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

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συμμιγέντων: more forcible than συμπεσόντων, συνελθόντων. It is only τὰ μέζονα τἐρεα, not τὸ πρὶν γενόμενον τέρας, that could strictly be included in the μίξις. The new-comers would not know the miracle of the arms.

φόβος ... ἐνεπεπτώκεε, ‘a panic possessed them’: the pluperfect tense is rather rhetorical and stylistic than strictly temporal, much less past, in its effects. The φόβος is of course θεῖόν τι.

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οἱ Δελφοὶ ... ἐπικαταβάντες: that is, of course, from the peaks of Parnassos and the Korykian cavern, c. 36 supra, but not before the Persians were in panic-stricken flight.

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πλῆθός τι: the exact number of the Persians slain on this occasion would surely have been noted and remembered were the episode itself historical. This numerical vagueness is another nail in the coffin of this dead history.

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ἰθὺ Βοιωτῶν: ex hypothesi by the way they had come, which would bring them down to Daulia, and so to Panopeus and to Orchomenos, where they may have rejoined—or have joined —the army. Perhaps Xerxes himself crossed Parnassos from Lilaia to Delphi, and so to Daulia and Panopeus, and there rejoined the main body of the army; cp. c. 34 supra.

ἔλεγον ... οἱ ἀπονοστήσαντες . . ὡς ἐγὼ πυνθάνομαι. Where did Hdt. get this information? Was it from Thersandros of Orchomenos, who seems to have made it his business to collect, or to relate (ex eventu), the signs of Persian pessimism and panic in the war (ep. 9. 16); or was it from the Delphians, who, of course, could easily have gotten the information from Greeks in the Persian camp? The story was certainly to be heard at Delphi, for the Delphians interpreted it to Hdt.—and we can hardly suppose that he first told the facts to the Delphians and asked for the interpretation.

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πρὸς τούτοισι καὶ ἄλλα ὥρων θεῖα: in addition there were other manifestatious of a supernatural order. ὁρᾶν is used in an extended sense, for there had been πάταγος, βοή, ἀλαλαγμός, φόβος, φυγή, τραύματα, besides φάσματα. Even their experiences with these further apparitions are not confined to ὄψεις.

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ἀνθρώπων φύσιν: φύσις is ‘growth,’ hence ‘stature,’ for which φυή is the more usual term, which, vice versa, is used at times as = φύσις, in the usual senses. Each exchange is poetic, and chiefly to be illustrated from Pindar; cp. Rumpel, Lexicon, sub vv. The text is here in doubt; cp. App. Crit. Reiske's suggestion, adopted by Holder, is supported by Isokrates, 9. 21 τὰς μὲν φήμας καὶ τὰς μαντείας καὶ τὰς ὄψεις τὰς ἐν τοῖς ὕπνοις γενομένας, ἐξ ὧν μειζόνως ἂν φανείη γεγονὼς ἢ κατ᾽ ἄνθρωπον, αἱροῦμαι παραλιπεῖν κτλ., for if we may say μειζόνως ἢ κατ᾽ ἄνθρωπον γεγονέναι we may say μειζόνως ἔχειν ἢ κατ᾽ ἀνθρώπων φύσιν.

καὶ διώκοντας seems rather weak, but is added to explain why any escaped.