Note 673 — Chapter XXXVI · FROM THE IONIC REVOLT TO THE BATTLE OF MARATHON.

Herodot. vi, 119. Darius—σφέας τῆς Κισσίης χώρης κατοίκισε ἐν σταθμῷ ἑωϋτοῦ τῷ οὔνομα ἐστὶ Ἀρδέρικκα—ἐνθαῦτα τοὺς Ἐρετριέας κατοίκισε Δαρεῖος, οἳ καὶ μέχρι ἐμέο εἶχον τὴν χώρην ταύτην, φυλάσοντες τὴν ἀρχαίην γλῶσσαν. The meaning of the word σταθμὸς is explained by Herodot. v, 52. σταθμὸς ἑωϋτοῦ is the same as σταθμὸς βασιλήϊος: the particulars which Herodotus recounts about Arderikka, and its remarkable well, or pit of bitumen, salt, and oil, give every reason to believe that he had himself stopped there.

Strabo places the captive Eretrians in Gordyênê, which would be considerably higher up the Tigris; upon whose authority, we do not know (Strabo, xv, p. 747).

The many particulars which are given respecting the descendants of these Eretrians in Kissia, by Philostratus, in his Life of Apollonius of Tyana, as they are alleged to have stood even in the first century of the Christian era, cannot be safely quoted. With all the fiction there contained, some truth may perhaps be mingled; but we cannot discriminate it (Philostratus, Vit. Apollon. i, c. 24-30).