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

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οὐδαμῶς ἔμοιγε πιστός. Hdt. is no doubt right in discrediting the story, but the point he emphasizes against it seems a poor one. Persian grandees would have been but sorry hands at the oars compared to the Phoenician tars; and the process of pitching a lot of the oarsmen into the sea, during a raging storm, to make way for those aristocratic amateurs, might not have been easy or expeditious. Hdt. relates a story which he discredits perhaps on the principle laid down 7. 152.

οὔτε ἄλλως οὔτε τὸ Περσέων τοῦτο πάθος: reading ἄλλως the construction seems irregular (which is better, however, than the very tame ὁ ἄλλος); for is τὸ πάθος nominative (subject) or accusative (of reference, limitation)? The latter seems preferable. ἄλλως itself is simple enough here (‘in other respects’); cp. c. 116 supra. The πάθος is self-inflicted in this case.

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ἐν μυρίῃσι γνώμῃσι μίαν ... ἀντίξοον: does Hdt. mean that he had often discussed the story, and never found a single person dispute his point? Or does he merely wish to emphasize his own conviction by asserting that, if ten thousand opinions were polled, they would all be found to agree with him? ἀντίξοος, cp. 7. 218 supra. The apodosis in the conditional sentence is not οὐκ ἔχω, strictly speaking, but οὐκ ἂν ποιῆσαι. οὐκ ἔχω ... μὴ οὐκ ἂν ποιῆσαι is a clear case of the idiomatic use of the double negative μὴ οὐ. Instead of μὴ οὐκ ἂν ποιῆσαι Hdt. might have written ὅκως οὐκ ἂν ἐποίησε, as he writes below ὅκως οὐκ ἂν ἐξέβαλε instead of μὴ οὐκ ἂν ἐκβαλεῖν. But Pingel's emendation (vide App. Crit.) is seductive.

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ἐς κοίλην νέα, ‘into the ship's hold.’

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ὡς καὶ πρότερόν μοι εἴρηται: the reference back is but to cc. 115-117 supra.

ἄμα τῷ ἄλλῳ στρατῷ: a merely idiomatic ἅλλος without distinct reference to any division of the army; cp. c. 113 supra.