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καίτοι, ‘and yet’—they need not have been so mightily afraid, nor was their own country ἀφύλακτος—it had been rendered impregnable, as far as the land route was concerned: and they must have known it! There were three measures of defence: i. The Σκιρωνὶς ὁδός had been broken up and rendered impassable. ii. A wall had been built across the isthmus. iii. Just behind that wall was laagered a large army, under command of the Spartan Regent. Yes, κατ᾽ ἤπειρον Peloponnese was safe. A movement of the Persian army in that direction could not have caused consternation in Salamis. Had the Persian fleet shown signs of moving in that direetion there would have been more ground for apprehension; cp. c. 68 supra.
ἐμεμηχάνητο: the pluperfect here has its full temporal foree, as also τετελευτηκέναι just below.
ὡς ... τάχιστα, ‘as soon as ever’ they knew the fate of Leonidas and his men. How soon would that have been? Long before the arrival of the Persian in Attica, and even before the arrival of the Greek fleet at Salamis. What follows might almost seem to be regarded by Hdt. as a spontaneous, and so fortuitous, coneourse of armed men to the Isthmos: no doubt the movement was in response to Spartan command. But the army may have been under orders to mobilize, nay, may have been under way. Was not this the very force that should have been in Boiotia? Cp. c. 40 supra.
Κλεόμβροτος ὁ Ἀναξανδρίδεω, Λεωνίδεω δὲ ἀδελφεός. Not much ean be made out of this notice under the head of Composition; see 7. 205 supra. The mere patronymic would prove little. Yet this passage may be of older composition than the other, as it almost certainly is older than 5. 41. Why does not Hdt. add here that Kleombrotos was Regent for Pleistarchos? Cp. 9. 10 infra.
τὴν Σκιρωνίδα ὁδόν: between Megara and Krommyon, and so to the Isthmos; Strabo 391 μετὰ δὴ Κρομμυῶνα ὑπερκεῖνται τῆς †Αττικῆς <ἀκτῆς> αἱ Σκειρωνίδες πέτραι πάροδον οὐκ ἀπολείπουσαι πρὸς θαλάττῃ: ὑπὲρ αὐτῶν δ̓ ἑστὶν ἡ ὁδὸς ἡ ἐπὶ Μεγάρων καὶ τῆς Ἀττικῆς ἀπὸ τοῦ Ἰσθμοῦ: οὕτω δὲ σφόδρα πλησιάζει ταῖς πέτραις ἡ ὁδὸς ὥστε πολλαχοῦ καὶ παράκρημνός ἐστι διὰ τὸ ὑπερκείμενον ὄρος δυσβατόν τε καὶ ὑψηλόν: Pausanias 1. 44. 7 (10) τὴν δὲ ὀνομαζομένην ἀπὸ Σκίρωνος καὶ ἐς τόδε (ὁδὸν) Σκίρων, ἡνίκα Μεγαρεῦσιν ἐπολεμάρχει, πρῶτος, ὡς λέγουσιν, ἐποίησεν ἀνδράσιν ὁδεύειν εὐζώνοις. Ἀδριανὸς δὲ [ὁ] βασιλεὺς καὶ οὕτως, ὡς καὶ ἢν ἅρματα ἐναντία ἐλαύνηται, κατέστησεν εὐρυχωρῆ τε καὶ ἐπιτηδείαν εἶναι. It is described as it existed in the middle of the last century, a proverbial Via Mala (Kaki Skala), in Curtius's Peloponnesos i. (1851), p. 9, when it was again a mere footpath. But Hadrian can hardly have been absolutely the first to make it available for vehicles. Perhaps the Peloponnesians on this occasion were destroying a road adapted for wheels. The verb συγχώσαντες implies a made road or causeway. (σκῖρος perhaps means ‘hard-roek.’ Strabo 393 mentions Σκιράς among several old names for the island of Salamis; cp. e. 94 infra.) There went at least one (cp. Blakesley, Rawlinson), if not two, other roads (Curtius l. c.) through the Megarid to the Peloponnesos: the Skironian was the shortest, and, bad as it may have been, presumably the easiest.
ὥς σφι ἔδοξε βουλευομένοισι suggests a formal and deliberate plan, without precisely dating it. There was room for discussion: ought they not to have marched into Boiotia? Cp. c. 40 supra. They substitute the defence of the Peloponnesos for the defence of Attica. οἰκοδόμεον διὰ τοῦ Ἰσθμοῦ τεῖχος. It was not finished for some time—not till the summer of 479 B.C., if we may trust 9. 8 infra. Blakesley remarks that the wall was not built at the narrowest point of the isthmus, but further south, from Lechaeum to Cenchreae (cp. Pausan. 7. 6. 7), “with a view of preventing a debarkation <immediately> in the rear of the defending force.” E. Curtius, however, Pelop. i. 14, places the wall at the narrowest part; cp. below.
μυριάδων πολλέων: a vague but large estimate, which, if anywhere near the truth, makes it the more surprising that the work was still unfinished in the following summer; 9. 8 infra.
ἤνετο: from ἄνω, ‘radic. form of ἀνύω, ἀνύτω’; cp. 7. 20 supra; Il. 18. 473 ὅππως Ἤφαιστός τ᾽ ἐθέλοι καὶ ἔργον ἄνοιτο. The imperfect tense is here emphatic. The materials of the wall are remarkable. λίθοι for foundation; πλίνθοι for the superstructure; ξύλα for palisading, towers, etc.; φορμοὶ ψάμμου, either to be used for filling holes or the sand for making mortal. The visible traces of building which still remain hardly go back to 480 B.C. The wall seems to have been rebuilt in 279 B.C. (Pausan. l. c. supra), as also by Valerian 253 A.D., and three eenturies later by Justinian, and in modern times by the Venetians against the Turk; cp. Curtius l c.; Baedeker's Greece (1889), p. 233. The line of wall is immediately south of the Diolkos (ep. Strabo 335).
ἐλίνυον: cp. 7. 56 supra.
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