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

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αὐτίκα μετὰ ταῦτα: still at night?

πλοίῳ: the size of this boat is not specified; was the man of Histiaia alone in it? And why is not his proper name given? The retreat is a δρησμός—is that the man's word, or Hdt.'s?

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ὑπ᾽ ἀπιστίης: the man evidently went to Aphetai; if the Persian admirals actually disbelieved his report, they can hardly have heard as yet of the capture of Thermopylai. εἶχον ἐν φυλακῇ, ‘kept under arrest.’

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τούτων, masculine, of the men on the ships; cp. 7. 179. 4 supra. τὰ ἦν: the true state of the case, the facts.

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ἅμα ἡλίῳ σκιδναμένῳ: dawn of the fourth day (say Wednesday); the phrase is peculiar: σκίδναμαι (σκίδνημι), cp 7. 141 (σκιδναμένης Δημήτερος), here seems to refer to the dispersion of light, the diffusion of rays by the sun. Blakesley cps. Milton's “Morn sowing the earth with orient pearl.” Cp. also Aischyl. Pers. 502 “πρὶν σκεδασθῆναι θεοῦ Ἀκτῖνας”. Also Psalm 97. 11 (R. V. “Light is sown for the righteous”).

πᾶσα ἡ στρατιή: sc. ἡ ναυτική.

ἁλής, without stragglers, and without detaching any scouts, etc., en masse.

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ἐπισχόντες ... μέχρι μέσου ἡμέρης: the hour at which they had moved out to battle on the previous day (c. 15 supra, which also shows that μέσου here is neuter). The double omission of the article may be easily understood in a colloquialism. There is no eagerness to pursue the Greek fleet; cp. c. 10 supra. τὸ ἀπὸ τούτου appears to be temporal.

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τὴν πόλιν ἔσχον: cp. 7. 164 for the strong ἔχω. They seem to have had no resistance to encounter. Ἱστιαία (ἡ) suffered afterwards a worse fate from the Athenians in 446 B.C., Ἑστιαιᾶς δὲ ἐξοικίσαντες αὐτοὶ τὴν γῆν ἔσχον, Thuc. 1. 114. 3; cp. Hicks, Manual,2 p. 65, though there is no reference to that catastrophe here. It hardly seems likely that Histiaia was no more and its place taken by Oreos (the name which yet prevails) when Hdt. wrote this passage; in other words, the first draft of his history is appreciably older than the thirty years' truce; cp. Introduction, § 9.

τῆς Ἐλλοπίης μοίρης γῆς δὲ τῆς Ἱστιαιώτιδος, commentators (so Rawlinson, Baehr) have misunderstood the relation of these terms, and made ἡ Ἐλλοπίη μοίρη a part of Histiaiotis; as Stein rightly points out, γῆς δέ is a “second closer definition,” according to a regnlar use of δέ, cp. 1. 114. The Persians did not over-run Euboia, but only Ellopia, or Hellopia, nor all Hellopia, but only Histiaiotis, nor yet quite all Histiaiotis, but only τὰς παραθαλασσίας κώμας—though not one of those they spared (πάσας). The Persians did not venture far from their ships. Hellopia is no doubt the land of the Ἕλλοπες, an interesting and surely primitive folk, in view of their congeners Δρύοπες, Δόλοπες, Κέκροπες (Κεκροπίδαι), Κύκλοπες (Κύκλωπες), Πέλοπες (Πελοπίδαι) and others like. Perhaps Ἕλλοπες is not far removed from Ἔλληνες itself; Strabo 445 gives Ἐλλοπία as a name for Euboia, ἀπὸ Ἔλλοπος τοῦ Ἴωνος. Elsewhere (328) he qnotes Philochoros as saying τὸν περὶ Δωδώνην τόπον, ὥσπερ τὴν Εὔβοιαν, Ἑλλοπίαν κληθῆναι (on the authority of Hesiod); and connects Ἑλλοί (Σελλοί） and Ἕλλοπες.