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Cornelius Nepos on Marathon and Paros

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

W. W. How
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Extract

It might seem waste of labour to examine minutely an account of the battle of Marathon and the Parian expedition so late as that contained in the brief life of Miltiades ascribed to Cornelius Nepos, more especially as I must confess that the results of my enquiry are in the main negative, and that such positive conclusions as I reach have not the charm of novelty, but serve merely to strengthen theories already well known, and in England at least widely accepted. But this late epitome is almost the only consecutive narrative of these events outside the pages of Herodotus. Marathon was sung by poets, and bespattered with rhetoric by patriotic orators, but such historical accounts as there once were of the battle have perished, save for the still later epitome of Trogus Pompeius made by Justin. Again there is good reason to think that Cornelius Nepos is here following the fourth-century historian Ephorus. This is manifestly the case in his account of the Parian expedition, the kernel of which is little more than a translation of the fragment of Ephorus preserved in Stephanus of Byzantium s.v. Paros. That Nepos drew his story of Marathon from the same source is the general, and as I shall hope to show, the right opinion, though it has been denied by Dr. E. Meyer. Further, the view of the campaign and the conception of the battle to be found in Nepos have been accepted as historical by many of the highest authorities in Germany, e.g., by Drs. H. Delbrück, G. Busolt, and in the main by Dr. E. Meyer.

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Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 39 , November 1919, pp. 48 - 61
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1919

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References

1 Ephorus, fr. 107; Müller, , F.H.G. i. 263.Google Scholar

2 Geschichte des Alterthums, iii. § 194, n. p. 332.

3 Die Perserkriege und die Burgunderkriege, pp. 52–85; Geschichte der Kriegskunst, i2. 50–71.

4 Griechische Geschichte, ii2. 581–96.

5 Geschichte des Alterthums, iii. §§ 192–5, pp. 326–336.

6 Klio, xiv. (1914), 69–90.

7 J.H.S. xix. 185–97.

8 Great Persian War, 160–194.

9 Geschichte des Alterthums, iii.§ 194, p. 332.

10 Forschungen zur alten Geschichte, ii. 65 f.

11 Ibid. ii. 68.

12 Cf. von Gutschmidt, A., Kleine Schriften, i. 18.Google Scholar

13 Cf. Walker, E. M., Hellenica Oxyrrhynchia 87–97.Google Scholar

13a Striking confirmation of this view is to be found in the new fragments of Ephorus. Cf. Grenfell, , Ox. Pap. Pt. xiii. No. 1610, pp. 98–127.Google Scholar

14 Diodorus, xi. 3, 7 and 5, 2 = Justin, ii. 10, 19.

15 Ibid. xi. 9 and 10 = Justin, ii. 11.

16 Ibid. xi. 17, 3, 4. Cf. Justin, ii. 12, 25, 26.

17 Ephorus, fr. 111, ap. Schol. Pind. Pyth. 146; Müller, , F.H.G. i. 264.Google Scholar Cf. Diodorus, xi. 1, 4.

18 Justin, ii. 14, 10, 11, as against Diodorus, xi. 13, 2; 27, 2; 33, 1.

19 Ibid. ii. 12, 1–7 = Hdt. viii. 19, 1, 22.

20 Ibid., ii. 13, 8–12 = Hdt. viii. 115–20.

21 Cf. for Paros vi. 134, and for Marathon the visions of Philippides, vi. 105, and of Epizelus, vii. 117.

22 Nep. Milt. 5, 1 and 4, as against Justin, ii. 9, 9–11.

23 Ibid. 4, 1 and 5, 4, as against Justin, ii. 9, 9 and 20.

24 Justin, ii. 9, 16–19 = Hdt. vi. 114.

25 Ibid. ii. 9, 11. Cf. Hdt. vi. 112.

26 Cf. δέκατος αὺτός (Thuc. i. 116, ii. 13, etc.).

27 Geschichte des Alterthums, iii. § 201; n., p. 348.

28 Hdt. vi. III; Plut. Quaest. Conv. i. 10, 3, Mor. 628 E.

29 Eur. Supp. 657; Xen, . Hell. ii. 4, 30.Google Scholar

30 Hdt. vi. 109, 110. Miltiades' language resembles that of Themistocles to Eurybiades, Hdt. viii. 60.

31 Corn. Nep. Milt. 4, 4–5, 2, as against Hdt. vi. 103, 109.

32 i.e. Herodotus and Nepos as against the orators and Justin.

