pecting these enemies, who came upon him by Chersonese, that the following prodigy hap surprise. CXVII. Whilst they were prosecuting the siege, the autumn arrived. The Athenians, unable to make themselves masters of the place, and uneasy at being engaged in an expedition so far from their country, entreated their Leaders to conduct them home. They, in return, refused to do this, till they should either succeed in their enterprise, or be recalled by the people of Athens, so intent were they on the business before them. CXVIII. The besieged, who were with Artayctes, were reduced to such extremity of wretchedness, that they were obliged to boil for food, the cords of which their beds were composed. When these also were consumed Artayctes, Eobazus, with some other Persians, fled, under cover of the night, escaping by an avenue behind the town, which happened not to be blockaded by the enemy. When the morning came, the people of the Chersonese made signals to the Athenians from the turrets, and opened to them the gates. The greater part commenced a pursuit of the Persians, the remainder took possession of the town. pened to one of those whose business was to guard the prisoners. This man was broiling some salt fish; having put them on the fire, they moved and skipped about like fish lately taken; the standers-by expressing their astonishment at this, Artayctes, who also beheld the prodigy, sent for the man to whom it had happened, and spoke to him as follows: "My Athenian friend, be not alarmed at this prodigy, it has no reference to you, it regards me alone. Protesilaus of Eleæos, although dead and embalmed in salt, shows that he has power from the gods to inflict vengeance on the man who injured him. I am therefore disposed to satisfy him for my ransom. In place of the money, which I took from his temple, I will give him a hundred talents; for my son's life, and my own, I will give the Athenians two hundred more." These offers had no effect upon Xanthippus the Athenian general; be was of himself inclined to put the man to death, to which he was farther importuned by the people of Eleæos, who were very earnest to have the cause of Protesilaus avenged. Conducting him therefore to the shore where the bridge of Xerxes had been constructed, they there crucified him; though some say this was done upon an eminence near the city of Madytus. The son was stoned in his father's presence. CXIX. Eobazus fled into Thrace; but he was here seized by the Apsinthians, and sacrificed, according to their rites, to their god Pleistorus: his followers were put to death in some other manner. Artayctes and his adherents, who fled the last, were overtaken near the waters of Ægos, where, after a vigorous defence, part were slain and part taken prisoners. The Greeks put them all in chains, Artayctes and his son with the rest, and carried them to Sestos. CXX. It is reported by the people of the cified, the grandfather by the father's side was I Pleistorus.]—This deity, barbarous as the people by whom he was worshipped, is totally unknown. The sacrifices offered him induce me to conjecture, that it was the god of war, whom the Scythians represented under the form of a sword. These people, over a large vessel, cut the throat of every hundredth prisoner, wetting the sword with their blood. The same custom prevailed among the Huns.-See Ammianus Marcellinus, 1. xxxi. c. 2. The Cilicians paid the god of war a worship savage like this; they suspended the victim, whether a man or an animal, from a tree, and going to a small distance, killed it with their spears.-Larcher. Cruel as these customs may appear, yet prevailing among a rude and uncivilized people, they are more to be justified, than the unprovoked and unnatural inhumanity practised at Tauris. Here every stranger, whom accident or misfortune brought to their coast, was sacrificed to Diana.-See The Iphigenia in Tauris of Euripides.-T. CXXI. The Athenians after the above transactions, returned to Greece, carrying with them, besides vast quantities of money, the fragments of the bridge, to be suspended in their temples. During the remainder of the year they continued inactive. CXXII. Of this Artayctes, who was cru Artembares, who drew up an address for the Persians, which they approving, presented to Cyrus; it was to this effect: "Since, O Cyrus, Jupiter has given to the Persians, and by the degradation of Astyages to you, uncontrolled dominion, suffer us to remove from our present confined and sterile region to a better. We have the choice of many, near and at a distance; let us occupy one of these, and become exam. ples of admiration to the rest of mankind. This is a conduct becoming those whose superiority is conspicuous; we can never have a fairer opportunity of doing this, being at the head of so many people, and masters of all Asia." Cyrus, though he did not approve what they said, told them they might do so: the produce of the same soil. The Persians yielded to these sentiments of Cyrus and abandoned their own. They chose rather a less but he added, that by taking such a step, they must learn in future not to command but to obey. It was the operation of nature, that luxurious countries should render men effemi-pleasant country with dominion, than a faire nate, 2 2 for delicacies and heroes were seldom 2 Effeminate.]