London: William Clowes and Sons, Stamford–street.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Vol. i. p. 51.
[2] Herod. i. 190.
[3] See the siege of Alesia, vii. 72, or the circumvallation of Pompey at Dyrrachium, by Cæsar’s army, Bell. Civ. iii. 42. The lines of Torres Vedras, drawn by the British in the Peninsular war, may however compete, for their extent and the labour bestowed on them, with any of these ancient works.
[4] After the battle of Platæa, the Athenians and Lacedæmonians contending for the aristeia, or prize for having behaved best in the battle, that honour, by the mediation of the Corinthians, was conferred on the Platæans, whose signal zeal throughout the Persian war was admitted, on all hands, to deserve such a distinction. At the same time a yearly sacrifice was appointed to be held at Platæa in honour of the slain; and a sort of sacred character was conferred both on the Platæans and their territory, with the privileges here enumerated.
[5] Dr. Arnold observes that this is a good instance of that feature of Greek polytheism by which the gods were known and honoured as standing in particular relations to mankind, not as the general moral governors of the world. Three classes of gods were here invoked, each as having a special point of honour involved in the observation of the oaths here mentioned: those whose names were pledged to the observance of it, and who would be personally affronted by its violation; the ancestral gods θεοὶ πατρῷοι of the Lacedæmonians, who would take it ill that the act of their descendant, Pausanias, should be disregarded, or the tombs of the Lacedæmonians at Platæa neglected or profaned; and the local gods θεοὶ ἐγχώριοι, to whom the territory was as a home, and who must expect to be denied their worship, if their country should be occupied by strangers, who would bring their own gods along with them.
[6] Such a natural fire, therefore, may have been still greater.
[7] That is, when the star begins to rise before the sun, and so first becomes visible in the morning. This in the case of Arcturus occurred about the middle of September.