33 Hdt. vi. 105; Milt. 4, 3.

34 Hdt. vi. 100.

35 Ibid. vi. 117.

36 Eight thousand at Plataea (Hdt. ix. 28 ad fin.) and an uncertain number at Mycale (Hdt. ix. 102 f.).

37 Hdt. ix. 28. Beloch, without sufficient ground, casts doubts even on this smaller number (Bevölkerung, p. 105).

38 Polyb. xii. 25 f. Cf. Macan, , Hdt. IV–VI, vol. ii. p. 211.Google Scholar

39 For Thermopylae, cf. sup. and Busolt, ii2. 623, n. 3. For Plataea, Leuctra, , and Mantinea, , Holm, , History of Greece (E.T.), iii. pp. 18, 104, 129.Google Scholar

40 Polyb. xii. 28.

41 e.g. Delbrück, , Gesch. der Kriegakunst, i 2. 60.Google Scholar

42 Cf. Paus. i. 32, 3; Thuc. ii. 34

43 Cf. Bury, , The Ancient Greek Historians, pp 22–4Google Scholar, and Klio, ii. 334, iii. 330 (Lehmann-Haupt), iv. 203 (Prášek), etc.

44 Hdt. iv. 137.

45 Ibid. vi. 34–41.

46 Ibid. vi. 103.

47 Cf. Casson in Klio, xiv. 87; Grundy, , Great Persian War, 146, n.Google Scholar

48 Hdt. vi. 121–4.

49 Ibid. vi. 115 and 121–4.

50 Ibid. vi. 109, 110.

51 Great Persian War, p. 579.

52 E.g. Dr.Macan, , Hdt. IV–VI, vol. ii. App. xi.Google Scholar

53 Hdt. vi. 135.

54 Ibid. vi. 133.

55 Ibid. vi. 134, 135.

56 Corn. Nep. Milt. 7, 1.

57 Cf. the case of Naxos, Hdt. v. 33 f.

58 Hdt. vi. 89, 92.

59 Ibid. v. 94 f.; vi. 36 f.

60 Ibid. i. 64.

61 Ibid. i. 61.

62 Hdt. viii. 10, 60, etc.

63 Pace Dr.Delbrück, H., Geshichte der Kriegskunst, i 2. 75, 76.Google Scholar

64 Hdt. vi. 89, 92, 132.

65 So Ephorus, fr. 107. Müller, , F.H.G. i. 263.Google ScholarNepos, (Milt. 7, 3)Google Scholar absurdly substitutes for Myconus ‘in continenti,’ and more prudently for Datis ‘classiarii regii.’

66 Forschungen zur alten Geschichte, i. 19.

67 Hdt. vi. 132.

68 The reading is doubtful, but the context makes it fairly certain that Nepos is referring to Stesagoras (Milt. 7, 6).

69 So Diodorus, x. 32, and apparently Ephorus (Schol. Arist. 515). Müller, , F.H.G. iv. 642.Google Scholar

70 So Corn. Nep. Cim. 1, 3, 4.

71 Cf. Meyer, E., Forschungen zur alten Geschichte, ii. 25 f.Google Scholar

72 Op. cit. p 66.

73 Preserved in Diodorus, xii. 38–40, and by him ascribed to Ephorus. Cf. E. Meyer, op. cit. pp. 329–32.