Note 224 — Chapter XLI · BATTLE OF SALAMIS. — RETREAT OF XERXES.

Æschylus, Persæ, 347; Herodot. viii, 48; vi, 9; Pausanias, i, 14, 4. The total which Herodotus announces is three hundred and seventy-eight; but the items which he gives amount, when summed up, only to three hundred and sixty-six. There seems no way of reconciling this discrepancy except by some violent change, which we are not warranted in making.

Ktesias represents that the numbers of the Persian war-ships at Salamis were above one thousand, those of the Greeks seven hundred (Persica, c. 26).

The Athenian orator in Thucydides (i, 74) calls the total of the Grecian fleet at Salamis “nearly four hundred ships, and the Athenian contingent somewhat less than two parts of this total (ναῦς μέν γε ἐς τὰς τετρακοσίας ὀλίγῳ ἐλάσσους τῶν δύο μοιρῶν).”

The Scholiast, with Poppo and most of the commentators on this passage, treat τῶν δύο μοιρῶν as meaning unquestionably two parts out of three: and if this be the sense, I should agree with Dr. Arnold in considering the assertion as a mere exaggeration of the orator, not at all carrying the authority of Thucydides himself. But I cannot think that we are here driven to such a necessity; for the construction of Didot and Göller, though Dr. Arnold pronounces it “a most undoubted error,” appears to me perfectly admissible. They maintain that αἱ δύο μοιραὶ does not of necessity mean two parts out of three: in Thucydid. i, 10, we find καίτοι Πελοποννήσου τῶν πέντε τὰς δύο μοιρὰς νέμονται, where the words mean two parts out of five. Now in the passage before us, we have ναῦς μέν γε ἐς τὰς τετρακοσίας ὀλίγῳ ἐλάσσους τῶν δύο μοιρῶν: and Didot and Göller contend, that in the word τετρακοσίας is implied a quaternary division of the whole number,—four hundreds or hundredth parts: so that the whole meaning would be—“To the aggregate four hundreds of ships we contributed something less than two.” The word τετρακοσίας, equivalent to τέσσαρας ἑκατοντάδας, naturally includes the general idea of τέσσαρας μοιράς: and this would bring the passage into exact analogy with the one cited above,—τῶν πέντε τὰς δύο μοιράς. With every respect to the judgment of Dr. Arnold on an author whom he had so long studied, I cannot enter into the grounds on which he has pronounced this interpretation of Didot and Göller to be “an undoubted error.” It has the advantage of bringing the assertion of the orator in Thucydides into harmony with Herodotus, who states the Athenians to have furnished one hundred and eighty ships at Salamis.

Wherever such harmony can be secured by an admissible construction of existing words, it is an unquestionable advantage, and ought to count as a reason in the case, if there be a doubt between two admissible constructions. But on the other hand, I protest against altering numerical statements in one author, simply in order to bring him into accordance with another, and without some substantive ground in the text itself. Thus, for example, in this very passage of Thucydides, Bloomfield and Poppo propose to alter τετρακοσίας into τριακοσίας, in order that Thucydides may be in harmony with Æschylus and other authors, though not with Herodotus; while Didot and Göller would alter τριακοσίων into τετρακοσίων in Demosthenes de Coronâ (c. 70), in order that Demosthenes may be in harmony with Thucydides. Such emendations appear to me inadmissible in principle: we are not to force different witnesses into harmony by retouching their statements.