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

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ἐν Πλαταιῇσι: probably the actual conflict between the Lakedaimonians and Persians took place on the soil of Hysiai (cp. c. 62 supra); but (a） the Athenians were doubtless fighting on Plataian ground, (b) the island position was Plataian ground, (c) the ‘second position’ of the Greeks was on Plataian ground (c. 25 supra), (d） Plataia was a much more important place than Hysiai or Erythrai, the former of which at least was accounted Attic ground, cp. 5. 74, and perhaps subordinate to Plataia, cp. 6. 108 (but cp. also Plutarch Aristeid. 11). Thus, all things considered, the battle and the operations generally seem naturally associated with the name of Plataia, albeit, in the reconstruction of the battle-piece as a whole, Erythrai, Hysiai, Plataia, and their respective territories, have to be carefully distinguished; cp. cc. 15, 19, 25 supra.

κατέστρωντο, as in 8. 53; cp. c. 69 supra.

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νικῶντας, ‘victors’; cp. c. 69 supra.

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παλλακή: opposed to κουριδίη γυνή 1. 84.

Φαρανδάτεος τοῦ Τεάσπιος. Pharandates had been ἄρχων, i.e. myriarch, of the Mares and Kolchoi in the army of Xerxes, 7. 79. He was evidently an Achaimenid (Teaspes), though Hdt. does not expressly say so; and his mother, too, was perhaps a sister of Dareios; cp. 4. 43.

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τῶν παρεουσέων: not to disparage her travelling wardrobe, or to suggest that she had still better at home, but rather to emphasize its splendour.

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ἁρμάμαξα: cp. 7. 41, 8. 83.

ἐχώρεε: on foot.

ἔτι ἐν τῇσι φονῇσι ἐόντας, ‘stil engaged on the work of slaughter φοναί is Homeric and poetical; the singular is not in use.

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διέπειν: as in 6. 107, 5. 22.

πρότερόν τε ... ἀκούσασα, ‘as she was previously well acquainted with his name and country (father-land), having heard them again and again’— her father having been on terms of ξεινίη with Pausanias; see just below.

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πάτρη, cp. 6. 126, ‘land,’ not ‘lineage’ (as in Il. 13. 354, cp. the use in Pindar = gens, Rumpel, Lex. Pind. sub v.). Hdt. has the more usual form πατρίς, 8. 61, for fatherland; he uses πατριή for lineage, cp. 3. 75, 2. 143, and the lady addresses Pausanias not as ‘son of Kleombrotos’ (c. 78. 4), but as king of ‘Sparta.’ ὥστε = ἅτε: cp. c. 70 supra.

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ἔγνω, without ever having seen him before, from now seeing him in authority. He was probably young; cp. c. 10 supra.

λαβομένη τῶν γουνάτων. as a ἱκέτις, cp. Od. 6. 310 μητρὸς ποτὶ γούνασι χεῖρας ι βάλλειν ἡμετέρης ἵνα νόστιμον ἦμαρ <*>δηαι, 7. 142 ἀμφὶ δ᾽ ἄρ᾽ Ἀρήτης βάλε γούνασι χεῖρας Ὀδυσσεύς. C. Sittl, Die Gebarden der Gr. u. Rom. 1890, 163. In order to perform such a gesture the suppliant would have to kneel or prostrate himself.

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ὧ βασιλεῦ Σπάρτης. Thus this lady of Kos inaugurates the error which dies so hard; cp. c. 5 supra. She doubtless knew better, but thought there was nothing to lose by a little exaggeration: was the fatal ambition of Pausanias born in this moment? But after all βασιλεύς was not the technical term at Sparta, but βαγός or ἀρχαγἐτης, cp. Gilbert, Gr. Staatsalt. i.2 47.

ῥῦσαί με τὴν ἱκέτιν: the article is idiomatic, with the appositive, “as regularly with personal pronouns” (Sitzler), cp. ὑμέας ... τοὺς Ἀθηναίους c. 46 supra.

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αἰχμαλώτου δ., a very strong genitive: from, out of, ‘slavery as a prisoner of war.’ In c. 90 infra ἐκ is expressed. The lady was not a prisoner of war to the Persians; but she is asking not to be treated as a prisoner of war by the Greeks.

