[225] Herodot. viii, 26. Παπαὶ, Μαρδόνιε, κοίους ἐπ’ ἄνδρας ἤγαγες μαχησομένους ἡμέας, οἳ οὐ περὶ χρημάτων τὸν ἀγῶνα ποιεῦνται, ἀλλὰ περὶ ἀρετῆς.

[226] Herodot. viii, 30.

[227] Herodot. viii, 28, 29.

[228] Herodot. viii, 32-34.

[229] Herodot. viii, 38, 39; Diodor. xi, 14; Pausan. x, 8, 4.

Compare the account given in Pausanias (x, 23) of the subsequent repulse of Brennus and the Gauls from Delphi: in his account, the repulse is not so exclusively the work of the gods as in that of Herodotus: there is a larger force of human combatants in defence of the temple, though greatly assisted by divine intervention: there is also loss on both sides. A similar descent of crags from the summit is mentioned.

See for the description of the road by which the Persians marched, and the extreme term of their progress, Ulrichs, Reisen und Forschungen in Griechenland, ch. iv, p. 46; ch. x, p. 146.

Many great blocks of stone and cliff are still to be seen near the spot, which have rolled down from the top, and which remind the traveller of these passages.

The attack here described to have been made by order of Xerxes upon the Delphian temple, seems not easy to reconcile with the words of Mardonius, Herodot. ix, 42: still less can it be reconciled with the statement of Plutarch (Numa, c. 9), who says that the Delphian temple was burnt by the Medes.

[230] Herodot. viii, 52.

[231] Pausanias, i, 22, 4; Kruse, Hellas, vol. ii, ch. vi, p. 76. Ernst Curtius (Die Akropolis von Athens, p. 5, Berlin, 1844) says that the plateau of the acropolis is rather less than four hundred feet higher than the town: Fiedler states it to be one hundred and seventy-eight fathoms, or one thousand and sixty-eight feet above the level of the sea. (Reise durch das Königreich Griechenland, i, p. 2); he gives the length and breadth of the plateau in the same figures as Kruse, whose statement I have copied in the text. In Colonel Leake’s valuable Topography of Athens, I do not find any distinct statement about the height of the acropolis. We must understand Kruse’s statement, if he and Curtius are both correct, to refer only to the precipitous impracticable portion of the whole rock.

[232] Athenian legend represented the Amazons as having taken post on the Areopagus, and fortified it as a means of attacking the acropolis,—ἀντεπύργωσαν (Æschyl. Eumenid. 638).

[233] Herodot. viii, 52, 53. ... ἔμπροσθε ὦν πρὸ τῆς ἀκροπόλιος, ὄπισθε δὲ τῶν πύλεων καὶ τῆς ἀνόδου, τῇ δὴ οὔτε τις ἐφύλασσε, οὔτ’ ἂν ἤλπισε μή κοτέ τις κατὰ ταῦτα ἀναβαίη ἀνθρώπων, ταύτῃ ἀνέβησάν τινες κατὰ τὸ ἱρὸν τῆς Κέκροπος θυγατρὸς Ἀγλαύρου, καίτοιπερ ἀποκρήμνου ἐόντος τοῦ χώρου.

That the Aglaurion was on the north side of the acropolis, appears clearly made out; see Leake, Topography of Athens, ch. v, p. 261; Kruse, Hellas, vol. ii, ch. vi, p. 119; Forchhammer, Topographie Athens, pp. 365, 366; in Kieler Philologischen Studien, 1841. Siebelis (in the Plan of Athens prefixed to his edition of Pausanias, and in his note on Pausanias, i, 18, 2) places the Aglaurion erroneously on the eastern side of the acropolis.

The expressions ἔμπροσθε πρὸ τῆς ἀκροπόλιος appear to refer to the position of the Persian army, who would naturally occupy the northern and western fronts of the acropolis: since they reached Athens from the north,—and the western side furnished the only regular access. The hill called Areopagus would thus be nearly in the centre of their position. Forchhammer explains these expressions unsatisfactorily.

[234] Herodot. viii, 52, 53.

[235] Herodot. i, 84.

