Æschylos Tragedies and Fragments. Aeschylus

24

The question, which seems to have rankled in the minds of the Athenians, is recorded as an historical fact, and put into the mouth of Dareios by Herodotos (v. 101). He had asked it on hearing that Sardis had been attacked and burnt by them.

25

The words point to the silver mines of Laureion, which had been worked under Peisistratos, and of which this is the first mention in Greek literature.

26

Once more the contrast between the Greek hoplite and the light-armed archers of the invaders is dwelt upon. The next answer of the Chorus dwells upon the deeper contrast, then prominent in the minds of all Athenians, between their democratic freedom and the despotism of Persia. Comp. Herod. v. 78.

27

The system of postal communications by means of couriers which Dareios had organised had made their speed in running proverbial (Herod. vii. 97).

28

With the characteristic contempt of a Greek for other races, Æschylos makes the Persians speak of themselves throughout as 'barbarians,' 'barbaric.'

29

30

Possibly Salamis itself, as famed for the doves which were reared there as sacred to Aphrodite, but possibly also one of the smaller islands in the Saronic gulf, which the epithet would be enough to designate for an Athenian audience. The “coasts of the Sileni” in v. 305 are identified by scholiasts with Salamis.

31

Perhaps – “And ten of these selected as reserve.”

32

As regards the number of the Persian ships, 1000 of average, and 207 of special swiftness. Æschylos agrees with Herodotos, who gives the total of 1207. The latter, however, reckons the Greek ships not at 310, but 378 (vii. 89, viii. 48).

33

The fact that Athens had actually been taken, and its chief buildings plundered and laid waste, was, of course, not a pleasant one for the poet to dwell on. It could hardly, however, be entirely passed over, and this is the one allusion to it. In the truest sense it was still “unsacked:” it had not lost its most effective defence, its most precious treasure.

34

As the story is told by Herodotos (vii. 75), this was Sikinnos, the slave of Themistocles, and the stratagem was the device of that commander to save the Greeks from the disgrace and ruin of a sauve qui peut flight in all directions.

35

The Greeks never beheaded their criminals, and the punishment is mentioned as being specially characteristic of the barbaric Persians.

36

The Æginetans and Megarians, according to the account preserved by Diodoros (xi. 18), or the Lacedæmonians, according to Herodotos (viii. 65).

37

This may be meant to refer to the achievements of Ameinias of Pallene, who appears in the traditional life of Œschylos as his youngest brother.

38

Sc., in Herod. viii. 60, the strait between Salamis and the mainland.

39

Tunny-fishing has always been prominent in the occupations on the Mediterranean coasts, and the sailors who formed so large a part of every Athenian audience would be familiar with the process here described, of striking or harpooning them. Aristophanes (Wasps, 1087) coins (or uses) the word “to tunny” (θυννάζω) to express the act. Comp. Herod. i. 62.

40

Sc., Psyttaleia, lying between Salamis and the mainland. Pausanias (i. 36-82) describes it in his time as having no artistic shrine or statue, but full everywhere of roughly carved images of Pan, to whom the island was sacred. It lay just opposite the entrance to the Peiræos. The connexion of Pan with Salamis and its adjacent islands seems implied in Sophocles, Aias, 695.

41

The manœuvre was, we learn from Herodotos (viii. 95), the work of Aristeides, the personal friend of Æschylos, and the statesman with whose policy he had most sympathy.

42

The lines are noted as probably a spurious addition, by a weaker hand, to the text, as introducing surplusage, as inconsistent with Herodotos, and as faulty in their metrical structure.

43

So Herodotos (viii. 115) describes them as driven by hunger to eat even grass and leaves.

44

No trace of this passage over the frozen Strymon appears in Herodotos, who leaves the reader to imagine that it was crossed, as before, by a bridge. It is hardly, indeed, consistent with dramatic probability that the courier should have remained to watch the whole retreat of the defeated army; and on this and other grounds, the latter part of the speech has been rejected by some critics as a later addition.

45

The Ionians, not of the Asiatic Ionia, but of Attica.

46

Kychreia, the archaic name of Salamis.

47

The ritual described is Hellenic rather than Persian, and takes its place (Soph. Electr. 836; Eurip. Iphig. Taur. 583; Homer, Il. xxiii. 219) as showing what offerings were employed to soothe or call up the spirits of the dead. Comp. Pliny, Hist. Nat. xxx.

48

The description obviously gives the state dress of the Persian kings. They alone wore the tiara erect. Xen. Kyrop. viii. 3, 13.

49

Either that he has felt the measured tread of the mourners round his tomb, as they went wailing round and round, or that he has heard the rush of armies, and seen the plain tracked by chariot-wheels, and comes, not knowing all these things, to learn what it means.

50

The words point to the widespread belief that when the souls of the dead were permitted to return to the earth, it was with strict limitations as to the time of their leave of absence.

51

Perhaps – “I dread to speak the truth.”

52

According to Herodotos (vii. 225) two brothers of Xerxes fell at Thermopylæ.

53

As Herodotos (viii. 117) tells the story, the bridge had been broken by the tempest before Xerxes reached it.

54

Probably Mardonios and Onomacritos the Athenian soothsayer are referred to, who, according to Herodotos (vii. 6, viii. 99) were the chief instigators of the expedition.

55

Astyages, the father-in-law of Kyaxares and grandfather of Kyros. In this case Æschylos must be supposed to accept Xenophon's statement that Kyaxares succeeded to Astyages. Possibly, however, the Median may be Kyaxares I., the father of Astyages, and so the succession here would harmonise with that of Herodotos. The whole succession must be looked on as embodying the loose, floating notions of the Athenians as to the history of their great enemy, rather than as the result of inquiry.

56

Stress is laid on the violence to which the Asiatic Ionians had succumbed, and their resistance to which distinguished them from the Lydians or Phrygians, whose submission had been voluntary.

57

Mardos. Under this name we recognise the Pseudo-Smerdis of Herodotos (iii. 67), who, by restoring the dominion of the Median Magi, the caste to which he himself belonged, brought shame upon the Persians.

58

Possibly another form of Intaphernes, who appears in Herodotos (iii. 70) as one of the seven conspirators against the Magian Pseudo-Smerdis.

59

The force of 300,000 men left in Greece under Mardonios (Herod. viii. 113), afterwards defeated at Platæa.

60

Comp. the speech of Mardonios urging his plan on Xerxes (Herod. viii. 100).

61

This was of course a popular topic with the Athenians, whose own temples had been outraged. But other