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ταῦτα ... Ὑδάρνεα ἀμείψαντο: double acc. as in 2. 173, 3. 52. ἐνθεῦτεν: the omission to specify the exact locality of the interview with Hydarnes is a weak spot in the story. Perhaps the whole scene should be laid in Sardes.
ἀνάγκην: something more than the κέλευσμα and less than the ώθισμὸς ἐπὶ κεφαλήν. The σφι ... προσπίπτοντας is an apparent rather than a real Anakoluthon; vid. App. Ciit.
προσκυνέειν βασιλέα: ἄνθρωπον: the verb takes a direct accusative. On the importance of the προσκύνησις (kowtow） cp. Arrian, Anab. 4. 10. 12 Cp. also c. 14 supra, 8. 118 infra. There are similar stories of English and other merchants in China, and one such of a Chinese official in Berlin; cp. Brinkley, Japan and China, x. 182, 184 f., 191, 199, 273. The Greeks practised the προσκύνησις to gods or holy places; Soph. O. K. 1654 f. ο<*>ρῶμεν αὐτὸν γῆν τε προσκυνοῦνθ᾽ α<*>´μα ι καὶ τὸν θεῶν Ὄλυμπον ἐν ταὐτῷ λόγῳ. Aischyl. Pers. 497 ff. might be quoted, though the speaker is ex hypothesi a Persian. But even to gods and holy places the use of the word by Greeks is mainly metaphorical; there was little or no ‘kissing,’ whether of hands, garments. feet, or ground, with or without ‘prostration’ (“turpe solum tetigeremento!” Horace, Od. 2. 7. 12). The practice was rather Oriental than Hellenic, rather servile or barbarous than worthy of freemen and republicans (cp. Sittl. G<*>baerde der Gr. u. Rom. (1890) cap. ix.). ὠθεόμενοι ὑπ᾽ αὐτῶν ἐπὶ κεφαλήν might be (a) narrative, by the historian; (b) part of the oratio obliqua. The latter seems preferable, and would be made inevitable by the insertion of οὐδέ, cp. App. Crit.
κατὰ ταῦτα, ‘for that.’ κατά, ‘on account of’; cp. 6. 44 νέειν οὐκ έπιστέατο καὶ κατὰ τοῦτο διεφθείροντο.
ἀπεμαχέσαντο, ‘fought off,’ i.e. got off by fighting; cp. 1. 9.
καί, ‘or’; ἐχόμενα, 8. 142.
ποινήν, c. 134 supra.
Ξέρξης ὺπὸ μεγαλοφροσύνης: another example of the king's μεγαλο<*> φροσύνη, above c. 24, seems rather to condemn the characteristic. Though the word is not used, a more exact parallel may be found c. 146 infra: so exact, indeed, as to rouse a suspicion that this anecdote and that may after all refer to the same incident. Cp. c. 134 supra.
συγχέαι τὰ πάντων ἀνθρώπων νόμιμα: cp. Eurip. Suppl. 311 νόμιμα πάσης Ἑλλάδος συγχεῖν, Thuc. 5. 39. 3 “ξυγχέαι τὰς σπονδάς”. Something more than the ‘germs’ of international law was involved in the sacrosanctity of heralds (jus fetiale).
αὐτὸς δὲ ... οὐ ποιήσειν. Xerxes borrows, totidem uerbis, the maxim of Maiandrios 3. 142 ἐγὼ δὲ τὰ τῷ πέλας ἐπιπλήσσω, αὐτὸς κατὰ δύναμιν οὐ ποιήσω. It looks like the reverse side of the Christian medal: πάντα οὖν ὅσα ἂν θέλητε ἵνα ποιῶσιν ὑμῖν οἱ ἄνθρωποι, οὕτως καὶ ὑμεῖς ποιεῖτε αὐτοῖς<*> οὖτος γάρ ἐστιν ὁ νόμος καὶ οἱ προφῆται S. Matth. 7. 12; cp. S. Luke 6. 31. κείνους μὲν . . αὐτὸς δέ is of course nothing but the strict Greek idiom (as in the stock example Thuc. 4. 28. 2 “οὐκ ἔφη αὐτὸς ἀλλ᾽ ἐκεῖνον στρατηγεῖν”).
ἀνταποκτεῖναι, ‘to slay’ (not ‘instead of’ but) ‘in return for.’
τῆς αἰτίης: criminis, culpae.
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