[236] Herodot. v, 102; viii, 53-99; ix, 65. ἔδεε γὰρ κατὰ τὸ θεοπρόπιον πᾶσαν τὴν Ἀττικὴν τὴν ἐν τῇ ἠπείρῳ γενέσθαι ὑπὸ Πέρσῃσι.

[237] Herodot. viii, 55-65.

[238] Herodot. viii, 66. Colonel Leake observes upon this statement (Athens and the Demi of Attica, App. vol. ii, p. 250), “About one thousand ships is the greatest accuracy we can pretend to, in stating the strength of the Persian fleet at Salamis: and from these are to be deducted, in estimating the number of ships engaged in the battle, those which were sent to occupy the Megaric strait of Salamis, two hundred in number.”

The estimate of Colonel Leake appears somewhat lower than the probable reality. Nor do I believe the statement of Diodorus, that ships were detached to occupy the Megaric strait: see a note shortly following.

[239] The picture drawn in the Cyropædia of Xenophon represents the subjects of Persia as spiritless and untrained to war (ἀνάλκιδες καὶ ἀσύντακτοι) and even designedly kept so, forming a contrast to the native Persians (Xenophon, Cyropæd. viii, 1, 45).

[240] Herodot. viii, 68, 69, 70.

[241] Herodot. viii, 70.

[242] Herodot. viii. 49, 50, 56.

[243] Herodot. viii, 57. Οὖτοι ἄρα ἤν ἀπαίρωσι τὰς νῆας ἀπὸ Σαλαμῖνος, περὶ οὐδεμίης ἔτι πατρίδος ναυμαχήσεις· κατὰ γὰρ πόλις ἕκαστοι τρέψονται, etc. Compare vii, 139, and Thucyd. i, 73.

[244] Herodot. viii, 58, 59. The account given by Herodotus, of these memorable debates which preceded the battle of Salamis, is in the main distinct, instructive, and consistent. It is more probable than the narrative of Diodorus (xi, 15, 16), who states that Themistoklês succeeded in fully convincing both Eurybiadês and the Peloponnesian chiefs of the propriety of fighting at Salamis, but that, in spite of all their efforts, the armament would not obey them, and insisted on going to the Isthmus. And it deserves our esteem still more, if we contrast it with the loose and careless accounts of Plutarch and Cornelius Nepos. Plutarch (Themist. c. 11) describes the scene as if Eurybiadês was the person who desired to restrain the forwardness and oratory of Themistoklês, and with that view, first made to him the observation given in my text out of Herodotus, which Themistoklês followed up by the same answer,—next, lifted up his stick to strike Themistoklês, upon which the latter addressed to him the well-known observation,—“Strike, but hear me,” (Πάταξον μὲν, ἄκουσον δέ.) Larcher expresses his surprise that Herodotus should have suppressed so impressive an anecdote as this latter: but we may see plainly from the tenor of his narrative that he cannot have heard it. In the narrative of Herodotus, Themistoklês gives no offence to Eurybiadês, nor is the latter at all displeased with him: nay, Eurybiadês is even brought over by the persuasion of Themistoklês, and disposed to fall in with his views. The persons whom Herodotus represents as angry with Themistoklês, are the Peloponnesian chiefs, especially Adeimantus the Corinthian. They are angry too, let it be added, not without plausible reason: a formal vote has just been taken by the majority, after full discussion; and here is the chief of the minority, who persuades Eurybiadês to reopen the whole debate: not an unreasonable cause for displeasure. Moreover, it is Adeimantus, not Eurybiadês, who addresses to Themistoklês the remark, that “persons who rise before the proper signal are scourged:” and he makes the remark because Themistoklês goes on speaking to, and trying to persuade, the various chiefs, before the business of the assembly has been formally opened. Themistoklês draws upon himself the censure by sinning against the forms of business, and talking before the proper time. But Plutarch puts the remark into the mouth of Eurybiadês, without any previous circumstance to justify it, and without any fitness. His narrative represents Eurybiadês as the person who was anxious both to transfer the ships to the Isthmus, and to prevent Themistoklês from offering any opposition to it: though such an attempt to check argumentative opposition from the commander of the Athenian squadron is noway credible.

