel. Nepot. Themistocl. c. 2, pp. 75, 76.

The Samian poet Chœrilus, a few years younger than Herodotus, and contemporary with Thucydides, composed an epic poem on the expedition of Xerxes against Greece. Two or three short fragments of it are all that is preserved: he enumerated all the separate nations who furnished contingents to Xerxes, and we find not only the Sakæ, but also the Solymi (apparently the Jews, and so construed by Josephus) among them. See Fragments, iii and iv, in Næke’s edition of Chœrilus, pp. 121-134. Josephus cont. Apion. p. 454, ed. Havercamp.

[62] Æschylus, Pers. 14-124, 722-737. Heeren (in his learned work on the commerce of the ancient world, Über den Verkehr der alten Welt, part 1, sect. 1, pp. 162, 558, 3d edition) thinks that Herodotus had seen the actual muster-roll, made by Persian authority, of the army at Doriskus. I cannot think this at all probable: it is much more reasonable to believe that all his information was derived from Greeks who had accompanied the expedition. He must have seen and conversed with many such. The Persian royal scribes, or secretaries, accompanied the king, and took note of any particular fact or person who might happen to strike his attention (Herodot. vii, 100; viii, 90), or to exhibit remarkable courage. They seem to have been specially attached to the person of the king as ministers to his curiosity and amusement, rather than keepers of authentic and continuous records.

Heeren is disposed to accept the numerical totals, given by Herodotus as to the army of Xerxes, much too easily, in my judgment: nor is he correct in supposing that the contingents of the Persian army marched with their wives and families (pp. 557-559).

[63] When Herodotus specifies his informants—it is much to be regretted that he does not specify them oftener—they seem to be frequently Greeks, such as Dikæus the Athenian exile, Thersander of Orchomenus in Bœotia, Archias of Sparta, etc. (iii, 55; viii, 65; ix, 16.) He mentions the Spartan king Demaratus often, and usually under circumstances both of dignity and dramatic interest: it is highly probable that he may have conversed with that prince himself, or with his descendants, who remained settled for a long time in Teuthrania, near the Æolic coast of Asia Minor (Xenoph. Hellenica, iii, 1, 6), and he may thus have heard of representations offered by the exiled Spartan king to Xerxes. Nevertheless, the remarks made by Hoffmeister, on the speeches ascribed to Demaratus by Herodotus, are well deserving of attention (Sittlich-religiöse Lebensansicht des Herodotos, p. 118).

“Herodotus always brings into connection with insolent kings some man or other through whom he gives utterance to his own lessons of wisdom. To Crœsus, at the summit of his glory, comes the wise Solon: Crœsus himself, reformed by his captivity, performs the same part towards Cyrus and Kambyses: Darius, as a prudent and honest man, does not require any such counsellor; but Xerxes in his pride has the sententious Artabanus and the sagacious Demaratus attached to him; while Amasis king of Egypt is employed to transmit judicious counsel to Polykratês, the despot of Samos. Since all these men speak one and the same language, it appears certain that they are introduced by Herodotus merely as spokesmen for his own criticisms on the behavior and character of the various monarchs,—criticisms which are nothing more than general maxims, moral and religious, brought out by Solon, Crœsus, or Artabanus, on occasion of particular events. The speeches interwoven by Herodotus have, in the main, not the same purpose as those of Tacitus,—to make the reader more intimately acquainted with the existing posture of affairs, or with the character of the agents,—but a different purpose quite foreign to history: they embody in the narrative his own personal convictions respecting human life and the divine government.”

This last opinion of Hoffmeister is to a great degree true, but is rather too absolutely delivered.

[64] Herodot. vii, 101-104. How inferior is the scene between Darius and Charidemus, in Quintus Curtius! (iii, 2, 9-19, p. 20, ed. Mutzel.)

Herodotus takes up substantially the same vein of sentiment and the same antithesis as that which runs through the Persæ of Æschylus; but he handles it like a social philosopher, with a strong perception of the real causes of Grecian superiority.

It is not improbable that the skeleton of the conversation between Xerxes and Demaratus was a reality, heard by Herodotus from Demaratus himself or from his sons; for the extreme specialty with which the Lacedæmonian exile confines his praise to the Spartans and Dorians, not including the other Greeks, hardly represents the feeling of Herodotus himself.

