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ἀρχῆθεν, ‘from the start’; cp. 8. 142.
τὰ κατήκοντα Σπαρτιήτῃσι, “de iis quae pertinent ad Spartanos” (Baehr), concerning which Demaratos would be a good authority, and be able λέγειν τῶν λόγων τοὺς ἀληθεστάτους.
τυγχάνω τὰ νῦν τάδε ἐστοργὼς ἐκείνους: the vulgate text, if left as it stood, must be taken as ironical: “for none knows better than thou what my love towards them is [likely to be] at the present time,” Rawlinson: so too Baehr, Blakesley, Cobet (Mn. 12. 256) et al. τάδε is rather de trop in this case. Stein1 marks a lacuna after ἐκείνους, and would read ἐκείνους δὲ μισέων, but still appears to take τὰ νῦν τάδε as one phrase (“mit meiner jetzigen Lage hier zufrieden”); it would be better to separate τα νῦν (or τὸ νῦν) from τάδε in either case and refer it rather to τυγχάνω. Even so τάδε ἐστοργὼς ἐκείνους δὲ μισέων is not a very happy or adequate antithesis: τάδε μὲν ὲστοργὼς ἐκείνονς δὲ μισέων would mend the antithesis, but still, why should the one verb be in the perfect, the other in the present? The recurrence of the verb στέργειν just below, where the meaning is hardly disputable, favours Stein's suggestion: at the same time words recur sometimes, in all but the most careful compositions, with different senses at no great intervals (cp. A. B. Cook, “Unconscious Iterations” in Class. Rev. xvi. 1902, pp. 158, 256). Could τάδε ὲστοργὼς ἐκείνους give a simple sense by itself? στέργειν means various things besides ‘loving’: 9. 119 οὕτω δὴ ἔστεργον τὰ παρέοντα, ‘they endured, put up with, the situation.’ Aeschyl. Agam. 1570 τάδε μὲν στέργειν, | δύστλητά περ ὄνθ᾽. So τάδε ἐστοργώς might mean ‘having endured these things’ (at their hands); though ἐκείνους in this case must be corrupt, and ἐκείνων or a more extensive emendation might be requisite: possibly a line has dropped out.
τιμήν: sc. βασιληίην. γέρεα: cp. 6. 57. ἀφαιρεῖσθαι takes double acc. τινά τι. ἄπολις (cp. 8. 61) might have a special meaning for one who had fled ἐς βαρβάρους. But cp. next note.
βίον τε ... καὶ οἶκον, and γῆν τε καὶ πόλιας to boot, cp. 6. 70.
στέργειν: as the anti-thesis to διωθέεσθαι must mean ‘to accept’: the sentence is ‘gnomie,’ as any abstract sentence about σωφροσύνη and εὔνοια is apt to be.
ἑκών τε εἶναι: asin c. 164 infra, but not very elegant just after οἶός τε εἶναι.
εἰ ... εἴη: a purely hypothetical condition. The offer was rather risky: Xerxes, who had ‘compelled’ him to speak (ἠναγκάσας λέγειν supra), might have ‘compelled’ him to fight. οι<*> . . ἕκαστος φησί is a little abrupt.
ἐλεύθεροι γὰρ ... ἀπόλλυσθαι. No finer eulogy on Spartan discipline exists: ‘freedom under the law’ and ‘loyalty to death’ for its watch words. Dramatically the panegyric is ill placed in the mouth of Demaratos addressing Xerxes, and at this point, where it anticipates the story of Thermopylai, to which, no doubt, it rightly belongs. The principle of the absolute supremacy of the νόμος or νοῦς ἄνευ ὀρέξεως as the secret of the best State is more elaborately, but not more clearly, formulated in Aristotle, Polit. 3. 16=1287 A; but as a moral maxim ‘the categorical imperative’ still falls short of the Platonic ideal.
μένοντας ἐν τῇ τάξι ἐπικρατέειν ἢ ἀπόλλυσθαι. This is the maxim: οὐκ ἐὼν ... ἐκ μάχης ἀλλά the speaker's gloss, which a little confuses the statement: κελεύων must be supplied out of οὐκ ἐῶν: cp. 6. 97 οὐκ ἔα τὰς νέας πρὸς τὴν Δῆλον προσορμίζεσθαι ἀλλὰ πέρην ἐν τῇ Ῥηναίῃ. The anecdote of Amompharetos 9. 53 ff. shows a misapplication of the maxim.
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