-Hippocrates confirms what is here asserted by Herodotus. After describing the advantages which the temperate parts of Asia possess over Greece; he adds, that the men there are not naturally valiant, and are unwilling to support fatigues and hardships. This sentiment is approved by experience. Grecce subdued Asia, the Romans became masters of both those countries, and if they also conquered the Gauls, the Germans, and other nations of the north, it was because these were undisciplined and ignorant of the art of war. When they became so, they in their turn subdued the lords of the world, and dismembered their empire. The Franks vanquished the Gauls, the Lombards, and the Visigoths of Spain. In a word, it is always to be observed, that the people of the north have the advantage over those of the south.-Larcher. one with servitude. The ninth cannot be thought the least interesting of the books of Herodotus. The battles of Platea and Mycale would alone claim attention, without those beautiful moral sentiments which we find every where interspersed in it. The behaviour of Pausanias after his victory, his dignity, moderation, and modesty, are admirably describ. ed; his continence, with respect to the mistress of Pharandates, may, for any thing I see to the contrary in either history, well be put on a par with the so much vaunted temperance of Scipio on a similar occasion. The concluding sentiment, which teaches that the dispositions of men should be conformed to the nature of the soil and climate in which they are born, is alike admirable for the simplicity with which it is conveyed, and the philosophic truth which it inculcates.-T. INDEX. A Abantes, why they cut off their hair before, 46, n. Abdera, many singularities related of, 51, n.-stigmatized Abderites, Xerxes makes a treaty of friendship with, 410. Acanthians presented by Xerxes with a Median vest, 319. Aces, the river, its passage prevented by the Persians, 176. Achelous, a river in Egypt, 70. Acheron, 391, n. Ægineta, their resentment to the Samians, 155-assist Ægium, answer of the oracle to the people of, 46, n. Adimantus, the Athenian, had an honourable epitaph Eolians subdued by Croesus, 3-their offer of allegiance inscribed on his tomb, 381, n. Adimantus, the Corinthian, is prevented by Themis- presence Adoption always performed by the Spartans in Adrastus, son of Gordius, having unwillingly killed his Adyrmachido, a people of Africa, their customs, 233, & n. Eacida, 269, 394. rejected by Cyrus, 44-their cities, 47-send ambassa- Esop, his conversation with Solon at Sardis, 11, n.-the Ethiopians, Macrobian, 141-term of their lives, 143- Fucus, an edifice erected by the Athenians sacred to Etolians, a shocking character of them, 398, n. him, 271-his aid entreated by the Greeks, 394. Ageus, son of Pandion, 53. Agide, whence their name, 228-build a shrine to the Africa, first discovered by Necho, king of Egypt, to be Africans, nearest to Egypt, submit to Cambyses, 139- Agasicles, of Halicarnassus, violated the custom of the Age, reverence paid to by the Egyptians and Lacedæ- Agetus, son of Alcides, his wife from being remark. Agylla, men and cattle seized with convulsions on ap- Ahasuerus, the subject of much etymological investiga- Ajax, son of Telamon, 261-invoked by the Greeks at Aimnestus slays Mardonius in the battle of Platea, 433. Alcaus, the son of Hercules, 3. Altar of the twelve deities at Athens, 69, 312-at Delphi, Altars, none among the Persians, 41-first erected by Alyatles, king of Sardis, 6-resumes his father's war Amasis rebels against Apries king of Egypt, 127-takes Alcaus, the poet, fled from the field, 274-some account Amasis, a Maraphian, intrusted by Ariandes with the Alemæon, son of Megacles, by the permission of Crœsus Alemaonidæ, construct the temple of Delphi, 262-bribe Aleuada send messengers from Thessaly, imploring Alexander, son of Priam, resolves to obtain a wife from Alexander, son of Amyntas, by stratagem procures the Alexander the Great, his order to his troops to cut off conduct of an army against the Barceans, 233—his Amathusia besieged by Onesilus, 277-a name of Cyprus, Amazons, by the Scythians called menslayers, 219- Amber carried from Europe into Greece, 175-its name America, whence peopled, 206, n. Amestris, wife of Xerxes, commanded fourteen Persian Aminocles, son of Cratinus, 369. Ammonians, 237—their fountain of water, ib.-derivation Amompharetus, son of Poliadas, 433-behaves well at Amphiaraus, his oracle, 14, & n.—Crœsus sends presents Amphytrion, his present to the temple of the Ismenian Amyntas gives the Persians earth and water, 249. Anacharsis, the Scythian, his superior learning and ac ! |