Roused the sacred fire, as the law bids,
Touching the god with consecrated wand.
Athenæus xii. 40, p. 850. Bohn’s Classical Library.
[464] i. e. “who kindle fire.”
[465] i. e. places where fire is kindled.
[467] Not the same plant as mentioned above, c. i. § 10, but the pistacia terebinthus.
[468] An interpolation. The Cardaces were not Persians, but foreign soldiers. “Barbari milites quos Persæ Cardacas appellant,” (Cornel. Nepos.) without doubt were Assyrian and Armenian Carduci. See b. xvi. c. i. § 24, and Xenoph. Anab. iv. 3. Later Gordyæi or Gordyeni, now the Kurds. Groskurd.
[469] Cardamum is probably the “lepidum perfoliatum” of Linnæus, or the “nasturtium orientale” of Tournefort. Xenophon also, Expedit. Cyr. iii. 5 and vii. 8, speaks of the great use made of this plant by the Persians.
[470] The length of the arms and the surname “Longhand” here given to Darius are assigned by others to Artaxerxes. It was in fact the latter to whom this surname was given, according to Plutarch, in consequence of the right arm being longer than the left. Therefore Falconer considers this passage an interpolation. Coraÿ.