Dr. Blomfield (ad Æschyl. Pers. 728) imagines that the story about Eurybiadês threatening Themistoklês with his stick, grew out of the story as related in Herodotus, though to Herodotus himself it was unknown. I cannot think that this is correct, since the story will not fit on to the narrative of that historian: it does not consist with his conception of the relations between Eurybiadês and Themistoklês.

[245] Herodot. viii, 61, 62. Σὺ εἰ μενέεις αὐτοῦ, καὶ μένων ἔσεαι ἀνὴρ ἀγαθός· εἰ δὲ μὴ, ἀνατρέψεις τὴν Ἑλλάδα.

All the best commentators treat this as an elliptical phrase,—some such words as σώσεις τὴν Ἑλλάδα or καλῶς ἂν ἔχοι, being understood after ἀγαθός. I adopt their construction, not without doubts whether it be the true one.

[246] Herodot. viii, 64. Οὕτω μὲν οἱ περὶ Σαλαμῖνα, ἔπεσι ἀκροβολισάμενοι, ἐπεί τε Εὐρυβιάδῃ ἔδοξε, αὐτοῦ παρεσκευάζοντο ὡς ναυμαχήσοντες.

[247] Herodot. viii, 74. ἕως μὲν δὴ αὐτῶν ἀνὴρ ἀνδρὶ παρίστατο, θώυμα ποιεύμενοι τὴν Εὐρυβιάδεω ἀβουλίην· τέλος δὲ, ἐξεῤῥάγη ἐς τὸ μέσον, σύλλογός τε δὴ ἐγίνετο, καὶ πολλὰ ἐλέγετο περὶ τῶν αὐτῶν, etc. Compare Plutarch, Themist. c. 12.

[248] Lykurgus (cont. Leokrat. c. 17, p. 185) numbers the Æginetans among those who were anxious to escape from Salamis during the night, and were only prevented from doing so by the stratagem of Themistoklês. This is a great mistake, as indeed these orators are perpetually misconceiving the facts of their past history. The Æginetans had an interest not less strong than the Athenians in keeping the fleet together and fighting at Salamis.

[249] Plutarch (Themistoklês, c. 12) calls Sikinnus a Persian by birth, which cannot be true.

[250] Herodot. viii, 75.

[251] Thucydid. i, 137. It is curious to contrast this with Æschylus, Persæ, 351, seq. See also Herodot. viii, 109, 110.

Isokratês might well remark about the ultimate rewards given by the Persians to Themistoklês,—Θεμιστοκλέα δ’, ὃς ὑπὲρ τῆς Ἑλλάδος αὐτοὺς κατεναυμάχησε, τῶν μεγίστων δωρέων ἠξίωσαν (Panegyric, Or. iv, p. 74),—though that orator speaks as if he knew nothing about the stratagem by which Themistoklês compelled the Greeks to fight at Salamis against their will. See the same Oration, c. 27, p. 61.

[252] Æschylus, Persæ, 370.

Herodotus does not mention this threat to the generals, nor does he even notice the personal interference of Xerxes in any way, so far as regards the night-movement of the Persian fleet. He treats the communication of Sikinnus as having been made to the Persian generals, and the night-movement as undertaken by them. The statement of the contemporary poet seems the more probable of the two: but he omits, as might be expected, all notice of the perilous dissensions in the Greek camp.

[253] Diodorus (xi, 17) states that the Egyptian squadron in the fleet of Xerxes was detached to block up the outlet between Salamis and the Megarid; that is, to sail round the southwestern corner of the island to the northwestern strait. Where the northwestern corner of the island is separated by a narrow strait from Megara, near the spot where the fort of Budorum was afterwards situated, during the Peloponnesian war.

Herodotus mentions nothing of this movement, and his account evidently implies that the Greek fleet was inclosed to the north of the town of Salamis, the Persian right wing having got between that town and Eleusis. The movement announced by Diodorus appears to me unnecessary and improbable. If the Egyptian squadron had been placed there, they would have been far indeed removed from the scene of the action, but we may see that Herodotus believed them to have taken actual part in the battle along with the rest (viii, 100).

