Note 33 — Chapter XXXVIII · FROM THE BATTLE OF MARATHON TO THE MARCH OF XERXES AGAINST GREECE.

For the long celebrity of these cables, see the epigram of Archimêlus, composed two centuries and a half afterwards, in the time of Hiero the Second, of Syracuse, ap. Athenæum, v, 209.

Herodotus states that in thickness and compact make (παχυτὴς καὶ καλλονὴ) the cables of flax were equal to those of papyrus; but that in weight the former were superior; for each cubit in length of the flaxen cable weighed a talent: we can hardly reason upon this, because we do not know whether he means an Attic, an Euboic, or an Æginæan talent: nor, if he means an Attic talent, whether it be an Attic talent of commerce, or of the monetary standard.

The cables contained in the Athenian dockyard are distinguished as σχοίνια ὀκτωδάκτυλα, ἐξδάκτυλα,—in which expressions, however, M. Boeckh cannot certainly determine whether circumference or diameter be meant: he thinks probably the former. See his learned book, Das Seewesen der Athener, ch. x, p. 165.