This text is part of:
τῶν δὲ δόντων, ‘of those who gave.’ The list which follows, then, does not profess to be complete. It does not, for example, contain the ‘Argives,’ nor the ‘Delphians,’ though the tribes it does contain are all members of the Amphiktyonic League, the twelve constituents of which, exeepting the Dorians, Ionians, and Phokians (who finally medized), are all in this list here. Nor is it clear how Hdt. came by these names. Was there a complete list of ‘traitors’ from which he made a selection, with due regard to the susceptibility of time and place? Or did he draw up this list himself, as an inference from the story of the campaign? Or is it a list of those tribes against whom the vow of vengeance was afterwards declared by the patriotic Greeks (ἐπὶ τούτοισι οἱ Ἕλληνες ἔταμον ὄρκιον） and whose names were officially specified at the time? Or was there a list of tribes against which the ‘Amphiktyons’ issued a bill of pains and penalties after the war? (cp. Plutarch, Themist. 20). The tense and the order of the narrative suggests that these surrenders were announced by the heralds to Xerxes in Pieria. This implication can hardly be correct for all the tribes, notably for the Thebans, who can scarcely have openly medized before Thermopylai. Diodoros 11. 3 professes to know that the Ainianes, Dolopes, Malians, Perrhaiboi, and Magnetes had joined the ‘barbarians’ before the abandonment of Tempe by the Greeks, while the Achaians, Lokrians, Thessalians, Boiotians, ‘inclined to’ the ‘barbarians’ after its abandonment. On the date of the patriotic oath see below. The chronology here as a whole is far from clear or consistent. The passage seems to belong to the insertions at second or third hand; cp. Introduction, § 10. The actual list of medizeis given makes it improbable that the heralds despatched ἐπὶ γῆς αἴτησιν had been sent forth from Sardes. If sent at all, they had perhaps only been sent forward from Therme; cp. c. 32 supra.
Θεσσαλοί: not here of all the inhabitants of Thessaly, nor in the official sense of τὸ κοινὸν τῶν Θεσσαλῶν (which might include some of the other names mentioned), but of the ‘Thessalians’ in the stricter sense; cp. c. 176 infra. Δολοπες reappear c. 185 infra, with Perrhaiboi, Enianes, Magnetes, and Achaians, as furnishing contingents to the infantry; but are not otherwise definitely placed by Hdt. In the Iliad 9. 484 they are located ἐσχατιὴν Φθίης. (Δόλοψ appears among ἡγεμόνας Δαναῶν slain by Hektor 11. 302, and another Δόλοψ on, the Trojan side, 15. 525 ff.) Thucyd. 1. 98. 2 places Δόλοπες in Skyros; in 2. 102. 2 Δολοπία appears to be on the upper course of the Acheloos, and under Pindos; in 5. 51, 1 they are associated with Αἰνιᾶνες; Μηλιῆς, Θεσσαλοί (just as in this passage, cp. c. 185 infra). Ἐνιῆνες (Ion. for Αἰνιᾶνες) in the Homeric Catalogue (B 749) associated with the Περαιβοί (cp. c. 185 infra), and more definitely located upon the upper Sporcheios, c. 198 infra.
Περραιβοί: cp. c. 128 supra. Λοκροί. The geographical order of the list is here disturbed, and also its merely ethnical character modified. The folks hitherto named are all north of Othrys, but the same observation holds of the Magnetes and Achaians to come. The Lokrians may also signify a more distinct political, or military, union than the other peoples named. Thus c. 203 Λοκροὶ οὶ Ὀπούντιοι appear on the national side, πανστρατιῇ, and in c. 207 resolved on resistance, while in 8. 1 they furnish a eontingent to the Greek fleet at Artemision. Hdt. does not distinguish ‘Epiknemidian’ from ‘Opuntian’ Lokrians (any more than Thucydides); but he once mentions the Ozolai (8. 32 infra). It appears, therefore, that where he speaks of Lokroi simply, he lumps the Opuntian and Epiknemidian Lokrians (c. 216 infra, 8. 66, 9. 31). They must here be in view, and obviously they did not ‘medize’ until after Thermopylai (cp. 8. 66). ‘Lokris’ as so conceived (the term is not used by Hdt.) succeeds ‘Malis’ and begins at Alpenoi; cp. c. 216 infra. Μάγνητες takes us back to Thessaly, in the general sense. Μαγνησίη χώρη is located cc. 176, 183, 188, 193, as the strip of coast under Ossa and Pelion (from Tempe to Cape Sepias); cp. Il. 2. 756 f. (Only in 1. 161, 3. 90, 122, 125 does Hdt. happen to mention Magnesia and Magnetes in Asia.) Μηλιέες. Their territory (Μηλὶς γῆ) is nicely located in c. 198 infra (between Achaia and Lokroi), as generally by the story of Thermopylai; cp. also 4. 33. They only joined the king's army after Thermopylai 8. 66. Thuc. 3. 92. 2 divides the Μηλιῆς into three parts, Παράλιοι Ἰριῆς Τραχίνιοι. Ἀχαιοὶ οἱ Φθιῶται, ‘the Achaians of Phthia,’ no doubt to distinguish them from the Achaians in Peloponnese (cp. c. 94 supra); their territory located cc. 173, 196-198 infra, cp. 1. 56; they, if any, should be Hellenes of the Hellenes, Homer passim.
