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

---

---

κατὰ θάλασσαν πεζὸν στρατόν: the force, though a land one, is conveyed by sea through the Euripos channel (by Chalkis; cp. 5. 77, and c. 183 infra). The point is remarkable, but uufortunately the tradition does not specify the place, or places, where the force embarked, nor the state, or states, which supplied the transports.

---

τῆς Ἀχαιίης ἐς Ἄλον: i.e. Achaia Phthiotis, cp. 1. 56, and c. 132 supra. For Alos cp. c. 197 infra. Why Alos was the point of disembarkation rather than Pagasai (cp.c. 193) is far from self-evident.

ἐς Θεσσαλίην: one might rather expect διὰ Θεσσαλίης, cp. c. 196. In 1. 57 Hdt. has the term Θεσσαλιῶτις for a part of Thessaly; cp. c. 128 supra.

---

τὰ Τέμπεα ... τὴν ἐσβολὴν ἥ περ κτλ.: the name Tempe (plural) has not been used before, though the pass has been described in c. 128 supra, a passage quite independent of this story.

---

Μακεδονίης τῆς κάτω seems here to mean very much the same as Πιερίη c. 131, or Μακεδονίς c. 127; cf. notes ad ll.c.

---

κατά, ‘about,’ circiter: an extension of the local force of the preposition; cp. 5. 79, 6. 44, 79. Perhaps Athens and Sparta each furnished about 5000 hoplites to the expedition, though συλλεγέντες might suggest a larger number of contributories; and if Athens supplied all the ships, there may have be<*>ewer Athenian hoplites on service <*>. Athenian resolution c. 144 supra). <*>he soft 2nd aor. (συλλεγέντες) is less usual in early Greek than the 1st. Cp. 9. 27, 29 infra, Aristoph. Wasps 1107, but more common in later Greek (Baehr).

---

η<*> Θεσσαλῶν ἵππος: the armed men of Thessaly seem all to have been mounted. Neither their numbers nor their leader are here given: Diodoros, whose record of this expedition leaves much to be desired (11. 2. 5 f.), takes no account of them at all.

ἐστρατήγεε: the singular verb with the two named subjects may be the more appropriate as the Spartan doubtless had the ἡγεμονία.

Εὐαίνετος ὁ Καρήνου. ‘Karenos’ is of course the Ionic form of ‘Karanos,’ which occurs as the title of a ‘Headman,’ or chief, Xenoph. Hell. 1. 4. 3, and as a proper name in the Temenid, or at least the Makedonian pedigree; cp. Plutarch, Alex. 2, Diod. 7. 15-16; 8. 139 infra. It is a lordly name; but nothing more is known of this Spartan, nor of his son Euainetos, except what is here recorded: though not of Spartan Herakleid blood (cp. App. Crit.), he still has been elected (ἀραιρημένος, by the Apella) ‘strategos’ ad hoc, being already indeed one of the ‘war-lords.’ The record would be interesting, if for nothing else, as exhibiting the arrangements in Sparta for the supreme command, which was by no means always ipso facto in the king's hands on foreign service; cp. 5. 63, and 9. 10 infra. That neither Leonidas nor Leotychidas was in command on this occasion is a remarkable fact, and may favour the suspicion that the Spartans at least hardly meant business; while the fact that Themistokles, son of Neokles, is in charge of the Athenians, points to a more strenuous policy on their part and his.

---

πολεμάρχων. The term is found in technical use at Athens, Thebes, and Sparta. The Spartan ‘polemarchs’ in the fourth century at least each normally commanded a μόρα, and there were six μόραι in the militia, Xenoph. Resp. Lac. 11; cp. Hell. 4. 5. 11. Whether that was a new development is not quite clear. At the battle of Mantineia in 418 B.C. the polemarchs appear as aidesde-camp in immediate attendance on the king, Thuc. 5. 66. 3. Cp. Xenoph. Resp. L. 13. Here again a polemarch appears in command of a foreign expeditiou. The three positions, or functions, are obviously not irreconcilable; but the full powers of the polemarchy, the conditions of tenure, and so forth, remain obscure.