The minuteness of the narrative which Herodotus gives respecting the deposition and family circumstances of Demaratus (vi, 63, seq.), and his view of the death of Kleomenês as an atonement to that prince for injury done, may seem derived from family information (vi, 84).

[65] Herodot. vii, 109, 111, 118.

[66] This sum of four hundred talents was equivalent to the entire annual tribute charged in the Persian king’s rent-roll, upon the satrapy comprising the western and southern coast of Asia Minor, wherein were included all the Ionic and Æolic Greeks, besides Lykians, Pamphylians, etc. (Herodot. iii, 90.)

[67] Herodot. vii, 118-120. He gives (vii, 187) the computation of the quantity of corn which would have been required for daily consumption, assuming the immense numbers as he conjectures them, and reckoning one chœnix of wheat for each man’s daily consumption, equal to one eighth of a medimnus. It is unnecessary to examine a computation founded on such inadmissible data.

[68] Herodot. vii, 108, 109.

[69] Herodot. vii, 114. He pronounces this savage practice to be specially Persian. The old and cruel Persian queen Amestris, wife of Xerxes, sought to prolong her own life by burying alive fourteen victims, children of illustrious men, as offerings to the subterranean god.

[70] Herodot. viii, 116.

[71] Herodot. vii, 122-127.

Respecting the name Pieria, and the geography of these regions, see the previous volume, vol. iv, ch. xxv. p. 14.

[72] Herodot. vii, 116.

[73] Herodot. vi, 74, 75.

[74] Herodot. vi, 84.

[75] Herodot. vi, 61. Κλεομένεα, ἐόντα ἐν τῇ Αἰγίνῃ, καὶ κοινὰ τῇ Ἑλλάδι ἀγαθὰ προεργαζόμενον, etc.

[76] Herodot. vi, 85: compare vi, 49-73, and the preceding volume of this history, c. xxxvi, pp. 437-441.

[77] Herodot. vi, 87, 88.

Instead of ἦν γὰρ δὴ τοῖσι Ἀθηναίοισι πεντήρης ἐπὶ Σουνίῳ (vi, 87), I follow the reading proposed by Schömann and sanctioned by Boëckh—πεντετηρίς. It is hardly conceivable that the Athenians at that time should have had any ships with five banks of oars (πεντήρης): moreover, apart from this objection, the word πεντήρης makes considerable embarrassment in the sentence; see Boëckh, Urkunden über das Attische Seewesen, chap. vii, pp. 75, 76.

The elder Dionysius of Syracuse is said to have been the first Greek who constructed πεντήρεις or quinquereme ships (Diodor. xiv, 40, 41).

There were many distinct pentaëterides, or solemnities celebrated every fifth year, included among the religious customs of Athens: see Aristoteles, Πολιτ. Fragm. xxvii, ed. Neumann; Pollux, viii, 107.

[78] See Thucyd. i, 8.

The acropolis at Athens, having been the primitive city inhabited, bore the name of The City even in the time of Thucydides (ii, 15), at a time when Athens and Peiræus covered so large a region around and near it.

[79] Herodot. vi, 91. χεῖρες δὲ κεῖναι ἐμπεφυκυῖαι ἦσαν τοῖσι ἐπισπαστῆρσι. The word κεῖναι for ἐκεῖναι, “those hands,” appears so little suitable in this phrase, that I rather imagine the real reading to have been κειναὶ (the Ionic dialect for κεναὶ), “the hands with nothing attached to them:” compare a phrase not very unlike, Homer, Iliad, iii, 376, κεινὴ δὲ τρυφάλεια ἅμ’ ἕσπετο, etc.

Compare the narrative of the arrest of the Spartan king Pausanias, and of the manner in which he was treated when in sanctuary at the temple of Athênê Chalkiœkos (Thucyd. i, 134).

[80] Herodot. vi, 91. Ἀπὸ τούτου δὲ καὶ ἄγος σφι ἐγένετο, τὸ ἐκθύσασθαι οὐκ οἶοί τε ἐγένοντο ἐπιμηχανώμενοι, ἀλλ’ ἔφθησαν ἐκπεσόντες πρότερον ἐκ τῆς νήσου ἤ σφι ἵλεον γενέσθαι τὴν θεόν.

