"Then Rhipeus followed in th' unequal fight,
Just of his word, observant of the right,
Heaven thought not so."—Virg., Æn. i. 426. (Pitt.)
Having mentioned a long list of the dead—yet only a few out of so many—the messenger goes on to describe the circumstances of the defeat. And here we are to have, from an eyewitness, a detailed account of the fight at Salamis. The poet had best be accurate and impartial, for half his audience were present there, and any error will be promptly noticed.
"In numbers, the barbaric fleet
Was far superior: in ten squadrons, each
Of thirty ships, Greece ploughed the deep; of these
One held a distant station. Xerxes led
A thousand ships; their number well I know;
Two hundred more and seven, that swept the seas
With speediest sail: this was their full amount.
And in the engagement seemed we not secure
Of victory? But unequal Fortune sunk
Our scale in fight, discomfiting our hosts."
And even Atossa is constrained to say;
"The gods preserve the city of Minerva:"
and the messenger replies;—
"The walls of Athens are impregnable,
Their firmest bulwarks her heroic sons!"
How the Athenian audience must have cheered!
The description which follows gives us a more vivid picture of an ancient sea-fight than is anywhere else to be found. It is the work of a soldier who understood the tactics displayed, as well as of a poet whose eyes
