[5] Dr. Arnold observes that this is a good instance of that feature of Greek polytheism by which the gods were known and honoured as standing in particular relations to mankind, not as the general moral governors of the world. Three classes of gods were here invoked, each as having a special point of honour involved in the observation of the oaths here mentioned: those whose names were pledged to the observance of it, and who would be personally affronted by its violation; the ancestral gods _θεοὶ πατρῷοι_ of the Lacedæmonians, who would take it ill that the act of their descendant, Pausanias, should be disregarded, or the tombs of the Lacedæmonians at Platæa neglected or profaned; and the local gods _θεοὶ ἐγχώριοι_, to whom the territory was as a home, and who must expect to be denied their worship, if their country should be occupied by strangers, who would bring their own gods along with them. [6] Such a _natural_ fire, therefore, may have been still greater. [7] That is, when the star begins to rise before the sun, and so first becomes visible in the morning. This in the case of Arcturus occurred about the middle of September. [8] Thucyd. ii. 71, 78. [9] There is no mention of these three hundred where the author relateth the laying of siege; but it must be understood. [10] Thucyd. iii. 21–24. [11] Thucyd. iii. 52, 68. [12] The end of Numantia is rather differently related by Appian, who says, that after being reduced to such extremity as to eat human flesh, they surrendered at discretion, and were sold as slaves; Scipio retaining fifty of them to grace his triumph. The desperate resolution of the Saguntines, also a Spanish people, confirms the probability of Florus’s version. Pressed by Hannibal, the elders of the city collected the most valuable property, both public and private, into a pile, which they consumed by fire, and for the most part threw themselves into the flames. The other male inhabitants slew their wives and children, set fire to their houses, and perished in them, or else fighting to the death. [13] Florus, ii. c. 18. [14] Arrian, ii. 19. [15] Mr. Rooke, the English translator of Arrian, observes, that “the number here must needs be erroneous, though all the copies which I have seen have it the same.” The height certainly is startling, but it is hazardous to conclude that it must be wrong. Not to rely over–much on the walls of Babylon, which, according to the father of history, were about 350 feet high, the battering towers described by Vitruvius, 185 feet in height, were evidently meant to cope with fortifications as gigantic in height as those here described. And after all, the city being built on an abrupt rock, which might perhaps be faced with masonry, if we suppose the whole height from the sea to the battlements to be meant, there is nothing improbable in the statement. The total height of the fortifications of Malta from the sea, we believe, is not much less.