ἐς τόδε, ‘so far,’ of time; cp. c. 73 supra; or perhaps of action, as explained in the next sentence.

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τοὺς οὔτε δαιμόνων οὔτε θεῶν ὄπιν ἔχοντας: ὄπις 8. 143 in a similar connexion (on the lips of Aristeides?). The charge is, of course, unjust, even as respects ‘the gods of Greece’; cp. l.c. supra; but allowance in this case may be made for a lady whose situation is not free from ambiguity.

δαίμονες, as distinct from θεοί, are not merely deities of lower rank, but perhaps distinctly ‘deified dead’; so the departed Dareios, Aischyl. Pers. 620, the departed Alkestis, Eurip. Alk. 1003. Cp. Hesiod, Wks. 121 αὐτὰρ ἐπειδὴ τοῦτο γένος <sc. τὸ χρύσεον> κατὰ γαῖα κάλυψεν, τοὶ μὲν δαίμονές εἰσι Διὸς μεγάλου διὰ βουλὰς ἐσθλοί, ἐπιχθόνιοι, φύλακες θνητῶν άνθρώπων.

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γένος μὲν Κῴη: the γένος here is locative rather than genetic. Kos was at this time under the government of Artemisia, cp. 7. 99, in succession to the righteous Kadmos, 7. 164. She ought to have given her own name.

Ἡγητορίδεω τοῦ Ἀνταγόρεω. Of these Koans, Hegetoridas (a truly aristocratic name) and his father Antagoras, nothing more appears to be known. Plutarch, Aristeid. 23, mentions an Antagoras of Chios as one of the leaders in the movement for the transfer of the hegemony from Sparta to Athens, and actually heading an attack on Pausanias. Polyainos 2. 33 has an anecdote of a Hegetoridas of Thasos, who was instrumental in bringing about the surrender of the island to Athens.

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βίῃ δέ με ... εἶχε ὁ Πέρσης. ‘The Persian’ might have a more extended sense than Pharandates. Perhaps the lady had been kidnapped in her youth or infancy. It is not easy to see what Pharandates or the Persians generally would be doing in Kos; it is not even certain that Kos had joined in the ‘Ionic’ revolt, or we might suppose that the daughter of Pharandates had been carried off then; but cp. 7. 164 supra. The βίῃ might qualify both the participle and the verb (ἔχειν, cp. 8. 136. 4, and 8. 68. 12), but the lady of course may be overstating the case.

ὃ δὲ ἀμείβεται. The reply and the conduct of Pausanias proves him a cavalier sans reproche. This anecdote of the Koan Anonyma is the first of a series, in which the moral contrast between Hellenism and Barbarism is enforced and illustrated by incidents from the battle-field of Plataia.

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ξεῖνος μάλιστα. On ξεινία cp. 7. 116 supra.

τῶν περὶ ἐκ. τ. χ. οἰκημένων: cp. 7. 102 for the same phrase.

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τῶν ἐφόρων τοῖσι παρεοῦσι, perhaps two in number; cp. Xenoph. Respub. Lac. 13. 5 πάρεισι δὲ καὶ τῶν ἐφόρων δύο, οἳ πολυπραγμονοῦσι μὲν οὐδέν, ἢν μὴ ὁ βασιλεὺς προσκαλῇ: ὁρῶντες δὲ ὅ τι ποιεῖ ἕκαστος πάντας σωφρονίζουσιν, ὡς τὸ εἰκός. The fact that we do not find the presence of Ephors noted in the narratives of the fifth century does not prove that they were not present, but there are occasions upon which they are rather conspicuous by their absence, e.g. with Leotychidas at Mykale, with Pausanias at Byzantion, with Agis at Dekeleia (cp. Thuc. 8. 5. 3). Rawlinson, indeed, would date the regular practice described by Xenophon only to the year 403 B.C., cp. Hell. 2. 4. 36. But the present instance makes the practice look older, though it may not have affected the Navarchy.

ἐς Αἴγιναν. Hdt. does not say that there was any special facility for crossing from Aigina to Kos, but we may charitably suppose that the lady wished to return to her father's house, as, from the way Pansanias speaks, Hegetoridas must be still alive.