DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4377#0218
548 EXPEDITION TO BKANCIIID.E.
subsequently restored to Branchidse by Seleucus
Nicator.
It is difficult in this case to reconcile the state-
ment of Herodotus with those of Strabo, and we
must, therefore, either prefer the testimony of the
earlier historian, inasmuch as he speaks of an
event which occurred within the memory of his
own generation, and in the immediate neighbour-
hood of his native place, or we must suppose that
the destruction of the Temple by Darius was only
partial, and that the dedication of the work of
Kanachos took place in the interval between this
first desecration and the final plunder and burning
of the Temple, which Strabo attributes to Xerxes.1
In either case it seems historically certain that
both the statue of the god and the Sacerdotal Gens
were transported to Susiana before the close of the
Persian war.
We can hardly, therefore, suppose that, after
the oracular shrine had been thus dismantled and
deserted by its ministers, new statues would have
been dedicated to the god until the rebuilding of
the Temple ; but this did not take place till more
than a century later.
From the evidence of the inscriptions which I
discovered on the Sacred Way (see Plate XCVII.
Nos. 66, 67, 68, 70, 71, 72), it may be inferred that
the date of the statues found with them ranges
1 See, on this question, Brunn, Geschiclite d. Griech. Kuenstler,
i. p. 76, who thinks that the work of Kanachos was dedicated in
the interval between the burning of the temple by Darius and its
plundering by Xerxes.
subsequently restored to Branchidse by Seleucus
Nicator.
It is difficult in this case to reconcile the state-
ment of Herodotus with those of Strabo, and we
must, therefore, either prefer the testimony of the
earlier historian, inasmuch as he speaks of an
event which occurred within the memory of his
own generation, and in the immediate neighbour-
hood of his native place, or we must suppose that
the destruction of the Temple by Darius was only
partial, and that the dedication of the work of
Kanachos took place in the interval between this
first desecration and the final plunder and burning
of the Temple, which Strabo attributes to Xerxes.1
In either case it seems historically certain that
both the statue of the god and the Sacerdotal Gens
were transported to Susiana before the close of the
Persian war.
We can hardly, therefore, suppose that, after
the oracular shrine had been thus dismantled and
deserted by its ministers, new statues would have
been dedicated to the god until the rebuilding of
the Temple ; but this did not take place till more
than a century later.
From the evidence of the inscriptions which I
discovered on the Sacred Way (see Plate XCVII.
Nos. 66, 67, 68, 70, 71, 72), it may be inferred that
the date of the statues found with them ranges
1 See, on this question, Brunn, Geschiclite d. Griech. Kuenstler,
i. p. 76, who thinks that the work of Kanachos was dedicated in
the interval between the burning of the temple by Darius and its
plundering by Xerxes.