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συμφορῇ τῇ μεγίστῇ ἐχρέωντο: a literal and prompt obedience to the behest: κακοῖς δ᾽ έπικίδνατε θυμόν. For the expression cp. c. 134 supra.
προβάλλουσι δὲ σφέας αὐτούς: with this expression cp. Soph. O. T. 745 f. “οἴμοι τάλας: ἔοικ᾽ ἐμαυτὸν εἰς ἀρὰς δεινὰς προβάλλων ἀρτίως οὐκ εἰδέναι”: Eurip. Rhes. 182 “χρὴ δ᾽ ἐπ᾽ ἀξίοις πονεῖν ψυχὴν προβάλλοντ᾽ ἐν κύβοισι δαίμονος”. Though neither is exactly parallel to the use of the word here, all three have the note of ‘abandonment’ in them, “giving themselves up for lost” (“res suas desperantibus,” Stein). Cicero, Tusc. 2. 54 “qui doloris speeiem ferre non possunt, abjieiunt se, atque ita afflicti et exanimati jaeent ... sunt enim quaedam animi similitudines cum corpore”. Schweighaeuser, indeed, takes the word here materially, “humum se prostraverunt.” (The present participle is rather against that.) ὑπό: they are abandoning themselves to despair “under the influence of, or the effects of the evil, which has been oracularly revealed”; cp. ὑπὸ δέους τε καὶ κακοῦ ἔρρηξε φωνήν 1. 85, ὑπὸ τοῦ παρεόντος κακοῦ ὁ Δαρεῖος ἀγρυπνἰῃσι εἴχετο 3. 129.
κεχρησμένου might seem to be the Herodotean form from χράω: not to be confused with κέχρημαι, κεχρημένος. Van Herwerden would recall the latter form everywhere. But cp. App. Crit. and c. 145 infra. Τίμων ὁ Ἀνδροβούλου: neither the propitiously named father, nor the son, is otherwise known to fame. ὅμοια τῷ μάλιστα (δοκἰμῳ), cp. c. 118 supra.
ἱκετηρίην ... ὡς ἱκέτας: on the previous occasion, though they had observed the proper ritual of ‘consultants,’ they had not presented themselves as ‘suppliants’ (e.g. they had taken seats in the megaron). Now they were to arm themselves with the suppliant's olive or laurel branch, filleted with wool (ἱκετηρίην, sc. ῥάβδον; cp. λευκοστεφεῖς ἱκτηρίας, Aisehyl. Suppl. 192); cp. Hermann-Stark, gottesd. Alterth. (1858) p. 138.
τοῖσι Ἀθηναίοισι: Hdt. doubtless understands the term of the θεοπρόποι, and supposes them not to have left Delphi or reported to the Athenians at home the doleful response obtained. The exaet interval between the two responses Hdt. does not indicate: was it hours, or days, or longer? Was the first response not conveyed to Athens, or perhaps to Salamis, before the second was emitted? Or had the two Theoroi directions (from Themistokles) to move heaven and earth in order to obtain a Delphic sanction for the plan of remaining at Salamis and there doing battle? The first response supports the plan, afterwards ascribed to the Peloponnesians, of the complete evacuation of Attica and Salamis, and the transfer of the Athenians to the Peloponnese; the second favours the plan of those in Athens who were determined to make a stand at Salamis (and even perhaps upon the mainland). These responses ean only be dated in reason to the days or weeks when that strategic question was the dominant and urgent one. It is conceivable that Delphi delivered two eontradictory directions on two successive days; but it seems not unlikely that a more considerable interval separated the two responses, during which Themistokles contrived, by one means or another, to adjust the wires at Delphi. It is a frappant inconsequence in the story of Salamis that Themistokles is not represented as making any use of these responses in his arguments with Eurybiades and the Peloponnesians (8. 60). The proper inference therefrom is, not that these are mere vaticinia post eventum, and the whole story of the Athenian theoria to Delphi a later fiction, but that Hdt. follows in different parts of his narrative different sources, without troubling to consider their mutual bearings.
αὐτοῦ τῇδε μένομεν ἔστ᾽ ἂν καὶ τελευτήσωμεν: the supplication on behalf of Athens and Attica (περὶ τῆς πατρίδος, not of course ‘Hellas’) contains a threat of “sitting dharna,” which apparently is effectual; cp. Maine, Early Institutions, <*> 40, etc. Orestes ap. Eurip. Iphig. in Taur. 972 ff. applies the same method of compulsion: πρόσθξν ἀδύτων ἐκταθείς, νῆστις βορᾶς, ἐπώμοσ᾽ αὐτοῦ βίον ἀπορρήξειν θανών, εἰ μή με σώσει Φοῖβος, ὅς μ᾽ ἀπώλεσεν. The present is more forcible than the future (cp. App. Crit.). Stein cps. cc. 235, 236, 9. 17, 46, etc.
ταῦτα δὲ λέγουσι resumes καὶ λέγουσι: cp. c. 136 δευτερά σφι λέγουσι τάδε ... λέγουσι δὲ αὐτοῖσι ταῦτα.