Compare Thucyd. ii, 27 about the final expulsion from Ægina. The Lacedæmonians assigned to these expelled Æginetans a new abode in the territory of Thyrea, on the eastern coast of Peloponnesus, where they were attacked, taken prisoners, and put to death by the Athenians, in the eighth year of the war (Thucyd. iv, 57). Now Herodotus, while he mentions the expulsion, does not allude to their subsequent and still more calamitous fate. Had he known the fact, he could hardly have failed to notice it, as a farther consummation of the divine judgment. We may reasonably presume ignorance in this case, which would tend to support the opinion thrown out in my preceding volume (chap. xxxiii, p. 225, note) respecting the date of composition of his history,—in the earliest years of the Peloponnesian war.

[81] Herodot. ix, 75.

[82] Herodot. vi, 90-93. Thucyd. i, 41. About Sôphanês, comp. ix, 75.

How much damage was done by such a privateering war, between countries so near as Ægina and Attica, may be seen by the more detailed description of a later war of the same kind in 388 B. C. (Xenophon, Hellenic. v. 1.)

[83] Plutarch, Themist. c. 19.

[84] See Mr. Galt’s interesting account of the Hydriot sailors, Voyages and Travels in the Mediterranean, pp. 376-378 (London, 1802).

“The city of Hydra originated in a small colony of boatmen belonging to the Morea, who took refuge in the island from the tyranny of the Turks. About forty years ago they had multiplied to a considerable number, their little village began to assume the appearance of a town, and they had cargoes that went as far as Constantinople. In their mercantile transactions, the Hydriots acquired the reputation of greater integrity than the other Greeks, as well as of being the most intrepid navigators in the Archipelago; and they were of course regularly preferred. Their industry and honesty obtained its reward. The islands of Spezzia, Paros, Myconi, and Ipsara, resemble Hydra in their institutions, and possess the same character for commercial activity. In paying their sailors, Hydra and its sister islands have a peculiar custom. The whole amount of the freight is considered as a common stock, from which the charges of victualing the ship are deducted. The remainder is then divided into two equal parts: one is allotted to the crew, and equally shared among them without reference to age or rank; the other part is appropriated to the ship and captain. The capital of the cargo is a trust given to the captain and crew on certain fixed conditions. The character and manners of the Hydriot sailors, from the moral effect of these customs, are much superior in regularity to the ideas that we are apt to entertain of sailors. They are sedate, well-dressed, well-bred, shrewd, informed, and speculative. They seem to form a class, in the orders of mankind, which has no existence among us. By their voyages, they acquire a liberality of notion which we expect only among gentlemen, while in their domestic circumstances their conduct is suitable to their condition. The Greeks are all traditionary historians, and possess much of that kind of knowledge to which the term learning is usually applied. This, mingled with the other information of the Hydriots, gives them that advantageous character of mind which I think they possess.”

[85] Plato, Legg. iv, pp. 705, 706. Plutarch, Themistoklês, c. 19. Isokratês, Panathenaic, c. 43.

Plutarch, Philopœmen. c. 14. Πλὴν Ἐπαμεινώνδαν μὲν ἔνιοι λέγουσιν ὀκνοῦντα γεῦσαι τῶν κατὰ θάλασσαν ὠφελειῶν τοὺς πολίτας, ὅπως αὐτῷ μὴ λάθωσιν ἀντὶ μονίμων ὁπλιτῶν, κατὰ Πλάτωνα, ναῦται γενόμενοι καὶ διαφθαρέντες, ἄπρακτον ἐκ τῆς Ἀσίας καὶ τῶν νήσων ἀπελθεῖν ἑκουσίως: compare vii, p. 301.

[86] See the remarkable passage in Xenophon (Memorab. iii, 5, 19), attesting that the Hoplites and the Hippeis, the persons first in rank in the city were also the most disobedient on military service.

[87] Thucyd. i, 93. ἰδὼν (Themistoklês) τῆς βασιλέως στρατιᾶς τὴν κατὰ θάλασσαν ἔφοδον εὐπορωτέραν τῆς κατὰ γῆν οὖσαν.

[88] Thucyd. i, 14. Herodot. vii, 144.

[89] Thucyd. i, 93.

[90] Herodot. vii, 144. Οὗτος γὰρ ὁ πόλεμος συστὰς ἔσωσε τότε τὴν Ἑλλάδα, ἀναγκάσας θαλασσίους γενέσθαι Ἀθηναίους.

