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τὸν ἐπεστεῶτα τῆς διώρυχος Ἀρταχαίην: cp. c. 22 supra. This passage is evidently from an independent source. The various notices of Artachaies indeed show how little Hdt. eoncerned himself to ‘combine’ the data of various sourees into a single and self-consistent story (in the manner of Thucydides); ep. Introduction, § 10. Artachaies was a man upwards of 8 ft. in height (ὁ β. π. =27 δακτ. or 201/2 inches; cp. 1. 178). Valckenaer observes that the Greeks considered 4 (ordinary) cubits the ideal height for a man; Aristoph. Frogs 1046. Phya, who personated Athene in 556-5 B.C., was three fingers short of 4 cubits, 1. 60. The skeleton of the Orestes found in Tegea was 7 cubits, 1. 68.
φωνέοντά τε μέγιστον ἀνθρώπων: cp. 4. 141. The Egyptian may have been dead by this time, but Artachaies and he would have been more or less contemporaries. Hdt. has not thought of the Egyptian here, nor of Artachaies there. Moreover, τῶν η<*>μεῖς ἴδμεν is hardly needed to reduce the superlative here to a mere formula.
ἐξενεῖκαι: θάψαι: ἐτυμβοχόεε. He was buried with all the honours of war. Never a Greek, much less an Akanthian, had seen such a funeral. But were not the proper Persian rites observed? οὐ πρότερον θάπτεται ἀνδρὸς Πέρσεω ὁ νέκυς πρὶν ἂν ὑπ᾽ ὄρνιθος ἢ κυνὸς ἑλκυσθῇ, 1. 140, an abomination to a Greek! Hdt. does not say that he had seen the tumulus of Artachaies, which is by some supposed to be still visible (Forsehammer, J.G.S. xvii. 149). Rawlinson demurs to the identification: Forsch. puts the mound E. of the cutting, on S. shore, near Sane; Hdt. (R. argues) suggests a site near Akanthos, W. of cutting, on N. shore. There are ‘Phrygian’ tumuli in Macedonia and Thrace (cp. c. 73 supra), and perhaps the σῆμα Ἀρταχαίεω was one of these. Unless Persici apparatus were recovered, one might be sceptical as to the identity. But we shall do well to beware of seeing with Wmckler, Geschichtc Israels ii. (1900) 175, following the devious steps of Mucke, vom: hrat zum Tiber (1899), in Artachaites (sic) a mythical figure, or of admitting that “Atrachaites (sic) the dead hero of Akanthos has a speaking likeness to the departing year, which was celebrated by the grand Banquet at the Sakaenfestival.” The Bauquet here at Akanthos, by the way, depends on the misinterpretation of ξεινίη above, and is assumed to be the only meal the king had on his way to Greece (“an anderen Orten scheint er also nicht gegessen zu haben,” op. c. p. 177). Artachaies, though rather tall of stature, loud of voice, is as real a man and an Achaimenid as Xerxes himself.
τούτῳ δὲ ... θύουσι Ἀκάνθιοι ἐκ θεοπροπίου ὡς ἥρωι. The cult of Artachaies has nothing extraordinary in it, cp. 5. 114 (Cult of Onesilos at Amathûs), 5. 47 (Cult of Philip at Segesta), etc. That a Greek city should have a ‘barbarian’ hero is perhaps less surprising than that non-Hellenic cities should worship Greeks. These colonies in Thrace sit rather lightly to their proper ‘oikists’; cp. the well-known case of Amphipolis, Thuc. 5. 11. 1. Was the θεοπρόπιον from Delphi, or of local provemence? With ἐπονομάζοντες τὸ οὔνομα cp. ἐπονομαζούσας τὰ οὐνόματα ἐν τῷ ὕμνῳ κτλ. 4 35. There was perhaps a hymn at Akanthos in memory of Artachaies. This last sentence, on the hero-cult, has somewhat the air of an addition by the author, made perhaps after his voyage in those parts; cp. Introduction, § 9.
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