φρενὶ λαβόντες τὸν λόγον: cp. νόῳ λαβών 3. 41. φρήν (or φρένες) is unusual in prose; in 3. 134 Hdt. directly contrasts αἱ φρένες with τὸ σῶμα.
αὐτίκα ... νυκτὸς ἔτι: their ἔξοδος by night appears to be treated as part of the sudden and secret change of poliey; it is more likely to have been a wise precaution to get over as much ground as possible in the cool (hardly to get start of the Argives; but cp. c. 11 infra).
ἀπιγμένοισι, ‘still in Sparta.’ τῶν πολίων: sc. ἀπ᾽ Ἀθηνέων, ἐκ Μεγάρων, ἐκ Πλαταιέων c. 7 supra; yet the ‘cities’ are ex hypothesi in the hands of Mardonios. But ubi cives ibi civitas! Cp. c. 5 supra.
πεντακισχιλίους Σπαρτιητέων: 5000 did not exhaust the total available citizen-force; cp. 7. 234 supra; but it is virtually the levy πανδημί, of twothirds (from twenty to forty-five years of age). The figure here is no doubt a round one, but may be accepted as substantially correct; what cannot be allowed to pass is the assertion that they took 35,000 Helots with them, seven Helots in attendance on (περί) each Spartiate, by special order (τάξαντες). There may be some sense in this figure, but not as here stated. Pausanias was not well-supplied with ψιλοί, cp. c. 60 infra (but cp. c. 28 infra), so these Helots are probably not fighting men, badly as such were wanted; doubtless large numbers of Helots were employed on the commissariat service, cp. c. 39 infra—roughly speaking some 30,000— and this Army Service Corps is here represented as all accompanying the citizen-militia. Or, again, the figure may represent an estimate of the total number of Helots employed in any capacity during the campaign, or during the war (in ships etc.), which Hdt. has misunderstood and misapplied; cp. Appendix VIII. § 2 (iv.).
Παυσανίῃ τῷ Κλεομβρότου: the question of command was not settled by the Ephors but by the Apella; cp. Xenoph. Hell. 4. 2. 9. Pausanias, son of Kleombrotos (mentioned 8. 3 supra without patronymic; perhaps therefore in a passage added afterwards; but cp. note ad l.), cannot have been an old man at this time; but the fact that he is of age to be Regent, and to command a Spartan army in the field, rather supports the view that his father, Kleombrotos, and his unele, Leonidas, were twins; cp. 7. 205 supra and note to l. 8 infra. The relationship of the persons here mentioned may be accurately exhibited:—
| Dorieus | Leonidas | Kleombrotos |
| Euryanax | Pleistarchos | Pausanias |
ἐγίνετο μὲν ἡ ἡγεμονίη: i.e. by custom or prescriptive right the actual king would have had the command, the leading. Leotychidas was already in command of the fleet; cp. 8. 131 supra; if Pleistarchos had been in command of the army, the arrangement would apparently have conflicted with the ‘law’ reported by Hdt. 5. 75, albeit the ‘law’ might refer to one and the same force only, and even so, was hardly quite strictly observed (cp. Xenoph. Hell. 5. 3. 10). But Hdt. in this passage is not concerned with any such scruples, and Bk. 5 is probably of later composition than this passage; cp. Introduction, §§ 7, 8. Πλειστάρχου τοῦ Λεωνίδεω: Pleistarchos was the son of Leonidas and Gorgo, and so the grandson of Kleomenes on the spindle side. Anaxandridas was both his grandfather and his greatgrandfather. His exact age is a matter of doubt, but he was still apparently a minor at the time of the fall of Pausanias = 472-1 B.C., Thuc. 1. 132. 1.
