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Αἴγυπτον. It is probably true that S. visited Egypt. The story is embellished by Plato (Tim. p. 24); he says that Solon learned from the Egyptians about the lost continent of Atlantis. Cf. 29 n. and ii. 177 n. for Solon and Amasis.


εὖ ἡκούσης for the more usual εὖ ἔχω (cf. our ‘farewell’). Elsewhere (as just below and 102. 2) it has a genitive with it. βίου = ‘in substance’, but the Gk. standard of wealth was not the Lydian (ὡς τὰ παρ᾽ ἡμῖν). Cf. Ps. cxxviii. 5-6 for a similar idea of happiness.


Grote (iii. 71) by a mistranslation assumes that the battle was against the men of Eleusis, and uses this passage to prove the lateness of the union of Attica. This latter fact is probable on other grounds (cf. Thuc. ii. 15. 1), but the battle here mentioned was almost certainly against the Megarians at the border-town of Eleusis (for this war cf. 59. 4 n.).

ἔθαψαν, ἐτίμησαν. The two clauses go together; Tellus was honoured, as were the dead of Marathon, by burial on the spot (cf. Thuc. ii. 34. 1 for the usual custom of burial at Athens). Paus. i. 32. 4 says οἱ Μαραθώνιοι σέβονται τούτους οἳ παρὰ τὴν μάχην ἀπέθανον, ἥρωας ὀνομάζοντες, which may imply that the Athenians did not so worship them. It is not necessary here to think that Tellus received a ἡρῷον (cf. i. 67 n.; v. 47); this would be inconsistent with the simplicity of the story, which lays stress on the happiness of an ordinary man who did his duty.

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hide References (3 total)
  • Commentary references from this page (3):
    • Pausanias, Description of Greece, 1.32.4
    • Thucydides, Histories, 2.15.1
    • Thucydides, Histories, 2.34.1
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