Page:History of Greece Vol V.djvu/60

 36 HISTORY OF GREECE. his statement seems beneath the truth, as we may judge from the contemporary authority of -^schylus, who in the " Persse " gives the exact number of twelve hundred and seven Persian ships as having fought at Salamis: but between Doriskus and Salamis, Herodotus i has himself enumerated six hundred and forty-seven ships as lost or destroyed, and only one hundred and twenty as added. No exaggeration, therefore, can well be sus- pected in this statement, which would imply about two hundred and seventy-six thousand as the number of the crews, though there is here a confusion or omission in the narrative which we cannot clear up. But the aggregate of three thousand smaller ships, and still more, that of one million seven hundred thousand infantry, are far less trustworthy. There would be little or no motive for the enumerators to be exact, and every motive for them to exaggerate, — an immense nominal total would be no less pleasing to the army than to the monarch himself, — so that the military total of land-force and ships' crews, which Herodo- tus gives as two million six hundred and forty-one thousand on the arrival at Thermopylae, may be dismissed as unwarranted and incredible. And the computation whereby he determines the amount of non-mihtary persons present, as equal or more than equal to the military, is founded upon suppositions noway admissible ; for though in a Grecian well-appointed army it was customary to reckon one light-armed soldier, or attendant, for every hoplite, no such estimate can be applied to the Persian host. A few grandees and leaders might be richly provided with attendants of various kinds, but the great mass of the army ' Only one hundred and twenty ships of war are mentioned hy Herod- otus (vii'l 85) as having joined after^'ards from the seaports in Thrace, But four hundred were destroyed, if not more, in the terrible storm on the coast of Magnesia (rii, 190) ; and the squadron of two hundred sail, detached by the*Persians round Euboca, were also all lost (viii, 7) ; besides forty-five taken or destroyed in the various sea-fights near Artemisium (vii, 194 ; viii, 11). Other losses are also indicated (viii, 14-16). As the statement of JEschylus for the number of the Persian triremes at Salamis appears well-entitled to credit, we must suppose either that the number of Doriskus was greater than Herodotus has mentioned, or that a number greater than that which he has stated joined afterwards. See a good note of Amersfoordt, ad Demosthcn. Orat. de Symmoriis, p. S8(Leyden, 1821).