The Two Great Retreats of History Part 7

[67] =Demagogues=: leaders of the people, popular orators. (The word now means those who mislead the people or who pretend to be interested in public affairs and reforms merely to gain their own ends.) In Greece these orators usually addressed a.s.semblies or bodies of citizens who acted as judges.

[68] =Judges= (dicasts): these sometimes, as in the case of the trial of Socrates, numbered five and six hundred persons, who acted as judge and jury combined.

[69] =Greaves=: armor for the front of the lower part of the leg.

[70] =Daric=: a Persian gold coin worth about $5.00.

[71] =Herakles= (Hercules): the exploits of this G.o.d in his numerous encounters with wild beasts and robbers led to his wors.h.i.+p on perilous journeys.

[72] =The altar=: probably that where they had been sacrificing.

[73] Xenophon.

[74] =Mercenaries=: hired soldiers.

[75] =Milesians=: inhabitants of Miletus, Asia Minor.

[76] =Megarian=: pertaining to Megara, a district of Greece northwest of Athens. It was famous for its commerce.

[77] =Thunny fishery=: the thunny, or tunny, a large fish abundant in the Mediterranean and highly esteemed both for food and for the oil which it yields.

[78] =Thurian=: an inhabitant of Thurii, a city of Lower Italy, founded by a colony from Athens.

[79] =Odysseus=: as Homer in the "Odyssey" represents Odysseus, or Ulysses, to have done.

[80] =Byzantium=: the modern Constantinople.

[81] =Merchant s.h.i.+ps=: small, one-masted vessels, not larger than our fis.h.i.+ng-smacks.

[82] =Kerasus=: this place is the native home of the cherry, and the origin of its name. The fruit was introduced into Italy from Kerasus about 70 B.C., and thence to England, France, and other countries conquered by the Romans.

[83] =Targeteers=: troops carrying a light target, or s.h.i.+eld.

[84] =Turrets= (or small towers): the name of the people--Mosynoeki--means the "tower-dwellers."

[85] =Paphlagonian horse=: meaning the Paphlagonian cavalry.

[86] =h.e.l.las=: Greece.

[87] "The G.o.ds (says Euripides, in the Sokratic vein) have given us wisdom to understand and appropriate to ourselves the ordinary comforts of life: in obscure or unintelligible cases we are enabled to inform ourselves by looking at the blaze of the fire, or by consulting prophets who understand the livers of sacrificial victims and the flight of birds. When they have thus furnished so excellent a provision for life, who but spoilt children can be discontented and ask for more? Yet still human prudence, full of self-conceit, will struggle to be more powerful, and will presume itself to be wiser, than the G.o.ds."

It will be observed that this constant outpouring of special revelations, through prophets, omens, &c., was (in view of these Sokratic thinkers) an essential part of divine government; indispensable to satisfy their ideas of the benevolence of the G.o.ds; since rational and scientific prediction was so habitually at fault and unable to fathom the phenomena of the future. (Grote.)

[88] =Traverse=: thwart.

[89] Though Xenophon accounted sacrifice to be an essential preliminary to any action of dubious result, and placed great faith in the indications which the victims offered, as signs of the future purposes of the G.o.ds,--he nevertheless had very little confidence in the professional prophets. He thought them quite capable of gross deceit.

(Grote.) Thus Sila.n.u.s (see p. 92) pretends to find some unfavorable indications in sacrifices which supported Xenophon.

[90] =Phasis=: on the Euxine; means the town of that name, not the river. (Grote.)

[91] =Minae=: the Mina was about one pound by weight of silver, or $20.

Twenty minae would be therefore $400.

[92] =Pipe=: a fife or flute-like instrument.

[93] =Carpaean dance=: perhaps because one of the dancers represented a sower of grain (from _karpos_, fruit), or possibly from _karpos_, wrist, the wrists of one being bound.

[94] =Mysian=: from Mysia, Asia Minor.

[95] =Pyrrhic dance=: a kind of dance accompanied with every gesture of the body used in giving and avoiding blows.

[96] This appears to have been said jocosely in reference to the Persian King.

[97] Xenophon.

[98] =Trireme=: a war-vessel propelled by three ranks of rowers placed one above the other.

[99] =Three thousand staters=: about $11,500; ten thousand staters would be in round numbers about $38,000. The stater was a Greek gold coin; its value is usually given at about $5.00, but Grote here makes it considerably less.

[100] =Cities=: cities then were generally built with walls and gates, so that it was easy to exclude any whom they did not wish should enter.

[101] =Philo-Laconian=: Sparta-loving (Sparta being in the district of Laconia). Compare what is said of Xenophon on p. 41.

[102] =Byzantium=: this city (the modern Constantinople) was founded by a Greek colony B.C. 657. It had a mixed population, and was at this time under the rule of a Lacedaemonian or Spartan governor.

[103] =The Chersonesus= (the peninsula): a peninsula of Southern Thrace, opposite Asia Minor, having numerous Greek cities, and noted for its abundance of grain, much of which was exported to Athens.

[104] =Thrakion=: probably an open s.p.a.ce or square near the Thracian Gate of the city.

[105] =The Great King=: the King of Persia.

[106] =Delta=: so named because it resembled the Greek capital letter Delta, ?, corresponding to the English D; hence a triangular-shaped piece of land.

[107] =Propontis= (now, the Sea of Marmora): between Asia and Europe.

[108] =Billeted upon the citizens=: a.s.signed them quarters among the citizens, who were thus bound to provide for them.

[109] =Odrysian=: from Odrysae, a numerous and powerful people of Thrace.

[110] =Phliasian=: from Phlius, a city of Peloponnesus.

[111] It appears that the epithet (the Gracious) is here applied to Zeus in the same conciliatory sense as the denomination _Eumenides_ (Well or Kindly-disposed) to the avenging G.o.ddesses. Zeus is conceived as having actually inflicted, or being in a disposition to inflict, evil: the sacrifice to him under this surname represents a sentiment of fear, and is one of atonement, expiation, or purification, destined to avert his displeasure; but the surname itself is to be interpreted so as to designate, not the actual disposition of Zeus (or of other G.o.ds), but that disposition which the sacrifice is intended to bring about in him.

(Grote.)

[112] =Diasia=: a Greek festival, celebrated in honor of Zeus (Jupiter) the Gracious.

[113] =Troad=: the plain around Troy, the scene of the famous Trojan war, celebrated in Homer's Iliad.