[254] Herodot. viii, 76. Τοῖσι δὲ ὡς πιστὰ ἐγίνετο τὰ ἀγγελθέντα, τοῦτο μὲν, ἐς τὴν νησίδα τὴν Ψυττάλειαν, μεταξὺ Σαλαμῖνός τε κειμένην καὶ τῆς ἠπείρου, πολλοὺς τῶν Περσέων ἀπεβίβασαν· τοῦτο δὲ, ἐπειδὴ ἐγίνοντο μέσαι νύκτες, ἀνῆγον μὲν τὸ ἀπ’ ἑσπέρης κέρας κυκλούμενοι πρὸς τὴν Σαλαμῖνα· ἀνῆγον δὲ οἱ ἀμφὶ τὴν Κέον τε καὶ τὴν Κυνόσουραν τεταγμένοι, κατεῖχόν τε μέχρι Μουνυχίης πάντα τὸν πορθμὸν τῇσι νηϋσί.

He had previously stated Phalêrum as the main station of the Persian fleet; not necessarily meaning that the whole of it was there. The passage which I have just transcribed intimated what the Persians did to accomplish their purpose of surrounding the Greeks in the harbor of Salamis and the first part of it, wherein he speaks of the western (more properly northwestern) wing, presents no extraordinary difficulty, though we do not know how far the western wing extended before the movement was commenced. Probably it extended to the harbor of Peiræus, and began from thence its night-movement along the Attic coast to get beyond the town of Salamis. But the second part of the passage is not easy to comprehend, where he states that, “those who were stationed about Keos and Kynosura also moved, and beset with their ships the whole strait as far as Munychia.” What places are Keos and Kynosura, and where were they situated? The only known places of those names, are the island of Keos, not far south of cape Sunium in Attica,—and the promontory Kynosura, on the northeastern coast of Attica, immediately north of the bay of Marathon. It seems hardly possible to suppose that Herodotus meant this latter promontory, which would be too distant to render the movement which he describes at all practicable: even the island of Keos is somewhat open to the same objection, though not in so great a degree, of being too distant. Hence Barthélemy, Kruse, Bähr, and Dr. Thirlwall, apply the names Keos and Kynosura to two promontories (the southernmost and the southeasternmost) of the island of Salamis, and Kiepert has realized their idea in his newly published maps. But in the first place, no authority is produced for giving these names to two promontories in the island, and the critics only do it because they say it is necessary to secure a reasonable meaning to this passage of Herodotus. In the next place, if we admit their supposition, we must suppose that, before this night-movement commenced, the Persian fleet was already stationed in part of the island of Salamis: which appears to me highly improbable. Whatever station that fleet occupied before the night-movement, we may be very sure that it was not upon an island then possessed by the enemy: it was somewhere on the coast of Attica: and the names Keos and Kynosura must belong to some unknown points in Attica, not in Salamis. I cannot therefore adopt the supposition of these critics, though on the other hand Larcher is not satisfactory in his attempt to remove the objections which apply to the supposition of Keos and Kynosura as commonly understood. It is difficult in this case to reconcile the statement of Herodotus with geographical considerations, and I rather suspect that on this occasion the historian has been himself misled by too great a desire to find the oracle of Bakis truly fulfilled. It is from Bakis that he copies the name Kynosura (viii, 77).

[255] Herodot. viii, 79, 80.

Herodotus states, doubtless correctly, that Aristeidês, immediately after he had made the communication to the synod, went away, not pretending to take part in the debate: Plutarch represents him as present, and as taking part in it (Aristeidês, c. 9). According to Plutarch, Themistoklês desires Aristeidês to assist him in persuading Eurybiadês: according to Herodotus, Eurybiadês was already persuaded: it was the Peloponnesian chiefs who stood out.

The details of Herodotus will be found throughout both more credible and more consistent than those of Plutarch and the later writers.

