Histories Page 16

  11. Herodotus professes to count three generations to the century (ii, 142), thus making the generation 33 1/2 years. In this case the average of the generations is but 23 years.

  12. The contrast between the feelings of the Greeks and the barbarians on this point is noted by Thucydides (i, 6), where we learn that the exhibition of the naked person was recent, even with the Greeks.

  13. There are strong grounds for believing that Archilochus was later than Callinus, who is proved by Grote to have written after the great Cimmerian invasion in the reign of Ardys. But there is nothing to show at what time in the reign of Ardys this invasion happened. Archilochus may have been contemporary both with Gyges and Ardys. The Cimmerian invasion may have been early in the reign of the latter prince, say BC 675.

  14. Every Phrygian king mentioned in ancient history is either Midas, son of Gordias, or Gordias, son of Midas.

  15. See chaps. 73-4.

  16. See ch. 150.

  17. Aulus Gellius understood the ‘male and female flutes’, as flutes played by men, and flutes played by women. But it is more probable that flutes of different tones or pitches are intended. The flute, the pitch of which was lower, would be called male; the more treble or shrill-sounding one would be the female.

  18. The feeling that restitution should be twofold, when made to the gods, was a feature of the religion of Rome. It was not recognised in Greece.

  19. Periander was a tyrant in the ancient sense of the word, in which it is simply equivalent to the Latin ‘rex’ and the Greek anax, or basileus; because he inherited the crown from his father Cypselus. But it would rather seem that the word bears here the sense of a king who rules with a usurped and unconstitutional authority.

  20. The invention of the dithyramb, or cyclic chorus, was ascribed to Arion, not only by Herodotus, but also by Aristotle, by Hellanicus, by Dicaearchus and, implicitly, by Pindar, who said it was invented at Corinth. Perhaps it is best to conclude that Arion did not invent, but only improved the dithyramb. The dithyramb was originally a mere hymn in honour of Dionysus, with the circumstances of whose birth the word is somewhat fancifully connected (Eurip. Bacch. 526). It was sung by a komos, or band of revellers, directed by a leader.

  21. According to the scholiast on Aristophanes, the orthian was pitched in a high key, as the name would imply, and was a lively spirited air.

  22. In memory of this legend, the Tarentines were fond of exhibiting Arion, astride upon his dolphin, on their coins.

  23. Various attempts have been made to rationalise the legend of Arion.The truth seems to be, that the legend grew out of the figure at Taenarum, which was known by its inscription to be an offering of Arion’s. The figure itself remained at Taenarum more than seven hundred years. It was seen by Aelian in the third century after Christ.

  24. It is questionable whether by kollesis is to be understood the inlaying, or merely the welding of iron together. The only two descriptions which eye-witnesses have left us of the salver, lead in opposite directions.

  25. An analogous case is mentioned by Plutarch (Solon c. 12). The fugitives implicated in the insurrection of Cylon at Athens connected themselves with the altar by a cord. Through the breaking of the cord they lost their sacred character. So, too, when Polycrates dedicated the island of Rheneia to the Delian Apollo, he connected it with Delos by a chain (Thucydides iii, 104).

  26. We learn by this that the site of Ephesus had changed between the time of Croesus and that of Herodotus. The building seen by Herodotus was that burnt BC 356.

  27. It is not quite correct to speak of the Cilicians as dwelling within (i.e. west of) the Halys, for the Halys in its upper course ran through Cilicia (dia Kilikon, ch. 72), and that country lay chiefly south of the river. Lycia and Cilicia would be likely to maintain their independence, being both countries of great natural strength. They lie upon the high mountain-range of Taurus, which runs from east to west along the south of Asia Minor, within about a degree of the shore, and sends down from the main chain a series of lateral branches or spurs, which extend to the sea along the whole line of coast from the Gulf of Makri, opposite Rhodes, to the plain of Tarsus. The mountains of the interior are in many parts covered with snow during the whole or the greater part of the year.

  28. Solon’s visit to Croesus was rejected as fabulous before the time of Plutarch (Solon c. 27), on account of chronological difficulties. Croesus most probably reigned from BC568 to 554. Solon certainly outlived the first usurpation of the government at Athens by Pisistratus, which was BC 560.

