Page:Aeschylus.djvu/106

94

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.

And even Atossa is constrained to say;

and the messenger replies;—

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