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Σκάμανδρον, ‘the fabled stream, Scamander's holy flood,’ first of the rivers that failed; cp. c. 21 supra.
τὸ ῥέεθρον is apparently an acc. ‘of reference.’ Cp. c. 90 infra.
τὸ Πριάμου πέργαμον (Πέργαμον): in the Iliad ἠ Πέργαμος (Περγάμῳ εἰν ἰερῇ 5. 446, Περγάμῳ ἄκρῃ 5. 460); later writers use τὰ Πέργαμα (e.g. Sophokl. Phil. 353, etc.); seems here to be used for akropolis, or citadel (etymology connected with burg, bourg, Πέργη, πύργος, L. & S.). Not to be confounded locally with Pergamon (Xen. Hell. 3. 1. 6), but no doubt identical with the spot visited by Alexander, Arrian, Anab. 1. 11. 7, 8 (334 B.C.), and identified as the modern Hissarlik, the now indubitable site of Homeric Troy; cp. W. Doerpfeld, Troja und Ilion, 2 Bde, Athens, 1902. Stein observes that Hdt.'s expression implies that the place was uninhabited and unoccupied; if so, it would go to prove Hdt. personally unacquainted with the locality. Hellanikos knew better: Ἑλλάνικος δὲ χαριζόμενος τοῖς Ἰλιεῦσιν, οἶος ὁ ἐκείνου μῦθος συνηγορεῖ τῷ τὴν αὐτὴν εἶναι πόλιν τὴν νῦν τῇ τότε (Strabo 602= Hellan. Fr. 145). ἵμερον ἔχων θεήσασθαι. Xerxes, son of Dareios, may have had a special reason for his interest in Troy; cp. Hesych. Δαρεῖος: ὑπὸ Περσῶν ὸ φρόνιμος, ὑπὸ δὲ Φρυγῶν Ἕκτωρ. The fame of the Trojan war was not unknown at the Persian court.
πυθόμενος ἑκείνων ἕκαστα, rather from the Greeks in his train than from the local guides. ἐκείνων is used vaguely for ‘the story of Troy’; τῶν ἐκεῖ γενομένων (Stein). τῇ Ἀθηναίῃ τῇ Ἰλιάδι. Iliad, 6. 269, 297, mentions a νηὸς Ἀθήνης ἐν πόλει ἄκρῃ, cp. also Xen. Hell. 1. 1. 4 (where Mindaros, the Spartan navarch, is ἐν Ἰλίῳ θύων τῇ Ἀθηνᾷ). Was Apollo, so intimately associated with the spot by ‘Homer,’ ignored by Xerxes? Rawlinson's notion (so too Duncker's: E. T. v. 175) that the king and the Magi would not have been at all likely to worship foreign deities is refuted by what we know of the Persian policy in Babylon, in Egypt, and even, from Hdt.'s testimony, in Greece; cp. Persian indignation for the destruction of Kybele's temple, 5. 102; Datis' offerings at Delos, 6. 97; Xerxes' own subsequent action in Athens, 8. 54; and the attitude of Mardonios towards the Greek oracles, 8. 133, 9. 42, to say nothing of the cylinder of Cyrus, and the Egyptian evidences (Records of the Past, x. pp. 45 ff., etc.). How far such acts may have been the expression of policy, how far of personal piety, need hardly be discussed; the two are not mutually exclusive. It is undoubtedly remarkable that the Magi should have propitiated the ‘Heroes,’ ‘hero-worship’ being a characteristically Hellenic office. Hdt. may have gone rather far in this item. (Alexander specially averted the μῆνιν Πριάμου, Arrian, Anab. 1 11. 8.) On the Magi cp. cc. 19, 37 supra.
φόβος, curiously separated from the thunderstorm and its dire effects, c. 42 supra. ‘Panics’ do happen; cp. 4. 203, 6. 105, 8. 37. Could this one have been due to the neglected majesty of Apollon?
ἐν ἀριστερῇ: the march from Ilion to Abydos might have been accomplished in a day, but may have occupied longer. It is observable that Hdt. omits all mention of Sigeion and the Achilleion (cp. 5. 94). Ῥοίτιον, captured by the Mytilenean exiles in 424 B.C. but immediately restored for a payment of 2000 Phokaian staters (gold), Thuc. 4. 52. 2. Elsewhere Thuc. (8. 101) incidentally supplies the names of several towns between Lekton, the southern promontory of the Troad, and Rhoiteion or ‘Rhoition.’ (Eustath. ad Hom. Il. 2. 648 condemns the form of the word here adopted, but cp. App. Crit.) Ὀφρύνειον mentioned by Xen. Anab. 7. 8. 5 on his march from Lampsakos to Antandros, and apparently a day's journey from the former.
Δάρδανον. Cp. 5. 117. In the sea. fight off Kynossema in 411 B.C. the Peloponnesian fleet (of 86 vessels) had its right wing off Abydos and its left wing off Dardanos (Thuc. 8. 104. 2). Dardanos was 70 stades from Rhoeteum (sic Pliny, 5. 33), and exactly the same distance from Abydos (Strabo 595). It occupied, presumably, the site of that Δαρδανίη. founded by Dardanos, son of Zeus, before the foundation of holy Ilios itself (Iliad, 20. 215 f.). In later times it was celebrated as the spot where Sulla met Mithradates in 84 B.C. and concluded peace. (Strabo l.c.; Plutarch, Sulla 24.)
Γέργιθας Τευκρούς. By Hdt. identified apparently with the Trojans proper, or at least a portion of them (cp. 5. 122 εἷλε μὲν Αἰολέας πάντας ὅσοι τὴν Ἰλιάδα νέμονται, εἷλε δὲ Γέργιθας τοὺς ὑπολειφθέντας τῶν ἀρχαίων Τευκρῶν). On his theory of the Teukrian, or MysoTeukrian invasion, the ‘Gergithes’ are in faet those Teukri who had not migrated into Europe. The theory is, probably, a complete inversion of the facts: the Teukri, the Gergithii, were foreign settlers in the Troad (like the Mysians themselves); ‘Gergithes’ was perhaps the wider term of the two; but Hdt. is not wrong in associating the two terms together: the original home of the Gergithians is probably to be sought in Kypros. (Cp. note to c. 20 supra and reff. there.) Xen. Hell. 3. 1. 15 mentions Gergis as a fortified city; cp. Steph. B. sub v.
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