Page:History of Greece Vol V.djvu/172

 148 HISTORY OF GREECE. Spartan king Leotychides, it advanced as far as Delos, but not farther eastward : nor could all the persuasions of Chian and other Ionian envoys, despatched both to the Spartan authorities and to the fleet, and promising to revolt from Persia as soon as the Grecian fleet should appear, prevail upon Leotychides to hazard any aggressive enterprise. Ionia and the western waters of the ^gean had now been for fifteen years completely under the Persians, and so little visited by the Greeks, that a voyage thither appeared, especially to the maritime inexperience of a Spartan king, like going to the Pillars of Herakles,i — not less venturesome than the same voyage appeared fifty-two years af- terwards to the Lacedaemonian admiral Alkidas, when he first hazarded bis fleet amidst the preserved waters of the Athenian empire. Meanwhile the hurried and disastrous retreat of Xerxes had produced less disaffection among his subjects and allies than might have been anticipated. Alexander, king of Macedon, the Thessalian Aleuadse,^ and the Boeotian leaders, still remained in hearty cooperation with Mardonius : nor were there any, except the Phocians, whose fidelity to him appeared questionable, among all the Greeks northwest of the boundaries of Attica and Meg- aris. It was only in the Chalkidic peninsula, that any actual revolt occurred. Potidsea, situated on the isthmus of Pallene, ■ Herodot. viii. 131, 132: compare Thucyd. iii, 29-32. Herodotus says, that the Chian envoys had great difficulty in inducing Leotychides to proceed even as far as Delos, — to yap -npoauTepu ttuv deivdv T]v Tolai 'E/./.T/ai, ovre tuv x'^P^'^ eovai E/iTTEipoiai, arpaTiTjQ Te TravTa nXea e66k€C eIvul- TTjv (5e I,ufiov ETTiaTEaTO 66^^ Kal 'HpaKAsac arrjXa^ laov uttexeiv. This last expression of Herodotus has been erroneously interpreted by some of the commentators, as if it were a measure of the geographical ignorance, either of Herodotus himself, or of those whom he is describing. In my judgment, no inferences of this kind ought to be founded upon it . it marks fear of an enemy's country which they had not been accustomed to Yisit. and where they could not calculate the risk beforehand, — rather of our forefathers, such of them as were little used to the sea, we might say^ "A voyage to Bordeaux or Lisbon seemed to them as distant as a voyage to the Indies," — by which we should merely affirm something as to their state of feeling, not as to their geographical knowledge.
 * han any serious comparison between one distance and another. Speaking
 * Herodot. ix, 1, 2, 67 j viii, 136.