Note 593 — Chapter XXXVI · FROM THE IONIC REVOLT TO THE BATTLE OF MARATHON.

It is to this treatment of the herald that the story in Plutarch’s Life of Themistoklês must allude, if that story indeed be true; for the Persian king was not likely to send a second herald, after such treatment of the first. An interpreter accompanied the herald, speaking Greek as well as his own native language. Themistoklês proposed and carried a vote that he should be put to death, for having employed the Greek language as medium for barbaric dictation (Plutarch, Themist. c. 6). We should be glad to know from whom Plutarch copied this story.

Pausanias states that it was Miltiadês who proposed the putting to death of the heralds at Athens (iii, 12, 6); and that the divine judgment fell upon his family in consequence of it. From whom Pausanias copied this statement I do not know: certainly not from Herodotus, who does not mention Miltiadês in the case, and expressly says that he does not know in what manner the divine judgment overtook the Athenians for the crime, “except (says he) that their city and country was afterwards laid waste by Xerxês; but I do not think that this happened on account of the outrage on the heralds.” (Herodot. vii, 133.)

The belief that there must have been a divine judgment of some sort or other, presented a strong stimulus to invent or twist some historical fact to correspond with it. Herodotus has sufficient regard for truth to resist this stimulus and to confess his ignorance; a circumstance which goes, along with others, to strengthen our confidence in his general authority. His silence weakens the credibility, but does not refute the allegation of Pausanias with regard to Miltiadês,—which is certainly not intrinsically improbable.