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

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Δελφοὶ λέγουσι: it hardly needs this late indication to prove the story of the miraculous preservation of the Delphians, their temple and its treasures, a local Delphian legend, in the last resort. The phrase in itself would not prove that Hdt. had gleaned information in Delphi, but the context below points to that conclusion.

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Φύλακόν τε καὶ Αὐτόνοον: Phylakos has a signifieant name (cp. φύλακος 1. 84 et passim), which is also a genuine proprium, cp. c. 85 infra. In the Iliad (besides a ‘Trojan’ of the name, 6. 35) Podarkes, leader of the Thessalians, is son of Iphiklos, and grandson of Phylakos (heroic founder of Phylake), 2. 695-705, and the name reappears in Od. 15. 231. Could the Delphian ‘Phylakos’ be, after all, a Thessalian hero, and a further witness of the early period of Thessalian predominance in Delphi?

Autonoos, the name of a Danaan slain by Hektor, Il. 11. 301, is also found on the ‘Trojan’ side, Il. 16. 694 (a hero slain by Patroklos). But again the name appears in historic times in Thessaly, Polyb. 7. 5. 3.

τῶν τὰ τεμένεα: the ‘closes’ of these heroes were in the vicinity of the Pythian sanctuary; that of Phylakos hard by the road (from Delphi to Arachova and Daulia) along which the Persians fled, and so on higher ground than the temple of Pronaia Athene; that of Autonoos ‘nigh Kastalia, the famous spring and burn close under the Hyampeian peak.’ A small building, one of two discovered in the excavation of the Marmaria, has been conjecturally identi fied with the Phylakion (J. H. S. xxi. 1901, p. 347), which would thus appear to have been on the same side of the road as the Athenaion. Pausanias 10. 8. 7 describes the Φυλάκου τέμενος as πρὸς τῷ ἱερῷ τῆς Προνοίης (sic). For the temenos of Autonoos see next note Thirlwall (ii. 326) assumes that these dedications were made in consequence of the events of 480 B. C., but there is nothing in Hdt. to suggest that (cp. contra 7. 189).

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Κασταλίης: Pansan. 10. 8. 9 ἐκ δὲ τοῦ γυμνασίου τὴν ἐς τὸ ἱερὸν ἀνιόντι ἔστιν ἐν δεξιᾷ τῆς ὁδοῦ τὸ ὕδωρ τῆς Κασταλίας, καὶ πιεῖν ἡδύ. There has never been any doubt as to the identification of ‘the water of Castaly’ (cp. the exhaustive note in Frazer, Pausanias v. 255); but the shrine of the hero Autonoos has not yet been certainly identified, and is not even mentioned by Pausanias. “Leake thought that the little chapel of St. John hewn in the lock above the pool might be the precinct of the hero Autonoos. ... M. Foucart prefers to suppose that the precinct stood on a small platform between the pool and the road. Bursian thought he recognised a piece of the wall which had enclosed the precinct,” Frazer l.c. (Bursian i. 172, says dogmatically enough: In der Nahe der Quelle war das Temenos des Heros Autonoos, von welchem noch ein Stuck der Umfangsmauer erhalten ist.）

τῇ Ὑαμπείῃ κορυφῇ: Hyampeia is the sheer wall of rock rising into a peaked summit a thousand feet or so above the road and the spring, and forming the right or eastern wall of the gorge or chasm in which the Kastalian waters arise. A similar peak flanks the narrow chasm on the other side, but the ancient name thereof has not been preserved. It cannot possibly be these two κορυφαί which earned Parnassos the title of ‘biceps’ (cp. c. 32 supra), for they are purely local features in the Delphian landscape, and can never have been mistaken for the actual summits of the mountain, to one of which Hdt. has already and correctly assigned a name (c. 32 supra, if the passage be not a gloss); Pape-Benseler's Wörterbuch, ii. 1573 sub v., achieves indeed the confusion, or seems to do so (eine der beiden Bergspitzen des Parnassos in der Nahe von Delphi). Strabo 424 mentions Hyampeia ἐν τῷ Παρνασσῷ only to distinguish it from Γ̔άμπολις or Ὕα (cp. c. 33 supra). Plutarch, Mor. 557, reports that the Delphians executed Aisopos (cp. Hdt. 2. 134) ὤσαντες ἀπὸ τῆς πέτρας ἐκείνης ἣν Γ̔άμπειαν καλοῦσιν.

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ἔτι καὶ ἐς ἡμέας ἦσαν σόοι, and, for aught known, to the present day also: for the ground about there, below the road, is strewn with λίθοι, large and smaller, all of which have doubtless descended from Parnassos. The phrase has the note of Hdt.'s ‘autopsy,’ and the argument the stamp, alas! of Hdt.'s logic. He seems to think the stones an evidence of the truth of the story. It was, perhaps, the position of these stones which determined the point reached by the Persians in their “sacrilegious enterprise.”

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τούτων ... αὕτη ... ἀπαλλαγή: in sharpest contrast to the usual departure of good men, even non-Hellenes, who came to worship, to seek advice and consolation, to assist at the ἀγών or other solemn function, and went their way rejoicing.

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γίνεται puts us en rapport with the story and the story-tellers, rather than with the Persians and their exeunt. The story is verily a test one; it is one of the most transparent fictions in Hdt., though one that fully imposed on the good man himself. The early Victorian rationalists made sad work of it, of whom the Rev. Professor Rawlinson may in this case be taken as typical. He (iv.3 291) interprets the story as follows: — (1) The fragments of rock “were carefully prepared beforehand,” and precipitated by the men on the “peaks.” (2) In falling the rocks made a noise, which was mistaken for “thunder.” (3) The armour in front of the temple was arranged by a priest. (4) The war-cry was a shout from another priest. (5) The heroes were impersonated by “two men of unusual stature,” or (6) may have been “a mere excuse” made to Xerxes by his men. Such is the last word of unhistorical criticism upon uncritical history. It may not be possible to determine exactly what took place at Delphi in 480 B.C., or whether the Persians had any direct relations with Delphi, or ever visited it at all; but two points may here at least be urged. (i.) The story just examined (cc. 35-39) is evidently apologetic, i.e. told and devised in order to explain the suspicious escape of Delphi in the war. (ii.) It must not be isolated, and considered merely on its own merits, but must be brought into relation with (a) the evidences in regard to the whole attitude and policy and action of Delphi throughout the great crisis, and even in other similar crises; (b) the evidences for the policy of the Persians towards the Greeks, and especially towards the ‘medizers,’ who were as much interested in Delphi as any others; (c) the accounts preserved in Pausanias (1. 4. 4, 10. 23) of the attack of the Gauls upon Delphi in the year 279 B.C., and the part played by the ‘divine’ in that second deliverance. For an attempt to appreciate the story from that point of view cp. Appendix III. § 4.