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

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τούτοισι ... ἑκάστων, a singular collocation: τούτων ἑκάστους or τούτοισι ἑκάστοισι (4. 62) would have seemed more natural. ἑκάστων of course goes with πόλιας (‘according to their several cities’). Perhaps Hdt. purposely uses a slightly arresting form of expression, the hetter to emphasize the entrance of Leonidas; hence also the inconsequential ἦσαν μέν, ὁ δέ.

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παντὸς τοῦ στρατεύματος ν̔γεόμενος applies only to the land-force, without prejudice to the command of the fleet; cp. 8. 2; hut therehy serves to mark a defect in the leading.

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Λακεδαιμόνιος: the word used appropriately here, as contrasting him, not with other orders in the Spartan state, hut with the strategoi of the various other Hellenic contingents. Cp. c. 134 supra

Λεωνίδης. Weir Smyth, p. 160, notes this (with Λεωβάτης (sic), Λευτυχίδης） as a ‘snrprising’ Ionism. Stein (ad l.) regards Λέων Λέοντος (1. 65) as Ionic for supposed Doric Λᾶν or Αᾶς=λαός (Ion. λεώς), having nothing to say to a lion. But lion or not, the Ionic flexion is wrong, and the name should at least he Λεοντίδης or Λεοντιάδης (c. 205 infra). What the king's name properly was, then, we hardly know: perhaps Λανίδας.

ὁ Ἀναξανδρίδεωκτλ.: there follows the pedigree of ‘Leonidas,’ right up to Herakles, twenty-one names in all, or seven centuries, on Herodotean principles (2. 142); thus dating Herakles hut to the year 1180 B.C. The pedigree of Hckataios was shorter (2. 143), hut the sixteen generations would just take Leonidas hack to Eurysthenes and the founding of the twin-kingships (6. 52).

This pedigree is the ne plus ultra use of the patronymic, and douhtless does Leonidas an especial honour. The same compliment is, however, paid to the less illustrious Leotychidas, 8. 131 infra; and in any case the problem arises why these Herakleid pedigrees—the most famous in Hellas—are first introduced in the history of the war of 480-479 B.C.? Is it not because this portion of Hdt.'s work is the oldest in composition? Cp. Introduction, § 8. That hypothesis would at any rate fully sustain the fact. The Herakleid pedigree of the Spartan kings compares favourably with the Achaimenid pedigree of Xerxes himself, as given c. 11 supra, which runs, in the <*>t line, only into seven generations. <*>ne names in the pedigree of Leonidas are also names of kings of Sparta, as far as Eurysthenes, though to complete the list of kings the name of his elder hrother Kleomenes must be inserted, immediately before his own.

Ἀναξανδρίδεω: cc. 148, 158 supra. He must have died between 521 and 515 B.C. (cp. 5. 39, 49, with my notes ad l.), and was on the throne probably as early as 550 B.C. (1. 67).

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Λέοντος: as in 5. 39 and 1. 65. His reign falls before the age of Kroisos apparently. His name can hardly mean ‘People’! Cp. c. 180 supra.

Εὐρυκρατίδεω is grandson of Eurykrates, even as Leonidas (or Leontidas?) of Leon. He appears in Pausan. 3. 3. 5 as Eukrates ὁ δεύτερος.

Ἀναξάνδρου: the name (so thoroughly Homeric) reappears in his great-grandson Anaxandridas. Pausanias, 3. 3. 4, etc., makes him contemporary with the seeond Messenian war, and has several anecdotes to tell of him; and Plutarch ascribes to him a virtuous apophthegm, Mor. 217.

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Πολυδώρου: dated by Pausan. 3. 3. 1, 4. 7. 7 to the time of the ‘first’ Messenian war, and credited by Plutarch (Lykourg. 8) with having raised the Spartan land-lots to 9000. (This would be part of the Lykourgean legend?) He is recorded to have heen murdered by Polemarchos, Pausan. 3. 3. 3. Cp. Clinton, i. 338.

