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

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παρέδρων: i.e. ‘councillors,’ as in 7. 147, rather than boon-companions, as in 5. 18. ἱππέας, ‘horsemen.’ The political and military institutions of this king seem more advanced than the domestic.

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σὺν νόῳ, 8. 86. The Sun-rite appears to have more than a single purpose: Perdikkas symbolically takes possession of the Hearth and Home of the giver, and takes the Sun to witness his claim. Stein quotes Grimm, Rechtsalt. 278, on the Sun as the source of real property: the story of Dareios' accession is also to be cited, 3. 86. Cp. also 7. 8, ll. 37 ff. supra.

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ποταμὸς δὲ ἐστὶ ... σωτῆρι: the name of the river is unfortunately not given; it could hardly have been missing if Hdt. had himself culled this story at the Makedonian court. It would probably be the Erigon or Haliakmon; Stein prefers the former, as Hdt. nowhere mentions it by name, though he has the Axios (of which it is a tributary) and the Haliakmon. σωτήρια would be very agreeable; cp. App. Crit. Stein thinks ἔτι καὶ νῦν has dropped out after θύουσι.

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ἐς ἄλλην γῆν τῆς Μακεδονίης: no doubt Μακεδονίς proper, cp. 7. 127.

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τῶν κήπων ... Μίδεω τοῦ Γορδίεω. Midas, son of Gordias, is, of course, a ‘Phrygian’ (cp. 1. 14, 35), and ‘Silenos’ has already met us on the Marsyas, cp. 7. 26 supra, but it does not therefore follow that the Midas and Silenos myths have been transported from Asia, from Phrygia, into Europe, into Makedonia. Did not the Bryges, or Phryges, go from the Axios to the Marsyas? Do they not represent a folk perhaps pressed out by the advancing ‘Make donians’ or even the antecessors of the Make donians? Cp. 7. 73 supra.

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ἓν ἕκαστον: in apposition to ῥόδα. Hdt. nowhere else mentions the rose.

φύλλα: apparently here ‘petals’ —the roses must have been ‘double’: do such grow wild (αὐτόματα)? And have any wild roses such a perfume? Did the Greeks greatly affect flowergardens? Were their views on cultivation not rather utilitarian, apter auctumno carpere poma, than vere rosam? The garden of Alkinoos grew mainly fruittrees; the rose is used by Homer but to paint the fingers of the Morn (ῥοδοδάκτυλος Ἠώς), or to preserve the corpse of Hektor withal (Il. 23. 186): a utility. The simple word first occurs in the Hymn to Demeter, 6.

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ὑπερφέροντα: cp. c. 44 supra, 9. 96 infra.

ὁ Σιληνὸς ... ἥλω: cp. 7. 26 supra; the article here might possibly be in reference to the ‘Silenos’ of that passage, but is more probably used on more general grounds, ‘the notorious.’ The ‘capture’ this time is not made by Apollo, but by Midas, who caught Silenos and conversed with him (Plutarch l.c.). Theopompos ap. Aelian, V.H. 3. 18, puts a long fable on the Happy Land into the mouth of Silenos; Aristotle represented him as something of a pessimist (Plutarch Mor. 115) and very reluctant to answer the question of Midas, τί ποτέ ἐστι τὸ βέλτιον τοῖς ἀνθρώποις; Cp. Cicero, Tusc. Dist. 1. 48 “Affertur etiam de Sileno fabella quaedam: qui quum a Mida captus esset, hoc ei muneris pro sua missione dedisse scribitur; docuisse regem non nasci homini longe optimum esse; proximum autem quam primum mori.” That melancholy doctrine was ‘Trausic’ or ‘Thracian’ according to Hdt. 5. 4 (cp. my note ad l.).

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ὡς λέγεται ὑπὸ Μακεδόνων. The citation of the authority, or source, implies a misgiving, but does not prove that Hdt. had the story from headquarters, or was not drawing on literature. The version given was obviously ‘Makedonian’ in origin; cp. 7. 73.

ὑπέρ: higher up the country, further inland.

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ὄρος ... Βέρμιον: cp. Strabo 330 (Z 25) τὸ Βέρμιον ὄρος ὃ πρότερον κατεῖχον Βρίγες Θρᾳκῶν ἔθνος ὧν τινες διαβάντες εἰς τὴν Ἀσίην Φρύγες μετωνομάσθησαν. ib. 26 ἡ Βέροια πόλις ἐν ταῖς ὑπωρείαις κεῖται τοῦ Βερμίου ὄρους. The wealth of Midas is traced (Strabo 680) to the mines περὶ τὸ Β. ὄ. The mountain is identified with the range between the Haliakmon and the Lydias, the highest point of which now bears the name of Dhoxá. The exact position of the Rose Garden is more in dispute. Hdt. here places it in the neighbourhood of the city of Beroia (without naming it); i.e. in Makedonia proper, 7. 127. Abel (Makedonien, pp. 110 ff.) would place it further north, in the neighbourhood of Edessa, or Aigai, the more ancient cradle of the Makedonian folk. Kortum (ap. Baehr ad l.） very happily relegates the Rose Garden to the same mythical region as Kriemhilt's Rosengarten zu Worms am Rhin (Rîn), but instead of Kriemhilt and Brunhilt, Gunther and Siegfrid, we have here only Midas and Silenos—the romantic interest is wanting!

ἄβατον ὑπὸ χειμῶνος, ‘inaccessible by reason of the climate’—the which notwithstanding it was ascended, “in defiance of the assertion of Herodotus,” by Leake (cp. Northern Greece, iii. 295 f.), who indeed describes it as an im portant pass between Lower and Upper Macedonia.

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ἐνθεῦτεν δὲ ὁρμὠμενοι: three or rather four stages in all are indicated in the advance of the Makedonians, or Argeadai. I. Argos (Orestikon) or Orestis may be taken as the startingpoint, or cradle, far up the Haliakmon, and about its sources, Upper Makedonia, the (unknown) city of Lebaia. II The parts under Mount Bermion, Edessa, Beroia, the ἄλλη γῆ τῆς Μακεδονίης, near the Rose-gardens of Midas; which might be called Middle Makedonia, as no part of it touches the sea, but is generally included in Lower Makedonia. III. Lower Makedonia, τὴν ἄλλην Μακεδονίην, down to the sea; cp. 7. 127 supra: τὴν παρὰ θάλασσαν νῦν Μακεδονίαν Thuc. l.c. Thucydides 2. 99 gives a more matter-of-fact account of the process, and in a somewhat different stratification, including the further stage, the advance to the Strymon: the two representations are not at hopeless variance. I. The tribes of the first region, the Lynkestai, Elimiotai (+ Orestai 2. 80. 6) and others ἐπάνωθεν, high up the country, were under native kings or chiefs, though owning the suzerainty of the ‘Temenids.’ II. III. This overlordship was perhaps only acquired, or reasserted by Perdikkas, the son of Alexander; cp. Thuc. 4. 83. (Aigai, Beroia,) Pieria, Bottia, were the especial acquisition of the Temenids, and the strip of Paionia along the Axios, as well as Eordaia, Almopia: in short, all the territory between the Haliakmon and the Axios, together with the sea-coast. IV. Mygdonia and the territory of the Edonians, as far as the Strymon. This region is not yet ‘Makedontan’ in Hdt. and was the especial acquisition of Alexander I. Cp. further, notes to 7. 127. 5 supra.