When as the Greeks at sea the Medes did meet,
And had near Salamis a naval fight,
Democritus as third led up the fleet,
Charging the enemy with all his might;
He took five of their ships, and did another,
Which they had taken from the Greeks, recover.
Neither ought it to seem strange to any, if he thus
bitterly inveighs against the unfortunate; since he reckons
amongst enemies and traitors those who were present at
the engagement, and together with the other Greeks hazarded their safety. For the Naxians, says he, sent three
ships to the assistance of the barbarians; but Democritus,
one of their captains, persuaded the others to take the
party of the Greeks.1 So unable he is to praise without
dispraising, that if he commends one man he must condemn a whole city or people. But in this there give testimony against him, of the more ancient writers Hellanicus,
and of the later Ephorus, one of which says that the
Naxians came with six ships to aid the Greeks, and the
other with five. And Herodotus convinces himself of
having feigned these things. For the writers of the
Naxian annals say, that they had before beaten back
Megabates, who came to their island with two hundred
ships, and after that had put to flight the general Datis,
[p. 361]
who had set their city on fire. Now if, as Herodotus has
elsewhere said, the barbarians burned their city so that
the men were glad to save themselves by flying into the
mountains, most surely had they just cause rather to send
aid to the destroyers of their country than to help the
protectors of the common liberty. But that he framed
this lie not so much to honor Democritus, as to cast infamy
on the Naxians, is manifest from his omitting and wholly
passing over in silence the valiant acts then performed by
Democritus, of which Simonides gives us an account in
this epigram:
1 Herod. VIII. 46.
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