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ἐπαγγέλλοντο: simply on their own account, and not speaking with any authority from the Persian, but through their own messenger. Repeated in ἐπαγγελλομένων just below; on the word cp. 7. 1.
τῶν ταύτῃ ἀνθρώπων. The phrase doubtless covers the Lokrians, the Dorians, and other tribes or peoples of the neighbourhood; but Hdt. at least cannot mean to include the Delphians under it, though others might be tempted to do so.
ὡς ἐγὼ συμβαλλόμενος εὑρίσκω: cp. ὡς ἐμοὶ δοκέειν just below. Hdt. accepts, nay invites, full responsibility for the very unfavourable verdict on the Phokians at this crisis, enforcing it by the disparaging ἀνθρώπων just before. He wholly discounts, in fact, and discredits the spirited and patriotic reply of the Phokians, which he faithfully proceeds to report, as he has previously reported their actual service on the Greek side, 7. 203, 218, a service not very effieient, according to his showing. Hdt.'s attitude towards the Thessalians appears in contrast strongly favourable: according to him they, in the first instance, espoused the Greek cause, and only afterwards ‘medized’ under ‘necessity’; cp. 7. 172. Pausanias 10. 1 contradicts Hdt. by representing the Phokians as in the first instance compounding with the Persians, and afterwards reverting to the national cause. This representation of the case might be due to an inference from the conduct of the Thessalians, as reported by Hdt., coupled with the judgement of Hdt. in the present passage. Or could there be any connexion between the conduct of the Phokians and the policy and fortunes of Delphi? The Phokians at least talked big, or reported themselves as so doing; but their positive services to the Greek cause are not very clear. If Delphi escaped their fate, its escape may have been due to the very different attitude of the Thessalians (and other medizing states) to Phokis and to the Amphiktyonic shrine. Considering how decidedly Hdt. ‘atticizes,’ his attitude towards the Phokians is the more remarkable. Should it be connected with τὸν ἰερὸν καλούμενον πόλεμον in 448 B.C. (cp. Thuc. 1. 112. 5; Busolt III. i. 419 ff.)?
κατὰ δὲ τὸ ἔχθος τὸ Θεσσαλῶν: the preposition = ob, propter, as in 7. 136 κατὰ ταῦτα ἤκειν, 9. 15 κατὰ ἔχθος αὐτῶν (just as here), 9. 109 κατ᾽ ἄλλο μὲν οὐδὲν (as here, above) φοβεόμενος δὲ Ἄμηστριν μή κτλ. The genitive is ‘objective’; cp. 9. 38 ἐθύετό τε καὶ προεθυμέετο κατά τε τὸ ἔχθος τὸ Λακεδαιμονίων καὶ κατὰ τὸ κέρδος.
παρέχειν is impersonal; cp. c. 8 supra; the tense must be at least imperfect: a pluperfect would have been acceptable. Θεσσαλοῖσι ὁμοίως μηδίζειν has the sharper point as a reply to μὴ εἶναι ὅμοιοι ἡμῖν in the Thessalian message, c. 29 supra. ἄλλως, ‘on independent grounds’; i.e. it would not in any case have been for the purpose of conciliating the Thessalians.
οὐκ ἔσεσθαι ἑκόντες εἶναι: the idiomatic εἶναι in 7. 104, 164, 9. 7, but here rather odd after ἔσεσθαι. προδόται τῆς Ἑλλάδος, ‘like the Thessalians,’ subaud.: a dangerous taunt. The Phokian language is somewhat grandiloquent in view of their performance above Thermopylai, 7. 218, and sits better (if not quite discreetly) on the lips of Athens later on (c. 144 infra).
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