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

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ἐχειρώθησαν: a curious word to use for the capture or destruction of ships; cp. 4. 96, 103, 164, 5. 16, etc.

τῆς ἐτριηράρχεε Φόρμος ἀνὴρ Ἀθ.: the exact nature of the ‘trierarchy’ at Athens in 480 B.C. is by no means clear; cp. 8. 17. Was this trierarch one of the men who acted under the psephism of Themistokles? (cp. Appendix III. § 4). Unfortunately nothing is known of him. (φορμός as a crate, or basket, 8. 71.)

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ἐξοκέλλει ἐς τὰς ἐκβολὰς τοῦ Π.: κέλλειν poet. and ὀκέλλειν prose forms used both transitively and intransitively; and so here, ἐξοκ. of the ship as subject, and ἐπώκειλαν τὴν νέα just below of the mariners. τὰς ἐκβ. τ. Π., cp. τὴν ἐκβολὴν π. Π. c. 128. Tempe is some 60 to 70 R. miles from Skiathos: the Greek scouting ships must have been far in advance of the island. (Blakesley's idea that the king's ships came down on Skiathos from the high sea seems improbable.) It looks as if the Greeks were taken by surprise: could the Sidonians have started from Therme by night? The Athenian vessel may have been smarter than the others, but even the Athenian was no match for the Sidonian in pace. Was the ship's hull (σκάφος) captured by the pursuers, or later, by the Persians of the general advance? Apparently the former: in any case the advance of these ten Sidonian ships may have served as part of the excuse for bringing Xerxes on a visit to Tempe (cc. 128-130). To change Πηνει<*>ου into Πηλίου (Sauppe) is bad; cp. Baehr.

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ἀποθορόντες ... ἐς Ἀθήνας. Apparently they did not pause to destroy rigging, stores, etc., as might be inferred from σκάφος above: and why did they not go to Thermopylai and so to Artemision? Perhaps only because Hdt. has not thought of the point. θρώσκειν, άποθρώσκειν seem rather poetical words.