Page:History of Greece Vol V.djvu/63

MUSTER OF THE ARMY OF XERXES. 3^ of seven hundred thousand men: Diodorusi appears to follow partly Herodotus, partly other authorities. None of these wit- nesses enable us to correct Herodotus, in a case where we are obliged to disbelieve him. He is, in some sort, an original wit- ness, having evidently conversed with persons actually present at the muster of Doriskus, giving us both their belief as to the numbers, together with the computation, true or false, circulated among them by authority. Moreover, the contemporary ^schy- lus, while agreeing Avith him exactly as to the number of triremes, gives no specific figure as to the land-force, but conveys to us, in his Persae, a general sentiment of vast number, which may seem in keeping with the largest statement of Herodotus : the Persian empire is drained of men, — the women of Susa are left without husbands and brothers, — the Baktrian territory has not been allowed to retain even its old men.2 The terror-striking effect ' Ktesias, Persica, c. 22, 23 ; ^lian, V. H. xiii, 3 ; Diodoras, xi, 2-11. Eespecting the various numerical statements in this case, see the note o! Bos ad Cornel. Xepot. Themistocl. c. 2, pp. 75, 76. The Samian poet Choerilus, a few years younger than Herodotus, an. contemporary with Thucydides, composed an epic poem on the expeditiot of Xerxes against Greece. Two or three short fragments of it are all thai'; is preserv'ed : he enumerated all the separate nations who furnished contin- gents to Xerxes, and we find not only the Sakce, but also the Solymi (ap- parently the Jews, and so construed by Josephus) among them. See Frag- ments, iii and iv, in Nseke's edition of Choerilus, pp. 121-134. Josephus cont. Apion. p. 454, ed. Havercamp. ^ iEschylus, Pers. 14-124, 722-737. Heeren (in his learned work on tha commerce of the ancient world, Ueber den Verkehr der alten Welt, part 1 , sect. I, pp. 162, 558, 3d edition) thinks that Herodotus had seen the actual muster-roll, made by Persian authority, of the army at Doriskus. I cannot think this at all probable : it is much more reasonable to believe that all his information was derived from Greeks who had accompanied the expe- dition. He must have seen and conversed vrith. many such. The Persian royal scribes, or secretaries, accompanied the king, and took note of any particular fact or person who might happen to strike his attention (Herodot. vii, 100; viii, 90), or to exhibit remarkable courage. They seem to have been specially attached to the person of the king as ministers to his curi- osity and amusement, rather than keepers of authentic and continuous records. Heeren is disposed to accept the numerical totals, given by Herodotus aa to the army of Xerxes, much too easily, in my judgment : nor is he correct