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

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τοῦτο μέν, without a δέ to correspond strictly: the phrase is resumed c. 25 ad init., and then proceeds grammatically, παρεσκευάζετο δέ κτλ., but searcely logically.

πταισάντων κτλ. Even if we read προσπταισάντων (cp. App. Crit.), περὶ τὸν Ἄθων may more elegantly be taken with it. There is allusion to the expedition of Mardonios in 492 B.C. which might very well have been accompanied by an express reference to the story of the disaster (6. 43-45), the rather on account of the suppressio veri and suggestio falsi, from Hdt.'s point of view, in the speech of Mardonios above, had that story already formed part of his work when Hdt. first indited this passage; cp. Introduction, § 7.

περιπλεόντων, imperfect: they did not succeed.

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ἐκ τριῶν ἐτέων κου μάλιστα: the chronological indication is not quite precise, for (a) the exact term is not stated (is it the king's departure from Susa, or from Sardes, or is it the actual use of the canal by the fleet on its arrival?); (b) κου μάλιστα further generalizes the reference, even if έκ should be taken of a precise point of departure. Above, c. 20, it is in the course of the fifth year from the beginning of the preparations that the actual start takes place, but there again it is not quite clear whether the ‘start’ is from Susa or from Sardes. Cp. c. 20 supra.

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Ἐλαιοῦντι, cp. 6. 140, the nearest point on a straight line between Athos and the Hellespont. The exact connexion of the moorings at Elaiûs with the work proceeding at Sane is not very clearly put by Hdt., but Elaiûs appears to have been the chief naval station for the time being, and droves of workers were conveyed thence, by sea, to Sane; while other gangs were requisitioned from the immediate neighbourhood. The corvée was, perhaps, in operation. Corvée and the lash were horrors from which the Hellenes had been delivered, or saved, by Salamis and Plataea! On the use of the sjambok, knout, or μάστιξ. cp. cc. 56, 103, 223 infra; Xen. Anab. 3. 4. 25. Blakesley has a rather cheap (or perhaps scholastic) remark on flogging at the expense of Larcher as a ‘closet critic.’ So Hdt. censures the εὐήθεια of the Athenians (1. 60).

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ἐπέστασαν τοῦ ἔργου ‘were overseers of the work.’ The dative would be more usual; cp. τῶν ἐπεστεώτων τῇ ζεύξει c. 35 infra. On Bubares and his father Megabazos cp. 5. 21, which supplies, in the marriage of Bubares with a Makedonian princess, Gygaia, one reason, perhaps, for his present appointment. The omission of the fact here, and of any reference to the former passage, indicates the independence of the Sources, and supports the priority of this. Cp. Introduction, § 7; on Artachaies, son of Artaios, c. 117 infra. Why were there two Epistatae? Did the one specially superintend the relays from Elaiûs, and the other the local pressgangs? Or did they relieve each other in the local work?

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ὁ γὰρ Ἄθως ἐστί κτλ. The topography of Athos which follows challenges comparison with Thuc. 4. 109, and does not emerge altogether with credit. (1) Hdt. gives no general name for the peninsula (except Athos?); Thuc. supplies the name Akte. Haack's idea that ο<*> Ἄθως is the mountain and ἡ Ἄθως the peninsula need not be maintained in view of the emended text of Thuc. 5. 35 (cp. Stuart Jones's edition); but Thuc. 5. 82. 1 seems to use Ἄθως of the peninsula; cp. the φόρος inscripp. (Διε̂ς ἐκ το̂ Ἄθο). (2) Hdt. distinguishes on the peninsula the mountain Athos rising out of the sea, and the low-lying isthmos, correctly; he also gives the breadth of the isthmos (which Thucydides has no occasion to do) sufficiently correctly at twelve stades; but the seas on either side are described as the Akanthian sea, and the sea ‘opposite Torone’: this latter designation is a very strange one, considering the site of Torone, especially in relation to the ‘isthmus,’ and raises a doubt whether Hdt. had visited these parts before writing his description of them. Thuc. also has a sea (πέλαγος） on either side of the mountain, and names the one the ‘Aegean,’ and the other the ‘Euboean,’ more correctly. (3) Hdt. and Thuc. each name six and the same six cities, or townships, on the peninsula, but in somewhat different order. Thuc. appears to enumerate the six starting from Sane, and going round in order from W. to E. side. Hdt. has enumerated the six in the reverse order, but has apparently transposed the positions of Thyssos and Kleonai. (If this observation is correct Dion ought, upon the maps, to be placed SE. of Sane.) With the exception of Akrothoon all the names appear upon the Attic tributelists, but the list of neither historian is taken direct from the tribute-lists, on which the order is not geographical. (4) Thuc.'s ethnology of the region is much fuller and more precise than Hdt.'s. Hdt. indeed calls Sane a πόλις Ἑλλάς, which may be taken to imply the presence of non-Hellenic elements in the neighbourhood. Thuc. goes further; Sane he describes as a colony from Andros, and the rest he peoples with ξυμμείκτοις ἔθνεσι βαρβἀρων διγλὠσσων Chalkidic, Pelasgo-Tyrsenian, Bisaltian, Krestonaean, Edonian! The comparison suggests the conclusion that in his own description of Akte Thuc. had this passage of Hdt. in view. Strabo 331 (Frag. 35) gives the five ‘Pelasgian’ townships as Kleonai, Olophyxos, Akrothooi, Dion, Thyssos. Hdt.'s οἰκημ. ὑπὸ ἀνθρώπων is almost impossible (‘not by wild beasts, as you might expcct from my description,’ to say nothing of the sea there being θηριοδεστάτη 6. 44); cp. App. Crit.

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ἐς τὸν τελευτᾷ ὁ Ἄθως. As Hdt. says ‘Athos ends in the isthmos,’ he is plainly looking as it were northwards, or from the sea: this observation favours the reading ἐντός (cp. App. Crit.), ‘this side of.’ ἔσω, ‘on the land side of’ Athos.

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αἲ δέ: reading this Stein supplies εἰσι. τάς will then be demonstrative.

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νησιώτιδας ἀντ᾽ ἠπειρωτἰδων ποιέειν: a somewhat impious proceeding; cp. 1. 87, and Introduction, § 11.