BATTLE OF SALAMS. — RETREAT OF XERXES. 143 even incredible : Grecian imagination, in the contempoi'ary poet iEschylus, as well as in the Latin moralizers Seneca or Juvenal,i delighted in handling this invasion with the maximum of light and shadow, — magnifying the destructive misery and humilia- tion of the retreat so as to form an impressive contrast with the superhuman pride of the advance, and illustrating the antithesis with unbounded license of detail. The sufferings from want of provision were doubtless severe, and are described as frightful and death-dealing : the magazines stored up for the advancing march had been exhausted, so that the retiring army were now forced to seize upon the corn of the country through which they passed, — an insufficient maintenance, eked out by leaves, grass, the bark of trees, and other wretched substitutes for food. Plague and dysentery aggravated their misery, and occasioned many to surely requires a more responsible witness than ^schylus to avouch it. In fact, he himself describes it as a "frost out of season," (;fe</zui uupoi'.) brought about by a special intei-position of the gods. If he is to be believed, none of the fugitives were saved, except such as were fortunate enough to cross the Str}-mon 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, — notliing but the difficulty of finding sub- sistence. During the advancing march of Xerxes, a bridge of boats had been thro-Ti over the Strj-mon : 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 j-ears after this event, and was only captured, after a desperate resistance, by the Athenians and their confederates under Kimon. The Athenian auditors of the Persa; would not criticize nicely, the his- torical credibility of that which JEschylus told them about the sufferings of their retreating foe, nor his geographical credibility when he nlaced Mount Pangoeus on the hither side of the Strymon, to persons marching out of Greece (Persse, 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 ^schylus, — as well in what he says as in what he does not say. ' Juvenal, Satir. x, 178. Ille tamen qualis rediit, Salamine relicta, In Caurum atque Eurum solitKS saevire flagellis, etc.
