Note 254 — Chapter XLI · BATTLE OF SALAMIS. — RETREAT OF XERXES.

Herodot. viii, 76. Τοῖσι δὲ ὡς πιστὰ ἐγίνετο τὰ ἀγγελθέντα, τοῦτο μὲν, ἐς τὴν νησίδα τὴν Ψυττάλειαν, μεταξὺ Σαλαμῖνός τε κειμένην καὶ τῆς ἠπείρου, πολλοὺς τῶν Περσέων ἀπεβίβασαν· τοῦτο δὲ, ἐπειδὴ ἐγίνοντο μέσαι νύκτες, ἀνῆγον μὲν τὸ ἀπ’ ἑσπέρης κέρας κυκλούμενοι πρὸς τὴν Σαλαμῖνα· ἀνῆγον δὲ οἱ ἀμφὶ τὴν Κέον τε καὶ τὴν Κυνόσουραν τεταγμένοι, κατεῖχόν τε μέχρι Μουνυχίης πάντα τὸν πορθμὸν τῇσι νηϋσί.

He had previously stated Phalêrum as the main station of the Persian fleet; not necessarily meaning that the whole of it was there. The passage which I have just transcribed intimated what the Persians did to accomplish their purpose of surrounding the Greeks in the harbor of Salamis and the first part of it, wherein he speaks of the western (more properly northwestern) wing, presents no extraordinary difficulty, though we do not know how far the western wing extended before the movement was commenced. Probably it extended to the harbor of Peiræus, and began from thence its night-movement along the Attic coast to get beyond the town of Salamis. But the second part of the passage is not easy to comprehend, where he states that, “those who were stationed about Keos and Kynosura also moved, and beset with their ships the whole strait as far as Munychia.” What places are Keos and Kynosura, and where were they situated? The only known places of those names, are the island of Keos, not far south of cape Sunium in Attica,—and the promontory Kynosura, on the northeastern coast of Attica, immediately north of the bay of Marathon. It seems hardly possible to suppose that Herodotus meant this latter promontory, which would be too distant to render the movement which he describes at all practicable: even the island of Keos is somewhat open to the same objection, though not in so great a degree, of being too distant. Hence Barthélemy, Kruse, Bähr, and Dr. Thirlwall, apply the names Keos and Kynosura to two promontories (the southernmost and the southeasternmost) of the island of Salamis, and Kiepert has realized their idea in his newly published maps. But in the first place, no authority is produced for giving these names to two promontories in the island, and the critics only do it because they say it is necessary to secure a reasonable meaning to this passage of Herodotus. In the next place, if we admit their supposition, we must suppose that, before this night-movement commenced, the Persian fleet was already stationed in part of the island of Salamis: which appears to me highly improbable. Whatever station that fleet occupied before the night-movement, we may be very sure that it was not upon an island then possessed by the enemy: it was somewhere on the coast of Attica: and the names Keos and Kynosura must belong to some unknown points in Attica, not in Salamis. I cannot therefore adopt the supposition of these critics, though on the other hand Larcher is not satisfactory in his attempt to remove the objections which apply to the supposition of Keos and Kynosura as commonly understood. It is difficult in this case to reconcile the statement of Herodotus with geographical considerations, and I rather suspect that on this occasion the historian has been himself misled by too great a desire to find the oracle of Bakis truly fulfilled. It is from Bakis that he copies the name Kynosura (viii, 77).