Of Athamantid Helle passed, 70
What time their many-bolted way
On the sea's neck, as servile yoke, they cast.
Antristrophe I.
Thus the fierce king, who holds command
O'er populous Asia, drives through all the land,
In twofold armament, his flock divine,
Land troops, and these who stem the brine;
Strong in his stalwart captains, he
Of gold-born[1] race the god-like progeny. 80
Strophe II.
From eyes like deadly dragon's, flashing a lurid gleam,
With men and galleys countless, driving his Syrian car,
'Gainst spear-famed men he leadeth his arrow-puissant war.
- ↑ An allusion is here made to the popular belief that the name of Persia was derived from Perseus, the son of Danae by Zeus, who visited her in a shower of gold.
An interesting exposition of the original signification of the legend will be found in Cox's 'Mythology of the Aryan Nations.'
had reference only to distant regions, seems to have been little known or little thought of among the Greeks generally, as we may infer from the fact that the poet Æschylus[9a] speaks as if he bad never heard of it, while the bridge of Xerxes was ever remembered both by Persians and by Greeks as a most imposing display of Asiatic omnipotence.
—Grote's History of Greece.
9a. Pers. 731, 754, 873.
