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

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συλλραψάμενοι might seem to imply that the response was audibly delivered, and subsequently written down at the request of the consultants; but what then of the previous response, of the same length? If not written, how was it preserved? The word here cannot be pressed, least of all in the interests of a meticulous chronology.

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τὸν δῆμον: i.e. the Ekklesia. The first report would inevitably have been made to the Boule, which is here, perhaps, included, or presupposed.

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διζημένων, ‘of persons trying to interpret.’ δἰζησθαι, a not uncommon word in Hdt. (c. 103 supra), found also in Herakleitos, Demokritos, Lucian, retains the long penultimate vowel throughout (cp. ἄημαι, κίχημαι). Weir Smyth, Ionic, p. 483, regards it as the prose and διζομαι as the poetic form. Cp. δἰζω (in the oracle), Hdt. 1. 65.

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συνεστηκυῖαι, ‘in conflict,’ ‘opposed,’ a metaphor from battle, or wrestling. Cp. 8. 142 ἔστ᾽ ἂν ὁ πόλεμος ὅδε συνεστήκῃ: 8. 79 συνεστηκότων δὲ τῶν στρατηγῶν: 132 συνεστήκεε δὲ ταύτῃ τῇ γνώμῃ ὴ Γοβρύεω: 6. 108 τοὺς Ἀθηναἰους ἔχειν πόνους συνεστεῶτας Βοιωτοῖσι: 1. 208 γνῶμαι μὲν αὖται συνέστασαν.

τῶν πρεσβυτέρων: the younger men do not appear to have had any say in the matter. It was not usual at Athens for a man under thirty to address the Ekklesia. Cp. Telfy, C. J. A. §§ 138-9.

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ῥηχῷ ἐπέφρακτο: at what date exactly does Hdt. mean to say that the Athenian Akropolis was (had been) protected by a ‘wood’ or ‘thorn’? Is τὸ πάλαι relative to the occasion described, or to the date of composition? Is the pluperfect of the verb to be interpreted strictly, and in relation to the recorded occasion, or loosely and in relation to the (time of) record? Is it assumed that the ῥηχός was a thing of the past, at the time of Salamis, or only in the days of Hdt.? Do the verb and tense refer simply to the original act of fortification, or to a continued state, or condition of defensibility? It seems rather to be implied that the ῥηχός was in existence at the time of Salamis (even if out of repair, 8. 51, but cp. note ad l.), and was interpreted to be τὸ ξυλινὸν τεῖχος. The elder men in 480 B.C. eould remember the sieges of the Akropolis in 511-8 B.C. (cp. 5. 64, 72). This remark, then, is the historian's own; but the πάλαι is in contrast, not merely to the writer's present, but to the date of the response, though the pluperfect does not signify that the ῥηχός was no longer in existence in 480 B.C. The exact meaning of ῥηχός (=ῥαχός) is not certain. Is it ‘thorn’ or ‘wild olive’? In any case it evidently suggests some kind of fortification, palisade, of wood. Just as the outer door of a student's rooms at Oxford is called “an oak” (Blakesley), so ῥαχός might at Athens =φραγμός, σταύρωμα (cp. Rawlinson). But what was its relation to the Πελασγικὸν (Πελαργικὸν) τεῖχος (cp. 5. 64)? Was the ‘palisade’ distinct from the ‘wall,’ or a part of it, or identical with it (a name from a still older time for it)?

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συνεβάλλοντο, ‘conjectured’; cp. 5. 1, 6. 107, cc. 24 supra, 184, 187 infra.

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οἲ δ᾽ αὖ: sc. τῶν πρεσβυτέρων, but perhaps οἱ νεώτεροι were with them.

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παραρτέεσθαι: c. 20 supra.

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ἔσφαλλε, ‘tripped up,’ ‘upset,’ ‘disturbed.’ Why? The lines appeared to foretell a defeat at Salamis, while the ‘wooden wall’ was to remain intact. Why the τέκνα γυναικῶν should have been assumed to be Greeks, and Athenians, is not quite obvious. Perhaps it was only argued that they might be.

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συνεχέοντο, ‘were confounded,’ ‘were put to confusion.’ Cp. 8. 99, and for a more literal use c. 115 supra, and 4. 127. The mental metaphor is as old as Homer; cp. Il. 9. 612, 24. 358; Od. 8. 139.

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The χρησμολόγοι, the experts, ‘took,’ i.e. ‘understood,’ the oracle; cp. λαμβάνειν φρενί, 9. 10. The imperfects here might be emphasized.

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ἀμφί with accus. of place is perhaps rather vaguer than περί (cp. c. 140), and with a sense of motion thither. (Salamis is not Athens, nor Attica.) Cp. with the dative next c.