[595] Thucyd. i, 98. It has already been stated in the preceding chapter, that Themistoklês, as a fugitive, passed close to Naxos while it was under siege, and incurred great danger of being taken.
[596] For the battles of the Eurymedon, see Thucyd. i, 100; Diodor. xi, 60-62; Plutarch, Kimon, 12, 13.
The accounts of the two latter appear chiefly borrowed from Ephorus and Kallisthenês, authors of the following century; and from Phanodemus, an author later still. I borrow sparingly from them, and only so far as consists with the brief statement of Thucydidês. The narrative of Diodorus is exceedingly confused, indeed hardly intelligible.
Phanodemus stated the number of the Persian fleet at six hundred ships; Ephorus, at three hundred and fifty. Diodorus, following the latter, gives three hundred and forty. Plutarch mentions the expected reinforcement of eighty Phenician ships; which appears to me a very credible circumstance, explaining the easy nautical victory of Kimon at the Eurymedon. From Thucydidês, we know that the vanquished fleet at the Eurymedon consisted of no more than two hundred ships; for so I venture to construe the words of Thucydidês, in spite of the authority of Dr. Arnold,—Καὶ εἶλον (Ἀθηναῖοι) τριήρεις Φοινίκων καὶ διέφθειραν τὰς πάσας ἐς (τὰς) διακοσίας. Upon which Dr. Arnold observes: “Amounting in all to two hundred: that is, that the whole number of ships taken or destroyed was two hundred,—not that the whole fleet consisted of no more.” Admitting the correctness of this construction (which may be defended by viii, 21), we may remark that the defeated Phenician fleet, according to the universal practice of antiquity, ran ashore to seek protection from its accompanying land-force. When, therefore, this land-force was itself defeated and dispersed, the ships would all naturally fall into the power of the victors; or if any escaped, it would be merely by accident. Moreover, the smaller number is in this case more likely to be the truth, as we must suppose an easy naval victory in order to leave strength for a strenuous land-battle on the same day.
It is remarkable that the inscription on the commemorative offering only specifics “one hundred Phenician ships with their crews” as having been captured (Diodor. xi, 62). The other hundred ships were probably destroyed. Diodorus represents Kimon as having captured three hundred and forty ships, though he himself cites the inscription which mentions only one hundred.
[597] About Thasos, see Herodot. vi, 46-48; vii, 118. The position of Ragusa in the Adriatic, in reference to the despots of Servia and Bosnia in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, was very similar to that of Athens and Thasos in regard to the Thracian princes of the interior. In Engel’s History of Ragusa we find an account of the large gains made in that city by its contracts to work the gold and silver mines belonging to these princes (Engel, Geschichte des Freystaates Ragusa, sect. 36, p. 163. Wien, 1807).
[598] Thucyd. i, 100, 101; Plutarch, Kimon, c. 14; Diodor xi, 70.
[599] Thucyd. i, 101. Philip of Macedon, in his dispute more than a century after this period with the Athenians respecting the possession of Amphipolis, pretended that his ancestor, Alexander, had been the first to acquire possession of the spot after the expulsion of the Persians from Thrace, (see Philippi Epistola ap. Demosthen. p. 164, R.) If this pretence had been true, Ennea Hodoi would have been in possession of the Macedonians at this time, when the first Athenian attempt was made upon it: but the statement of Thucydidês shows that it was then an Edonian township.
[600] Plutarch, Kimon, c. 14. Galêpsus and Œsymê were among the Thasian settlements on the mainland of Thrace (Thucyd. iv, 108).
[601] Thucyd. i, 101. οἱ δὲ ὑπέσχοντο μὲν κρύφα τῶν Ἀθηναίων καὶ ἔμελλον, διεκωλύθησαν δὲ ὑπὸ τοῦ γενομένου σεισμοῦ.