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GRECIAN CONFEDERACY UNDER ATHENS. 295 trarfare against the Persians. One positive testimony to this effect has been accidentally preserved to us by Herodotus, who mentions, that " before the invasion of Xerxes, there were Per- sian commanders and garrisons everywhere in Thrace and the Hellespont,' all of whom were conquered by the Greeks after that invasion, with the single exception of JMaskames, governor of Doriskus, who could never be taken, though many different Grecian attempts were made upon the fortress. Of those who were captured by the Greeks, not one made any defence suffi- cient to attract the admiration of Xerxes, except Boges, governor of Eion." Boges, after bravely defending himself, and refusing offers of capitulation, found his provisions exhausted, and farther resistance impracticable. He then kindled a vast funeral pile, — slew his wives, children, concubines, and family, and cast them into it, — threw his precious effects over the wall into the Strymon, — and lastly, precipitated himself into the flames."- His brave despair was the theme of warm encomium among the Per- sians, and his relatives in Persia were liberally rewarded by Xerxes. This capture of Eion, effected by Kimon, has been ■' Herodot. vii, 106, 107. Karearaeav yap en TzpoTEpov Tavrr,^ ttj^ t/.uaios VTTapxoi kv ry QoTjiKT} Kal roii 'E/.?.tjG—6vrov Tzavraxv- Ovrni uv tzuvte^, ol re i/c Qpr]tKj]£ Kal roii 'E/./.7}G7t6vtov, rrz-fyv rov kv AopicKu, v~b 'K/./.tjvuv vCTcpov ravTT}^ rrjc CTpaTrj/.a^irig i^Tipi-&7]aav rbv 6e h> AopiffKU 'Maanu/^Tjv ovdauoi KLj E6vvaa'&r](7av i^£/eli rro/./.tJv rr eip rjc a fiiv uv . The loose chronology of Plutarch is little to be trusted -, but he, too, ac- knowledges the continuance of Persian occupations in Thrace, bv aid of the natives, until a period later than the battle of the Eurymedon (Plu- tarch, Kimon, c. 14). It is a mistake to suppose, with Dr. Arnold, in his note on Thucyd. viii, 62, " that Sestus was almost the last place held by the Persians in Eu- rope." "Weissenbom (Hellen oder Beitrage zur genaueren Erforschung der alt- griechischen Geschichte. Jena. 1844, p. 144, note 31) has taken notice of this important passage of Herodotus, as well as of that in Plutarch ; but he does not see how much it embarrasses all attempts to frame a certain chron- ology for those two or three events which Thucydides gives us between 476-466 B. c. ^ Kutzen (De Atheniensium Imperio Cimonis atque Periclis tempore constituto. Grimae, 1837. Commentatio, i, p. 8) has good reason to call in question the stratagem ascribed to Kimon by Pausanias (viii, 8, 2) for the t»ptnre of Eion.