[256] Æschylus, Pers. 473; Herodot. viii, 90. The throne with silver feet, upon which Xerxes had sat, was long preserved in the acropolis of Athens,—having been left at his retreat. Harpokration, Ἀργυρόπους δίφρος.

A writer, to whom Plutarch refers,—Akestodôrus,—affirmed that the seat of Xerxes was erected, not under mount Ægaleos, but much further to the northwest, on the borders of Attica and the Megarid, under the mountains called Kerata (Plutarch, Themistoklês, 13). If this writer was acquainted with the topography of Attica, we must suppose him to have ascribed an astonishingly long sight to Xerxes: but we may probably take the assertion as a sample of that carelessness in geography which marks so many ancient writers. Ktesias recognizes the Ἡρακλεῖον (Persica, c. 26)

[257] Herodot. viii, 85; Diodor. xi, 16.

[258] Herodot. viii, 83; Plutarch (Themistoklês, c. 13; Aristeidês, c. 9; Pelopidas, c. 21). Plutarch tells a story out of Phanias respecting an incident in the moment before the action, which it is pleasing to find sufficient ground for rejecting. Themistoklês, with the prophet Euphrantidês, was offering sacrifice by the side of the admiral’s galley, when three beautiful youths, nephews of Xerxes, were brought in prisoners. As the fire was just then blazing brilliantly, and sneezing was heard from the right, the prophet enjoined Themistoklês to offer these three prisoners as a propitiatory offering to Dionysus Omêstês: which the clamor of the bystanders compelled him to do against his will. This is what Plutarch states in his life of Themistoklês; in his life of Aristeidês, he affirms that these youths were brought prisoners from Psyttaleia, when Aristeidês attacked it at the beginning of the action. Now Aristeidês did not attack Psyttaleia until the naval combat was nearly over, so that no prisoners can have been brought from thence at the commencement of the action: there could therefore have been no Persian prisoners to sacrifice, and the story may be dismissed as a fiction.

[259] Herodot. viii, 84. φανεῖσαν δὲ διακελεύσασθαι, ὥστε καὶ ἅπαν ἀκοῦσαι τὸ τῶν Ἑλλήνων στρατόπεδον, ὀνειδίσασαν πρότερον τάδε· Ὦ δαιμόνιοι, μέχρι κόσου ἔτι πρύμναν ἀνακρούεσθε;

Æschylus (Pers. 396-415) describes finely the war-shout of the Greeks and the response of the Persians: for very good reasons, he does not notice the incipient backwardness of the Greeks, which Herodotus brings before us.

The war-shout, here described by Æschylus, a warrior actually engaged, shows us the difference between a naval combat of that day and the improved tactics of the Athenians fifty years afterwards, at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war. Phormio especially enjoins on his men the necessity of silence (Thucyd. ii, 89).

[260] Simonides, Epigram 138, Bergk; Plutarch, De Herodot. Malignitate, c. 36.

According to Plutarch (Themist. 12) and Diodorus (xi, 17), it was the Persian admiral’s ship which was first charged and captured: if the fact had been so, Æschylus would probably have specified it.

[261] Herodot. viii, 85; Diodor. xi, 16. Æschylus, in the Persæ, though he gives a long list of the names of those who fought against Athens, does not make any allusion to the Ionic or to any other Greeks as having formed part of the catalogue. See Blomfield ad Æschyl. Pers. 42. Such silence easily admits of explanation: yet it affords an additional reason for believing that the persons so admitted did not fight very heartily.

[262] Herodot. viii, 86; Diodor. xi, 17. The testimony of the former, both to the courage manifested by the Persian fleet, and to their entire want of order and system, is decisive, as well as to the effect of the personal overlooking of Xerxes.

[263] Simonides, Epigr. 138, Bergk.

[264] The many names of Persian chiefs whom Æschylus reports as having been slain, are probably for the most part inventions of his own, to please the ears of his audience. See Blomfield, Præfat. ad Æschyl. Pers. p. xii.

[265] Herodot. viii, 90.

