[38] One of the most notorious instances in modern times was that of the Tartar who after the battle of the Alma invented the news that Sebastopol was taken. The report was almost universally believed in England for some days, and the contradiction of it caused the bitterest disappointment.
[39] Paper made from the rind of the papyrus, a reed which grew in the Nile and which the Egyptians knew by the name of Byblos (hence our ‘bible’). Parchment in its present form did not become common till much later than this time (even B. C. 150), though skin seems to have been used for writing. For ordinary purposes paper was used.
[40] Mr. Grote says that the condemned generals drank hemlock but it is evident from the report of Euryptolemus which is substantially taken from Xenophon’s report that the mode of execution for persons condemned under such charges as that brought against the generals was by being thrown into the Pit. This place was called the Barathron and was within the city walls and was a deep pit with hooks fastened into the walls. The officer in charge of it was called “The Man of the Pit.”
[41] The “Long Walls” ran from Athens down to its chief harbor the Piraeus.
[42] The Eupatridae were the old aristocracy of Athens. Under the early constitution they were the ruling castæ, and they always retained the monopoly of certain religious offices.
[43] “The seas are closed,” says Vegetius in his treatise De Re Militari, “from the ninth of November to the tenth of March.”
[44] It is convenient in a narrative to speak of “hours,” and the Greeks had a division of time that was so named. But it must not be supposed that these hours were exact periods of time such as we mean by the word. The day between sunrise and sunset was divided into twelve equal parts, which varied in length according to the season of the year. The divisions of the whole period of a day and night into twenty-four equal unvarying parts was later than the period of which I am writing, being attributed to Hipparchus, the astronomer, a native of Nicæa in Bithynia who lived in the second century B. C. The water-clock mentioned in the text may have been one of those large ones which served for the whole night (Plato is said to have had one). The slave in announcing to the guest the time at which the meal would be served would probably indicate it by pointing to this or that division marked upon it. The water-clock may be roughly compared to a sand-glass, but the water flowed through several orifices, which were very minute.
[45] He returned in May, 407, conducted in person the procession to Eleusis; a ceremony which had been discontinued for some time on account of the presence of the Spartan garrison at Decelea, and left again to take command of the fleet a few days afterward. He never saw Athens again.
[46] Three drachmae would be something more than half-a-dollar, (2 s. 5 d. in English money). This is taking silver at its present conventional value. What its purchasing power would be now it would be difficult to say, but it would certainly be greater than that of the sum by which it is represented.
[47] So we have in Homer (Iliad 11, 261) “the libations of wine unmingled” mentioned together with “the hand-holt trusted of yore,” a thing that gave a solemn sanction to treaties. Similar references abound in the Greek and Latin poets.