Thucyd. i, 18. ναυτικοὶ ἐγένοντο.

[91] Æschylus, Persæ, 235.

[92] The mountain region of Laurium has been occasionally visited by modern travellers, but never carefully surveyed until 1836, when Dr. Fiedler examined it mineralogically by order of the present Greek government. See his Reisen durch Griechenland, vol. i, pp. 39, 73. The region is now little better than a desert, but Fiedler especially notices the great natural fertility of the plain near Thorikus, together with the good harbor at that place,—both circumstances of great value at the time when the mines were in work. Many remains are seen of shafts sunk in ancient times,—and sunk in so workmanlike a manner as to satisfy the eye of a miner of the present day.—p. 76.

[93] Herodot. vii, 144. Ὅτε Ἀθηναίοισι γενομένων χρημάτων μεγάλων ἐν τῷ κοινῷ, τὰ ἐκ τῶν μετάλλων σφι προσῆλθε τῶν ἀπὸ Λαυρείου, ἔμελλον λάξεσθαι ὀρχηδὸν ἕκαστος δέκα δραχμάς.

[94] All the information—unfortunately it is very scanty—which we possess respecting the ancient mines of Laurium, is brought together in the valuable Dissertation of M. Boëckh, translated and appended to the English translation of his Public Economy of Athens. He discusses the fact stated in this chapter of Herodotus, in sect. 8 of that Dissertation: but there are many of his remarks in which I cannot concur.

After multiplying ten drachmæ by the assumed number of twenty thousand Athenian citizens, making a sum total distributed of thirty-three and one-third talents, he goes on: “That the distribution was made annually might have been presumed from the principles of the Athenian administration, without the testimony of Cornelius Nepos. We are not, therefore, to suppose that the savings of several years are meant, nor merely a surplus; but that all the public money arising from the mines, as it was not required for any other object, was divided among the members of the community,” (p. 632).

We are hardly authorized to conclude from the passage of Herodotus that all the sum received from the mines was about to be distributed: the treasury was very rich, and a distribution was about to be made,—but it does not follow that nothing was to be left in the treasury after the distribution. Accordingly, all calculations of the total produce of the mines, based upon this passage of Herodotus, are uncertain. Nor is it clear that there was any regular annual distribution, unless we are to take the passage of Cornelius Nepos as proving it: but he talks rather about the magistrates employing this money for jobbing purposes,—not about a regular distribution: “Nam cum pecunia publica quæ ex metallis redibat, largitione magistratuum quotannis periret.” Corn. Nep. Themist. c. 2. A story is told by Polyænus, from whomsoever he copied it,—of a sum of one hundred talents in the treasury, which Themistoklês persuaded the people to hand over to one hundred rich men, for the purpose of being expended as the latter might direct, with an obligation to reimburse the money in case the people were not satisfied with the expenditure: these rich men employed each the sum awarded to him in building a new ship, much to the satisfaction of the people (Polyæn. i, 30). This story differs materially from that of Herodotus, and we cannot venture either to blend the two together or to rely upon Polyænus separately.

I imagine that the sum of thirty three talents, or fifty talents, necessary for the distribution, formed part of a larger sum lying in the treasury, arising from the mines. Themistoklês persuaded the people to employ the whole sum in ship-building, which of course implied that the distribution was to be renounced. Whether there had been distributions of a similar kind in former years, as M. Boëckh affirms, is a matter on which we have no evidence. M. Boëckh seems to me not to have kept in view the fact, which he himself states just before, that there were two sources of receipt into the treasury,—original purchase-money paid down, and reserved annual rent. It is from the former source that I imagine the large sum lying in the treasury to have been derived: the small reserved rent probably went among the annual items of the state-budget.

[95] Herodot. vii, 239.

[96] Herodot. vii, 8-138.

[97] Herodot. vii, 145. Φρονήσαντες εἴ κως ἕν τε γένοιτο τὸ Ἑλληνικὸν, καὶ εἰ συγκύψαντες τωὐτὸ πρήσσοιεν πάντες, ὡς δεινῶν ἐπιόντων ὁμοίως πᾶσι Ἕλλησι.

[98] Herodot. viii, 92.

[99] Herodot. vii, 145.

[100] Plutarch, Themistokl. c. 10. About Cheileos, Herodot. ix, 9.

