[411] Herodot. vii, 147. Schol. ad Aristophan. Equites, 262.
In illustration of the value set by Athens upon the command of the Hellespont, see Demosthenês, De Fals. Legat. c. 59.
[412] Herodot. ix, 114, 115. Σηστὸν—φρούριον καὶ φυλακὴν τοῦ παντὸς Ἑλλησπόντου—Thucyd. viii, 62: compare Xenophon, Hellenic. ii, 1, 25.
[413] Thucyd. viii, 102.
[414] Herodot. ix, 116: compare i, 4. Ἀρταΰκτης, ἀνὴρ Πέρσης, δεινὸς δὲ καὶ ἀτάσθαλος· ὃς καὶ βασιλέα ἐλαύνοντα ἐπ’ Ἀθήνας ἐξηπάτησε, τὰ Πρωτεσίλεω τοῦ Ἰφίκλου χρήματα ἐξ Ἐλαιοῦντος ὑφελόμενος. Compare Herodot. ii, 64.
[415] Herodot. ix, 118, 119, 120. Οἱ γὰρ Ἐλαιούσιοι τιμωρέοντες τῷ Πρωτεσίλεῳ ἐδέοντό μιν καταχρησθῆναι καὶ αὐτοῦ τοῦ στρατηγοῦ ταύτῃ ὁ νόος ἔφερε.
[416] Herodot. ix, 121. It must be either to the joint Grecian armament of this year, or to that of the former year, that Plutarch must intend his celebrated story respecting the proposition of Themistoklês, condemned by Aristeidês, to apply (Plutarch, Themistoklês, c. 20; Aristeidês, c. 22). He tells us that the Greek fleet was all assembled to pass the winter in the Thessalian harbor of Pagasæ, when Themistoklês formed the project of burning all the other Grecian ships except the Athenian, in order that no city except Athens might have a naval force. Themistoklês, he tells us, intimated to the people, that he had a proposition, very advantageous to the state, to communicate; but that it could not be publicly proclaimed and discussed: upon which they desired him to mention it privately to Aristeidês. Themistoklês did so: and Aristeidês told the people, that the project was at once eminently advantageous and not less eminently unjust. Upon which the people renounced it forthwith, without asking what it was.
Considering the great celebrity which this story has obtained, some allusion to it was necessary, though it has long ceased to be received as matter of history. It is quite inconsistent with the narrative of Herodotus, as well as with all the conditions of the time: Pagasæ was Thessalian, and as such hostile to the Greek fleet rather than otherwise: the fleet seems to have never been there: moreover, we may add, that taking matters as they then stood, when the fear from Persia was not at all terminated, the Athenians would have lost more than they gained by burning the ships of the other Greeks, so that Themistoklês was not very likely to conceive the scheme, nor Aristeidês to describe it in the language put into his mouth.
The story is probably the invention of some Greek of the Platonic age, who wished to contrast justice with expediency, and Aristeidês with Themistoklês,—as well as to bestow at the same time panegyric upon Athens in the days of her glory.
[417] Everything which has ever been said about Phalaris is noticed and discussed in the learned and acute Dissertation of Bentley on the Letters of Phalaris: compare also Seyffert, Akragas und sein Gebiet, pp. 57-61, who, however, treats the pretended Letters of Phalaris with mere consideration than the readers of Dr. Bentley will generally be disposed to sanction.