Note 120 — Chapter VI · THE FINDING OF STRANGE COASTS.

Footnote 120: Such would naturally result from the desirableness of securing unity of command. If Demosthenes had been in sole command of the Athenian armament in the harbour of Syracuse, and had been a basileus, with priestly authority, who can doubt that some such theory of the eclipse as that suggested by Philochorus would have been adopted, and thus one of the world's great tragedies averted? See Grote, Hist. Greece, vol. vii. chap. lx. M. Fustel de Coulanges, in his admirable book La Cité antique, pp. 205-210, makes the priestly function of the king primitive, and the military function secondary; which is entirely inconsistent with what we know of barbarous races.[Back to Main Text]