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κατεσκεύαστο. Xerxes' delay of a month at Abydos (viii. 51. 1) is most naturally explained by the supposition that the second bridge was not finished. χυτοί=χώματα (iii. 60. 3), ‘moles.’ The neglect of these breakwaters would account for the silting up of the canal at its two ends. ἅμα τῷ ἔαρι. Early in April, 480 B. C. Xerxes took three months to march from the Hellespont to Athens (viii. 54. 1). He probably reached Athens about the middle of September, and must have taken ten days at least to march from Thermopylae to Athens (about 100 miles), which agrees with the fact that the fighting at Thermopylae took place just after the Olympian festival (Aug. 17-20), that is in the last ten days of August. From Therma to Thermopylae (about 175 miles) Xerxes had marched rapidly in fourteen (or perhaps sixteen) days (vii. 183, 196). If we add the delay at Thermopylae (6-8 days), it follows that Xerxes left Therma at the beginning of August. He had halted there for a good many days (vii. 131), and at Abydos (viii. 51 and sup.) a month. A month is not too long to allow for the march from Sardis to Abydos (250 miles), nor a month and a half from Sestos to Therma (over 300 miles). This calculation agrees with H.'s three months from Sestos to Athens (viii. 51), and adding forty-five days for his return (viii. 115), with the seven months of the king's absence (Corn. Nepos, Them. 5).
According to the calculations of Zech and Hofmann (cf. Busolt, ii. 662, 715) five eclipses took place in the years (481-478): (1) Total, April 18, 481, visible on the Indian Ocean (and at Susa). (2) Total, April 8, 480, visible from New Zealand to South America. (3) Partial, October, 480, visible in Corinth and at Sardis; this eclipse is mentioned by H., ix. 10. 3. (4) Partial, Feb. 27, 479, visible in Siberia and the Polar Seas. (5) Annular, Feb. 16, 478, visible in Sardis. Since this is the only one visible in Sardis in spring it has usually been held that it was erroneously pre-dated in local tradition to connect it with the expedition, superstition naturally converting such phenomena into omens (cf. i. 74 and vi. 98). The chronology cannot be altered to suit the eclipse of 478, since its accuracy is guaranteed by the eclipse in the autumn of 480 (cf. ix. 10. 3), and by the fact that the expedition of Xerxes took place in an Olympic year (vii. 206. 2; viii. 26. 2, 72). Meyer (iii, § 205 n.) follows Judeich (Hist. Zeit. xlii, 148) in the probable suggestion that the error consists in the transference of the eclipse seen at Susa in 481 to Sardis in 480. If so the connexion with Pythius would be due to a false combination by H., but the error would be trifling compared with that of pre-dating the eclipse of 478.
ὁ θεός = ἥλιος. προδέκτωρ, coined from προδείκνυμι, ‘one who foreshows.’ The declaration that the sun is the prophet of the Greeks might be justified to a Greek by the identification with Apollo, the god of oracles at Delphi, Branchidae, &c., but it cannot be a Persian view, since Mithra, the god of light, identified at least in the popular religion with the sun, is next in honour to Ormuzd (cf. ch. 54. 2). Cf. i. 131. n.
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