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Κυβήβης. The ‘Great Mother’ goddess of the Phrygians worshipped at Pessinus, the μήτηρ Δινδυμήνη of i. 80. 1. For the Anatolian ‘Great Mother’ cf. App. I. 2, Frazer, G. B. iv, Bk. II, Attis, &c.; Ramsay, in Hastings' Bible Dictionary, extra vol., p. 120 f. The Atys myth which involved her cult is connected with Sardis by H.'s story of the son of Croesus (i. 34. 2 n.). The Great Mother was worshipped at Athens in the days of Sophocles (Phil. 391), and identified by the Greeks with Rhea, mother of the gods (cf. iv. 76; Strabo 469), with Aphrodite, with Demeter, and with Artemis as the lady of the wild woods. But here she is regarded as a foreign goddess.

τὸ σκηπτόμενοι. This motive is again put forward vii. 8, β 3, and on the occasion of the destruction of Eretria (vi. 101. 3). The Persians burned temples at Branchidae (vi. 19. 3), Naxos (vi. 96. 1), Abae (viii. 33), and Athens (viii. 53. 2). But they spared Delos (vi. 97) and probably Delphi (ix. 42. 3). Cf. also Troy (vii. 43) and Halos (vii. 197). The Persians needed no excuse for destroying Hellenic shrines (cf. Appendix VIII, § 4), and the accidental destruction of a Lydian temple was clearly not the reason.

νομοὺς ἔχοντες. This should naturally refer to the three satrapies (iii. 90), but the Persians who put down the revolt—Daurises, Hymaees, and Otanes—were generals, not satraps (chs. 116-17, 122; cf. ch. 25. 1 n., App. VI, § 7).


στεφανηφόρους. At the greatest Hellenic festivals the prize was a crown (viii. 26). H. is careful to record athletic distinctions. Cf. ch. 47; viii. 47, &c.

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