previous next


καὶ Ἴωνας. The same kind of remark is made ii. 1. 2, iii. 1. 1. It may be added here to mark the fact that the Greeks of Asia and the Islands were now first compelled to fight against their kinsmen in the mother country (Abbott).

σεισθεῖσα. Thucydides (ii. 8), speaking of 431 B. C. says ἔτι δὲ Δῆλος ἐκινήθη ὀλίγον πρὸ τούτων, πρότερον οὔπω σεισθεῖσα ἀφ οὗ Ἕλληνες μέμνηνται: ἐλέγετο δὲ καὶ ἐδόκει ἐπὶ τοῖς μέλλουσι γενήσεσθαι σημῆναι. It can hardly be doubted that Delian tradition, as H. says, recognized only one earthquake, and that Thucydides is deliberately correcting the date given by his predecessor. Nor can H., when he visited Delos (cf. ὡς ἔλεγον Δήλιοι, μέχρι ἐμεῦ), or when he wrote the passage, as it would seem (c. 92) after the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, have heard of more than one earthquake. Hence it is unlikely that the historians refer to two separate earthquakes. It is, however, probable that both misdated the earthquake. H. must be taken to mean soon after the departure of Datis, i. e. 490 B. C., or at least before the invasion of Xerxes in 480 B. C. Thucydides, although a little later (ii. 16) he says ἄλλως τε καὶ ἄρτι ἀνειληφότες τὰς κατασκευὰς μετὰ τὰ Μηδικά, can hardly have intended any date before 445 by the phrase ὀλίγον πρὸ τούτων. Possibly the earthquake really occurred some time before H.'s visit, circ. 460 B. C., and was connected by credulous piety either with the Persian or the Peloponnesian war, and its date altered accordingly. But certainty is unattainable.

According to Pindar (fr. 58 (65), ap. Strabo 485), Delos was borne about by winds and waves till Leto gave birth to her children there; afterwards it was firmly fixed, supported on four iron columns.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: