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ἀπίκατο: pluperfect, but without any very specific time-reference or antecedence.
Σύαγρος: Athenaens, 401 d, gives the word as an epithet of a dog (from Soph. Ἀχιλλέως Ἐρασταί; cp. Nauck, Tr. Gr. Fr. p 132), but ascribes the name to an Aitolian general as well as to this Spartan. Aelian 14. 21 places a poet of the name after Orpheus and Musaios, and makes him anticipate Homer in singing the Trojan war (cp. Bergk, Gr. Lit. i. 406). The Spartan lost his quarry on this occasion. τοῦ δὲ Γέλωνος τούτου: there is some ground for supposing that the remainder of this chapter with the three following chapters forms a digression inserted by Hdt. in his work after his own visit to the west. The story, τὰ ἀπὸ Σικελίης, is resumed, c. 157. Cp. Introduction, § 9.
πρόγονος: his name is given as Deinomenes by Scholl ap. Stein; cp. Etym. M. sub v. Γέλα, Schol. Pindar, Pyth. 2 27, and, though not so recognized, Pauly-Wissowa sub n.; cp. ibid., sub v. Antiphemos. οἰκήτωρ: cp. c. 143 supra and οἰκητόρων l. 19 infra. Τήλου: Telos, an island lying close to (ἐπί c. dat.) the Triopian promontory; one of the ‘Sporades’ (Strabo 488 ἐκτέταται παρὰ τὴν Κνιδίαν μακρὰ ὑψηλὴ στένη τὴν περίμετρον ὅσον ἑκατὸν καὶ τετταρἀκοντα σταδίων, ἔχουσα ὕφορμον). Not a very important place! In Pliny's list of the Sporades (4. 23) it is noted for an ointment (unguento nobilis). Perhaps this unguent was the τήλινον, cp. Athenaeus 689 a, and the name of the island may have been taken from the τῆλις (Theophr. H. Pl. 3. 17. 2), the chief constituent of the commodity.
κτιζομένης Γέλης: cp. Thuc. 6. 4. 3, there dated forty-five years after Syracuse (=690 B.C. ?) The name Thuc. derives from the river ‘Gelas,’ no doubt a Sikel word. Cp. Steph. B. καλεῖται δὲ ἀπὸ ποταμοῦ Γέλα: ὁ δὲ ποταμός, ὅτι πολλὴν πἀχνην γεννᾶ̣: ταύτην γὰρ τῇ Ὀπικῶν φωνῆ̣ καὶ Σικελῶν, γέλαν λέγεσθαι. ‘A people who called a stream Gelas from the coldness of its waters leave little room for further dispute as to their ethnical kiudred,’ Freeman, Sicily, i. 125, etc. Thucyd. couples Entimos of Krete with Antiphemos of Rhodes as oikists, and preserves Lindii as the name of the fort or akropolis. The institutions were Dorian. The name was provocative of punning (as in Aristoph. Acharn. 606).
ἱροφάνται τῶν χθονίων θεῶν: i.e. Demeter and Persephone; cp. 6. 134. A ‘Hierophant’ would keep and exhibit the ἱρἀ, cp. infra; Lobeck, Aglaoph. 1.51.
Τηλίνεω: apparently named from the old home of his ancestor, Deinomenes.
Μακτώριον: one of ‘the only two recorded sites of any interest in the Geloan territory,’ the Mons Sacer of Gela, placed by Freeman (Sicily, i. 409) conjecturally at Niscemi, ‘looking down on the whole Geloan land.’ Blakesley connects the name with the Sikel (Oscan) root MAK-; cp. Lat. macto, Gk. μαχ-.
ἀνδρῶν δύναμιν: ‘virorum manum,’ cp. 4. 155 τέῳ δυνἀμι, κοίῃ χειρί. There is a double point in ἀνδρῶν, as the Θεοί were female divinities; cp. note on θηλυδρίης infra. ἱρά: ‘simulacra, vasa, monumenta, instrumenta,’ Baehr.
ἔλαβε ἢ <εἰ> αὐτὸς ἐκτήσατο: according to the scholiast on Pindar, l.c. supra, Deinomenes had brought the cult from Triopion; that solution but puts the problem, how a male came to be hierophant, one step back!
δ᾽ ὦν: resumptive, cp. c. 145 supra.
ἐπ᾽ ᾧ τε <αὐτός τε καὶ> οἱ ἀπόγονοι: Stein interprets this condition to mean that a cult, hitherto a mere private or personal rite, was elevated into a state cult, with ‘mysteries,’ and an hereditary priesthood. Cp. the proposal of Maian drios, 3. 142. See further SchoemannLipsius, Gr. Alt. ii. 435. (Modern society offers no such aristocratic privileges as that!)
θῶμά μοι ὦν καὶ τοῦτο: if the reading is right (cp. App. Crit.) there are two things astonishing Hdt. What are they? One is clearly that such a man as Telines, an effeminate and soft person, wrought a deed so daring as the restoration of the exiles, or seceders; but what is the other? The nearest thing seems to be, that any one should be able to effect such a result by such means and on such conditions (τούτοισι δ᾽ ὦν πίσυνος . . ἐπ᾽ ᾧ τε) without any band of warriors (ἔχων οὐδεμίαν ἀνδρῶν δύναμιν), and simply relying on the possession and display of the holy treasures. Stein takes the wonder to be, how Telines originally became possessed of the ἱρά, but οὐκ ἔχω εἰπεῖν is an expression of ignorance, not of wonder. The acquisition or possession of such things was not out of the way wonderful; but Hdt. may well be surprised at a great political result based upon a hierophantic display; cp. his remarks on that πρῆγμα εὐηθέστατον, the restoration of Peisistratos by the pseudo-Athene, i. 60. We may suspect that there was more than appears behind the achievement of Telines also; and that the mere display of the ἱρά, however genuine, was not the whole secret of his success. The softness of the priest is perhaps but a metaphorical transfer from his divinities; cp. below. The priesthood might indeed be a highly advantageous avenue, or appanage, to a tyrannis. Gelon transplanted the cult to Syracuse, and built there a temple for it out of the Punic spoil; Hieron succeeded him in the priesthood: cp. Pindar, Ol. 6. 95 et schol. The legendary achievement of their ancestor might be connected with a restoration of exiles, or it might conceivably have marked a restriction and diminution of power, which Gelon recovered, and more than recovered, but by purely secular means.
ὃ δὲ λέγεται ... οἰκητόρων: Blakesley sees (perhaps rightly) in these words evidence of a visit to Sicily on the part of Hdt., but falls into the error of interpreting οἰκήπορες of the primitive population the original inhabitants (the Sikels), which is just what the word never means. Cp. 1. 4 supra. Here, of course, the Greek colonists (the Sikeliotai) are so designated.
θηλυδρίης τε καὶ μαλακώτερος: as Hierophant of Demeter and Persephone he may have had, or been credited with having, too much of ‘the eternal feminine’ about him; or perhaps he may even have donned female attire for the exhibition of the holy things, and this cult-practice may have generated the traditional view of his character. On that ritual cp. L. R. Farnell, Archiv für Religionsw. vii. (1904) 70 ff., where this case might be added to the list of “Male ministrants of female divinities.”
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