  29. The travels of Solon are attested by Plato (Timaeus, p. 21) and others.

  30. Amasis began to reign BC 569. Solon might sail from Athens to Egypt, thence to Cyprus (Herod. v, 113), and from Cyprus to Lydia.

  31. See vi, 125.

  32. Cicero and others relate that the ground of the necessity was the circumstances that the youths’ mother was priestess of Hera at the time. Servius says a pestilence had destroyed the oxen, which contradicts Herodotus. Otherwise the tale is told with fewer varieties than most ancient stories.

  33. The phthonos (jealousy) of God is a leading feature in Herodotus’s conception of the Deity and no doubt is one of the chief moral conclusions which he drew from his own survey of human events, and intended to impress on us by his history. (See, vii, 40; vii, 46 and especially vii, 10, §5–6.) Herodotus’s phthoneros theos is not simply the ‘deus ultor’ of religious Romans, much less the ‘jealous God’ of Scripture. The idea of an avenging God is included in the Herodotean conception, but is far from being the whole of it. Prosperity, not pride, eminence, not arrogance, provokes him. He does not like any one to be great or happy but himself (vii, 46, end). What is most remarkable is that with such a conception of the divine nature, Herodotus could maintain such a placid, cheerful, childlike temper, Possibly he was serene because he felt secure in his mediocrity.

  34. ‘The days of our years are three-score years and ten’ (Psalms xc, 10).

  35. No commentator on Herodotus has succeeded in explaining the curious mistake whereby the solar year is made to average 375 days. That Herodotus knew the true solar year was not 375, but more nearly 365 days, is clear from book ii, ch. 4. Two inaccuracies produce the error in Herodotus. In the first place he makes Solon count his months at 30 days each, whereas it is notorious that the Greek months, after the system of intercalation was introduced, were alternately of 29 and 30 days. By this error his first number is raised from 24,780 to 25,200, and also his second number from 1033 to 1050. Secondly, he omits to mention that from time to time (every 4th trieretis probably) the intercalary month was omitted altogether.

  36. Adrastus is ‘the doomed’ – ‘the man unable to escape’. Atys is ‘the youth under the influence of Ate’ – ‘the man judicially blind’.

  37. Zeus was Catharsius, ‘the god of purifications’, not on account of the resemblance of the rites of purification with those of Zeus Meilikhios but simply in the same way that he was Ephistius and Hetaereüs, god of hearths, and of companionship, because he presided over all occasions of obligation between man and man, and the purified person contracted an obligation towards his purifier.

  38. ‘The one in Libya’ (Africa) – that of Ammon, because Egypt was regarded by Herodotus as in Asia, not in Africa.

  39. The oracle at Abae seems to have ranked next to that at Delphi. The Ôrientals do not appear to have possessed any indigenous oracles.

  40. The megaron was the ‘inner shrine’, the sacred chamber where the oracles were given.

  41. It is impossible to discuss such a question as the nature of the ancient oracles, which has had volumes written upon it, within the limits of a note. I will only observe that in forming our judgment on the subject, two points should be kept steadily in view: (1) the fact that the Pythoness whom St Paul met with on his first entrance into European Greece, was really possessed by an evil spi
rit which St Paul cast out, thereby depriving her masters of all their hopes of gain (Acts xvi, 16–19): and (2) the phenomena of Mesmerism. In one or other of these, or in both of them combined, will be found the simplest, and probably the truest explanation, of all that is really marvellous in the responses of the oracles.

  42. See ii, 180 and v, 62. It was burnt accidentally.

  43. Both in Julius Pollux and in Philostratus there is mention of the Theophania, as a festival celebrated by the Greeks. No particulars are known of it.

  44. Pausanias ascribed to Theodore of Samos the invention of casting in bronze, and spoke of him also as an architect (III, xii, §8; VIII, xiv, §5) Pliny agreed with both statements (Nat. Hist. xxxv, 12).

  45. For the story of Amphiaraus, cf. Pausanias I, xxxiv and II, xiii, §6; Aeschylus Septem 564: ff The ‘misfortune’ is his being engulfed near Oropus, or (as some said) at Harma in Boeotia.

