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

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ἐς τὴν Εὐρώπην avoids giving us their exact route or addresses!

οἱ δὲ συνωμόται Ἑλλήνων ἐπὶ τῷ Πέρσῃ: there is a sworn league and alliance among the Hellenes ‘against the Persian’; cp. c. 145 supra, Thue. 1. 102. 4 and Appendix III. § 5.

The narrative goes baek in time to the session in c. 145, or 146, the adventure of the spies having been fully told from their departure to their return.

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δεύτερα: there have been two ‘firsts’! in cc. 145 and 146. The whole of c. 146 from πρῶτα μέν down to the words here, μετὰ τὴν ἀπόπεμψιν τῶν κατασκόπων, looks like an insertion, from a variant source, or sources, by the author, in a second draft. Originally the text might have run, ὡς δὲ ταῦτά σφι ἔδοξε καταλυσάμενοι τὰς ἔχθρας δεύτερα ἔπεμπον κτλ. This δεύτερα would then have had a natural reference to the πρῶτον μὲν χρημάτων πάντων in c. 145. Cp. Introduction, § 9.

Ἀργεῖοι δὲ λέγουσι: first comes a professedly Argive story, with a strong local bias (cc. 148, 149), which is followed by another Logos widely spread in Hellas of a very different complexion (c. 150), and the debate is closed with a verdict by Hdt. as judge <*>jury, which non-suits all the parties (cc. 151, 152). The last portion refers to events (the mission of Kallias) which eannot long have preceded the thirty years' truce (445 B.C.), and may even fall a year or two later. The passage as a whole (τὰ περὶ Ἀργείων) may not be all of one date in composition; in particular cc. 151, 152 might be an addition, or even c. 151 alone. This last view would be the easiest solution of the problem of composition, for except in c. 151 there is little or nothing in the whole passage which might not belong to the first draft, and cc. 151 and 152 may very well be of different dates, the latter chapter being the earlier in composition. Cp. Introduction, § 9.

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τὰ κατ᾽ ἑωυτούς: cp. τὸ κατ᾽ ὑμᾶς c. 158 infra; τὰ κατὰ τὸν Τέλλον 1. 31; τὰ περὶ Ἀργείων c. 153 infra.

αὐτίκα κατ᾽ ἀρχάς: a closer date would be here acceptable. Is it 481 B.C.? or 491 B.C.? or some year between? νεωστί below would favour the earliest possible date, especially as the νεωστί may be understood to mean that, when they consulted Delphi, the Argives had just lost 6000 men in the war with Kleomenes, i.e. that the consultation was just after that war (and before the invasion of Datis). The circumstances here would fit the situation in 491 B.C. as well as in 481 B.C., and, indeed, better. Aigina had given earth and water to the Persian in 491 B.C., and doubtless Argos likewise, 6. 49. This anachronism, if accepted, would confirm the hypothesis of the prior composition of Bks. 7-9, as that hypothesis would help to explain the anachronism.

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οἱ Ἕλληνες πειρήσονται παραλαμβάνοντες: would the Argives have spoken in this detached way of ‘the Hellenes,’ or is not this rather Hdt.'s own term? cp. c. 157 infra, 8. 87 (Ἑλληνίς), 121, 132. πειρᾶσθαι with participle, as in c. 139 supra.

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ἐς Δελφούς: the Argive theoria takes precedence in time of the Athenian (c. 140 supra), of the Spartan (c. 220 infra, αὐτίκα κατ᾽ ἀρχάς also), and the others.

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νεωστὶ γὰρ ... τεθνάναι κτλ.: the adverb is relative to the Delphic theoria, not to the application of the Hellenes to Argos, and though Hdt. apparently connects the Delphic response with the events of 481 B.C., yet he admits that the Argives did not wait for the Hellenic embassy before consulting Delphi. The story of the war is told 6. 76-83, and in the main from Spartan sources, the Argive version being entirely unknown to Hdt. (See my notes ad l. Bks. IV.-VI. and Appendix VII. § 10.) There is nothing in Hdt.'s work anywhere to show that he ever visited Argos, or studied Argive history in loco. His ignorance of the Argive version of the war with Kleomenes, and the absence of any reference here to the Spartan story in Bk. 6, make it legitimate to regard this passage as older in composition than that, and obtained by him elsewhere than in Argos itself. The occurrence of the patronymic here (τοῦ Ἀναξανδρίδεω） would in itself be of little weight, especially as the passage is in oblique oration. Cp. Introduction, § 7.

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ἀνελεῖν, of the Pythia, as χρᾶν cc. 140, 141 supra.

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περικτιόνεσσι might refer to Korinthians, Lakedaimonians, Sikyoniaus, etc., but may also include the Argive ‘perioikoi,’ or δοῦλοι (cp. 6. 83, 8. 73).

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τὸν προβόλαιον: cp. δούρατι δὲ προβολαίῳ ὑπ᾽ ἀσπίδι νῶτον ἔχοντα Ἀνδρὸς ὀρέξας θαι Theokrit. 24. 123.

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καὶ κεφαλήν κτλ.: this line may (as Rawlinson remarks) refer to the expediency of preserving what remained of the Doric blood, the topmost rank in the state, or ‘hody politic.’ So too Stern, “κεφαλή geht auf die regierende Gemeinde, die Vollburger, σῶμα aber aut' die ubrige Masse der Bevolkerung.” Cp. the oracle in c. 140. This Argive response is primarily to be referred to the problem of the inner condition of Argos after the Kleomenean war: the sons of the men who had fallen in that war were fit for military service in 481 B.C. The response may have been brought out again in 481 B.C., or even possibly later, in a purely apologetic and retrospective interest, when the conduet of Argos had been violently attacked. For the subsequent eonduct reported of Argos in 481 B.C. constitutes, on the showing of the Argives themselves, a disobedience to the divine warning. had it been addressed to them at that date and on that occasion.

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μετὰ δέ: in 481 B.C. The force of the unconscious admission that the oracle was a good while antecedent to 481 B.C. is weakened by Stein's conjectural (and misleading) emendation. Cp. App. Crit.

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ἐπελθεῖν ἐπὶ τὸ βουλευτήριον: Argos has a Boule, apparently, at the time, but this fact does not make Argos a democracy, nor was it a democracy for, perhaps, another twenty years. Cp. G. Gilbert, Gr. Staatsalt. ii. (1885) 77.

ἐπελθεῖν is, of course, the technical term; cp. 5. 97, 9. 7, Thuc. 1. 90. 5, 91. 4, 119. The Boule (still under presidency of a βασιλεύς, cp. infra) has apparently control of the foreign policy of the State. The Argive Bouleutai (τοὺς δέ） offer to join the συμμαχίη (ὁμαιχμίη c. 145) ἐπὶ τῷ Πέρσῃ on two conditions: (i.) thirty years' truce with Sparta, (ii.) a co-ordinate or equal hegemony of Argos with Sparta over the whole Symmaehy. The conditions prove that the question is not one of joining the Spartan Symmachy, and therefore help to disprove the view that Athens had simply become a member of the Spartan Symmachy. Cp. Appendix II. § 5.

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κατά γε τὸ δίκαιον: in virtue of the position of ‘Argos’ and ‘Argives’ in heroic times; cp. 5. 67 τῶν Ὁμηρείων ἐπέων εἵνεκα, ὅτι Ἀργεῖοί τε καὶ Ἄργος τὰ πολλὰ πάντα ὑμνέαται.

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ἀποχρᾶν: cp. c. 43 supra; with dat. personae 9. 94 etc.