“But when man to run is eager, swift is the god to add a spur.”
This is sound morality and orthodox theology, even at the present hour. Quos Deus vult perdere prius dementat. Observe here how high Æschylus rises in moral tone above Herodotus, who, in the style that offends us so much in Homer, represents Xerxes, after yielding to the sensible advice of his father’s counsellor Artabanus, as urged on to his ruin by a god-sent vision thrice repeated (VII. 12-18). The whole expedition, according to the historian, is as much a matter of divine planning as the death of Hector by Athena’s cruel deceit in Iliad XXII. 299. Even Artabanus is carried along by the stream of evil counsel, confessing that δαιμονίη τις γίνεται ὁρμὴ, there is an impulse from the gods in the matter which a man may not resist.—See Grote.
“Converse with the sons of folly taught thy eager son to err.”
The original word for eager here is the same as that translated above impetuous—θούριος, and had a peculiar significancy to a Greek ear, as being that epithet by which Mars is constantly designated in the Iliad; and this god, as the readers of that poem well know, signifies only the wild, unreasoning hurricane power of battle, as distinguished from the calmly-calculated, surely-guided hostility of the wise Athena. With regard to the matter of fact asserted in this line, it is literally true that the son of Darius was not of himself originally much inclined to the Greek expedition (ὲπὶ μεν τὴν Ἑλλάδα ὀυδαμῶς πρόθυμος ᾖν κατ ἀρχὰς στρατέυεσθαι.—Herod. VII. 5), but, like all weaklings in high places, was wrought upon by others; in this case, specially, by his cousin Mardonius, according to the account of Herodotus.—See Grote, Vol. V. p. 4.
“. . . First the Mede was king
Of the vast host of people.”
Two peculiarities in this enumeration of the early Persian kings will strike the reader. First, Two of the Median kings—Astyages and Cyaxares, according to the common account, are named before Cyrus the Great, who, as being the first native Persian sovereign, is commonly regarded as the founder of the later Persian empire. Second, Between Mardus (commonly called Smerdis), and Darius, the father of Xerxes, two intermediate names—contrary to common account—are introduced. I do not believe our historical materials are such as entitle us curiously to scrutinize these matters.