[392] It is to this general and solemn meeting, held at Platæa
after the victory, that we might probably refer another vow
noticed by the historians and orators of the subsequent century,
if that vow were not of suspicious authenticity. The Greeks,
while promising faithful attachment, and continued peaceful
dealing among themselves, and engaging at the same time to amerce
in a tithe of their property all who had _medized_,—are said to
have vowed that they would not repair or rebuild the temples
which the Persian invader had burnt; but would leave them in
their half-ruined condition as a monument of his sacrilege.
Some of the injured temples near Athens were seen in their
half-burnt state even by the traveller Pausanias (x, 35, 2),
in his time. Periklês, forty years after the battle, tried to
convoke a Pan-Hellenic assembly at Athens, for the purpose of
deliberating what should be done with these temples (Plutarch,
Periklês, c. 17). Yet Theopompus pronounced this alleged oath to
be a fabrication, though both the orator Lykurgus and Diodorus
profess to report it verbatim. We may safely assert that the
oath, _as they give it_, is not genuine; but perhaps the vow of
tithing those who had voluntarily joined Xerxes, which Herodotus
refers to an earlier period, when success was doubtful, may now
have been renewed in the moment of victory: see Diodor. ix,
29; Lykurgus cont. Leokrat. c. 19, p. 193; Polybius, ix, 33;
Isokrates, Or. iv; Panegyr. c. 41, p. 74; Theopompus, Fragm. 167,
ed. Didot; Suidas, v. Δεκατεύειν, Cicero de Republicâ, iii, 9,
and the beginning of the chapter last but one preceding, of this
history.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account