---

Θεμιστοκλέης ὁ Νεοκλέος. The repetition of the patronymic here (cp. c. 143 supra), though not in itself conclusive, bears out the argument for the independent provenience of the story in which it occurs. If this expedition takes place in the spring of 480 B.C., as the Athenian strategoi probably entered office in Hekatombaion, Themistokles must have been one of the strategoi for 481-480 B.C. as well as for 480-479 B.C.

---

ἄγγελοι παρὰ Ἀλεξάνδρου τοῦ Ἀμύντεω ἀνδρὸς Μακεδόνος. This man of Makedon is already well known from Bk. 5. 17-22. Still, the introduction of the patronymic here would not in itself disprove the priority of that passage, albeit the addition of ἀνδρὸς Μακεδόνος is more startling. When, however, it is observed that the man thus elaborately introduced here, and further complimented 8. 137-39 infra, is simply named and no more, and his father Amyntas likewise, in 5. 17, the argument for the prior composition of these later passages becomesagood dealstronger. The argument extends to the relation of this passage to the passage in Bk. 8, and points to that as of older composition than this—in other words, confirms the conclusion that this whole story of the Thessalian undertaking is later in composition than the bulk of these Books. It might have been on artistic grounds that Hdt. postpones the account of the Makedonian kings to the personal entrance of Alexander on the scene; but the alternative explanation also accounts for the phenomena, and is confirmed by so many other indications that it rises to the dignity of proof. Cp. Introduction, §§ 8, 9.

Were these ἄγγελοι mere ‘messengers,’ or were they envoys, ambassadors, negotiators? Was no attempt made by the Greeks to detach Alexander from the Persian, or to induee him at least to play the Persian false in his passage of the mountains? If the Makedonians could have been induced to cut off the Persians from behind, to assail them in the rear, while the Greeks and Thessalians attaeked, or defended, in front, what might not have been effected? Alexander was πρόξενος of Athens (cp. 8. 136). Alexander was manifestly well disposed to the national cause (εὔνοος ἐφαίνετο ἐὼν ὁ Μακεδὠν just below): the absurd message here put into the mouth of his envoys was hardly of his dictating. Themistokles may well have endeavoured to obtain the co-operation of Maked on; the loyal co-operation of Makedon might have rendered Hellas and Thessaly secure. We can hardly suppose that Alexander took his cue from Argos; but his Persian connexion was strong (8. 136), and he was probably better disposed towards Athens and Sparta than towards the Thessalians.

---

καταπατηθῆναι: the last thing that could have happened to the Greeks, if they had kept their station ἐν τῇ ἐσβολῇ, where mere numbers would have counted for nothing. The sting of the message may lie in the tail; καὶ τὰς νέας (pace Naber; cp. App. Crit.). The Greek expedition to Thessaly is represented as a purely land-force, though conveyed thither by sea. The Persian fleet, if unopposed, would assuredly have rendered the position at Tempe quite untenable, even if no other pass into Thessaly had existed. But it is hardly conceivable that the Greeks were ignorant of the naval preparations on the Asiatic side; and only discovered, on their arrival at Tempe, and through the message from Alexander, that the king had a great fleet in motion. It is, however, conceivable that they were not yet fully assured that the king's fleet was all coming round by the north Aegean route. The Persian fleet might have been expected to follow the old island route, by Delos, and to strike direct at Athens. It was only after the rendezvous at Doriskos that the Greeks could feel quite sure that the king's forces might not act independently, and compel them likewise to separate fleet and army, if they were to defend Thessaly, or even northern Greece. The assurance that the king's land-and sea-forces were to act in strict concert. advance by one route, and remain in touch, Themistokles probably obtained by his visit to Tempe, and perhaps through the medium of Alexander. These considerations would, however, tend to throw some doubt upon the exact date of the expedition given in the next c.

