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τούτων τῶν τριηκοσίων seems to show that Hdt. has no clear idea that there were more than 300 ‘Spartiatai’ or ‘Lakedaimonioi’ at Thermopylai in all. λέγεται by no means guarantees the truth of the λόγος, rather the contrary. Εὔρυτόν τε καὶ Ἀριστόδημον. Hdt. does not furnish them with patronymics, c. 224 notwithstanding; he follows his special source, without attempting amplification or combination. Eurytos is a good heroic name: (a) one of the mysterious Ἀκτορίωνε Μολίονε, Il. 2. 621, 11. 750; (b) the founder of Oichalia, in Thessaly, Il. 2. 730 (but cp. Strabo 339, 350, 438), a mighty archer (cp. Od. 8. 226) whose bow came to Odysseus, Od. 21. 31 ff. Aristodemos rejoices in a name which is found early in the Herakleid pedigree, as the father of Eurysthenes and Prokles, c. 204 supra etc., the man who, according to Spartan tradition, had set the Dorians in Sparta: 6. 52. The name occurs again in the royal lineage as that of the guardian (πρόδικος) of Agesipolis, the son of Pausanias the king, Xenoph. Hell. 4. 2. 9. If this Aristodemos too was of Herakleid blood his fate is all the more pathetic.
παρεόν, acc. abs.; cp. Madvig, § 182. κοινῷ λόγῳ χρ., ‘after coming to an agreement’ or ‘after agreeing to a common line of action.’
μεμετιμένοι, one of the most astounding words in Hdt., cp. 6. 1. μ. ἦσαν not quite what μετεώατο (? cp. 2. 165) would have been.
Ἀλπηνοῖσι: cp. cc. 216, 176 supra. ὀφθαλμιῶντες: the disease, so common in ancient and modern times in Greece, and throughout the east, is due to the sun and dust; cp. Xenoph. Hell. 2. 1. 3(in Chios). (It was another kind of ‘ophthalmia’ the Persians suffered from in Makedonia, 5. 18—more like that described in Plato, Phaedr. 255 C, D.)
ὁμοφρονέειν, ‘to be of one mind’; cp. 9. 2, 8. 3, 8. 75. γνώμῃ διενειχθέντας: i.e. like the braves and the deserters at Thermopylai, c. 220 supra.
πυθόμενον, as was likely in Alpenos; cp. c. 216.
τὸν εἵλωτα is fairly taken to mean, not that there was one helot attending on the two invalids, but that every Spartan at Thermopylai had at least one helot to serve him: cp. 8. 25 infra. “His helot,” Rawlinson. Such virtue is in the article.
λιποψυχέοντα: the word in Thuc. 4. 12. 1 (of Brasidas!), Xenoph. Hist. 5. 4. 58 (of Agesilaos!), Pausan. 4. 10. 3 (of a brave Spartan, wounded in battle with the Messenians), always refers to physical exhaustion, a bodily faint: Grote here renders it “overpowered with physical suffering” (which is not quite its usual force). The alliteration λιπ. λειφθῆναι (which Baehr thinks designed) is also bad, but helps to explain a corruptela. Valckenaer's emendation (see App. Crit.) is also supported by Tyrtaios 10. 7 μηδὲ φιλοψυχεῖτ᾽ ἀνδράσι μαρνάμενοι.
† άλογήσαντα is rendered “in Sinnbethorung” and left by Stein, though manifestly corrupt; van Herwerden prints (Wesseling's) conjecture ἀλγήσαντα without approving it. The word is used absolutely 8. 116, or with a suppressed object, easily supplied from the context, cp. 8. 46; here the construction would be harsh, and the word almost unmeaning (for it can hardly mean ‘bereft of his senses’). The argument puts two alternatives: (a) that the one survivor had been the only man disqualified or excused from fighting; (b) that the two men excused from fighting had both returned together to Sparta: in either case there would have been no wrath in Sparta. μοῦνον ἀλογήσαντα, or whatever it represents, is plainly a predicate; but the corruption in the passage may extend beyond the single word.
κομιδήν: c. 170 supra, 8. 19, 108, 9. 73. γενέσθαι, like ἀπονοστῆσαι, after εἰ, even in oratio obliqua, is rather startling, but not unparalleled. (Though there is no other instance in these Books, cases occur in 1. 129 εἰ ... δεῖν, 2. 172 εἰ ... εἶναι, 3. 105 εἰ μὴ προλαμβάνειν, 108 εἰ μὴ γίνεσθαι: cp. Stein ad l. 24.) The infinite δοκέειν is, of course. idiomatic; cp. Madvig, § 168 b, and προσθέσθαι quite regular. σφι is observable, but yet hardly “sachlich ungenau” (Stein), as the sentence is not merely hypothetical, but negative: ‘they would not have been (and they were not) angry with the two men (but only with Aristodemos).’ Perhaps σφῶιν (if Hdt. ever used it) might have been formally more exact.
μῆνιν: here a purely human wrath; yet not, perhaps, without a religious sanction. νυνί Stein maintains (against Dindorf), although it is the only instance of the ι δεικτικόν in Hdt.
τῆς μὲν αὐτῆς ἐχομένου προφάσιος, ‘having no better excuse than the other man to allege’ (cling to); cp. 6. 94 ταύτης ἐχόμενος τῆς προφἀσιος.
σφι: sc. τοῖσι Σπαρτιήτῃσι. μηνῖσαι: a poetical word (chiefly in Hom. and Soph.?), cp. 5. 84, 9. 7.
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