Θηβαῖοι κτλ.: cp. 8. 66, from which, as from the story of Thermopylai, it is clear that Thebes and Boiotia only ‘medized’ after the abandonment of Central Greece by the ‘Hellenes.’
ἐπὶ τούτοισι οἱ Ἕλ. ἔταμον ὅρκιον. ε<*>πί adversus Baehr; cp. c. 148 infra. The phrase τάμνειν ὅρκιον (ὅρκια) is Homeric: Il. 2. 124 “ὅρκια πιστὰ ταμόντες”, etc. ὅρκιον is best taken as an adjective, to which ἱερεῖον (or such a word) must be supplied. The slaying or cutting of the sacrificial victim marks the act of solemn agreement; cp. 9. 26 infra, 4. 201, and especially 4. 70 (where ταμνομένων is middle). The words might imply that the names previously specified were actually documented in the sworn agreement. The terms of the oath which follow are more general, and do not quite bear out this impression. The exact date of the drafting of this oath is also open to discussion. Even if the list above given were official, not historical, the covenant might be of one date, the black list of another. Stein argues that the tense ἔδοσαν in the formula itself implies that the vow was retrospective, not prospective (ὅσοι ἂν δῶσι); but the historian might here be accountable for a change of tense, and the terms of the oath are in oratio obliqua, and not exactly quoted. Hdt. does not clearly mark either time or place of the oath, but the earliest occasion on which such a solemnity could have taken place was at the meeting of the πρόβουλοι at the Isthmos in 481 B.C., cp. c. 145 infra, where Diodoros (i.e. Ephoros) seems to place it, 11. 3 (though after relating the evacuation of Tempe). The latest date at which it could be supposed to have taken place would be on the field of Plataia. It is placed there and then by Lykourgos c. Leokrat. 80, before the battle, as an article in a more general oath (ταύτην πίστιν ἔδοσαν αὑτοῖς ἐν Πλαπαιαῖς πάντες οἱ Ἔλληνες ὅτε ἔμελλον παραταξάμενοι μάχεσθαι πρὸς τὴν Ξέρξου δύναμιν), but the words of the oath, § 81, are certainly spurious, and Lykourgos is not a very convincing authority for the place and time. Such, indeed, was the view of Theopompos, Fr. 167 Ἑλληνικὸς ὅρκος καταψεύδεται δν Ἀθηναῖοί φασιν ὀμόσαι τοὺς Ἕλληνας πρὸ τῆς μάχης τῆς ἐν Πλαταίαις πρὸς τοὺς βαρβάρους. Spartans, or others, might also take one-sided views of this oath; the Akarnanian orator in Polybios 9. 39. 5 treats it as an oath taken against the Thebans alone by the Lakedaimonians. Diodor. 11. 29 repeats this oath, locates it at the Isthmos on the way to Plataia, and omits the tithing clause! Suidas (sub v. δεκατεύειν) gives no indication of place or time (except the words εἰ νικήσειαν). Rawhnson (ad l.), whose note is not free from inaccuracies, seems to think the story of the oath grew up in consequence of the punishments inflicted by the Amphiktyonic Council afterwards (c. 213 infra). But the oath is required to justify setting the Council in motion: and what folk did the Council punish? See further, Appendix III. § 5. οἱ τῷ βαρβάρῳ πόλεμον ἀειράμενοι, one of Hdt.'s many titles for the confederate Greeks (cp. c. 148), implies the formation of the Alliance. The story is plainly ‘proleptic,’ and is somewhat out of place here. It belongs to a highly composite passage (cc. 128-37) which was inserted, perhaps not all at the same date, into the previons draft of the work. Cp Introduction, § 9.