---

δοκέειν δ᾽ ἐμοί, κτλ. Hdt.'s own expressions of opinion are always, of course, important to the students of his mind and work; but they rarely show much insight into strategic or military conditions. ‘Fear was the determining motive’ (ἀρρωδίη ἦν τὸ πεῖθον); but he hardly makes it clear whether the Greeks were afraid of being trampled to death in Tempe, or circumvented by the fleet, or taken in the rear owing to the existence of another land-pass. Moreover, Hdt.'s account of this ἄλλη ἐσβολή is lamentably inadequate and incorrect.

---

κατὰ τὴν ἄνω Μακεδονίην διὰ Περραιβῶν κατὰ Γόννον πόλιν: there was and could be no such pass. A pass from Upper Makedonia could not issue by Gonnos, and a pass by Gonnos could not lead into Upper Makedonia. Gonnos is itself in the pass of Tempe, and the starting-point, or terminus, of a difficult mountain ronte, between the land entrance of Tempe and Lower Makedonia, or Pieria, and stands in the same relation to Tempe as Anopaia to Thermopylai; but it is hardly credible that ‘the army,’ or even any part of the army, of Xerxes actually traversed this difficult route. It was not by this route that Alexander in 336 B.C. turned the position of Tempe: he led his army past the gorge, cut steps up Ossa, and descended into the plain behind the enemy. Cp. Bury, Hist. of Greece. ii. 329. The only pass leading from Upper Makedonia into Thessaly is the Volustana, or Servia, from the upper valley of the Vistritza (Haliakmon) down to Elassóna: it is quite possible (and probable) that one of the Persian columns used this pass. The third main pass neither starts from Upper Makedonia nor ends at Gonnos, or anywhere near it; but it may nevertheless, as Rawlinson (iii. 142 n.5) suggests, be the one here intended (so far as Hdt. can be said to intend one). The Petra pass starts (like the Tempe route) from Dion, and crosses the Olympic range (deserving especially the title ἡ ἐσβολὴ ἡ Ὀλυμπική c. 172) by Petra to Doliche (Dúklista), descending to Pythion and so to Oloosson (Elassóna). From Oloosson the plain of Larissa would still have to be gained by various passes through the lower range of mountains, which now form the political frontier of Greece, and leave Thessaly strategically at the mercy of the Turks; cp. c. 128 supra.

---

καταβάντες ... ἐς τὸν Ἰσθμόν. The real reasons for the evacuation of Thessaly were, (1) the failure to secure the co-operation of Makedon; (2) the manifest divisions among the Thessalians, so that even a united Thessaly was too much to hope for; (3) the assurance that the Persian fleet was advancing side by side with the Persian army, rendering Tempe untenable by a landforce alone; (4) perhaps the discovery that there were several other passes by which Thessaly could be entered from Makedon, or at least the assurance that the Persians were so numerous as to make a diversion of that kind easy to them. The difficulty, indeed, is not to understand why the Greeks abandoned Thessaly, but to explain how they ever came to think of defending it. They must have hoped for the co-operation of Makedon, or at least for an absolutely united Thessaly; they must have under-estimated the land-force of Xerxes, and also, probably, have believed that the fighting fleet was not accompanying the land-army. The visit to Tempe enlightened them on the attitude of Makedon, the condition of Thessaly, the magnitude of the Persian forces, the king's plan of campaign. But the expedition had probably not been in vain. It was an earnest of the resolution of the Confederates to draw the first line of defence as far north as possihle: it enabled Themistokles to take stock of and to survey the north Euboian channel and Thermopylai: it assured him of the king's exact designs. He returned to the Isthmos—the Athenian ships and men will presumably have put in to Phaleron or Peiraieus—with a perfectly clear view of the right plan of defence.