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

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μαρτύριον δέ μοι. Hdt.'s notions of evidence, or proof, are not perhaps always very strict. What is proved by the fact that Leonidas wanted to send away Megistias, and Megistias sent away his only son, except that Leonidas and Megistias fully understood that they were face to face with death? If Leonidas tried to persuade Megistias to go, when the others were going, could that prove the king to have dismissed the allies, or to have remained behind in consequence of an oracle? But Hdt. plainly wishes to adopt what he regards as the nobler view of the varying conduct of all concerned. Cp. Introduetion, § 11.

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Μεγιστίην τὸν Ἀκαρνῆνα: here introduced, with his heroic pedigree, or at least ultimate patronymic, as though he had not been mentioned just before, in c. 219. As the previous passage is apparently original, and the seer essential to it, the inference is natural that this passage is of later insertion, and shows knowledge, acquired later, by Hdt. Cp. Introduction, § 9. Anyway, it is manifest that the conduct of the Greeks at Thermopylai had been a good deal canvassed; the apology betrays the criticism. Akarnania was a land of diviners; cp. 9. 93, 1. 62. On Melampous cp. 2. 49.

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φανερός ἐστι Λεωνίδης ἀποπέμπων, ‘it is manifest that Leonidas tried to dismiss him.’ What was the proof? That the son of Megistias was saved? Or does Hdt. merely mean to assert, as a notorious fact, the refusal of Megistias? Cp. c. 228 infra.

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συστρατευόμενον: as a combatant? But there was no Akarnanian contingent! Probably in attendance on his father, as acolyte; had he been a soldier he would have remained. Probably he lived to be a diviner too. What an authority he must have been for the facts! Had Hdt. met him? Cp. Introduction, § 10.