[266] Compare the indignant language of Demosthenês a century and a quarter afterwards, respecting the second Artemisia, queen of Karia, as the enemy of Athens,—ὑμεῖς δ’ ὄντες Ἀθηναῖοι βάρβαρον ἄνθρωπον, καὶ ταῦτα γυναῖκα, φοβηθήσεσθε (Demosthenes, De Rhodior. Libertat. c. x, p. 197).

[267] Herodot. viii, 87, 88, 93. The story given here by Herodotus respecting the stratagem whereby Artemisia escaped, seems sufficiently probable; and he may have heard it from fellow-citizens of his own who were aboard her vessel. Though Plutarch accuses him of extravagant disposition to compliment this queen, it is evident that he does not himself like the story, nor consider it to be a compliment; for he himself insinuates a doubt: “I do not know whether she ran down the Kalyndian ship intentionally, or came accidentally into collision with it.” Since the shock was so destructive that the Kalyndian ship was completely run down and sunk, so that every man of her crew perished, we may be pretty sure that it was intentional; and the historian merely suggests a possible hypothesis to palliate an act of great treachery. Though the story of the sinking of the Kalyndian ship has the air of truth, however, we cannot say the same about the observation of Xerxes, and the notice which he is reported to have taken of the act: all this reads like nothing but romance.

We have to regret (as Plutarch observes, De Malign. Herodot. p. 873) that Herodotus tells us so much less about others than about Artemisia; but he doubtless heard more about her than about the rest, and perhaps his own relatives may have been among her contingent.

[268] Herodot. viii, 95; Plutarch, Aristid. c. 9; Æschyl. Pers. 454-470; Diodor. xii, 19.

[269] Herodot. viii, 96.

[270] The victories of the Greeks over the Persians were materially aided by the personal timidity of Xerxes, and of Darius Codomannus at Issus and Arbela (Arrian, ii, 11, 6; iii, 14, 3).

[271] See this feeling especially in the language of Mardonius to Xerxes (Herodot. viii, 100), as well as in that put into the mouth of Artemisia by the historian (viii, 68), which indicates the general conception of the historian himself, derived from the various information which reached him.

[272] Herodot. vii, 10.

[273] This important fact is not stated by Herodotus: but it is distinctly given in Diodorus, xi, 19. It seems probable enough.

If the tragedy of Phrynichus, entitled Phœnissæ, had been preserved, we should have known more about the position and behavior of the Phenician contingent in this invasion. It was represented at Athens only three years after the battle of Salamis, in B. C. 477 or 476, with Themistoklês as choregus, four years earlier than the Persæ of Æschylus, which was affirmed by Glaukus to have been (παραπεποιῆσθαι) altered from it. The Chorus in the Phœnissæ consisted of Phenician women, possibly the widows of those Phenicians whom Xerxes had caused to be beheaded after the battle (Herodot. viii, 90, as Dr. Blomfield supposes, Præf. ad Æsch. Pers. p. ix), or only of Phenicians absent on the expedition. The fragments remaining of this tragedy, which gained the prize, are too scanty to sustain any conjectures as to its scheme or details (see Welcker Griechische Tragœd. vol. i, p. 26; and Droysen, Phrynichos, Æschylos, und die Trilogie, pp. 4-6).

[274] Herodot. ix, 32.

[275] Herodot. viii, 97-107. Such was the terror of these retreating seamen, that they are said to have mistaken the projecting cliffs of Cape Zôstêr (about half-way between Peiræus and Sunium) for ships, and redoubled the haste of their flight as if an enemy were after them,—a story which we can treat as nothing better than silly exaggeration in the Athenian informants of Herodotus.

Ktesias, Pers. c. xxvi; Strabo, ix, p. 395; the two latter talk about the intention to carry a mole across from Attica to Salamis, as if it had been conceived before the battle.

[276] Compare Herodot. vii, 10.

[277] Herodot. viii, 101, 102.

[278] Herodot. viii, 109, 110; Thucyd. i, 137. The words ἢν ψευδῶς προσεποιήσατο may probably be understood in a sense somewhat larger than that which they naturally bear in Thucydidês. In point of fact, not only was it false that Themistoklês was the person who dissuaded the Greeks from going to the Hellespont, but it was also false that the Greeks had ever any serious intention of going there. Compare Cornelius Nepos, Themistokl. c. 5.

