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Ἀρτάβαζος δὲ ὁ Φαρνάκεος has been already mentioned, 7. 66, as commander (ἄρχων) of the Parthians and Chorasmians. He has not been mentioned above, in the story of the return of Xerxes (ce. 115-17), where his presence is urgently ealled for. The omission points to the mutual independence of the various sources employed by Hdt., and also to his failure to fuse them into a consistent whole; cp. Introduction, § 10. The story here told of Artabazos reduees even the comparatively unexaggerated record of the ‘flight’ of Xerxes given by Hdt. above to an absurdity. Stein remarks that Hdt. speaks with such transparent good-will and such speeial knowledge of Artabazos that we may infer personal relations between the historian and the man's family, or even the man himself. Aitabazos became satrap of Daskyleion in 476 B. C. in order to further the treason of Pausanias, Thuc. 1. 129. 1. Pharnakes, son of Pharnabazos (Thuc. 2. 67. 1), plainly a near relative, is found there 431-414 B. C., and was in turn succeeded by his own son, Pharnabazos, 413-388 B. C. (Thuc. 8. 6. 1). An Artabazos appears again in possession of the same satrapy (360-53 B. C.); cp. Krumbholz, de Asiae min. Satrapis (1883), p. 73. Stein regards Tritantaichmes, son of ‘Artabazos,’ the satrap of Babylon (1. 192), as another of his sons (but cp. notes to 7. 82, 121 supra), and apparently thinks that Hdt. found him as satrap in Babylon. (But Hdt.'s visit to Babylon has still to be proved.) Cp. further, 9. 89.
ἐκ δὲ τῶν Πλαταιικῶν καὶ μᾶλλον ἔτι γενόμενος: a clear anticipation of the story in Bk. 9. 41, etc. The participle, γενόμενος, is used from the writer's point of view, and date. Hdt. throughout treats the main events as notorious; but in the πρόσθε ἐών just before the reference is to the date of the events in the narrative, and might lead us to expect γενησόμενος. How τὰ Πλαταιικά could redound to the credit of Artabazos is not obvious in the narrative of those events, even with this praeiudicium to guide us.
ἔχων ἓξ μυριάδας στρατοῦ τοῦ Μ. ἐξελέξατο: that would be, strictly speaking, one-fifth of the army of Mardonios. He presumably had some cavalry—say, one myriad: that would give him five myriads of infantry. If the army of Mardonios (Xerxes?) numbered all told nominally 300,000, it may have been composed of five divisions, each comprising 50,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry—Artabazos being the commander of one of these divisions. In Bk. 9, indeed, Artabazos appears as almost of co-ordinate authority with Mardonios. If that was the true state of the case, their total forces combined may but have amounted to 120,000 men (nominal). Cp. further, Appendix II. § 5.
τοῦ πόρου: cp. c. 115 supra. The story, of course, conflicts directly with both the stories previously told and discussed (cc. 115-17, 118-20), and is more moderate than either.
ὀπίσω πορευόμενος κατὰ τὴν Παλλήνην ἐγίνετο. Artabazos apparently experiences no difficulty in marching backwards and forwards in Makedonia and Thrace. Is it possible after all that Artabazos did not escort the king to the Hellespont, but simply went from Thessaly to operate against Poteidaia? Or is it even possible that he had been safeguarding the king's route<*>along, and never was south of Thessaly until he joined Mardonios in the spring of 479 B. C.? On Pallene cp. 7. 123 supra.
χειμερίζοντος: cp. c. 113 supra; by this time it was winter. Mardonios' men were partly in Μακεδονίη.
καὶ οὐδέν κω κατεπείγοντος ἥκειν, ‘Mardonios was not yet pressing his coming . .,’ i.e. that Artabazos should join him. κατεπείγειν is an ἅπαξ λεγόμενον in Hdt. ἐπείγειν is frequent (e.g. c. 68 supra, bis).
οὐκ ἐδικαίου ... μὴ οὐκ ἐξανδραποδίσασθαι σφέας: a true instance of the idiomatic double negative μὴ οὐ: cp. c. 119 supra.
παρεξεληλάκεε ... οἰχώκεε: both verbs are strict temporal pluperfects; but the acts were neither synchronous, nor are they mentioned in the historical order — unless, indeed, the fleet was accompanying the king on his way back (as the apocryphal story in c. 118 supra might be held to imply).
ὣς δὲ καὶ οἱ ἄλλοι ... ἔχοντες. The revolt of all the towns on Pallene appears as a direct result of the battle of Salamis. As they were the first to disown the Persian yoke, so were they probably among the first to enter the Delian League (cp. Thuc. 5. 18. 5). The proximity of Makedon, and its relations with the Persian, were calculated to stimulate their Hellenic sympathies. The complete absence of any reference in the story of the siege of Poteidaia in 480-79 B. C. which follows, to the siege of Poteidaia in 432 B. C. and the following years (Thucyd. i. 58, etc.), is observable, and makes against the theory that Hdt. was composing these Books for the first time about the time of the outbreak of the Peloponnesian war. This story may well belong to the first draft of the work, and he has not inserted into this context any late reference; the latest hint of the final revision of these Books occurs above in 7. 137. Perhaps Hdt. was not aware of the fall of Poteidaia in the winter of 430-29 B. C., Thuc. 2. 70, though he can hardly have been ignorant of the Athenian blockade, and may have avoided express reference to its prolongation out of respect for Athenian susceptibilities. But the argumentum a silentio does not carry us very far; cp. Introduction, § 7.
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