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ὁ Σύαγρος: cp. c. 153 supra, and so the article here is in order.
ἦ κε ... Ἀγαμέμνων: facit indignatio versum! Blakesley calls this a ‘parody,’ Rawlinson an ‘adaptation’ of Il. 7. 125 “ἦ κε μέγ᾽ οίμώξειε γέρων ἱππηλάτα Πηλεύς”. The appeal to Agamemnon the Pelopid by a representative of Dorian Sparta illustrates the adoption, after the ‘Return of the Herakleidai,’ of the myths, legends, cults, gods and heroes, of the conquered or invaded peoples. by the conquerors. Stesichoros, Simonides, Pindar all represented Agamemnon as having both resided and perished at Sparta, or at Amyklai; Pindar also calls Orestes a ‘Lakonian’ (Hdt. 1. 68), cp. Grote i. 152 ff. A ‘tomb’ of Agamemnon was to be seen at Amyklai ( Pausanias 3. 19. 6 “καὶ Κλυταιμνήστρας ἐστὶν ἐνταῦθα εἰκών, καὶ [ἄγαλμα] Ἀγαμέμνονος νομιζόμενον μνῆμα”); cp. Hitzig - Bluemner ad l.c., but also at Amyklai, Pausan. 2. 16. 6. S. Wide, Lakonische Kulte, pp. 333 ff., gives the texts which go to show that “Agamemnon appears originally (von Anfang an) to be an ancient Local God, (afterwards) identified with Zeus.” The title Ζεὺς Ἀγαμέμνων is abundantly proved. The cult was not, however, confined to Lakonia, or even the Peloponnese. Cp. also Ed. Meyer, Geschichte d. A. ii. (1893) p. 187. But it is here the ‘Pelopid’ Agamemnon that is invoked, a historieized and literary figure, likewise adopted by the Dorians, together with all the rest. It is likely enough that the later literary developments departed further and further from the archaic and conservative cult. The recent advance in the methods and results of Altertumswissenschaft might be illustrated by a comparison of the articles on Agamemnon in Panly. Wissowa, i. (1893) 721 ff. (Wernicke) and Roscher i. (1884) 90 ff. (Furtwaengler), even without going back to Pauly-Teuffel, i. (1864) 513 ff.
Σπαρτιήτας τὴν ἡγεμονίην. For the double acc. cp. c. 104 supra, and the parallel, 8. 3. The question of ‘Hegemonia’ was the burning one, and had already been settled in favour of Sparta; cp. l.c. There is a note of contempt in Γέλωνός τε καὶ Συρηκοσίων (perhaps the name Γέλων sounded a little comic to a Greek; cp. c. 153).
λόγου, ‘condition,’ as in c. 158.
ὅκως with future indic. seems here to introduee a proposition less ‘final,’ or even ‘consequential,’ than relative (after λόγου), not to say demonstrative.
ἴσθι ἀρξόμενος: passive, and idiomatic in regard to partieiple and nominative; cp. Madvig, § 178. εἰ ... μὴ δικαιοῖς ... σὺ δὲ μηδὲ βοήθεε: a δέ in apodosi, combined with the iterated subject of the protasis; ep. c. 51 supra.
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