The Mysians had on their heads a peculiar sort of helmet belonging to the country, small shields, and javelins burnt at the point.—Herodot. VII. 74.—Stan.
“The Asian tribes that wear the sword.”
The μάχαιρα here is the acinaces, or short scimitar, of which the fashion may be seen in the Dict. Antiq. under that word.
“Shepherd of many sheep.”
A phraseology inherited from the times when “Mesha, king of Moab, was a sheepmaster, and rendered unto the king of Israel 100,000 lambs, and 100,000 rams, with the wool.”—2 Kings iii. 4. So Agamemnon, in Homer (Od. III. 156), is called ποιμήν λάων—the shepherd of the people. See above, [p. 413], [Note 48].
“But, when the gods deceive.”
The sudden change of tone here from unlimited confidence in the strength of their own armament, to a pious doubt arising from the consideration that the gods often disappoint “the best laid schemes of men and mice,” and that “the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong”; this is at once extremely characteristic of ancient Hellenic piety (see the Note on ὕβρις, [p. 348]), and serves here the dramatic purpose of making the over-weening pride of Xerxes, by contrast, appear more sinful. With regard to the style of religious conception here, and the general doctrine that the gods deceive mortal men, especially at moments of extraordinary prosperity and on the point of some sudden reversal, the student will read Grote’s Greece, Vol. V. p. 13.