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

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δή resumes the narrative, after the digression cc. 184-7: ‘as I said’ (Rawlinson).

ὁρμηθείς: cp. ὀρμηθέντες αὐτοί c. 183 supra.

ἔπλεε καὶ κατἐσχε: the πλοῦς was not accomplished when they reached the αἰγιαλός in question; the tenses are carefully used. For the proper names cp. c. 183 supra.

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πρῶται, ‘foremost’; cp. c. 32 supra, and Index.

ὅρμεον πρὸς γῇ, ‘lay moored close to land’; just below ὁρμέοντο would have no sensible difference of meaning, though these ships were ‘moored’ and those were ‘riding at anchor.’ The middle, or passive, form is unusual.

ἐπ᾽ ἐκεἰνῃσι ἐπ᾽ ἀγκυρέων together with ἐπὶ ὀκτὼ νέας just below affords a pointed illustration of the uses of the preposition and the cases.

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ἅτε γὰρ τοῦ ... οὐ μεγάλου: why is the beach so small? Perhaps merely because the Homeric beach, in the passage (Il. 14. 33 ff.) upon which Herodotus has based this description, is so. Evidently not the smallness of the beach, but the tactical disposition of the Persian fleet, kept the ships bunched up in relatively close order. To have formed one line along the miles of Magnesian coast might have proved salvation, when the unforeseen storm burst upon them; but that line would have left the greater portion of the fleet further and further from their objective, Artemision, or Aphetai. The night, according to Hdt. himself, was a perfectly calm one, succeeding a day evidently as calm: the storm was a surprise, a miracle.

πρόκροσσαι: a much debated word. at least since Schweighaeuser and Reiske started the idea that the word here means κλιμακηδόν, par e/chelons, ‘in quincuncem,’ ‘cuneo.’ According to their idea the Persian fleet is to be pictured as a huge equilateral triangle, pointed out to sea (ἐς πόντον) in eight rows, each row being one ship less than the previous one nearer shore (how many each or any one row contained is not stated; but 1204 (1207) shipsarrangedin this fashion would give a base of 154 and an apex of 147). The hypothesis of so strict and elaborate an arrangement is, upon the face of it, improbable, and the word πρόκροσσος does not carry the meaning. κρόσσαι are projections, projecting stones, (Il. 12. 258), which apparently might serve for steps (ib. 444), as in Hdt. 2. 125 (of the pyramids: courses of stones, projecting certainly one beyond the other); but the word πρόκροσσος seems to be connected rather with κόρση= κεφαλή (κρόσση itself a variant), and to mean ‘head-foremost,’ or ‘projecting’ (as in Hdt. 4. 152); and of ships, stemforemost, which may well be its meaning in Il. 14. 35. So Portus interpreted it here, “naves quarum prorae obversae erant,” and was followed by Wesseling, Larcher, Baehr, and others. He, however, supposed that αἱ πρῶται bad their stems to the shore, and that there were nine rows in all. This appears to me to be an error. The first row was moored close to land (probably with ropes to shore), others rode at anchor, but all alike πρόκροσσαι ὁρμέοντο ἐς πόντον, and there were but eight rows in all. If the fleet is supposed to number 1200 (1207) that would give 150 vessels to each row. Hdt. has indeed recruited an additional squadron of 120 in Thrace, c. 185 supra; but that is a somewhat hypothetical figure, and would not, perhaps, more than replace wear and tear up to this point, even if the figure 1200 were not itself an exaggeration. Taking the fleet at a nominal 1000, there would of course have been (a nominaI) 125 in each row, supposing the rows all equal, which they need not have been. The disposition of the fleet would be determined partly by ethnical considerations.

Stein observes that the influence of the Homeric original (Il. 14. 33 ff.) is seen not merely in the use of the word πρόκροσσος, but in its being made of three terminations, while in 4. 152 it is of only two. The smallness of the αἰγιαλός, above noticed, is an equally telltale effect.

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ταύτην μὲν τὴν εὐφρόνην οὕτω: that is, the night of their arrival, after the long day's pull from Therme. εὐφρόνη, undoubtedly a poetical word, c. 12 supra. The acc. of time, or duration; cp. Index. οὕτω is virtually a predicate; cp. I. 11 infra. That the whole fleet moved en masse is implied.

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ἅμα δὲ ὄρθρῳ, ‘but with daybreak.’ ἅμα, prep., as not seldom; cp. 6. 138.