[101] Herodot. vii, 203. οὐ γὰρ θεὸν εἶναι τὸν ἐπιόντα ἐπὶ τὴν Ἑλλάδα, ἀλλ’ ἄνθρωπον, etc.: compare also vii, 56.

[102] Herodot. vii, 140.

The general sense and scope of the oracle appears to me clear, in this case. It is a sentence of nothing but desolation and sadness; though Bähr and Schweighäuser, with other commentators, try to infuse into it some thing of encouragement by construing θυμόν, fortitude. The translation of Valla and Schultz is nearer to the truth. But even when the general sense of an oracle is plain (which it hardly ever is), the particular phrases are always wild and vague.

[103] Herodot. vii, 141.

Compare with this the declaration of Apollo to Crœsus of Lydia (i, 91).

[104]

[105] Herodot. vii, 143. Ταύτῃ Θεμιστοκλέους ἀποφαινομένου, Ἀθηναῖοι ταῦτά σφι ἔγνωσαν αἱρετώτερα εἶναι μᾶλλον ἢ τὰ τῶν χρησμολόγων, οἳ οὐκ εἴων ναυμαχίην ἀρτέεσθαι, ἀλλὰ ἐκλιπόντας χώρην τὴν Ἀττικὴν, ἄλλην τινὰ οἰκίζειν.

There is every reason to accept the statement of Herodotus as true, respecting these oracles delivered to the Athenians, and the debated interpretation of them. They must have been discussed publicly in the Athenian assembly, and Herodotus may well have conversed with persons who had heard the discussion. Respecting the other oracle which he states to have been delivered to the Spartans,—intimating that either Sparta must be conquered or a king of Sparta must perish,—we may well doubt whether it was in existence before the battle of Thermopylæ (Herodot. vii, 220).

The later writers, Justin (ii, 12), Cornelius Nepos (c. 2), and Polyænus (i, 30), give an account of the proceeding of Themistoklês, inferior to Herodotus in vivacity as well as in accuracy.

[106] Herodot. vii, 139. οὐδὲ σφέας χρηστήρια φοβερὰ, ἐλθόντα ἐκ Δελφῶν, καὶ ἐς δεῖμα βαλόντα, ἔπεισε ἐκλιπεῖν τὴν Ἑλλάδα, etc.

For the abundance of oracles and prophecies, from many different sources, which would be current at such a moment of anxiety, we may compare the analogy of the outbreak of the Peloponnesian war, described by the contemporary historian (Thucyd. ii, 8).

[107] Herodot. vii, 139. Ἐνθαῦτα ἀναγκαίῃ ἐξέργομαι γνώμην ἀποδέξασθαι, ἐπίφθονον μὲν πρὸς τῶν πλεόνων ἀνθρώπων· ὅμως δὲ, τῇ γέ μοι φαίνεται εἶναι ἀληθὲς, οὐκ ἐπισχήσω. Εἰ Ἀθηναῖοι, καταῤῥωδήσαντες τὸν ἐπιόντα κίνδυνον, ἐξέλιπον τὴν σφετέρην, etc. ... Νῦν δὲ, Ἀθηναίους ἄν τις λέγων σωτῆρας γενέσθαι τῆς Ἑλλάδος, οὐκ ἂν ἁμαρτάνοι τὸ ἀληθές, etc.

The whole chapter deserves peculiar attention, as it brings before us the feelings of those contemporaries to whom his history is addressed, and the mode of judging with which they looked back on the Persian war. One is apt unconsciously to fancy that an ancient historian writes for men in the abstract, and not for men of given sentiments, prejudices, and belief. The persons whom Herodotus addressed are those who were so full of admiration for Sparta, as to ascribe to her chiefly the honor of having beaten back the Persians; and to maintain that, even without the aid of Athens, the Spartans and Peloponnesians both could have defended, and would have defended, the isthmus of Corinth, fortified as it was by a wall built expressly. The Peloponnesian allies of that day forgot that they were open to attack by sea as well as by land.

[108] Herodot. vii, 139. ἑλόμενοι δὲ τὴν Ἑλλάδα περιεῖναι ἐλευθέρην, τοῦτο τὸ Ἑλληνικὸν πᾶν τὸ λοιπὸν, ὅσον μὴ ἐμήδισε, αὐτοὶ οὗτοι ἦσαν οἱ ἐπεγείραντες, καὶ βασιλέα μετά γε θεοὺς ἀνωσάμενοι.

