Page:History of Greece Vol V.djvu/42

 18 mSTORY OF GREECE god Pan or his statue by way of revenge. Much more may we suppose a young Persian monarch, corrupted by universal sub- servience around hira, to be capable of thus venting an insane wrath : and the vengeance ascribed by Herodotus to Cyrus to- wards the river Gyndes (which he caused to be divided into three hundred and sixty streamlets, because one of his sacred horses had been drowned in it), affords a fair parallel to the scourging of the Hellespont by Xerxes. To offer sacrifice to rivers, and to testify in this manner gratitude for service ren- dered by rivers, was a familiar rite in the ancient religion. While the grounds for distrusting the narrative are thus materially weakened, the positive evidence will be found very forcible. The expedition of Xerxes took place when Herodotus was about four years old, so that he afterwards enjoyed ample opportunity of conversing with persons who had witnessed and taken part in it : and the whole of his narrative shows that he availed himself largely of such access to information. Besides, the building of the bridge across the Hellespont, and all the incidents connected with it, were acts essentially public in their nature, — known to many witnesses, and therefore the more easily verified," — the de- capitation of the unfortunate engineers was an act fearfully im- pressive, and even the scourging of the Hellespont, while essen- tially public, appears to Herodotus^ (as well as to Arrian, after- terwards), not childish but impious. The more attentively we balance, in the case before us, the positive testimony against the intrinsic negative probabilities, the more shall we be dis- posed to admit without difl&dence the statement of our original historian. New engineers — perhaps Greek along with, or in place of, Phenicians and Egyptians — were immediately directed to re- commence the work, which Herodotus now describes in detail, and which was doubtless executed with increased care and so- lidity. To form the two bridges, two lines of ships — triremes and pentekonters blended together — were moored across the strait breastwise, with their sterns towards the Euxine, and their heads towards the ^gean, the stream flowing always rapidly ' Herodot. vii, 35-54 : compare viii, 109. Arrian,. Esp. Alex, vii, 14. 9.