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

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διέστησαν: without the superfluous χωρίς of c 17 supra. This day had begun, as it ends, with joy, on both sides! cp. c. 14 supra. Stein cps. Od. 9. 62 f. ἔνθεν δὲ προτέρω πλέομεν ἀκαχήμενοι ἦτορ, Ἄσμενοι ἐκ θανάτοιο, φίλους ὀλέσαντες ἑταίρους.

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διακριθέντες. The verb διακρίνειν is used of the physical separation of combatants in all three voices (Homer); cp. also Thuc. 1. 105. 5 “μάχης γενομένης ἰσορρόπου ... διεκρίθησαν ἀπ᾽ ἀλλήλων”. (So in 3. 11. 2 of voluntary separation, secession, of allies.)

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τῶν μὲν νεκρῶν καὶ τῶν ναυηγίων ἐπεκράτεον has a suggestion of victory about it, but probably is to be explained by the turn of the tide; cp. c. 12 supra. (May it be assumed that they buried the dead?)

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τρηχέως δὲ περιεφθέντες: cp. 5. 1. It is admitted that the Greeks had been very roughly handled in this naumachy; and perhaps the Athenians, to whom the Aristeia were awarded, had borne the burnt of the fray; but that “the half of their ships” (nigh one hundred) were damaged must surely be an exaggeration, in view of their subsequent condition at Salamis. True, they may have had further vessels in reserve, and they had some time to refit before Salamis; but most probably the τραύματα were of every variety, and the half of the ships were only ‘more or less’ damaged. τετρωμέναι ἦσαν seems to give a somewhat different meaning to ἐτέτρωντο, the ἦσαν not being a mere auxiliary; the ships were there still, though in a damaged condition (τιτρώσκειν of ships, Thuc. 4. 14. 1).

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δρησμὸν δὴ ἐβούλευον: this would be for the third time, if we could trust c. 4 supra and 7. 182. Placed here the statement amounts to a confession of defeat; but it is even yet hardly credible, before the arrival of the bad news from Thermopylai, after which, indeed, there was no further room for debate or delay; cp c. 21 infra.