This text is part of:
τὰ μὴ ... ἁλώσεται: i.e. τοιαῦτα ὤστε μὴ ἁλώσεσθαι, the relative sentence having the value of a final (Stein). Cp. 4. 166 ἐπιθυμἐοντα μνημόσυνον ὲωυτοῦ λιπέσθαι τοῦτο τὸ μὴ ἄλλῳ εἴη βασιλέι κατεργασμένον κτλ.
τῇ Ἑλλάδι κτλ., grammatically speaking, forms the apodosis to the sentence introduced by ἐπειδή supra. Logically, a colon should intervene, as ἐρέω, or ἔρχομαι λέξων, or such like (φέρ᾽ εἴπω). Rhetorically, the inconsequence is effective. ‘Hellas’ is here used in a narrowed sense of the peninsula. The sentiment which follows is of the ‘gnomic’ order: παθήματα μαθήματα: cp. Thuc. 1. 123. 1 “ἐκ τῶν πόνων τὰς ἀρετὰς κτᾶσθαι”: Eurip. Fr. 641 πενία δὲ σοφίαν ἔλαχε διὰ τὸ συλλενές: Theocr. 21. 1 ἃ πενία, Διόφαντε, μόνα τὰς τέχνας ἐγείρει Αὐτὰ τῶ μόχθοιο διδάσκαλος. Hdt. however (for it is, of course, Hdt. speaking), rather mixes his metaphors, and obscures his argument, as in other cases (cp. cc. 152, 162 infra). If poverty is indigenous (σύντροφος), how is it to be ‘warded off,’ like the ontlandish ‘tyranny’ (δεσποσύνη)? To cease to be poor is to invite attack. This was the moral of the Lykurgean institutions (σοφίη, νόμος ἰσχυρός), which no doubt produced manly valour (ἀρετή, ἔπακτος), but aimed not at banishing but at nursing its elementary conditions. Historically, indeed (αἰεἰ κοτε), the time had been when the wealth of ‘gold Mykenai’ attracted the poor but well-armed invaders. That is a point Hdt. forgets. But there was something paradoxical, no donbt, in the wealthy and ill-armed Asiatics swarming to the invasion of hard - headed, hard - handed Hellas (for which moral cp. further 9 80-82). The bearing of the Mykenaian finds on the poverty of Hellas is noticed in TsountasManatt, Mykenean Age, p. 217.
αἰνέω μέν. Demaratos talks like a sage and a patriot, not like a king iu exile scheming for his restoration. Hdt. drops the mask. The ‘Dorian’ also moves in him, and he proceeds to write the eulogv of Lakedaimon in terms which no Greek could ever have addressed to the Great King. It is the preparation for the legend of Thermopylai, to the glory of the Λακεδαιμόνιοι μοῦνοι. Hdt. had probably not yet written the story of Athens, which with less gross injustice glorified the Ἀθηναῖοι μοῦνοι: cp. 9. 27; c. 10 supra. (If the story c. 239 infra could be trusted, Demaratos had recently been in communication with Sparta.)
οὐκ ἔστι ὅκως=ούδαμῶς (Sitzler).
τὰ σὰ φρονέωσι: cp. 5. 3, cc. 145, 172 infra, 9. 99. ἀριθμοῦ δὲ πέρι. Xerxes has not manifested any intention of asking about the number. The time, however, will come for that; c. 234 infra.
χίλιοι: this figure was destined to play a fatal part in the story of Thermopylai; cp cc. 202, 228 infra.
The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.