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οἱ Δελφοί: properly the name of the men, the population; not the place, the city. The place-name is Πυθώ, cp. 1. 54 πέμψας αὖτις ἐς Πυθὼ Δελφοὺς δωρέεται. The Catalogue, Iliad 2. 519, has the form Πυθών, but Πυθώ (Πυθοῖ) in 9. 405 (with the epitheton constans πετρηὲσσῃ). Pytho would be the holy place and oracular seat itself (hence ἡ Πυθία); the name of the people becomes the designation of the secular city. The native form of the name was Δάλφοι, a point illustrated, though not specified, in Head's Hist. Num. p. 288. Whether the name had anything to say to δελφίς, or to δελφύς (was not Pytho the ὀμφαλὸς τῆς γῆς?) is a question for the etymologists.
ταῦτα is vague, but may be referred generally to the sentence ἐπορεύοντο . . χρήματα rather than to the sentence πάντα ... ἀναθήματα, which was an aside by Hdt. in propria persona. ἐς πᾶσαν ἀρρωδίην ἀπίκατο: the pl. perf. is rather intensive than strictly temporal, ‘were in the depths of despair’; cp. 4. 140 ἐς π. ἀρρ. ἀπίκοντο. κατ<*>στεῶτες: the same phrase 7. 138, and cp. c. 12 supra.
ἐμαντεύοντο περὶ τῶν ἱρῶν χρημάτων: the first anxiety of the good Delphians is not about themselves, but about the holy things. ἐμ. is strictly medial; they would consult the god through the Pythia, although they apparently suggest two out of three possible alternatives: (a) to bury the treasures in the earth somewhere near, (b) to convey them into the Peloponnese. Are all the sacred vessels and offerings in all the ‘Treasuries’ (Lakedaimonian, Sikyonian, Siphnian, Korinthian, Athenian, Knidian, etc.) here in view?
αὐτὸς ἱκανὸς εἶναι τῶν ἑαυτοῦ προκατῆσθαι: the coustruction is strictly idiomatic. With προκατῆσθαι cp. προκατημένους 7. 172, in a more strictly physical sense, and the same infinitive 9. 106. The sentiment is a pious rendering, or anticipation, of the legal or cynical maxim of the Roman emperor, Deorum iniurias Dis curae, Tacit. Ann. 1. 73. 5.
σφέων αὐτῶν πέρι ἐφρόντιζον: little expecting a miraculous intervention on their own account, or that the defence and preservation of the ἱρὰ χρήματα would compass their own. τέκνα ... καὶ γυναῖκας: cp. cc. 4, 40. The οἰκέται are to be understood.
πέρην ἐς τὴν Ἀχαιίην: no doubt by sea; a better asylum than Amphissa, where the majority of the Phokians had taken refuge, and might now think themselves lucky if they escaped the Persians and Thessalians; see infra. αὐτῶν δέ is emphatically masculine.
τοῦ Παρνησοῦ τὰς κορυφάς looks like ‘the twin peaks,’ but is probably used more generally; cp. 9. 104 σῴ- ζωνται ἐς τὰς κορυφὰς τῆς Μυκάλης. The Phokians had, some of them, gone up ἐς τὰ ἄκρα τοῦ Παρνησοῦ c. 32 supra; but there was plenty of room on the heights and peaks of Parnassos for Phokians and Delphians. τὸ Κωρύκιον ἄντρον: the Korykian cavern, an immense hollow in the limestone, but of less extent and mystery than our own caves in the Peak (“καὶ ἔστιν ἐπὶ πλεῖστον ὁδεῦσαι δι᾽ αὐτοῦ καὶ ἄνευ λαμπτήρων” Pausan. 10. 32. 7), is reached from Delphi by ascending above the ‘Phaidriades’ on a very steep path into the upper plateau, still well-wooded, beyond which rises a steep conical and rocky hill, near the top of which the entrance to the cavern may be detected. (A scramble of twenty-five minutes took me up this hill on April 7, 1899.) It was sacred to Pan and to the Nymphs, Pausan. l.c., Strabo 417.
ἀνηνείκαντο, ibidem; c. 32 supra. ἐς Ἄμφισσαν τὴν Λοκρίδα: there they would foregather with the mass of the Phokian refugees; cp. c 32 supra. The absence of any cross reference, and the repeated yet different description of Amphissa, confirm the opinion that this story of the preservation of Delphi is an independent narrative, from a different source, and of later composition and insertion in the main draft of the work; cp. c. 35. 8 supra.
δὲ ὦν, ‘one way or another.’ πλὴν ἑξήκοντα ἀνδρῶν: why 60? Was that the number of the Delphian Council, perhaps, at this date, an aristocratic body, and did it remain, like the Roman curule magistrates and senators, at the coming of the Gauls? cp. Livy 5. 41. (The political constitution of the Delphic state is an enigma; the history of Delphi is best given by H. Pomtow ap. Pauly-Wissowa iv. 1901, 2517 ff.)
καὶ τοῦ προφήτεω: his name is supplied just below, Akeratos. It is a little surprising that the ‘prophet’ and not the ‘Pythia’ is there. The exact function of the Delphian, or Pythian, προφήτης is obscure; he is presumably at the head of the Delphian hierarchy, but whether an ἱερεύς or not, whether a sole official or with a colleague or colleagues, are questions hardly to be answered positively, least of all for the earlier period. The ‘prophet’ or ‘priest’ would be distinct anyway from the five ὅσιοι mentioned by Plutarch, Mor. 438 (with the προφήτης) and 292 (πέντε δέ εἰσι Ὅσιοι διὰ βίου καὶ τὰ πολλὰ μετὰ τῶν προφητῶν (sic) δρῶσιν οὗτοι, καὶ συνιερουργοῦσιν, ἅτε γεγονέναι δοκοῦντες ἀπὸ Δευκαλίωνος); like them, and the Pythia herself, the ‘prophets’ would hold office for life.
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