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χαλεπὸν μὲν ἐστὶ συμβουλευομένῳ τυχεῖν τὰ ἄριστα εἴπασαν: “merito laudant Stephani versionem: me tibi consulenti optimum darc consilium difficile est,” Baehr. But this ‘lauded’ version misses the point; it should have run: viro consulenti optimum dare consilium mulieri difficile est! Nor is there any me tibi in the Greek! Cp. αἱ δὲ γυναῖκες ἄνδρες c. 88 supra, and ει καὶ πάντες καὶ πᾶσαι συνεβούλευον αὐτῷ infra c. 103.
ἐπὶ τοῖσι κατήκουσι πρήγμασι: cp. c. 19 supra, 5. 49. δοκέει μοι, it seems to me advisable.
σὺν τοῖσι ἐθέλει: sc. σὺν ἐκείνοις οὓς ἐθέλει (ἀπολέξασθαι, or κατέχειν), i.e. the 300,000 λογάδες. Cp. τὰ φησὶ θέλειν just below: sc. καταστρέψασθαι. τοῦτο μὲν ... τοῦτο δέ: cp. cc. 76, 60 supra.
τὰ νοέων λέγει: what he has in view when speaking — the predicative participle.
σὸν τὸ ἔργον: even on republican (but religious) principles the same formula applied to the Roman who won a victory alienis auspiciis: the victory was the doing of the Imperator, not of the legate. The establishment of Monarchy, of a sole Imperator, tended in the direction suggested by Artemisia's too servile flattery. So Japanese victories are due to the virtues of the Mikado (cp. Times, April 18, 1904, p. 5), perhaps on some esoteric principle not fully understood in the individualistic West.
ἢν γὰρ σύ τε περιῇς ... οἱ Ἕλληνες: this prophecy might seem to enforce the moral, hinted above c. 97, that it was a vast mistake to have let the king escape home out of Europe. Had the Greeks caught the king, and ended the dynasty, they would have been saved a deal of subsequent trouble! On the other hand, the prophecy can hardly be regarded as altogether happy: Xerxes escaped, but the Hellenes, after Plataia, can hardly be said with truth to have had many bouts to stand, many races or risks to run, περὶ σφέων αὐτῶν, except what they incurred by invading the king's dominions! Is the passage a specimen of Hdt.'s irony?
Μαρδονίου δὲ ... λόγος οὐδεὶς γίνεται: cp. 4. 135 τῶν ἦν <*>λάχιστος ἀπολλυμένων λόγος. But Mardonios remains to all time a more interesting and real figure than Xerxes himself. Cp. Introduction, § 11.
οὐδέ τι νικῶντες οἱ Ἕλληνες νικῶσι, τι with the verb: νικῶντες = ἐὰν νικῶσι, the participle doing duty for a conditional sentence. This unfavourable verdict on Plataia is not the verdict of Hdt., cp. 9. 64 infra ἀπελᾷς is future, and absolute; cp. 7. 32 supra, 1. 207 etc.
πυρώσας τὰς Ἀθήνας. Neither Artemisia nor Mardonios have made any allusion to the assault on Delphi and its miserable failure: an unconscious evidence of the good faith of Hdt. and the fictitious character of that legend; perhaps, too, of its bearing no part in the original draft of the Books. The burning of Athens is an incontestable fact; but cp. 9. 13 infra.
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