Reginald Walter Macan, Herodotus, The Seventh, Eighth, & Ninth Books with Introduction and Commentary

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τούτοισι μέν: rather vague; hardly to be referred strictly to οἱ στρατιῶται οἱ ταύτῃ above; rather more generally to the whole στρατόπεδον at Aphetai; still more general is the αὐτῶν immediately following (cp. Index).

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τοῖσι δὲ ταχθεῖσι: cp. c. 7 supra.

ἡ αὐτή περ ἐοῦσα νὺξ πολλὸν ἦν ἔτι ἀγριωτέρη: a somewhat quaint and helpless turn, especially followed by ἐπέπιπτε, all the more as νύξ does not appear to be personified. For ἄχαρις cp. 7. 190, etc. πέλαγος is here of great significance; cp. next two notes.

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χειμών τε καὶ τὸ ὕδωρ: ‘the rain’ is that already described in c. 12; the thunder is apparently not within hearing, but a ‘storm’ (χειμών, πνεῦμα) is blowing on the high seas.

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κατὰ τὰ Κοῖλα τῆς Εὐβοίης, ‘off the Hollows of Euboia’; cp. περί nextchapter, when the ships are dashed ashore, and cp. c. 7 supra. As Rawlinson remarks, it is not perfectly certain what exact reach of Euboian coast is denoted by ‘the Hollows.’ Strabo, 445, makes it the tract between Geraistos and the Euripos: τῆς Εὐβοίας τὰ Κοῖλα λέγουσι τὰ μεταξὺ Αὐλίδος καὶ τῶν περὶ Γεραιστον τόπων: κολποῦται γαρ η παραλία. The statement would have been more convincing if the reason had not been added, for the outer coast of Euboia, tacing the high sea, is also hollowed (in contrast, for example, with the Magnesian coast), even if not sculptured into such a remarkable series of bays as the Paralia from Geraistos to Chalkis. The Epitomator of Strabo places the Hollows between Geraistos and Kaphereus, a location preferred by Leake (Demi 247); but the absence of the requisite physical features to justify such a nomenclature is fatal to this identification. Not so the extension of the term to the Paralia between Kaphereus and the promontory Chersonnesos—a coast the general trend of which is more truly concave than the line of coast west of Geraistos, which is, in fact, a convex, broken by a series of superficial recesses or cavities. Possibly the term ‘Hollows’ was applied to the whole of the southern scimitarshaped section of Euboia, and so ships wrecked on either side might be said to have come to grief on or off the Hollows. But if Strabo is right in restricting the term as above explained, and that not merely for his own day, in that case Hdt. is almost certainly wrong in making the Persian ships pass Geraistos. They would hardly then have been ἐν πελάγεϊ, and to wreck them there we must conjure up an improbable storm from the south or west in the teeth of the Hellespontias and Boreas which have been raging (at most a day or two before) off Pelion. The ships in Hdt. (pace Strabo) must have been wrecked long before they rounded Geraistos, or even Kaphereus, for they are wrecked during the night following the day upon which they have been despatched. As above shown the squadron of 200 sail, detached to circumnavigate Euboia, was really detached from the main fleet off the Magnesian coast on the day or evening before the great storm, and passing ‘outside Skiathos’ rowed south a whole quiet midsummer's mght (7. 188) before being overtaken by the great storm. Hdt. has apparently duplicated the storm, the more easily as the stories there and here are from different sources: his chronology, as well as the causal sequence, being dislocated thereby.

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ἐποιέετό τε πᾶν ὑπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ, ‘everything was being done by the god’ —of thunder, rain, and wind; probably Zeus, rather than Boreas, to whom the Athenians had prayed (7. 189), or the Anemoi, or Anemos, invoked by the Hellenes (7. 178).

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ὅκως ἂν ... εἴη. For the construction cp. ὡς ἂν μὴ ὀφθείησαν c. 7 supra. The intention of the god was not, however, effected, if we are to credit Hdt. himself, c. 66 infra; in other words, Hdt, at different moments, in different contexts, following different sources, thinks nothing of such selfcontradictions or inconsequences. The further question emerges: were the numbers of the Persian fleet at Artemision, at Salamis, after all, very much in excess of the Greek? Perhaps not! as seems hinted, admitted, in this curious passage, even though Herodotus himself retracts the admission in c. 66. The Deus ex machina, here something of a sporting character, is for making it a fair match twixt Greek and Persian! Verily, a trivial Providence. Hdt. lacks logic, whether that of piety or that of philosophy, and is neither very devout nor rational. Cato, the Stoic, went as far as any man in another direction when he excused his opposition to the motion for a supplicatio in Cicero's honour: such a solemnity would seem to imply (said he) that Mark's victory was more Heaven's doing than his own: a simple vote of thanks puts the human hero in his proper place; Cicero, Epp. ad F. 15. 5.