302 H. B. Wright, 



and the undue emphasis put upon it goes a long way toward ex- 

 plaming the perverted but persistent theory in the age of the orators 

 that tlie Athenians were the victors at Plataea. 



We cannot expect to prove the connection between Herodotus' 

 narrative and a conjectured messenger's narrative in the Glaucus by 

 the detection of Aesch3dean diction or structure in Herodotus, in 

 spite of several fascinating coincidences. i A comparison of the 

 existing accounts of Salamis in Aeschylus and Herodotus, which all 

 admit are related - but which show few verbal coincidences establishes 

 this. Rather must we rest the case on the test submitted by 

 Macan^: — "The debt of Herodotus to Aischylos is admitted, though 

 it concerns the spirit rather than the letter, the moral rather than the 

 material of the story." We shall certainl}^ agree that the spirit 

 and the moral of this episode as related by Herodotus are thoroughl}^ 

 Aeschylean. 



And finally, if the narrative of Herodotus looks back for its source 

 to a messenger's narrative in the Glaucus, we not only locate the 

 scene of this drama,* but we dispose at once of a host of problems 

 which have given concern to the historian. We no longer need 

 to speculate — "What became of the noble Nesaian charger? was 

 he led to his master's grave and perhaps sacrificed there? or did 

 he escape with the squadron after his master's fall ? or die of his 

 wound on the field?"; we do not seek to learn "how the Greeks 

 understood the taunt of the Persians since they spoke in an unknown 

 tongue,^ what was the ultimate destination of the wagon, or what be- 

 came of the corpse ? ".'' These questions which the historian must ask 

 and answer,^ the dramatist is privileged to leave unsettled wlien 



' Cf. Frag. 37, with Hdt. viii, 59. The appeal of the Megarians could 

 with a little ingenuity be rearranged in trimeters. 300 Greek ships 

 according to Aeschj^us repulsed tlie kings fleet at Salamis {Prrsiatis 

 V. 339) — 300 Athenians repulse the cavahy here. 



- ll'ccklem^ Cber die Tradition der Perserkriege, p. 11. Sihkr^ On Hero- 

 dotns's and Aeschj'lus's Accounts of the Battle of Salamis. (Trans. Am. 

 Phil. Asso. 1877, p. 109 ff.) E. Mryn; Forsch. ii, 205. 



3 Hdt. vii-ix; Vol. i, Pt. 1, p. Ixxiv. 



* The body of the dead chieftain is brouglit into the Greek camp on 

 the txxvx'Ar^ua. 



* Darius, Atossa and Xerxes are of course made to speak Greek in the 

 Persians. 



* Macan, notes on ix, 20, 8 ; 25. 4, 5. 



■^ It is interesting that Herodotus is deeplj^ concerned over what l)ecame 

 of the body of Mardonius (ix, 84) although he never so much as mentions 

 the disposal of the corpse of Masistius. 



