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187.
That is the number of Xerxes' whole force. No one, however, can say what the exact number of cooking women, and concubines, and eunuchs was, nor can one determine the number of the beasts of draught and burden, and the Indian dogs which accompanied the host; so many of them were there. It is accordingly not surprising to me that some of the streams of water ran dry. I do, however, wonder how there were provisions sufficient for so many tens of thousands,
[2]
for calculation shows me, that if each man received one choenix of wheat a day and no more, eleven hundred thousand and three hundred and forty bushels would be required every day.1 In this calculation I take no account of the provisions for the women, eunuchs, beasts of burden and dogs. Of all those tens of thousands of men, there was not one, as regards looks and grandeur, worthier than Xerxes himself to hold that command.
1 The figure is wrong. Reckoning 48 choenixes to the medimnus, Herodotus has of course divided 5,283, 220 by 48. The right quotient is 110,067.083. 5,280,000 divided by 48 produces 110,000; 3220 divided by 48 leaves a dividend, after the first stage of division, of 340, and this for some unexplained reason Herodotus has added to the quotient. The medimnus is the chief Attic unit for dry measure; said to be the equivalent of six gallons.
Herodotus, with an English translation by A. D. Godley. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 1920.
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References (13 total)
- Commentary references to this page
(1):
- Sir Richard C. Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Antigone, 1166
- Cross-references to this page (2):
- Cross-references in notes to this page
(1):
- Diodorus Siculus, Library, Diod. 17.92
- Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page
(9):
- LSJ, ἀξιό-νι_κος
- LSJ, ἀτρεκ-ής
- LSJ, ἀχθο-φόρος
- LSJ, εἰμί
- LSJ, μέδιμν-ος
- LSJ, προδίδωμι
- LSJ, σι_τοποι-ός
- LSJ, συνάπα_ς
- LSJ, χοῖνιξ
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