Persian Fire (71 page)

33
Homer,
Odyssey,
3.278.

34
Aeschylus,
Persians,
238.

35
Plutarch,
Themistodes,
4.

36
Plutarch,
Aristeides, 1.

37
Plutarch,
Cimon,
12.

38
Xenophon,
Household Management,
8.8.

39
Thucydides, 142.

40
Plato,
laws,
4.706.

41
Herodotus, 7.239.

42
For this explanation of the contradictory stories about Demaratus' paternity found in Herodotus, see Burkert (1965).

43
Pausanias, 3.12.6. It has generally been assumed that the meeting took place at Corinth, where all subsequent meetings were held, but since the earliest source for this is a historian of the first century
bc
, Diodorus Siculus (9.3), who in turn used Herodotus as his ultimate source of information, I see no reason to dismiss the evidence of Pausanias, as most scholars do; indeed, it makes perfect sense, for the reason I give.

44
Plutarch,
Themistocles,
6.

45
Herodotus, 7.132.

46
Ezekiel, 27.4.

47
Plato,
The Republic,
4.436a.

48
77
k
Odyssey,
15.416-17.

49
Herodotus, 1.1.

50
Ibid., 3.19.

51
The figure comes from Herodotus (7.89), and is echoed - with some ambiguity — in Aeschylus' play
The Persians
(341—3). The earliness and consistency of the tradition suggest that the Greeks themselves believed it was accurate; but that in itself, of course, is not proof. All the historian can say with any certainty is that the Persian fleet was on a mammoth scale; and that probably - at the outset of its voyage, at any rate - it outnumbered the Greeks by as much as four to one. For the best discussion, see Lazenby (1993), pp. 92-4.

52
Quintus Curtius, 3.3.8. The description is of the banner of Darius III, the last King of Persia, who was overthrown by Alexander the Great. Veneration of the sun, however, was a constant throughout Persian history, and it seems reasonable to suppose that the Great Kings would have preserved it as an emblem of their might. Xenophon
(Anabasis
1.10) records that the imperial battle-standards bore eagles. See also Nylander.

53
Herodotus, 7.83.

54
See, for instance, Cook (1983, pp. 113-15), who settles on a figure of 300,000 for Xerxes' land forces; Hammond
(Cambridge Ancient History,
1988, p. 534), who goes for 242,000; Green (pp. 58-9), who opts for 210,000; and Lazenby (1993, pp. 90-2), who havers between 210,000 and 360,000, before finally plumping for 90,000. In short, as this range of opinions eloquently suggests, we will never know. The best discussion, although not necessarily the most convincing conclusion, is in Lazenby.

55
Xerxes, inscription at Persepolis (XPh).

56
Herodotus, 7.40.

57
Xenophon,
Cyropaedia,
8.2.8.

58
Xerxes, inscription at Persepolis (XP1).

59
Herodotus, 7.38.

60
Ibid., 7.39.

61
Ibid., 7.40.

62
Ibid., 7.44-5.

63
Ibid., 7.56.

64
Ibid., 9.37.

65
Ibid., 7.149.

66
Ibid., 7.148.

67
Ibid., 7.220. It is conceivable, of course, that the priests at Delphi and the Spartans might have put their heads together after the war and faked this prophecy, but most improbable. Herodotus quotes it from well within living memory; and it might have been expected, had the Spartans faked it, that they would have hyped their own role in the war a good deal more. As Burn puts it, referring not merely to this, but to all the prophecies recorded by Herodotus: 'That the oracular responses, and the stories attached to them, may have been "improved" in transmission certainly cannot be excluded; that they were asked for and given, it seems unreasonable to disbelieve.' (pp. 347-8).

68
Herodotus, 7.162.

69
The date of late May presumes that Xerxes left Sardis in mid-April: it would have taken him a month to reach the Hellespont.

70
Herodotus, to whom we owe the two oracular responses given to the Athenians, gives no indication as to when the fateful consultation may have occurred. Since he does tell us that the Spartans obtained their prophecy the previous year (7.220), some scholars have dated the Athenian prophecies to the same period; but this seems improbable. True, the Athenians almost certainly would have visited Delphi in 481
bc
; but the record of any early consultations would have been blotted out by the later, and infinitely more sensational, oracles. So explosive was their message and so transformative their influence that it makes most sense to explain the relationship between them and Athenian policy in the summer of 480
bc
as one of instantaneous cause and effect. In which case, the Athenian embassy to Delphi in the early summer of 480
bc
is most likely to have been prompted by the news of Xerxes' crossing of the Hellespont - which, as we know from Herodotus (7.147), reached Athens shortly after the return of the expedition to Tempe.

71
Herodotus, 7.140.

72
Ibid., 7.141.

73
From lines 4 and 5 of the so-called 'Troezen decree', a stone stele found in 1959, which appears to provide a third-century
bc
copy of the motion put forward by Themistocles. Its authenticity has been much debated ever since its discovery. Lazenby, cussedly sceptical as ever, dismisses it as 'a patriotic fabrication', but most other scholars of the Persian Wars — Green, Frost and Podlecki,
inter alios —
accept that it does indeed, in Green's words, 'give us something very close to Themistocles' actual proposals, though it may

possibly run together several motions passed on different days' (p. 98). The best and most nuanced discussion is in Podlecki, pp. 147-67.

74
Thucydides, 1.138.

75
The Troezen decree, 44—5.

76
Plutarch,
Cimon,
5.

77
Herodotus, 7.178.

78
Ibid., 8.1.

79
Ibid., 7.205.

VII At Bay

1
  
Tyrtaeus, 12.

2
  
The Iliad,!.
59-62.

3
  
Herodotus, 7.176.

4
  
For the implication that each Spartan brought a single helot with him, see ibid., 7.229.

5
  
Diodorus Siculus, 11.4.7.