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An historical disquisition concerning the knowledge which the ancients had of India : and the progress of trade with that country prior to the discovery of the passage to it by the Cape of Good Hope : with an appendix ... / by William Robertson ...
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NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

the fleet of twelve hundred ships with which Xerxes invadedGreece, and among these there is not one belonging to Persia.At the fame time it is proper to observe, that according toHerodotus, whose authority is unexceptionable with regardto this point, the fleet was under the command of Ariabi-gines, a son of Darius, who had several satraps of highrank under his command , and both Persians and Medesserved as soldiers on board of it; Herod. lib. vii. c. 96,97. By what motives', or what authority, they were in-duced to act in this manner, I cannot explain. From somereligious scruples, similar to those of the Persians, many ofthe natives of Indostan, in our own time, refuse to embarkon board a ship, and to serve at sea; and yet, on someoccasions, the sepoys in the service of the European power#have got the better of these scruples.

NOTE X. Sect. I. p. 29.

M. le Baron de Sainte-Croix, in his ingenious andlearned Critique des Hiftoriens dAlexandre le Grand, p. 96,seems to entertain fume doubt with respect to the numberof the cities which Alexander is said to have built. Plutarchde Fort. Alex. affirms, that he founded no fewer thanseventy. It appears from many passages in ancient authors,that the building of cities, or, what may be considered asthe fame, the establishment of fortified stations, was themode of maintaining their authority in the conquered na-tions, adopted not only by Alexander, but by his succes-sors. Seieucus and Antiochus, to whom the greater partof the Persianlempire became subject, were no less remark-able for founding new cities than Alexander, and thesecities seem fully to have answered the purposes of thefounders, as they effectually prevented f as I shall after-wards have occasion to observe) the revolt of the con-quered provinces. Though the Greeks, animated with thelove of liberty and of their native country, refused to settlein the Persian empire while under the dominion of its native