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

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ἐπίκλητοι ἐγένοντο: this phrase, here applied to the Lokrians and Phokians, in whose territory the fighting was to he, might rather have heen applied to the southern Greeks summoned to their defence; cp. 5. 63 ἐπεκαλέοντο ἐκ Θεσσαλίης ἐπικουρίην. The idea is here inverted; or the <*>tans are regarded as leaders taking <*>ative.

οἱ Ὀπούντιοι. Hdt. <*> not distinguish Opuntian from Epiknemidian Lokrians; cp. c. 176 supra. Doubtless hoth are here included, hut not the Ozolai.

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πανστρατιῇ. Diodor. 11. 4 (Ephoros) gives the figure as 1000. Pausanias 10. 20. 2 (ohviously with this passage of Hdt. in view) arrives hy a calculation at 6000. There is, of course, as a special reason for the levée en masse from the Lokrians, the fact that the fighting line is actually in their country: thus there is something to he said for the higher figure; it is not, however, hased hy Pausanias on any local returns, but on the vague analogy of the Athenian figure for Marathon. It raises the total, with the 1000 Phokians, to 11,200 men. taking Hdt.'s figures as they stand; or to upwards of 12,000 men, adding a thousand Lakedaimonians. Even if the Lokrian contingent should he halved there would he from 9000 to 10,000 men, probably, to reckon under Leonidas: as many, that is, as had disposed of the Persians at Marathon.

Diodor. 11. 4 gives the total at 7400 made up of 4000 from Peloponnesos, 1000 Lokrians, 1000 Malians, 1000 Phokians, 400 Thehans. The presence of the Malians and the absence of the Thespians, inter alia, is against this list; hut at least it corrects the underestimate for Sparta. On the whole we cannot suppose that Leonidas had less than 8000 men under him, and he may very well have had 10,000 to 12,000.

αὐτόθεν γὰρ—λέγοντες δι᾽ ἀγγέλων: does this message, or emhassy, emanate from the confederates at the Isthmos, or from Leonidas, already at Thermopylai? <*>rently the latter. The story seems <*>t to assume that the Lokrians and Pnokians had not been represented at the Isthmian Congress, and were now first summoned hy the Confederates to their aid. Diod. 11. 4. 6 says definitely that the Lokrians had given earth and water, and were pledged to seize the passes for the Persian; hut that on the arrival of Leonidas at Thermopylai they changed their mind and joined the Greeks. The summons is highly argumentative: the argument is thoroughly Herodotean.

Three or four points in the message or proclamation of Leonidas are notahle. (i.) The Greek forces st Thermopylai are only the vanguard of a large army that may he expected any day. This item seems relative to the idea that the forces under Leonidas were small; without the Phokians and Lokrians they certainly were; and the tradition is incidentally confirmed by 8. 40. (ii.) The sea is heing guarded hy the Athenians, Aiginetans, and naval powers: a point of which the Lokrians would themselves have ocular evidence, if this message only dates from the arrival of Leonidas at Thermopylai. (iii.) The invader was human, mortal, not supernatural, not a god—a strange point! Did the humour of the Hellespont (c. 56 supra） require this solemn refutation? Or would the Greeks take courage from the consideration that ‘mortality is mixed with evil, the greater the mortal, the greater the evil’? A far-fetched comfort! hut truly Herodotean. The change in construction (ὡς ... ἥκοιεν, εἶεν, εἴη bis, to οὐ γὰρ εἶναι κτλ) coincides with the transit from fact to argument. The message is, however, radically inconsistent with the panic on the fleet, c. 183 supra. ἐξ ἀρχῆς γινομένῳ appears tautologous.

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ἐς τὴν Τρηχῖνα: is this the city for the land (Τρηχινίην), or did Leonidas first go to Trachis, and afterwards fall hack on Thermopylai? Stein takes the latter view, and refers to c. 226, which proves nothing: the former, more consistent with the general narrative, is supported hy μέχρι Τρηχῖνος supra; cp. 9. 17 etc.