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

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τὴν ... Τροιζηνίην, apparently one of only five (8. 1 infra), but representing the Peloponnesians.

Πρηξῖνος. Hdt. has perhaps a keener interest in the Troizenian trierarch, otherwise unknown, from the fact that Troizen was the metropolis of Halikarnassos: c. 99 supra. But he misses a point in not specifying that the βάρβαροι, who made a sacrifice of Leon, were Phoenicians.

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διαδέξιον ποιεύμενοι: laetum omen captantes, Portus; “securing (?) a good omen for themselves,” Blakesley. Stein thinks that διαδέξιον might be connected with διαδέχεσθαι and refer to the distribution of portions of the victim among the sacrificial guests, as an ‘Erstlingsopfer’ (cp. πρῶτον), and so mean ‘Erstlingsopfer.’ But the distribution of portions of the victim was not confined to ‘Erstlingsopfer’; and even the Phoenicians did not distribute portions of the victim for consumption at a ‘Menschenopfer.’ Moreover, by whom is διαδέχεσθαι used of distributing (or receiving portions of) sacrificial flesh and blood?

πρῶτον καὶ κάλλιστον: was he really ‘first and fairest’? Or was he simply ‘fairest of the first’ (captured)? Prexinos might have counted as the ‘first.’ Greeks would not have slain this Adonis for his beauty (cp. 5. 12). Blakesley quotes Procopius 2. 15 τῶν ἱερείων σφισὶ τὸ κάλλιστον ἀ̔νθρωπός ἐστιν ὅνπερ ἂν δοριάλωτον ποιήσαιντο πρῶτον (of the ‘Thulitae’); also,

Who spills the foremost foeman's life, That party conquers in the strife;

(Tacit. Germ. 10 less to the point:) but these cases leave good looks out of the question.

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Λέων: τάχα δ᾽ ἂν ... ἐπαύροιτο: ‘What's in a name?’—a good deal at times according to Hdt., cp. 6. 50, 9. 91. The verb is of course in the second aorist. For the meaning cp. the substantive, c. 158 supra (ἐπαύρεσις). There is no doubt a touch of irony here: but how exactly does Hdt. mean it? Did the Phoenicians ascertain that the name of this Adonis was ‘Lion,’ and did this discovery seal his fate? Or does not Hdt. mean that such grand names are dangerous, and provocative of φθόνος, νέμεσις? Or, short of that, does he simply mean. ‘much good his grand name did him!’ (Blakesley's ‘perchance he will gain something from his name,’ i.e. his fate will be remembered, though grammatically possible, robs the remark of its point.)