ἐπίτροπός τε καὶ ἀνεψιός: Baehr has here made a curious blunder from misunderstanding Pausan. 3. 5. 1; he says, successerat nimirum Pleistoanax Pleistarcho qui regno initio abierat. Why, Pleistoanax was the son of Pausanias, and could only succeed in his father's right! Pausanias himself was never king (nor is he called so by Aristotle, pace Clinton Fasti ii.3 261, though so described sometimes by orators, lexicographers, and modern scholars; cp. c. 5 supra). Pleistarchos was still king in 472 B.C.; cp. previous note ἐπίτροπος, cp. 7. 170 supra, and for the meaning here 1. 65. ἀνεψιός, ‘first cousin’ here; cp. 7. 82.
Κλεόμβροτος ... ἀπέθανε, ‘Kleombrotos (had) died shortly after leading home the army which (had) built the wall at the Isthmos.’ He was no doubt in the first instance ‘Regent,’ or guardian to Pleistarchos. The much debated wall here appears as a fait accompli before Kleombrotos returned to Sparta in 480 B.C.! In c. 8 supra it is still being hurried on in the spring—or, as some would have it, after midsummer of 479 B.C. See note ad l.
ὁ ἥλιος ἀμαυρώθη ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ. Zech attempted to make out that ἀμαυρώθη did not imply an eclipse. Nothing short of an eclipse (not necessarily total) would account for the act of Kleombrotos. Plutarch, Caesar 69, uses ἀμαύρωμα similarly. Pctavius dated this eclipse 2nd Oct. 480; Hoffmann and Lamp ap. Busolt ii.2 715 n. 1 agree in the date, and time the maximum obscuration at Korinth to 2.20 P.M. (a partial eclipse). Stein very ingeniously snggests that the θυσίη was made, after Salamis, on the question of intercepting the retreat of the Persian land-forces from Attica. With οὐ πολλὸν χρόνον τινὰ βιούς cp. 5. 48 οὐ (γάρ) τινα πολλὸν χρόνον ἦρξε ὁ Κλεομένης. The sense best taken is that Kleombrotos died comparatively young. He can hardly have been less than fifty, or his son could scarcely have succeeded him as έπίτροπος and ἡγεμών. But the statement suggests that Pansanias was about as juvenile as a Regent could be. προσαιρέεται δὲ ἑωυτῷ: there is something very curious in this arrangement. The Spartans will scarcely have allowed the ἡγεμών to select a colleague at his own free will. Perhaps Pausanias was barely of age to assume the great responsibilities of his position, and an older man, of the Herakleid lineage, was associated with him in virtual command, though nominally Pausanias had the supreme honours; perhaps the great victory, for which Pausanias claimed (Thue. 1. 132. 2) and obtained (c. 64 infra) all the credit, was more due to the intelligence of his cousin; if, indeed, there was not a still greater intelligence in the background. Cp. Appendix VIII. § 9.
Εὐρυάνακτα τὸν Δωριέος appears again in ec. 53, 55; as Dorieus was the eldest of the three brothers, Euryanax was probably senior to Pausanias. Why had he not succeeded Leonidas, or, for that matter, Kleomenes, as son of the next eldest son? Dorieus may have renounced, or forfeited, the right of succession; or a king's son (Leonidas, Pleistarchos) may have succeeded in preference to a privatus; cp. 7. 3, where Demaratos lays down a law, which may be illustrated by, or generalized from, the case of Euryanax. Rawlinson has an erroneous but very instructive note on this passage. He attempts to prove that the Dorieus here mentioned cannot be Dorieus son of Anaxandridas for two reasons: (1) Had Dorieus left a son in Sparta “he would undoubtedly have succeeded to the throne”—but no! see above. (2) “The words of Hdt. imply a more distant relative.” Nay, the saddle is on the wrong horse! Hdt. in Bks. 5 and 9 follows different sources; had he known the story of Dorieus when he wrote this passage he must have guarded his readers against the error into which Rawlinson has fallen; in other words, this passage makes strongly for the earlier composition of Bks. 7, 8, 9. Cp. Introduction, §§ 7, 8.
