The Annual of the British School at Athens Volume 2 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1896 Excerpt: ...information the Greeks determine to go to meet the new danger, which, if any sense is to be ascribed to the story, means that they were to go to protect the Euripus. But instead of doing so at once they decide to wait till midnight. In other words they compute that, by leaving Artemisium just after midnight, they will be able to reach the Euripus before the Persians. But this computation is inconsistent with the circumstance that the Persians had rounded Geraestos, and were wrecked off the south-western coast in the course of the night. It is clear from the map that if no storm had interfered, the Persians would have passed the Euripus before the Greek fleet came near it from the opposite direction. We have already seen that the intention of the Greeks to move their fleet from Artemisium for the purpose of guarding the Euripus cannot be taken as historical. If they had not already made provision for the eventuality in question, they would have sent merely a detachment, but they would have sent it at once, and run no risk of its not arriving in time. Now we see that, even taking the story just as Herodotus tells it, it does not hang together. 8. Besides these incongruities in time, there is also an apparent incongruity in place. The two hundred ships are sent ewOev "SiKiaBov wr av /ti) ocpOewoi wd rwv iroXefuwv irepnrXwovaat Evfioiav K. T. X. The ships therefore coast along Magnesia, turning Cape Sepias, and viii. 7. passing between Sciathos and the mainland, sail round that island and then return southward. But if these ships could reach Cape Sepias unseen by the enemy, what was to hinder them from sailing on due eastward and then bearing south? What did they gain, except loss of time, by sailing northward? The movement would only be intelligibl...