[109] Herodot. viii, 2, 3: compare vii, 161.

[110] Herodot. vii, 144.

[111] Thucyd. iii, 56. ἐν καιροῖς οἷς σπάνιον ἦν τῶν Ἑλλήνων τινὰ ἀρετὴν τῇ Ξέρξου δυνάμει ἀντιτάξασθαι.

This view of the case is much more conformable to history than the boasts of later orators respecting wide-spread patriotism in these times. See Demosthen. Philipp. iii, 37, p. 120.

[112] Herodot. vii, 147-150.

[113] The opinion of Herodotus is delivered in a remarkable way, without mentioning the name of the Argeians, and with evident reluctance. After enumerating all the Grecian contingents assembled for the defence of the Isthmus, and the different inhabitants of Peloponnesus, ethnically classified, he proceeds to say: Τούτων ὦν τῶν ἑπτὰ ἐθνέων αἱ λοιπαὶ πόλις, πάρεξ τῶν κατέλεξα, ἐκ τοῦ μέσου ἐκατέατο· εἰ δὲ ἐλευθέρως ἔξεστι εἰπεῖν, ἐκ τοῦ μέσου κατήμενοι ἐμήδιζον (viii, 73). This assertion includes the Argeians without naming them.

Where he speaks respecting the Argeians by name, he is by no means so free and categorical; compare vii, 152,—he will give no opinion of his own, differing from the allegation of the Argeians themselves,—he mentions other stories, incompatible with that allegation, but without guaranteeing their accuracy,— he delivers a general admonition that those who think they have great reason to complain of the conduct of others would generally find, on an impartial scrutiny, that others have as much reason to complain of them,—“and thus the conduct of Argos has not been so much worse than that of others,”—οὕτω δὴ οὐκ Ἀργείοισι αἴσχιστα πεποίηται.

At the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, when the history of Herodotus was probably composed, the Argeians were in a peculiarly favorable position. They took part neither with Athens nor Lacedæmon, each of whom was afraid of offending them. An historian who openly countenanced a grave charge of treason against them in the memorable foregone combat against Xerxes, was thus likely to incur odium from both parties in Greece.

The comments of Plutarch on Herodotus in respect to this matter are of little value (De Herodoti Malignit. c. 28, p. 863), and are indeed unfair, since he represents the Argeian version of the facts as being universally believed (ἅπαντες ἴσασιν), which it evidently was not.

[114] Herodot. vii, 169.

[115] Herodot. vii, 168.

[116] Thucyd. i, 32-37. It is perhaps singular that the Corinthian envoys in Thucydides do not make any allusion to the duplicity of the Korkyræans in regard to the Persian invasion, in the strong invective which they deliver against Korkyra before the Athenian assembly (Thucydid. i, 37-42). The conduct of Corinth herself, however, on the same occasion, was not altogether without reproach.

[117] Herodot. vii, 158-167. Diodor. xi, 22.

[118] See Schol. ad Aristeid., Anathenaic. p. 138.

[119] Herodot. vii, 172: compare c. 130.

[120] Herodot. vii, 173.

[121] Herodot. vii, 172. τὴν ἐσβολὴν τὴν Ὀλυμπικήν. See the description and plan of Tempê in Dr. Clarke’s Travels, vol. iv, ch. ix, p. 280; and the Dissertation of Kriegk, in which all the facts about this interesting defile are collected and compared (Das Thessalische Tempe. Frankfort, 1834).

The description of Tempê in Livy (xliii, 18; xliv, 6) seems more accurate than that in Pliny (H. N. iv, 8). We may remark that both the one and the other belong to times subsequent to the formation and organization of the Macedonian empire, when it came to hold Greece in a species of dependence. The Macedonian princes after Alexander the Great, while they added to the natural difficulties of Tempê by fortifications, at the same time made the road more convenient as a military communication. In the time of Xerxes, these natural difficulties had never been approached by the hand of art, and were doubtless much greater.

The present road through the pass is about thirteen feet broad in its narrowest part, and between fifteen and twenty feet broad elsewhere,—the pass is about five English miles in length (Kriegk, pp. 21-33).

[122] Herodot. vii, 173.

[123] Herodot. viii, 140-143.

