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

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οἱ μὲν δὴ τῶν Ἑλλήνων ἄγγελοι: cp. cc. 157, 153 supra. τῷ Γέλωνι as against οὶ ἄγγελοι, but when he starts afresh he dispenses with the article: Γέλων δέ.

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δείσας ... μὴ οὐ δύνωνται . . ὑπερβάλεσθαι: μὴ οὐ is not a strict or idiomatic ‘double negative’ with δύνασθαι, as the second negative may be understood to coalesce completely with the verb (= μὴ ἀδύνατοι ὦσι); cp. 6. 9 καταρρώδησαν μὴ οὐ δυνατοὶ γένωνται ὑπερβαλέσθαι. ὑπερβ., to out-do, overcome, defeat; cp. 8. 24, 6. 9. etc. (never exactly to ‘conquer,’ καταστρέψασθαι).

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δεινὸν δὲ ... ποιησάμενος, a psychological, conscious, or inner ‘making’; cp. c. 1 supra, etc.

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ἐς Πελοπόννησον ... Σικελίης τύραννος: the phrase can hardly be pressed in either direction; but it is only likely that had the Greeks obtained large assistance from Sicily the party in favour of making the Peloponnesos the line of defence might have carried the day; cp. c. 161 supra; and the attempts to save Thessaly and Central Greece and Salamis might never have been made. As things turned out, the Greeks were all the better for Gelon's refusal. That refusal comes from ‘the tyrant of Sicily’: the unity and extent of his power is recognized, but its legitimacy is no longer iusinuated; cp. cc. 157, 161 supra.

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ταύτην μὲν τὴν ὁδὸν ἠμέλησε: the construction is remarkable (acc. instead of gen., cp. 2. 121) and the metaphor a little obscure: was ‘the way’ the plan Syagros had pioposed, or the plan Gelon had attempted? Is he affected mainly by fear for the Greeks, or by a sense of his own importance? ὃ δέ: cp. cc. 10, 13 etc. (δέ with iterated subject).

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ἐπείτε ... τὸν Ἑλλήσποντον: the chronological indication is a little curious, especially as one may ask, how long it would take for the news of the crossing of the Hellespont to reach Syracuse? By what means, and by what route, did the news travel? Was Gelon en rapport with Korkyra, Delphi, Makedon, or other European centres? Were the IonioChalkidic colonies in Sicily in communication with the metropolis and the Asianic Greeks? However, in this case, the solution of these questions is comparatively unimportant: even if the mission of Kadmos had been a pure speculation, Gelon might without much difficulty have timed the despatch so as to fulfil its purpose.

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πεντηκοντέροισι τρισί. A ‘pentekonter’ was a galley, probably undecked, with fifty oars, or two rows of five and twenty, one row either side; cp. C. Torr, Ancient Ships, pp. 3, 21 etc.

Κάδμον τὸν Σκύθεω ἄνδρα Κῷον. Can this Skythes be any other than the ‘king’ of Zankle, whose story is told in 6. 23 f.? He had invited the Ionians, about the close of the Revolt in 494 B.C., to come to Sicily and make a new home for themselves (an out-post for Hellas) at ‘Kale Akte’; and the Samian oligarchs accepted the invitation, by possessing themselves of Zankle itself in their host's temporary absence. For the loss of Zankle, his suzerain, Hippokrates, punished Skythes, its ‘monarch,’ by internment at Inyx: thence he escaped, and made his way <back> to Asia and to the court of King Daieios (was that before the b. of Marathon?). He died, at an advanced age, at the Persian court, whether in the reign of Dareios oi of his successor the story does not record, and he enjoyed—at least in the eyes of Dareios — a reputation for righteousness (δικαιοσύνη) above all Greeks at the Persian court, in that he had (like Demokedes!) obtained the king's leave to go west (to Sicily) on condition of returning, and had (unlike Demokedes!) kept his word.

The passage (6. 24) leaves something to be desired in lucidity; but there is nothing in it to compel us to regard the visit to Sicily in c. 24 as subsequent to the exercise of his kingship in Zankle, nothing to prevent our seeing in the whole Sicilian adventure of Skythes in c. 23 an episode in his expedition to the west. In short, Skythes paid only one visit, not two visits, to Sicily, where he seems to have taken service with Hippokrates of Gela, and to have acted as his commandant in Zankle, and to have forfeited his Sikeliote master's favour by the loss of the town. Perhaps his reputation for ‘righteonsness’ at the Persian court, or with the Persian king, was hardly deserved: but for his misadventure over Zankle, and his escape from Inyx, he might have ranked, in Dareios's mind, with Demokedes and the rest.

A further problem arises from the words ἄνδρα Κῷον and the data of the next chapter, q.v. Meanwhile, whether the Skythes of this passage and the Skythes of 6. 23, 24, whether the father of Kadmos and the brother of Pythogenes, are two different persons, or one and the same, Hdt. was equally bound to take note of the problem, which his materials and methods have generated. The total absence of any cross relerence here is astounding: it is perhaps the most frappant of all such cases of Hdt.'s insouciance. Complete independence of the Sources alone will hardly account for it; but the oversight would be easier to understand if this passage were of much earlier date in composition than that; cp. Introduction, §§ 7, 8.

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ἐς Δελφούς: that Delphi is considered by Gelon, who knew it well, and was a persona qrata there. the right address for a confidential agent, with instructions to declare for the harbarians, if victorious, is perhaps the most damning fact. if a fact it be, in the whole Delphian record for the war. Some of the failures or ambiguities of Delphi may be interested vaticinia post eventum: this event proves what was expected of Delphi, and of the Persians, from the first by the ablest Greek alive, with one possible exception.

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φιλίους λόγους: in 8. 106 by word of mouth, but here, obviously, in a written despatch for the king, and why not in good Persian? He must have had some Sicilian earth and water with him too, in appropriate vases.

καραδοκήσοντα: cp. c. 168 infra and 8. 67. τὴν μάχην ... Gelon made one mistake, like Cicero's on a great occasion: ““uno proelio ... si non totam causam at certe nostrum iudicium definiri convenire”” （ad Fam. xv. 15. 1).

τῇ πεσέεται: not ‘where the battle shall take place’ but ‘what the issue of the fight will be.’ = ἀποβήσεται, Baehr.

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τῶν ἄρχει, ‘on behalf of Gelon's subjects.’ ὁ Γέλων, the proper name being repeated within the limits of the λόγος takes the article.

This story is not above suspicion as it stands. Gelon, if he could stem the Carthaginian, had little to fear from the Persian, and the surrender would have involved tribute (over and above the χρήματα πολλά); but still, the Carthaginian campaign was just about to open, and its issue could not be regarded as certain. Perhaps this Delphic θεωρία was rather to secure Gelon an asylum, in case of things going badly with him in Sicily.