  46. For the stater, see Book vii, note 36.

  47. The Cadmeians were the Graeco-Phoenician race (their name merely signifying ‘the Easterns’), who in the ante-Trojan times, occupied the country which was afterwards called Boeotia. Hence the Greek tragedians in plays of which ancient Thebes is the scene, invariably speak of the Thebans as Kadmeioi, Kadmeios leos.

  48. See vi, 137.

  49. There can be no doubt that these local factions must also have been political parties.

  50. Plutarch mentions a war between Athens and Megara, under the conduct of Solon, in which Pisistratus was said to have distinguished himself (Solon c. 8), as having occurred before Solon’s legislation, i.e. before BC 594.

  51. Grote has some just remarks upon the observations with which Herodotus accompanies the story of Phya. It seems clear that the Greeks of the age of Pisistratus fully believed in the occasional presence upon earth of the gods. Grote refers to the well-known appearance of the god Pan to Phidippides a little before the battle of Marathon, which Herodotus himself states to have been received as true by the Athenians (vi, 105). [The woman’s height would be about 6 English feet.]

  52. See v, 70–1; Thucydides i, 126 and Plutarch Solon c. 12. The curse rested on them on account of their treatment of the partisans of Cylon. The archon of the time, Megacles, not only broke faith with them after he had, by a pledge to spare their lives, induced them to leave the sacred precinct of Athene in the Acropolis, but also slew a number at the altar of the Eumenides.

  53. Pallene was a village of Attica, near Gargettus, which is the modern Garitó. It was famous for its temple of Athene, which was of such magnificence as to be made the subject of a special treatise by Themison, whose book, entitled Pallenis, is mentioned by Athenaeus (vi, 6).

  54. The revenues of Pisistratus were derived in part from the income tax of five per cent which he levied from his subjects (Thucydides vi, 54), in part probably from the silver-mines at Laurium, which a little later were so remarkably productive (Herod. vii, 144). He had also a third source of revenue, of which Herodotus here speaks, consisting apparently either of lands or mines lying near the Strymon, and belonging to him probably in his private capacity. That part of Thrace was famous for its gold and silver mines.

  55. Compare Thucydides iii, 104.

  56. The embassy of Croesus cannot possibly have been subsequent to the final establishment of Pisistratus at Athens, which was in BC 542 at the earliest. It probably occurred during his first term of power.

  57. The enomotiai were divisions of the Spartan cohort. Of the triekades nothing seems to be known. They may have been also divisions of the army, but divisions confined to the camp, not existing in the field. The word sussitia would seem in this place not to have its ordinary signification, ‘common meals’ or ‘messes’, but to be applied to the ‘set of persons who were appointed to mess together’.

  58. It is quite inconceivable that Lycurgus should in any sense have instituted the senate. Lycurgus appears to have made scarcely any changes in the constitution. What he did was to alter the customs and habits of the people.

  59. Athene Alea was an Arcadian goddess. She was worshipped at Mantinea, Manthyrea, and Alea, as well as at Tegea. Her temple at Tegea was particularly magnificent. See the description in Pausanias (viii, 47, §1-2).

  60. Herodotus means to represent that the forging of iron was a novelty at the time. Brass was known to the Greeks before iron, as the Homeric poems sufficiently indicate.

  61. Pausanias declares that the gold obtained of Croesus by the Lacedae-monians was used in fact upon a statue of Apollo at Amyclae (III, x, §10).

  62. See ii, 182.

  63. For a description of the Persian dress, see note 126.

  64. See vii, 72. The Cappadocians of Herodotus inhabit the country bounded by the Euxine on the north, the Halys on the west, the Armenians apparently on the east (from whom the Cappadocians are clearly distinguished, vii, 72-3), and the Matieni on the south.

  65. Herodotus tells us in one place (iv, 101) that he reckons the day’s journey at 200 stadia, that is at about 23 of our miles. If we regard this as the measure intended here, we must consider that Herodotus imagined the isthmus of Natolia to be but 115 miles across, 165 miles short of the truth. It must be observed, however, that the ordinary day’s journey cannot be intended by the hodos euzonoi andri. The aner euzonos is not the mere common traveller. He is the lightly-equipped pedestrian and his day’s journey must be estimated at something considerably above 200 stades. Herodotus appears to speak not of any particular case or cases, but generally of all lightly-equipped pedestrians. He cannot therefore be rightly regarded as free from mistake in the matter. Probably he considered the isthmus at least 100 miles narrower than it really is.