[124] Herodot. vii, 173, 174.

[125] Diodor. xi, 3. ἔτι παρούσης τῆς ἐν τοῖς Τέμπεσι φυλακῆς, etc.

[126] Herodot. vii, 131, 132, 174.

[127] Herodot. vii, 177

[128] Herodot. vii, 132; Diodor. xi, 3.

[129] Herodot. viii, 15-60. Compare Isokratês, Panegyric, Or. iv, p. 59.

I shall have occasion presently to remark the revolution which took place in Athenian feeling on this point between the Persian and Peloponnesian wars.

[130] The word Pass commonly conveys the idea of a path inclosed between mountains. In this instance it is employed to designate a narrow passage, having mountains on one side only, and water (or marsh ground) on the other.

[131] According to one of the numerous hypotheses for refining religious legend into matter of historical and physical fact, Hêraklês as supposed to have been an engineer, or water-finder, in very early times,—δεινὸς περὶ ζήτησιν ὑδάτων καὶ συναγωγήν. See Plutarch, Cum principibus viris philosopho esse disserendum, c. i, p. 776.

[132] About Thermopylæ, see Herodot. vii, 175, 176, 199, 200.

Ἡ δὲ αὖ διὰ Τρηχῖνος ἔσοδος ἐς τὴν Ἑλλάδα ἔστι, τῇ στεινότατον, ἡμίπλεθρον· οὐ μέντοι κατὰ τοῦτό γ’ ἔστι τὸ στεινότατον τῆς χώρης τῆς ἄλλης, ἀλλ’ ἔμπροσθέ τε Θερμοπυλέων καὶ ὄπισθε· κατά τε Ἀλπηνοὺς, ὄπισθε ἐόντας, ἐοῦσα ἁμαξιτὸς μούνη· καὶ ἔμπροσθε κατὰ Φοίνικα ποταμὸν, ἁμαξιτὸς ἄλλη μούνη.

Compare Pausanias, vii, 15, 2. τὸ στένον τὸ Ἡρακλείας τε μεταξὺ καὶ Θερμοπυλέων; Strabo, ix, p. 429; and Livy, xxxvi, 12.

Herodotus says about Thermopylæ—στεινοτέρη γὰρ ἐφαίνετο ἐοῦσα τῆς εἰς Θεσσαλίην, i. e. than the defile of Tempê.

If we did not possess the clear topographical indications given by Herodotus, it would be almost impossible to comprehend the memorable event here before us; for the configuration of the coast, the course of the rivers, and the general local phenomena, have now so entirely changed, that modern travellers rather mislead than assist. In the interior of the Maliac gulf, three or four miles of new land have been formed by the gradual accumulation of river deposit, so that the gulf itself is of much less extent, and the mountain bordering the gate of Thermopylæ is not now near to the sea. The river Spercheius has materially altered its course; instead of flowing into the sea in an easterly direction considerably north of Thermopylæ, as it did in the time of Herodotus, it has been diverted southward in the lower part of its course, with many windings, so as to reach the sea much south of the pass: while the rivers Dyras, Melas, and Asôpus, which in the time of Herodotus all reached the sea separately between the mouth of Spercheius and Thermopylæ, now do not reach the sea at all, but fall into the Spercheius. Moreover, the perpetual flow of the thermal springs has tended to accumulate deposit and to raise the level of the soil generally throughout the pass. Herodotus seems to consider the road between the two gates of Thermopylæ as bearing north and south, whereas it would bear more nearly east and west. He knows nothing of the appellation of Callidromus, applied by Livy and Strabo to an undefined portion of the eastern ridge of Œta.

Respecting the past and present features of Thermopylæ, see the valuable observations of Colonel Leake, Travels in Northern Greece, vol. ii, ch. x, pp. 7-40; Gell, Itinerary of Greece, p. 239; Kruse, Hellas, vol. iii, ch. x, p. 129. Dr. Clarke observes: “The hot springs issue principally from two mouths at the foot of the limestone precipices of Œta, upon the left of the causeway, which here passes close under the mountain, and on this part of it scarcely admits two horsemen abreast of each other, the morass on the right, between the causeway and the sea, being so dangerous, that we were very near being buried, with our horses, by our imprudence in venturing a few paces into it from the paved road.” (Clarke’s Travels, vol. iv, ch. viii, p. 247.)