τὸ δὲ ὅρκιον ὦδε εἶχε: the words of the solemn vow of vengeanee follow in orat. obl. (ὅσοι ... θεῷ). Hdt. seems to regard this agreement as a separate and subsequent act, distinct from the original or general agreements of the Confederates, a point on which, of course, he may easily be mistaken. Diodoros, 11. 3. 3, gives the terms as a resolution (ψήφισμα) of the Synedrion: τοὺς μὲν ἐθελοντὶ τῶν Ἑλλήνων ἑλομένους τὰ Περσῶν δεκατεῦσαι τοῖς θεοῖς ἐπὰν τῷ πολέμῳ κρατήσωσι. The omission of Delphi here speaks for the date, and is in other obvious ways significant; otherwise the oath is substantially the same. Lykurgos gives it as a clause in a more extensive oath: καὶ κρατήσας τῷ πολέμῳ τοὺς βαρβάρους τῶν μὲν μαχεσαμένων ὑπὲρ τῆς Ἑλλάδος πόλεων οὐδεμίαν ἀνάστατον ποιήσω, τὰς δὲ τὰ τοῦ βαρβάρου προελομένας ἁπάσας δεκατεύσω: but the oath as given by him is open to grave suspicion as to form and substance. Diodoros 11. 29. 3 gives substantially the same oath as taken at Plataia, but without this clause. The Herodotean form is in oratio obliqua; Hdt. in fact does not profess to give the exact terms of the oath (ὦδε εἶχε, not τόδε ἦν or simil.). The oath is remarkable inter alia as implying (1) a test of Hellenism; (2) a test of ‘necessity’: Thessalians and others might plead the latter (cc. 139, 172 infra); perhaps Makedonians, and others, the former!
ἕδοσαν, ‘had given’; but not necessarily before the date of the oath, for (1) it is in oratio obliqua; (2) the penalty would not be confined to those who had medized before the outbreak of hostilities; (3) if the oath was taken by the Probouloi at the Isthmos, to whom could it apply, if merely retrospective? Not certainly to all the names above given.
καταστάντων σφι εὖ τῶν πρηγμάτων: is this a<*> Atticism? cp. 6. 105.
δεκατεῦσαι. (a) Abicht follows Baehr in taking as ‘to tithe’ for a god, a tenth being handed over, but no further penalty exacted, and cites 1. 89 in favour of this interpretation. This view is supported by the Scholiast to Aristeides, p. 224 τὸ δέκατον μέρος ἀνελεῖν. A further problem would arise, whether the dedicated tithe was to he handed out once for all, or was to be a periodical rent-charge; ihre Grundstucke zinspflichtig zu machen: so Baehr, following Boeckh (Staatshaush. i.2 444=i.3 399). Cp. Xen. Anab. 5. 3. 9 “καὶ τὸ λοιπὸν δὲ ἀεὶ δεκατεύων τὰ ἐκ τοῦ ἀγροῦ ὡραῖα θυσίαν ἐποίει τῇ θεῷ”. But that was not a case of penalty; ἀεί is expressed, and everlasting punishments are hard to enforce in this world. (b) Stein understands δεκατεῦσαι to be used as equivalent to καθιεροῦν (Harpokration sub v.), and to mean here that the medizers were to become mit Leib und Gut, the god's property. But Harpokration (ibid.) also interprets δεκατεῦσαι as simply τὴν δεκατὴν εἰσπράττεσθαι, and the cases where it is equivalent to καθιεροῦν (as of a virgin, ἀρκτεῦσαι of μνῆσαι) are not cases of penal action. (c) The simple and obvious meaning of δεκατεῦσαι is to tithe, to dedicate a tenth; it retains this meaning in this place, and implies, not wholesale dedication, but wholesale spoliation; a tenth of the spoil is to be given to the god, but what of the nine-tenths? They are to remain in the hands of the spoilers. This is the sense which suits the anecdote, 1. 89. Thus the word is used as a meiosis, euphemistic or ironical. τῷ ἐν Δελφοῖσι θεῷ: the most suspicious feature of the whole story. It is significant that in Diodoros (11. 3), where this oath is recorded, τοῖς θεοῖς is substituted; so too Polyb. 9. 39. 5. At the Isthmus-meeting at which Diodoros (Ephoros) dates the oath, a promised dedication to Delphi was not yet quite out of the question: was Delphi still hesitating? was the vow a bid for the favour of the Oracle? or was not Delphi itself ‘medizing,’ or soon to medize; cp. c. 140 infra, and Appendix III. § 7. It is still more doubtful whether, at Plataia, the Greeks would have promised dedications to Delphi; the rehabilitation of the national Holy of Holies had hardly yet begun. This phrase might therefore be cited as evidence of the fictitious character of this oath, and the whole story in which it is embedded. But is it necessary to carrv scepticism so far? The form in which Hdt. reports the oath may belong to the period of Delphi's rehabilitation, and exhibit the tendency of the time, but the form is not strictly authentic, and need not be taken to discredit the fact of a solemn vow of vengeance, registered by the Greek representatives at the Isthmos prospectively, and repeated, it may be with express enumeration of the culprits, at Plataia, whether before or after the battle. In connexion with this covenant was undertaken the siege of Thebes (which lived on in men's minds as the special fulfilment of the vow; cp. Xen. Hell. 6. 3. 20, 6. 5. 35; Polyb. 9. 39), as also the campaign against the Thessalians, the disastrous conclusion of which (6. 72) helped no doubt to stay further attempts to fulfil the vow, to which perhaps opposition on political grounds was added: cp. Plutarch, Themist. 20.
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.