Ἀλκαμένεος, said to have commanded in the first expedition of the Messenian war: Pausan. 4. 5. 3. Clinton, i. 338, reckons his reign ahout 779-742 B.C. Of course little reliance can he placed on the traditions of the Messenian wars, the only distinct reference to which in Hdt. is 3. 47.

Τηλέκλου: his name was especially remembered in connexion with the war against Amyklai; and he fell in a horder brawl with the Messenians, according to the story in Pausan. 4. 4. 2; cp. Clinton, i. 337.

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Ἀρχέλεω: an influential contemporary of Charilaos (a rather suspicious synchronism); cp. Clinton, i. 336. Eusebios gives him a reign of 60 years (885-826 B.C.): Niese ap. PaulyWissowa, i. 446. He was credited with a jest on Charilaos' name: Plutarch, Lyk. 5. With his colleague he was helieved to have reduced Aigys.

?ηγησίλεω: Pausanias dated the legislation of Lykourgos to the reign of Agesilaos, and gave the king a short reign; Apollodoros a long one, and made Homer his contemporary. Cp. Clinton, i. 335 f.

Δορύσσου: Pausanias and Apollodoros have a similar difference on the duration of this king's reign: Clinton, i. 335.

Λεωβώτεω: Hdt, our oldest authority, places Lykourgos as guardian of Labotas, 1. 65. This is quite as respectable a tradition as the rival and later one (now traced to King Pausanias; cp. E. Meyer, Forschungen, i. 215 ff.) which brought Lykourgos down several generations, and transferred him to the Eurypontid house. Pausanias 3. 2. 3 places an Argive war in this reign, perhaps rather prematurely.

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Ἐχεστράτου: Pausan. 3. 2. 2 makes the war with Argos for the ‘Kynouria’ hegin in this reign.

Ἤγιος: the eponym of the house, Pausan. 3. 2. 1: perhaps historical, and the first historical name. He was credited with the conquest of Helos and the foundation of ‘Helotage’: Straho 365 f. Clinton (i. 332) should have the credit of raising the one year of his reign (Diodoros) to 31. (Niese ap. Pauly-Wissowa, i. 817 ascrihes the correction to Gutschmid!)

Εὐρυσθένεος: the story in 6. 51 f.; cp. 4. 147. In 5. 39 the elder House is called τὸ γἐνος τὸ Εὐρυσθἐνεος, and in 6. 52 η<*> οἰκίη η<*> Εὐρ. He had an (ideal) reign of 42, if not 52, years; cp. Clinton, i. 333. For the story of the origin of the dual kingships cp. notes and Appendix to Hdt. IV.-VI.

Ἀριστοδήμου: ep. 6. 52, where the Spartan tradition is given, according to which Aristodemos himself was king in Lakonia. The name recurs helow c. 229, and also later in Spartan history.

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Κλεοδαίου: Pausan. 3. 15. 7 mentions an ἡρῳον of Kleodaios, son of Hyllos, in Sparta, ‘near the theatre.’ Apollod. 2. 8. 2 records an unsuccessful attempt on his part to effect ‘the return.’

Ὕλλου: the story of the attempt of Hyllos to effect ‘the return’ is sufficiently documented, 9. 26 infra. See notes ad l.

Ἡρακλέος: cp. 6. 53, where the antecedents of the human Herakles carry the antecedents of the Spartan kings back, through Persous and Danae, to Egypt. That is an extension of the offieial Herakleid, or at least Lakedaimonian version, of the pedigree, which is all that Hdt. gives in this place, and perhaps naturally. But the discussion in Bk. 6 presupposes the existence of the genealogies here, and fortifies the eonclusion that this passage is of earlier composition; ep. Introduction, § 8.

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κτησάμενος ... ἐξ ἀπροσδοκήτου: Leonidas is mentioned, and the cireumstances of his hirth, 5. 41, hut not the story or even the fact of his succession, partly, perhaps, that he was so famous, hut rather because Hdt. had already committed the facts to writing in this passage.

With the expression ἐξ ἀπροσδοκήτου cp. c. 205 ἐκ τοῦ ἐμφανέος and 1. 111 ἐξ ἀέλπτου.