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οἱ δὲ Ἕλληνες: the scene shifts back to Hellas (cc. 121-125) and resumes the story dropped in c. 112. The Greeks are foiled at Andros (even as Miltiades had been foiled at Paros, some nine or ten years before, 6. 132 ff.). Karystos is devastated, Rawlinson solemnly remarking that Themistokles seems to have lacked the influence, or the honesty, to keep his bargain with these unfortunates. What is really here disproved is the bargain. αὐτῶν: sc. τῶν Καρυστίων.
ἀπαλλάσσοντο ἐς Σαλαμῖνα. Had they ever really quitted it? Are the operations against Andros and Karystos correctly dated, or are they duplicates, by anticipation, of the subsequent operations of the Athenian alliance? τοῖσι θεοῖσι. Had Polytheism a more vivid sense of the divine presences and operations than our Christendom? The nations nowadays seldom venture upon particular offerings to the Deity in acknowledgement of victory. Or does our religion dispose us rather to set the higher powers and graces on the losing side?
ἐξεῖλον after ἐξελεῖν just above, in a totally different sense, is not happy, is an ‘unconscious iteration.’ ἀκροθίνια: a poetical word (but found in the sing., Thuc. 1. 132 2) and properly an adjective. ἀναθεῖναι appears to be an epexegetical infinitive, nor does it involve the conclusion that these dedications were carried out, or set up, immediately.
ἥ περ ἔτι καὶ ἐς ἐμὲ ἦν. It is surely a curious remark for Hdt. to make, that of the three Phoenician triremes dedicated for erection, one at the Isthmos, one at Sunion, and one in Salamis, the first was still in existence down to his own day. What then of the other two? Had they disappeared? Or had Hdt. seen the one at the Isthmos, but not the other two? Or had he certain information about the first, but not about the others? It is remarkable that two of these national dedications were to be upon Attic soil, and that of those two Hdt. appears to have no precise knowledge.
τῷ Αἴαντι. Hdt. does not specify to whom the dedications at Sunion and the Isthmos were made; presumably to Athene and to Poseidon—by so little were the gods and heroes then distinguished. Aias is of course the Aiakid. cp. c. 64 supra. αὐτοῦ. ‘on the spot.’
μετὰ δὲ τοῦτο: i.e. after the ἐξαίρεσις ἀκροθινίων. ‘The’ ἀκροθίνια sent to Delphi had presumably been included in the operation, before the division of the spoil; but each state, to whom a share of booty fell, had also to make an offering to Delphi, though the point is not quite clearly put by Hdt. We learn also from Pausanias, l.c. infra, that individual commanders made offerings at Delphi from their shares of the spoil.
ἐκ τῶν ἐγένετο: the actual fabrication and erection of this statue, the collective dedication of the Greeks from the victory of Salamis, can hardly have been effected until the victory of Plataia had placed the loyalty and the security of Delphi on a new footing. Hdt. does not specify the subje<*> of the statue. Pausanias 10. 14. 3 (5) is more explicit, without fully describing the type: Ἕλληνες δὲ οἱ ἐναντία βασιλέως πολεμήσαντες ἀνέθεσαν μὲν Δία ἐς Ὀλυμπίαν χαλκοῦν, ἀνέθεσαν δὲ καὶ ἐς Δελφοὺς Ἀπόλλωνα ἀπὸ ἔργων τῶν ἐν ταῖς ναυσὶν ἐπί τε Ἀρτεμισίῳ καὶ ἐν Σαλαμῖνι. Apollo had precious little claim to an offering from Salamis (and it might have been the god's guilty conscience which led him to decline the offering of Themistokles! Pausan. l.c. He could hardly have been wroth with the Athenian for the defence of the medizers, Plutarch Themist. 20).
ἑστήκεε δὲ ... ὁ χρύσεος. To mark the position of the god's by the man's image, if both were still in situ, is an odd procedure. [Demosth.] 12. 164 Φιλιπ. ἐπιστ. mentions ‘the golden Alexander’ as an offering at Delphi made by Alex. I. from the spoil (τῶν αἰχμαλώτων Μήδων) captured by him on the site of Amphipolis — a very questionable item of history. Blakesley regards ἑστήκεε ... ὁ χρύσεος as the note of a later editor, on two grounds: (1) a portrait statue of a living person would be an anachronism; (2) a gold statue seems too rich for the Makedonians of the period; and thinks the Alexander here named was Alex. Magnus. As to (2), the statue would be bronze gilt, and Alexander was wealthy, cp. 5. 17. As to (1), the portrait was probably an ideal, and the text above cited is some confirmation of Hdt.
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