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τὸ πολιτικόν: Stein understands, “your whole institutions”; Sitzler, “the citizen-body.” Cp. Aristot. Eth. N. 3. 8. 9=1116b τὰ δὲ πολιτικὰ μένοντα ἀποθνήσκει (there contrasted with οἱ στρατιῶται). κείνων seems to support the latter, and the apodosis as a whole the former interpretation.
οἷον σὺ διαιρέεις: c. 17 supra.
κατὰ νόμους τοὺς ὑμετέρους. Rawlinson sees an allusion to the “double portion,” 6. 57, and perhaps to the “supposed double vote,” ib. Blakesley and Stein refer to the former, and Stein remarks that Xerxes shows himself here better informed than afterwards, in c. 234 infra; almost too well informed, for the argument is at best obscure. Hdt. could hardly expect his readers, or hearers, to have the passage on the γέρεα of the Spartan kings in mind so vividly as to take up this obscure allusion, even if that passage were of earlier composition than this; while, if the ‘double portion’ of the Spartan king was so notorious, it need not have been elaborately reported at all. Perhaps the reference here must be admitted as something of an artistic flaw, it being what Xerxes could hardly under any circumstances have made, and what Hdt. himself should not have made. To account for it is difficult, except on the supposition that the passage on the γέρεα of the Spartan kings was already ‘in type.’ If so, the conversation with Demaratos must be of later compositional date, or must have been considerably retouched, in the retractation of these Books (7-9); cp. Introduction, § 9.
σὲ δέ γε: a strict δέ in apodosi, cp. Index; σέ γε, c. 10 supra. δίζημαι, ‘require,’ ‘look for,’ rather thau ‘inquire’; cp. 4. 30 προσθήκας γὰρ δή μοι ὸ λόγος ἐξ ἀρχῆς ἐδίζητο.
ὀρθοῖτ᾽ ἂν ὁ λόγος=ὀρθὸς ἂν εἴη ὸ λ. The construction, but not the sense, is parallel to Aischyl. Choëph. 773 ἐν ἀγγέλῳ γὰρ κρυπτὸς ὀρθοῦται λόγος. ὁ λόγος ὁ παρὰ σέο λεγόμενος: here strictly of oral communication without prejudice to the constant use of the terms by Hdt. of written sources; cp. Introduction, § 10.
εἰ δέ κτλ. ‘But if your Lakedaimonians are no better and no bigger than you yourself, and the other Greeks, who frequent my audience, yet use this proud boasting, look to it, if the word you have spoken be not mere idle brag. Since, come now, let me put the matter from a common-sense point of view.’
ἐλεύθεροι πάντες ὁμοίως καὶ μὴ ὑπ᾽ ἑνὸς ἀρχόμενοι: presently shall Xerxes be ‘hoist with his own petar.’ Meanwhile he puts his finger on one of the weak points of Hellas, οὐκ ἀγαθὸν πολυκοιρανίη εἶς κοίρανος ἔστω (Il. 2. 204), a stock diagnosis! The despot Gelon sings the same tune to the Athenian, c. 162, with a slight variation, τοὺς μὲν ἄρχοντας ἔχειν τοὺς δὲ ἀρξομένους οὐκ ἕξειν. Hdt. himself thonght it a very good connsel—for Thracians, cp. 5. 3 (with my note ad l.). Xerxes has also the (a pocryphal) γνῶμαι of Dareios and his friends, 3. 80-82, to support him, could he but have known it!
πλεῦνες ... ἢ χίλιοι, ἐόντων ἐκείνων πέντε χιλιάδων. ‘Five thousand’ is the figure for the Spartiatai at Plataiai, 9. 78 infra: upwards of five million for his own men is the estimate of Xerxes in this place, who thus anticipates the elaborate calculations which Hdt. institutes upon his own account, cc. 184 ff. infra, and commits the further absurdity of including the non-combatants. The oration of Xerxes appears to carry reminiscences of the speech of Agamemnon, Il. 2. 123 ff.
ἀναγκαζόμενοι μάστιγι: on this libel cp. c. 56 supra.
ἀνισωθέντες πλήθεϊ, ‘pnt on a par in respect of numbers,’ here, ‘levelled up’: so, in respect of strength, Xenoph. Cyrop. 7. 5. 65 ὁ σίδηρος ἀνισοῖ τοὺς ἀσθενεῖς τοῖς ἰσχυροῖς ἐν τῷ πολέμῳ. But Plato, Polit. 289 E ἔργα διακομίζοντες ἐπ᾽ ἀλλήλους καὶ ἀνισοῦντες, simply ‘putting on the same level,’ or ‘reducing to the same level’ of commercial values.
τὸ σὺ λέγεις: i.e. ἤν τε τύχωσι . ... πλεῦνες c. 102 ad fin.
φλυηρέεις: a word which Hdt. shares with Attic comedy and prose. Cp. 2. 131 ταῦτα δὲ λέγουσι φλυηρέοντες.
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