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οὐδὲν δέει, ‘thou needest not . .’ The form (midd. indic. pr. 2nd person) is not noticed by L. & S.
γλιχόμενοι: cp. γλίχεαι (ὡς . .) 7. 161; γλιχομένοισι περὶ τῆς ἐλευθερίης 2. 102. The participial construction is here equivalent to a dependent sentence: quia etc. ἀμυνεύμεθα is, of course, future; ὅκως ἄν after οὕτω appears not as a final but rather as a relative, to which οὕτω is antecedent. The correlation is “frequent in poetry, but less so in prose,” Madvig § 310. Cp. Plato Phaed. 115 C ταῦτα μὲν τοίνυν προθυμηθησόμεθα, ἔφη, οὕτω ποιεῖν: θάπτωμεν δέ σε τίνα τρόπον; Ὅπως ἄν, ἔφη, βούλησθε, ἐάνπερ γε λάβητέ με καὶ μὴ ἐκφύγω ὑμᾶς.
μήτε ... οὔτε: the forms of the negative are determined by the moods; so below μήκοτε follows the imperative.
ἔστ᾽ ἂν ὁ ἥλιος τὴν αὐτὴν ὁδὸν ἴῃ τῇ περ καὶ νῦν ἔρχεται: is the path from east to west (and vice versa) or from south to north (and vice versa), or, more generally, both the daily and annual paths intended? When Hdt. came to write ‘the Egyptian Logoi’ he had ceased to regard the sun as a safe fixture, and could hardly have taken its annual course as a symbol of τὰ μὴ ἐνδεχόμενα ἄλλως ἔχειν. Cp. 2. 24-26. He would rather, perhaps, have taken the rising and setting of the sun as a perfect certainty; yet cp. 2. 142. In any case, however, this proverbial appeal to the Uniformity of Nature would remain dramatically available: Hdt. is not speaking propria persona. Stein5 happily cps. Sophokl. Philokt. 1329 ff.: καὶ παῦλαν ἴσθι τῆσδε μή ποτ᾽ ἐντυχεῖν νόσου βαρείας, ὡς ἂν αὑτὸς ἥλιος ταύτῃ μὲν αἴρῃ, τῇδε δ᾽ αὖ δύνῃ πάλιν— and as another symbol of eternal fixity, the relative position of earth and stars, from Euripides, Fr. 688 (Nauck): πρόσθε γὰρ κάτω γῆς εἶσιν ἄστρα, γῆ δ᾽ ἄνεισ᾽ ές αἰθέρα πρὶν ἐξ έμοῦ σοι θῶπ᾽ ἀπαντῆσαι λόγον. Herodotus makes a Korinthian orator employ a less dignified symbol, with a similar point, 5. 92. This grand boast of the Athenians belongs to the pre-Periklean period: it would have sounded rather silly within sight of ‘the Treaty of Kallias,’ cp. 7. 151 supra, even though that ὁμολογία was not concluded with Xerxes, or not concluded at all. War à outrance is still the mot d'ordre of the day when Hdt. first drafted this history; cp. 7. 11 supra.
θεοῖσί τε συμμάχοισι ... καὶ τοῖσι ἥρωσι: not the Spartans, etc. (συμμάχοισι predicative). The gods and heroes fignre but to a small extent in the actual story of the Great Invasion. The legend of Marathon was more deeply saturated with the supernatural motif, or at least with its symbolical outcome in actual epiphanies (cp. Hdt. IV.-VI. App. X.). No doubt at the time the Athenians looked for divine assistance, according to their lights (cp. 7. 140, 189, c. 64 supra), and afterwards believed themselves to have received it in large measure (cc. 13, 65, 109, 121 supra); but the actual battles of the war go off without much active interposition (c. 94 supra unique) from above: the great gods of Themistokles were Persuasion and Force (c. 108 supra); the supernatural machinery of the story, so far as it exists, is mainly an afterthought (7. 12 etc.), or an apology (cc. 35 ff. supra). Cp. Introduction, § 11. μιν ἐπέξιμεν ἀμυνόμενοι. Is μιν acc. with the participle (as Stein and Sitzler take it) or with the primary verb? The construction of ἐπέξειμι is very various. ἐπεξήισαν 7. 223 supra is used absolutely: where a personal object is expressed it is usually in the dative, whether the verb be used in the martial o<*> in the legal sense, but an accus. of the person is found e.g. Antiphon 1. 11 ἀπηγγέλθη ὅτι ἐπεξίοιμι τοῦ πατρὸς τὸν φονέα, cp. also Eurip. Androm. 735 τήνδ̓ (sc. πόλιν) ἐπεξελθεῖν θέλω, and therefore cannot be pronounced impossible here. The accus. rei is more common; e.g. Hdt. 1. 5 ὁμοίως σμικρὰ καὶ μεγάλα ἅστεα ἀνο ώπων ἐπεξιών: Plato Rep. 437 πάσας τὰς τοιαύτας αμφισβητήσεις ἐπεξιόντες (Thuc. 1. 84. 3, 3. 82. 8 are not conclusive). A sole reference of μιν to the participle here is harsh, considering the order of the words; but the participle and verb may be conceived as coalescing into a single idea (‘we shall resolutely resist him’), and the accus. may be taken as governed by the whole verbal phrase. Strictly speaking ἐπέξ. ἀμ. is an oxymoron, or a precise formula for ‘the offensive defensive.’
τῶν ... τὰ ἀγάλματα. The relative τῶν may be constructed both with ὄπιν and with οἴκους κτλ. ὄπις, a strictly poetic word, recurs 9. 76 infra. (Homer uses the word only of the divine action, vengeance, punishment, θεῶν, more frequently in the Od., and even absolutely, bis, 14. 82, 88.) Pindar employs the word for the favourable regard of the gods for man (Pyth. 8. 101), but also for human regard (not for the gods but for humanity), Ol. 2. 6, Isth. 4. (5 ) 58. The acc. ὄπιδα is also found (e.g. Od. 20. 215). On the Persian destruction of holy places and objects cp. cc. 33, 35, 53, 109 supra; the Athenians were naturally very sore on this subject (though their losses turned out a blessing in disguise), and take no account of the offer to restore at the king's expense.
τοῦ λοιποῦ: sc. χρόνου.
ὑπουργέειν: sc. ἡμῖν, cp. c. 110 supra, and 7. 38. ἀθέμιστα ἔρδειν has a poetical ring; cp. 7. 33 supra. ἄχαρι, an Herodotean euphemism, cp 7. 36.
πρόξεινόν τε καὶ φίλον: cp. c. 136 supra. The phrase here has, of course, no more evidential value than there. It would be odd for the Athenians to be recognizing not merely the προξενία but the φιλία of Alexander under such circumstances. The φιλία probably dated after the war, when Alexander turned against the Persians (ps.-Dem. 12. 21). But Lykurgos, the orator, c. Leocr. § 71, in representing Alexander on this occasion as having narrowly escaped death by stoning at the hands of the Athenians, has confused this affair with that of Lykidas 9. 4 infra.
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