  66. The prediction of this eclipse by Thales may fairly be classed with the prediction of a good olive-crop or of the fall of an aërolite. Thales, indeed, could only have obtained the requisite knowledge for predicting eclipses from the Chaldaeans, and that the science of these astronomers, although sufficient for the investigation of lunar eclipses, did not enable them to calculate solar eclipses – dependent as such a calculation is, not only on the determination of the period of recurrence, but on the true projection of the track of the sun’s shadow along a particular line over the surface of the earth – may be inferred from our finding that in the astronomical canon of Ptolemy, which was compiled from the Chaldaean registers, the observations of the moon’s eclipses are alone entered.

  67. The name Syennesis is common to all the kings of Cilicia mentioned in history. It has been supposed not to be really a name, but like Pharaoh, a title.

  68. Cilicia had become an independent state, either by the destruction of Assyria, or in the course of her decline after the reign of Esarhaddon. Previously, she had been included in the dominions of the Assyrian kings.

  69. The Babylonian monarch at this time was either Nabopolassar or Nebuchadnezzar. Neither of these names is properly Hellenised by Labynetus. Labynetus is undoubtedly the Nabunahid of the inscriptions, the Nabonadius of the Canon, the Nabonnedus of Berosus and Megasthenes.

  70. See iv, 70, and Tacitus Annals xii, 47.

  71. The Halys (Kizil Irmak) is fordable at no very great distance from its mouth, but bridges over it are not unfrequent. These are of a very simple construction consisting of planks laid across a few slender beams, extending from bank to bank, without any parapet. Bridges with stone piers have existed at some former period but they belong probably to Roman and not to any earlier times. The ancient constructions mentioned by Herodotus are more likely to have been of the modern type.

  72. Pteria in Herodotus is a district, not a city.

  73. Sinope was a colony of the Milesians founded about BC 630 (see iv, 12). It occupied the neck of a small peninsula projecting into the Euxine towards the north east. The ancient town has been completely ruined, and the modern is built of its fragments.

  74. The treaty of Amasis
with Croesus would suffice to account for the hostility of the Persians against Egypt.

  75. Undoubtedly the Nabonadius of the Canon, and the Nabunahid of the monuments. The fact that it was with this monarch that Croesus made his treaty helps greatly to fix the date of the fall of Sardis; it proves that that event cannot have happened earlier than BC 554. For Nabunahid did not ascend the throne till 555, and a full year must be allowed between the conclusion of the treaty and the taking of the Lydian capital.

  76. Three distinct cities of Asia Minor are called by this name. The Lycian Telmessus lay upon the coast occupying the site of the modern village of Makri, where are some curious remains, especially tombs partly Greek, partly native Lycian.

  77. Sardis (the modern Sart) stood in the broad valley of the Hermus at a point where the hills approach each other more closely than in any other place. Some vestiges of the ancient town remain, but, except the ruins of the great temple of Cybele (see v, 102), they seem to be of a late date.

  78. The Dindymenian mother was Cybele, the special deity of Phrygia.

  79. The Hermus (Ghiediz-Chai) now falls into the sea very much nearer to Smyrna than to Phocaea. Its course is perpetually changing.

  80. Thyrea was the chief town of the district called Cynuria, the border territory between Laconia and Argolis (cf. Thucydides v, 41).

  81. Sardis was taken a second time in almost exactly the same way by Lagoras, one of the generals of Antiochus the Great.

  82. The later romancers regarded this incident as over-marvellous, and softened down the miracle considerably.

  83. Modern critics seem not to have been the first to object to this entire narrative, that the religion of the Persians did not allow the burning of human beings (see iii, 16). The objection had evidently been made before the time of Nicolas of Damascus, who meets it indirectly in his narrative. The Persians (he gives us to understand) had for some time before this neglected the precepts of Zoroaster, and allowed his ordinances with respect to fire to fall into desuetude. The miracle whereby Croesus was snatched from the flames reminded them of their ancient creed, and induced them to re-establish the whole system of Zoroaster. It may be doubted, however, whether the system of Zoroaster was at this time any portion of the Persian religion.