ἐξιλάσασθαι: the preposition is emphatic. Whether the intercessory prayer of Pallas is merely metaphorical, or whether the goddess is believed to be truly interceding on behalf of Athens, is open to question; at any rate Olympian Zeus is regarded at Delphi as omnipotently, or at least supremely, directing the course of human affairs.
ἀδάμαντι πελάσσας: Blakesley takes Ἀδάμας as an epithet of Zeus, ‘having approached the Inflexible One.’ Apollo in any ease is speaking (masc. πελάσσας), but, inter alia, this rendering presents, or exaggerates, a rivalry between Apollo and Athene not probable in a response. (Blakesley's paraphrase suppresses this point.) πελάζειν is as frequently causal as intransitive, specially in poetry, and may also be used metaphorically; e.g. Pindar, Ol. 1. 80 (78): κράτει δὲ πέλασον (sc. ἐμέ), fac compotem (Rumpel, Lexicon, sub v.). So here: ἀδάμαντι πελάσσας (sc. τόδ᾽ ἔπος), ‘that I have made as of steel, that shall never be broken.’
Κέκροπος οὖρος: Lange, Stein, and others make οὖρος=ὄρος, and understand simply the Akropolis, a view not taken by any of the Athenians of the time, ep. e. 142 infra; Rawlinson and others, οὖρος=ὸρος, so that K. ὸ.= Attica, and Kithairon simply resumes the chief feature of the Attic boundary on the landside. Or better still, perhaps, K. οὖρος (=ὅρος) might stand generally for the πόλις, the whole city; ep. Philochoros ap. Strabon. 397 Κέκροπα πρῶτον εἰς δώδεκα πόλεις συνοικἰσαι τὸ πλῆθος ὦν ὀνόματα Κεκροπἰα Τετράπολις Ἐπακρἰα κτλ. Cp. Etym. M 352 τὴν τῶν πολιτῶν ἐποικἰαν ἀφ᾽ ἑαυτοῦ Κεκροπἰαν προσηγόρευσε.
κευθμών: recessus, vallis, Pind. Py. 9. 34 ὀρέων κευθμῶνας ἔχει σκιοέντων: fr. 101.(70.) 4 καἰ ποτε τὸν τρικαράνου Πτωΐου κευθμῶνα κατέσχεθε (Rumpel, Lex. Pindar.). Κιθαιρῶνος: cp. 9. 19 infra.
Τριτογενεῖ: i.e. Athene, ep. 4. 180. The epithet here might be not merely a poetic or metrical convenience, for the word probably meant ‘born of water’ (see L. R. Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, i. 266), though it must be admitted that Themistokles makes no use of this etymology in his exegesis.
τό: demonstrative? or relative? the faet ἀπόρθητον τελέθειν? or the actual τεῖχος?
ίπποσύνην: the abstraet for the concrete; in Homer, ‘horsemanship.’ Baehr remarks that this oracle imitates the Epic style, but is destitute of the native colour of the Epos.
ὦ θείη Σαλαμίς κτλ.: these two celebrated lines follow immediately and naturally upon the promise ἔτι τοἰ ποτε κἀντἰος ἔσσῃ, and so are probably an authentic part of the original response, which, therefore, can only have been framed at a time when the possibility of an engagement at Salamis was evident, and the plan was being pressed; i.e. after Thermopylai-Artemision. δέ: its position is justified by the projection of the vocative.
ἤ που σκιδναμένης Δημήτερος ἢ συνιούσης, generally interpreted ‘either in the time of sowing, or gathering in the harvest.’ Baehr obscrved, however, that the exact meaning of the line is far from clear. σκἰδνασθαι is frequent in Iliad and Odyssey, but never used of scattering seed, but of crowds dispersing, Il. 1. 487 etc.; of spray, ὑψόσε δ᾽ ἄχνη Σκἰδναται, Il. 11. 308; of dust, ὕψι δ᾽ ἄελλα Σκίδναται, Il. 16. 375; of a fountain, or well, in a garden, ἀνὰ κῆπον ἄπαντα Σκίδναται, Od. 7. 130. In the Hymn to Demeter 277, from the garments of the goddess herself ὀδμὴ δ᾽ ἱμερόεσσα . . Σκἰδνατο. In all these cases there is a sense of dispersion, diffusion, dissipation. Still more strained is the interpretation of Δημήτερος συνιούσης of the gathering in of the harvest. Even if Δημήτηρ σκἰδναται could mean ‘the seed is being sown,’ could Δημήτηρ σύνεισι (or συνέρχεται) mean ‘the harvest is being gathered’? (On σκἰδνασθαι cp. 8. 23.) At least it may be worth while to suggest that the reference in the line is not generally to springtime and autumn, but definitely to the date of the Eleusinian Mysteries, which coincided with the battle of Salamis. Perhaps the allusion in the line is to something in the ritual; or, if ‘Demeter’ might stand for the ‘Demeter-worshipper’ or the Mystai, the line might simply mean that the battle should take place either when the worshippers were assembling or dispersing. Cp. 8. 65.
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