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Ἀχαιμένης: though here described he has been introduced before, and that twice: c. 7 Ἀχαιμένει ἀδελφεῷ μὲν ἑωυτοῦ, Δαρείου δὲ παιδί (Αἴγυπτον έπιτράπει Ξ.), and c. 97 Ἀχαιμένης ὁ Δαρείου: Αίγυπτίων δὲ ἐστρατήγεε Ἀχαιμένης Ξέρξεω ἐὼν ἀπ᾽ ἀμφοτέρων ἀδελφεός. If there is any name in the Achaimenid family that might have been trusted to stick in the reader's or listener's memory surely it was Achaimenes. These repeated introductions in a written work suggest, not so much a provision for sectional readings aloud, as a close, and to some extent abscnt-minded, fidelity to various sources, for various sections; or a composition subject to repeated revision, yet not quite fully revised. Cp. Introduction, § 9.
παρατυχών τε τῷ λόγῳ: was it a casual conversation, and not rather a council of war? After ArtemisionThermopylai the king will have had to consider further plans. The conversation here proceeds in complete oblivion of the naval engagements.
τρόποισι τοιούτοισι χρεώμενοι. Hdt. takes the opportunity of reading his compatriots a lesson on one of their worst vices, φθόνος. Put into the mouth of Achaimenes as a criticism of Demaratos and his (supposed) plan, which was thoroughly sound, the remarks on φθόνος are neither logically nor psychologically acceptable. The result is to stultify Achaimenes. But the remarks in themselves are so painfully true, the formula below (c. 237 ὅτι πολιήτης κτλ.) is so just, that Hdt.'s intention can hardly have been to stultify Achaimenes. It is perhaps out of the abundance of his own heart, and the bitterness of his own experience, that Hdt. here speaks in the person of Achaimenes. Strange, that with this clear perception of the viciousness of envy as practised on earth, he should have thought it pious and ethical when transferred to heaven, and made a law of the divine nature! Cp. c. 10 supra; Introduction, § 11.
νεναυηγήκασι τετρακόσιαι. Achaimenes remembers the loss of 400 ships, recorded above c. 190, as ‘the lowest estimate’; but he has forgotten, or ignores, the loss of 200, recorded in 8. 13, though it has taken place at least forty-eight hours before the time of this conversation, and he equally ignores the losses in the three days' naval engagements (8. 11, 12, 14 ff.), which have preceded this conversation, on Hdt.'s own showing. Either the conversation is quite imaginary, or it is misdated. It is certainly in part imaginary, and it is probably, as presented, a fiction; but the fundamental principle laid down by Achaimenes, that the fleet and the land forces must advance pari passu, may be rightly associated with his name, and certainly represents the Persian plan of campaign as pursued and maintained from Doriskos to Salamis. The Greeks in the suite of Xerxes, and especially the European Greeks, and of them perhaps Demaratos, may have criticized this plan adversely, especially after the relative success of the Greek fleet at Artemision; and may have suggested raiding the Peloponnesos. Perhaps this advice was given rather at Phaleron than in Trachis; cp. 8. 67 ff.
ἐκ τοῦ στρατοπἑδου: i.e. τοῦ ναυτικοῦ στρατοῦ. τριηκοσίας seems an unneeessarily large number for a mere Periplous: the real answer to the proposal at this stage would have been that these vessels would encounter the unbroken Greek fleet, on its retreat from Artemision, now rendered inevitable by the fall of Thermopylai, even if it is not yet known in the Persian camp to have taken place already! Nothing shows more completely, not merely the independence of Hdt.'s sources for his various λόγοι, but his failure to relate the stories of Thermopylai and Artemision to one another, than his presentation of this discussion, in this form, at this crisis. περιπλέειν Πελοπόννησον. They are a long way from the Peloponnesos; they have just annihilated Leonidas and his men in Thermopylai, and all central Greece is at their feet: this plan, to have any sense at all at this point, must be regarded as a device to break up the Greek fleet; for that purpose a mise en scène nearer Salamis would have more verisimilitude: Demaratos has not proposed a περίπλους but the seizure of Kythera (an ἐπίπλους).
ἀρχὴν οὐκ ἀξιόμαχοι ἔσονται. These words are an absurdity placed here immediately after the fall of Thermopylai, i.e. immediately after the three days fighting off Artemision. They are dated either too late, or more probably too soon, and would be more appropriate on the eve of the battle of Salamis as an argument against breaking up the fleet at Phaleron. ἀρχήν, ‘originally, in the first instance, at all,’ might suit a date before any fighting had taken place, which indeed appears to be Hdt.'s selfcontradictory assumption in this passage. Thus ἀρήξει might as well have been perfect as future, in the light of the facts.
γνώμην ἔχω: the opinion, or proposal, maintained by Achaimenes is a grotesque absurdity, only suited to warfare as conducted on the boards of the comic opera. It amounts to this: there are three points of which a good general takes no account: first, the enemy's line of defence; secondly, the enemy's course of action; thirdly, the enemy's forces and resources. One has known wars conducted, alas! at least in their earlier stages, apparently upon this fashion; but no military authority, except the Achaimenes of Hdt., has ever laid it down as a deliberate maxim. It might then be suspected that Hdt. is dramatically conveying a criticism on the Persian plan of campaign; but if so, it is a grossly unfair one, and indeed refutes itself—for has not Achaimenes just protested against reducing the number of his fleet, as the enemy will then be ἀξιόμαχοι? It is much more probable that this sentence represents some criticisms passed on the Greek plan of campaign. The τὰ σεωυτοῦ τίθεσθαι εὖ might pass as the Peloponnesian formula: Greeks outside the Peloponnesos might think they were describing the Peloponnesian or Spartan notions of strategy and leading in the words of Achaimenes.
ἐπιλέγεσθαι, to reflect, consider, ponder. Hdt. also (afterwards?) used the word for ‘to read,’ 1. 124, 2. 125. τῇ τε στήσονται τ. π.: cp. c. 175 supra. τά τε ποιήσουσι, ‘what they are going to do.’
ὅσοι τε πλῆθος εἰσί, ‘and whether they be few or many in number.’
ἡμεῖς δὲ ἡμέων ὡσαύτως, ‘let each attend to his own business—the enemy to his, and we to ours—and all will be well’! Hdt. sometimes gets his ideas a little mixed; cp. c. 152 supra. This is a good political but a bad polemical maxim. The use of the simple personal pronoun reflexively is unique in Hdt., but it is eased by the ἐκεῖνοί γε αὐτοὶ ἑωυτῶν πέρι just before.
οὐδὲν ... ἀκεῦνται=ἀκέσονται (Attic ἁκοῦνται), Stein; but cp. App. Crit. τὸ παρεὸν τρῶμα, evidently simply the affair at Thermopylai, without reference to affairs at Artemision; cp. c. 233 supra.
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