[279] Herodot. viii, 111. ἐπεὶ Ἀνδρίους γε εἶναι γεωπείνας ἐς τὰ μέγιστα ἀνήκοντας, καὶ θεοὺς δύο ἀχρήστους οὐκ ἐκλείπειν σφέων τὴν νῆσον, ἀλλ’ ἀεὶ φιλοχωρέειν—Πενίην τε καὶ Ἀμηχανίην.

Compare Alkæus, Fragm. 90, ed. Bergk, and Herodot. vii, 172.

[280] Herodot. viii, 112; Plutarch, Themistoklês, c. 21,—who cites a few bitter lines from the contemporary poet Timokreon.

[281] Herodot. viii, 112-121.

[282] Herodot. viii, 114-126.

[283] The account given by Æschylus of this retiring march appears to me exaggerated, and in several points incredible (Persæ, 482-513). That they suffered greatly during the march from want of provisions, is doubtless true, and that many of them died of hunger. But we must consider in deduction: 1. That this march took place in the months of October and November, therefore not very long after the harvest. 2. That Mardonius maintained a large army in Thessaly all the winter, and brought them out in fighting condition in the spring. 3. That Artabazus also, with another large division, was in military operation in Thrace all the winter, after having escorted Xerxes into safety.

When we consider these facts, it will seem that the statements of Æschylus, even as to the sufferings by famine, must be taken with great allowance. But his statement about the passage of the Strymon appears to me incredible, and I regret to find myself on this point differing from Dr. Thirlwall, who considers it an undoubted fact. (Hist. Greece, ch. xv, p. 351, 2d ed.) “The river had been frozen in the night hard enough to bear those who arrived first. But the ice suddenly gave way under the morning sun, and numbers perished in the waters,”—so Dr. Thirlwall states, after Æschylus,—adding, in a note, “It is a little surprising that Herodotus, when he is describing the miseries of the retreat, does not notice this disaster, which is so prominent in the narrative of the Persian messenger in Æschylus. There can, however, be no doubt as to the fact: and perhaps it may furnish a useful warning, not to lay too much stress on the silence of Herodotus, as a ground for rejecting even important and interesting facts which are only mentioned by later writers,” etc.

That a large river, such as the Strymon, near its mouth (180 yards broad, and in latitude about N. 40° 50′), at a period which could not have been later than the beginning of November, should have been frozen over in one night so hardly and firmly as to admit of a portion of the army marching over it at daybreak, before the sun became warm,—is a statement which surely requires a more responsible witness than Æschylus to avouch it. In fact, he himself describes it as a “frost out of season,” (χειμῶν’ ἄωρον,) brought about by a special interposition of the gods. If he is to be believed, none of the fugitives were saved, except such as were fortunate enough to cross the Strymon on the ice during the interval between break of day and the sun’s heat. One would imagine that there was a pursuing enemy on their track, leaving them only a short time for escape: whereas in fact, they had no enemy to contend with,—nothing but the difficulty of finding subsistence. During the advancing march of Xerxes, a bridge of boats had been thrown over the Strymon: nor can any reason be given why that bridge should not still have been subsisting: Artabazus must have recrossed it after he had accompanied the monarch to the Hellespont. I will add, that the town and fortress of Eion, which commanded the mouth of the Strymon, remained as an important strong-hold of the Persians some years after this event, and was only captured, after a desperate resistance, by the Athenians and their confederates under Kimon.

The Athenian auditors of the Persæ would not criticize nicely, the historical credibility of that which Æschylus told them about the sufferings of their retreating foe, nor his geographical credibility when he placed Mount Pangæus on the hither side of the Strymon, to persons marching out of Greece (Persæ, 494). But I must confess that, to my mind, his whole narrative of the retreat bears the stamp of the poet and the religious man, not of the historical witness. And my confidence in Herodotus is increased when I compare him on this matter with Æschylus,—as well in what he says as in what he does not say.

[284] Juvenal, Satir. x, 178.