ἐξ αἰθρίης τε καὶ νηνεμίης, ‘ont of (after) cloudless and windless weather’; both words are apparently substantives, like ὄρθρος. The adj. αἴθριος is found 2. 25. The adj. νήνεμος does not happen to be used by Hdt. With the expression cp. c. 37 supra, οὔτ᾽ ἐπινεφέλων ἐόντων αἰθρίης τε μάλιστα.

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ζεσάσης: in Homer frequent of literally boiling water, Il. 18. 349, 21. 362, Od. 10. 360; so too 4. 181 supra, ζέει ἀμβολάδην. ἐξέζεσε (v.<*>. ἔζεσε) occurs in a highly metaphorical sense 4. 205 supra. The sibilant phrase here is condemned by Longinus, de Subl. 43. 1 (ed. Jahn-Vahlen, 1887, p. 63), and well defended by Wesseling, as onomatopoeic.

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ἀπηλιώτης, ‘east,’ irrespective of the time of day; with ἄνεμον, 4. 22 supra. The word occurs in the same form in Attie, Thuc. 3. 23. 5, and on the Horologue or Tower of the Winds in Athens. On this tower Apeliotes is placed between Kaikias and Euros (the whole order being: Boreas, Kaikias, Apeliotes, Euros, Notos, Libs, Zephyros, Skiron: i.e. N., NE., E., SE., S., SW., W., NW.).

οἱ ... οἰκημένοι: a point that might be ‘notorious,’ or have been reported to Hdt. (or his authority) by Greeks from the fleet, so that there is no need to infer from this phrase a personal visit to the locality. The ‘Hellespontias’ is indeed mentioned by ‘Aristotle’ as=ἀπηλιώτης 973 A, as= Καικίας 973 B; cp. 364 B. Aristeides ap. Hermogenem (Spengel, Rhet. Gr. ii. p. 289) uses it of the wind at Arginoussai (Xen. Hell. 1. 6. 35). At different places the ‘Hellespontias’ would blow from different quarters (cp. Aristot. ll.c.).

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ὅσοι μέν is a limitation of αὐτῶν, and this relative clause a limitation of ὅσοι, but equivalent to αὐτοί and αὐτῶν below. εἶχε=ἦν, the weakest phase of ἔχειν. Cp. 6. 116 ὡς ποδῶν εἶχον for the genitive.

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καὶ ποῖσι οὕτω εἶχε ὅρμου, ‘and whose moorings were favourably sitnate.’ For οὔτω cp. l. 6 supra.

οἵ δ᾽ ἔφθησαν: δέ in apodosi and also with repeated subject; cp. cc. 6, 13, etc. For φθάνω cp. c. 162 supra.

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ὅσας δὲ ... μεταρσίας ἔλαβε: sc. ὀ χειμών. ὅσας δέ replies to ὅσοι μέν supra. μετάρσιος is generally used of being ‘high in air’ (cp. μεταρσιωθέν, 8. 65); here ‘on the high sea’ (cp. ὑπεραιωρηθέντες, 6. 116). Hdt. conceives of all the ships as having come to anchor; but perhaps some were really out at sea. τουπέων must also be supplied before τὰς μέν κτλ.

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ἐξέφερε, ‘carried ashore.’ Five places are mentioned: Ipnoi, the Beach, Sepias, Meliboia, Kasthanaia; they are all of course in ‘Magnesia’; cp. c. 176 supra.

ἰπνός is an oven or furnace (cp. 5. 92), and the ‘Ovens’ on Pelion were not perhaps a city or village, but some rocks or cliffs (so Forbiger ap. Bobrik, and Bursian, Geogr. v. Griechenl. i. 100). The αἰγιαλός is defined supra as extending from Kasthanaia to Sepias. Σηπιάς is the promontory at the eastern end of the Magnesian coast; c. 186 supra.

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περιέπιπτον: cp. 8. 16, but the word does not necessarily denote a disastrons encounter; cp. 8. 94.

Μελίβοια: a place of some commercial and military importance, not situate actually on the shore, but commanding the chief valley, col, and coast between Ossa and Pelion; known to Homer's Catalogue, B 717; cp. Bursian, Geogr. v. Griechenl. i. 99.

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Κασθαναίην: cp. c. 183 supra.

ἐξεβράσσοντο: this fervent word is repeated c. 190 infra, ‘dashed up.’

χρῆμα: cp. 4. 81, 6. 43, etc.