Note 229 — Chapter XLI · BATTLE OF SALAMIS. — RETREAT OF XERXES.

Herodot. viii, 38, 39; Diodor. xi, 14; Pausan. x, 8, 4.

Compare the account given in Pausanias (x, 23) of the subsequent repulse of Brennus and the Gauls from Delphi: in his account, the repulse is not so exclusively the work of the gods as in that of Herodotus: there is a larger force of human combatants in defence of the temple, though greatly assisted by divine intervention: there is also loss on both sides. A similar descent of crags from the summit is mentioned.

See for the description of the road by which the Persians marched, and the extreme term of their progress, Ulrichs, Reisen und Forschungen in Griechenland, ch. iv, p. 46; ch. x, p. 146.

Many great blocks of stone and cliff are still to be seen near the spot, which have rolled down from the top, and which remind the traveller of these passages.

The attack here described to have been made by order of Xerxes upon the Delphian temple, seems not easy to reconcile with the words of Mardonius, Herodot. ix, 42: still less can it be reconciled with the statement of Plutarch (Numa, c. 9), who says that the Delphian temple was burnt by the Medes.