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ἐθηεῖτο τὸν στρατὸν ὑπὸ μαστίγων διαβ. Xerxes, on the European shore, watches his forces crossing under the lash. But what was left to cross after the king, according to the immediately preceding context? Moreover, the army has all crossed in two days, while here the crossing takes ‘seven days and seven nights’ without stopping! The ‘whips’ might suggest that the crossing here refers only to the baggagetrain and non-combatants, but στρατός is against that, and whips are used on the fighting men, cc. 22 supra, 103, 223 infra. This passage is of value as showing how little Hdt. recks of the contradictions and inconsequences in his various sources: he does not really know (or much care) whether Xerxes crossed last, or midst, or. as this passage implies, among the first; nor whether the crossing took two days, or “seven days and seven nights without pause”!
ἐλινύσας: 8. 71 infra.
λέγεται ... ἄνδρα εἰπεῖν: the construction (acc w infin.) lays stress on what was said rather than on the man who said it (Abicht). ἄνδρα has a point against ἀνθρώπους following. The Hellespontine bon-mot is adopted seriously by the Delphic oracle, c. 220 infra (cp. the case 4. 144), but explicitly refuted by the laconic apophthegm, c. 203 infra (οὐ γὰρ θεὸν εἶναι τὸν ἐπιόντα ἐπὶ τὴν Ἑλλάδα ἀλλ᾽ ἄνθρωπον).
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