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

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φήμη τε ἐσέπτατο ... καὶ κηρυκήιον ἐφάνη. The Fama is plainly in Hdt.'s belief supernatural, as he explains; of the κηρυκήιον, a more material τεκμήριον, he takes no further account. What became of this κηρυκήιον? How many persons saw it? Was it the supernatural bearer of the supernatural message? Alas! that so much should be made of the impalpable φήμη and nothing said of the subsequent history of the ocular sign! This omission is a weak spot in the story, in the argument; and nowadays, in a world of telepathy, crystal-gazing, subliminal selves, and other scientific enchantments, which explain the φήμη to perfection, one is bound to take cognisance of the total disappearance of the material evidence.

A φήμη which Hdt. treats as in no way supernatural had run right through the medizing Greek army in Boiotia a few weeks before, cp. c. 17 supra; it had proved a fraud; had it turned out to be true, it might have been regarded as divine.

Diodoros 11. 35 (Ephoros), cp. Polyain. 1. 33, completely rationalizes the story of this φήμη, regarding it as a ruse by Leotychidas; Larcher and Thirlwall approve. A somewhat similar case was the fraud of Agesilaos in 394 B.C., which no doubt helped him to win the battle of Koroneia (Xenoph. Hell. 4. 3. 10-14), when he announced the defeat of the Lakedaimonian fleet off Knidos to his army as a victory; but he had received actual despatches, and had no need to pretend a synchronism. If a few days' interval occurred between the victory in Boiotia and the victory in Ionia the φήμη is simple enough. If there was a real synchronism between the battles of Plataia and Mykale, then one of three or four alternatives can alone be true: either (a) the φήμη was a fraud, a ruse, a γενναῖον ψεῦδος at the moment, which afterwards proved to be true to fact; or (b) it was in truth supernatural, supernormal, whether you explain it by direct divine interposition or by abnormally heightened human feeling; or (c) thirdly, it is an element of afterthought, a product of tradition, an embellishment of the facts, possibly traceable to excited hopes and feelings of the actual day, but without the adequate or full basis of fact asserted by the pious tradition. There is so much of this kind of thing in the story of the war that it does not appear unreasonable to ascribe the φήμη motif, though it rings out more precisely and positively than any other, to the same creative faculty. There was some Homeric precedent for it, though the word φήμη does not occur in the Iliad at all (pace Aischines § 141, cp. D. B. Monro, Odyssey XIII.-XXIV. p. 427), for the ὄσσα ἐκ Διός (Od. 1. 282) is its precursor. The word εἰσέπτατο occurs Il. 21. 494 of the flight of a bird, to which is likened the motion of a goddess (Artemis).

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ἡ δὲ φ. διῆλθέ σφι ὧδε: sc. τὸ στρατόπεδον. The exact terms of the φήμη are very nearly identical with the message (ἀγγελίη) which had reached the Greeks at the Heraion in front of Plataia that same day, ὅτι μάχη τε γέγονε καὶ νικῷεν οἱ μετὰ Παυσανίεω c. 69 supra. The imperf. pres. νικῷεν here of the fait accompli (cp. γεγονέναι νίκην c. 101 infra) is remarkable; Xenoph. Hell. 4. 3. 1 has νικῷεν (but 4. 3. 10 ὅτι ἡττημένοι εἶεν); Stein compares νικᾶν in c. 48 supra, and interprets ‘are victors’ (Sieger seien). The use of νικᾶν there absolutely is easier than νικῷεν here with a direct object. Might it be one of Hdt.'s imperfects, of an action the result of which is abiding, or continuous? The passage in Xenophon shows that we need not read νενικῷεν here. ἐν Βοιωτοῖσι is purely geographical.

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δῆλα δὴ ... τὰ θει_α τῶν πρηγμάτων: “many things prove to me that the gods take part in the affairs of men,” Rawlinson; “now by many signs is the divine power seen in earthly things,” Macaulay. But the passage involves a classification of ‘things,’ into τὰ θεῖα and τὰ μὴ θεῖα, rather than the general assertion of the existence of “a divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them as we will.” Cp. c. 65 supra. Hdt. is here a ‘dualist’: far from the formula of Thales, πάντα πλήρη θεῶν, but close to ‘common sense,’ or ‘popular philosophy,’ as we know it. Hdt.'s argument is not very closely expressed; the particnlar instance (εἰ καὶ τότε) cannot prove the general (πολλοῖσι τεκμηρίοισι). But the formal statement here is not the real statement. The true predicate lies in τὰ θεῖα: what is plain, by many infallible proofs, among them par exemple the particular case quoted, is the fact that some things are θεῖα, that ‘miracles do happen’— though, of course, most happenings are quite ordinary and natural. (There are even degrees in the class, cp. 7. 137 τοῦτό μοι ἐν τοῖσι θειότατον φαίνεται γενέσθαι, 8. 65 θεῖον τὸ φθεγγόμενον, 8. 94 θεῖον τὸ πρῆγμα.) Cp. Introduction, § 11.

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τῆς αὐτῆς ἡμέρης συμπιπτούσης: the expression is somewhat clumsy—a day cannot coincide with itself—but the meaning is plain: the day, or date, of the action at Plataia and the date of the action just about to take place at Mykale was identically the same; but it was ‘the actions,’ not ‘the day,’ which coincided. συμπίπτοντος or συμπιπτόντων would certainly be clearer (cp. App. Crit.): but is Hdt. always quite clear in thought or expression? τρῶμα: cp. c. 90 supra. ταύτῃ: sc. ἐν Μυκάλῃ.