Note 273 — Chapter XLI · BATTLE OF SALAMIS. — RETREAT OF XERXES.

This important fact is not stated by Herodotus: but it is distinctly given in Diodorus, xi, 19. It seems probable enough.

If the tragedy of Phrynichus, entitled Phœnissæ, had been preserved, we should have known more about the position and behavior of the Phenician contingent in this invasion. It was represented at Athens only three years after the battle of Salamis, in B. C. 477 or 476, with Themistoklês as choregus, four years earlier than the Persæ of Æschylus, which was affirmed by Glaukus to have been (παραπεποιῆσθαι) altered from it. The Chorus in the Phœnissæ consisted of Phenician women, possibly the widows of those Phenicians whom Xerxes had caused to be beheaded after the battle (Herodot. viii, 90, as Dr. Blomfield supposes, Præf. ad Æsch. Pers. p. ix), or only of Phenicians absent on the expedition. The fragments remaining of this tragedy, which gained the prize, are too scanty to sustain any conjectures as to its scheme or details (see Welcker Griechische Tragœd. vol. i, p. 26; and Droysen, Phrynichos, Æschylos, und die Trilogie, pp. 4-6).