[285] Herodot. viii, 130.

[286] See the account of the retreat of Xerxes, in Herodotus, viii, 115-120, with many stories which he mentions only to reject. The description given in the Persæ of Æschylus (v, 486, 515, 570) is conceived in the same spirit. The strain reaches its loudest pitch in Justin (ii, 13), who tells us that Xerxes was obliged to cross the strait in a fishing-boat. “Ipse cum paucis Abydon contendit. Ubi cum solutum pontem hibernis tempestatibus offendisset, piscatoriâ scaphâ trepidus trajecit. Erat res spectaculo digna et, æstimatione sortis humanæ, rerum varietate miranda—in exiguo latentem videre navigio, quem paulo ante vix æquor omne capiebat: carentem etiam omni servorum ministerio, cujus exercitus propter multitudinem terris graves erant.”

[287] Herodot. viii, 109. ἡμεῖς δὲ, εὕρημα γὰρ εὑρήκαμεν ἡμέας αὐτοὺς καὶ τὴν Ἑλλάδα, μὴ διώκωμεν ἄνδρας φεύγοντας.

[288] Herodot. viii, 93-122; Diodor. xi, 27.

[289] Herodot. viii, 94; Thucyd. i, 42, 103. τὸ σφοδρὸν μῖσος from Corinth towards Athens. About Aristeus, Thucyd. ii, 67.

Plutarch (De Herodot. Malignit. p. 870) employs many angry words in refuting this Athenian scandal, which the historian himself does not uphold as truth. The story advanced by Dio Chrysostom (Or. xxxvii, p. 456), that Herodotus asked for a reward from the Corinthians, and on being refused, inserted this story into his history for the purpose of being revenged upon them, deserves no attention without some reasonable evidence: the statement of Diyllus, that he received ten talents from the Athenians as a reward for his history, would be much less improbable, so far as the fact of pecuniary reward, apart from the magnitude of the sum: but this also requires proof. Dio Chrysostom is not satisfied with rejecting this tale of the Athenians, but goes the length of affirming that the Corinthians carried off the palm of bravery, and were the cause of the victory. The epigrams of Simonides, which he cites, prove nothing of the kind (p. 459). Marcellinus (Vit. Thucyd. p. xvi), insinuates a charge against Herodotus, something like that of Plutarch and Dio.

[290] Herodot. viii, 123. Plutarch (Themist. c. 17: compare De Herodot. Malign. p. 871) states that each individual chief gave his second vote to Themistoklês. The more we test Herodotus by comparison with others, the more we shall find him free from the exaggerating spirit.

[291] Herodot. viii 124; Plutarch, Themist. c. 17.

[292] Diodor. xi, 27; compare Herodot. viii, 125, and Thucyd. i, 74.

[293] Herodot. viii, 85.

[294] Herodot. viii, 130; Diodor xi. 27.

[295] Herodot. viii, 131, 132: compare Thucyd. iii, 29-32.

Herodotus says, that the Chian envoys had great difficulty in inducing Leotychidês to proceed even as far as Delos,—τὸ γὰρ προσωτέρω πᾶν δεινὸν ἦν τοῖσι Ἕλλησι, οὔτε τῶν χώρων ἐοῦσι ἐμπείροισι, στρατιῆς τε πάντα πλέα ἐδόκεε εἶναι· τὴν δὲ Σάμον ἐπιστέατο δόξῃ καὶ Ἡρακλέας στήλας ἴσον ἀπέχειν.

This last expression of Herodotus has been erroneously interpreted by some of the commentators, as if it were a measure of the geographical ignorance, either of Herodotus himself, or of those whom he is describing. In my judgment, no inferences of this kind ought to be founded upon it: it marks fear of an enemy’s country which they had not been accustomed to visit, and where they could not calculate the risk beforehand,—rather than any serious comparison between one distance and another. Speaking of our forefathers, such of them as were little used to the sea, we might say,—“A voyage to Bordeaux or Lisbon seemed to them as distant as a voyage to the Indies,”—by which we should merely affirm something as to their state of feeling, not as to their geographical knowledge.