Reginald Walter Macan, Herodotus, The Seventh, Eighth, & Ninth Books with Introduction and Commentary

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ὑπεροικέοντας would not by itself mean more than ‘further inland dwelling,’ so πρὸς βορέω ἀνέμου is not de trop. ὑπεροικέειν, 4. 21, 37.

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Παίονας: Δόβηρας: Παιόπλας. This is the only appearance of the Doberes in the pages of Hdt., for in 5. 16 the name is athetized; but Δόβηρος ἡ Παιονική is mentioned by Thuc. 2. 98. 2, 99. 1 on the inland route from Thrace to Makedoma, followed by Sitalkes in 429 B.C. Sitalkes may have ‘made’ or unmade the road; but it was doubtless an ancient route. The ‘Doberes’ can hardly rank ethnically with ‘Paionians’ and ‘Paioplai’: Thuc. seems to incorporate them with the former, Hdt. to associate them rather with the latter. The Paionians and Paioplai are found assoeiated together in 5. 15—a passage of later composition than this one apparently, and supplying, inter alia, evidence of the existence of two roads into Paionia, ἡ πρὸς θαλάσσης ἐσβολή and ἡ ἄνω ὁδός. In this place the Paionians are placed by Hdt. E. of the Strymon, but he apparently conceives them as not lying on the Persian route. Kretschmer (Einleitung, p. 246) follows Tomaschek (Thraker, 1. 13 ff.) in regarding the Paionians as ultimately not of ‘Thracian’ but of ‘Illyrian’ origin: ‘the name of the Paioman stock, Παιόπλαι, has a genuinely Illyrian look’ (ein echt-illyrisches Aussehen).

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ποταμόν τε Στρυμόνα καὶ πόλιν Ἠιόνα: cp. cc. 24, 25, 107 supra; Leake, N.G. iii. 181. The Strymon is the mod. Struma. The complete silence of Hdt. in regard to ‘Amphipolis’ may be significant of the time, place, and circumstances of his composition; ep. Introduction, §§ 7-9.

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τῆς ἔτι ... ἐποιεύμην. The reference back is to c. 107 supra, and is somewhat clumsy: ‘as I have already recorded his death—which took place in 476 B.C.—I had better here mention that he was still alive and in command of the aforesaid Eion—in 480 B.C.!’ Stein too regards this sentence as “mehr als entbehrlich,” and as a later addition. But if so, then the story in c. 107 is also a later addition. Cp. Introduction, § 9.

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Φυλλίς. Steph. B. sub v. cites Hdt. ἑβδόμῃ for this name, and adds that there was also a river in Bithynia of the same name. (Is the word here to be connected with the παντοῖαι ἴδαι of the region, c. 111 supra?) (Cp. φυλλάς, 8. 24.)

τὰ μὲν πρὸς ἑσπἐρην, ‘on the western (parts) side’ (accusative of limitation or ‘refercnce,’ and virtually an adverb). Materially the orientation here is perplexing. The district Phyllis is bounded, according to Hdt., on the west side by the Angites, on the south side by the Strymon, into which the Angites empties itself. He therefore conceives the Angites as flowing north and south, the Strymon as flowing west and east. The Strymon may be said to flow from north-west to south-east; the Angites may perhaps be said to flow from northeast to south-west, but Hirschfeld (Pauly-Wissowa i. 2191) quite naturally describes Hdt. as extending Phyllis northwards to the Angites, which, moreover, falls, not into the Strymon, but into the Lake Kerkinitis. Of the existence of the latter Hdt. seems ignorant. It is mentioned in connexion with Alexander's march in 334 B.C. (Arrian, Anab. 1. 11. 3), and it will probably have been in existence in 480 B.C., though even Thuc. (2. 98. 1) only mentions Κερκίνη as an ἔρημον ὄρος. Hdt.'s topographical indications would be unmeaning unless the Persian army (or one column) was marching on the north side of Mount Pangaeus.

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οἱ Μάγοι ἐκαλλιερέοντο. The Magi mentioned cc. 19, 37, 43 supra. The construction here is observable. καλλιερέεσθαι as a middle is used also 6. 82, ἐς τόν (relative) goes rather with σφάζοντες than with the final verb. The meaning of the word extends beyond “sacrificing with intent to ascertain the will of the gods” (Stein); it seems to carry always the suggestion of obtaining a favourable sign. The sacrifice of the horse to a river was a ‘Trojan’ rite; the animals were thrown in alive: ζωοὺς δ᾽ ἐν δίνῃσι καθίετε μώνυχας ἵππους (Il. 21. 132). Horses were offered to Helios in Sparta (Pausan. 3. 20. 5), to Poseidon in Argos (Pausan. 8. 7. 2). The horse was especially a ‘Skythian’ sacrifice (4. 61; cp. my note ad l.). The ‘Massagetae’ worship only the sun, and sacrifice horses thereto, ‘the swiftest creature to the swiftest god’ (1. 216), while of the Persians Hdt. expressly asserts that they not merely sacrifice the horse, but con sume the costly victim (1. 133); and Xenophon, Anab. 4. 5. 35, endorses at least the former statement. A more recent illnstration of the rite in the same region (Tacit. Ann. 6. 37) offers a horse ‘placando amni’ (Euphrates). Were ‘the white horses’ used on this occasion of the Nesaean breed, cc. 40, 55 supra? For the actual Persian ritual Rawlinson well quotes (and translates) Strabo, 732, 3. But if the description holds good for this earlier period, Hdt. would not have correctly reported the procedure (σφάζοντες ἐς τὸν ποταμόν), which is just what Strabo's Magi will not do.