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

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προσεχέσι: for the word cp. c. 28 supra. The construction here with τεταγμένοισι is quasi-adverbial; ep. ἐπεξῆς τεταγμένοι infra; the Korinthians, Sikyonians and Troizenians are intended, but the names are here withheld; they, with the Athenians, formed the left half, or flank, of the army. As they walk over the lower ground it seems that the Greeks have landed east of the Persian encampment.

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ἐν ᾧ: sc. χρόνῳ. ἔτι is perhaps a corruption, or remainder of a lost word (ἐτιμωρέοντο, or ἔτυχον προτερέοντες). Stein takes καὶ δή as it stands to be = ἤδη.

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ἕως ... τὰ γέρρα: the shields have been erected in c. 99 ad f.

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οὐδὲν ἔλασσον εἶχον: cp. c. 70 supra (πλέον εἶχον). Only Persians appear engaged.

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τῶν Ἀθηναίων καὶ τῶν προσεχέων ὁ στρατός: treated as quite a distinct and separate unit, or rather army, or corps d'armée; the names are still withheld.

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ὅκως ἑωυτῶν ... καὶ μὴ Λακεδαιμονίων: the negative μἡ shows that this is given as in the minds of the Athenians; it is, indeed, a genuine motif of Athenian legend and oratory, and in the hands of Isokrates (cp. Hdt. IV.-VI. ii. 194 f.) became a guide to the reconstruction of the past. It betrays, or suggests, the character of the source from which Hdt. has drawn the story of Mykale: Athenian, or philAthenian.

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παρακελευσάμενοι, ‘encouraging each other with shouts,’ cp. 8. 15. ἔργου εἴχοντο, cp. 8. 11 supra.

ἤδη, ‘at once.’

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ἑτεροιοῦτο τὸ πρῆγμα, ‘the affair took a fresh turn, aspect’; cp. 7. 225 supra.

διωσάμενοι γὰρ τὰ γέρρα: this phrase marks the second stage in the struggle; they pushed their way through the rampart of Persian shields — or pushed the shields apart, so as to open a way for themselves—and then charged (φερόμενοι) en masse (ἁλέες) on the Persians behind the shields, who had doubtless been plying them with arrows. διωθέεσθαι in a more general sense, c. 88 supra.

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οἲ δέ: the δέ is demonstrative, or emphatic; the sentence might otherwise have been relative.

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χρόνον συχνὸν ἀμυνόμενοι τέλος ἔφευγον = χρ. ς. ἠμυνοντο τέλος δὲ ἔφευγον. A rather lax use of the present, or imperfect, participle.

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Ἀθηναῖοι δὲ καὶ Κορίνθιοι καὶ Σικυώνιοι καὶ Τροιζήνιοι: at last, when the victory is won, the other contingents on the left wing are expressly named, besides the Athenians.

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ἦσαν . τεταγμένοι: how little this construction is a mere temporal pluperfect appears from this passage; they were, what they had been all along, ranged ἐπεξῆς Ἀθηναίοισι, in the given order (οὕτω).

συνεπισπόμενοι συνεσέπιπτον: they entered the fortified camp en masse (i.e. without breaking from one another), and at the same time as the Persians, whom they were pursuing, i.e. pursuers and pursued all entered together. συνεσέπιπτον, by the way, throws some light upon its correlate συνεξέπιπτον as in 5. 22.

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ὡς δὲ καὶ τὸ τεῖχος ἀραίρητο marks the third stage in the combat, or rather its culmmation. The pluperfect is hardly temporal, for the fighting is not yet all over. πρὸς ἀλκὴν τρέπεσθαι (cp. ἀλκῆς μεμνῆσθαι c. 70 supra) is just the opposite of ἐς φυγὴν τρέπεσθαι, cp. c. 63 supra, 8. 91, etc.

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οἱ βάρβαροι: did no Greeks strike a blow on this occasion upon the Persian side? Cp. c. 103. 8 infra.

πρὸς φυγήν τε ὁρμέατο: so in Thuc. 4. 14. 1 “τῶν ἀνδρῶν ἐς φυγὴν ὡρμημένων”, of actual or literal physical movement.

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κατ᾽ ὀλίγους γινόμενοι, “forming into small knots,” Blakesley; the preposition has distributive force, cp. 8. 113 supra ἐξελέγετο κατ᾽ ὀλίγους.

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τοῖσι αἰεὶ ... ἐσπίπτουσι might seem hardly consistent with συνεπισπόμενοι συνεσέπιπτον above (the imperfect notwithstanding); but that phrase was obviously rhetorical, this is both more accurate and more ‘elegant.’

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Ἀρταΰντης: cp. 8. 130 supra, c. 107 infra.

Ἰθαμίτρης: cp. 8. 130 supra.

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Μαρδόντης: cp. 8. 130 supra; his fate suggests that he was especially in command of the Persian Epibatai.

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Τιγράνης: cp. c. 96 supra. His death is really the first clear intimation in the story of the actual presence at Mykale of any of the six myriads, of which he is there put in command: is it sufficient to convince us that any part of the corps d'armée was present, or engaged in the battle, or that the battle was more than an engagement between the Greek forces, from the fleet, and the Medo-Persian Epibatai from the king's fleet — the only portion of the navy, probably, which could be trusted to show fight, especially on land? Athenian or phil-Attic tradition has exaggerated the battle of Mykale into a grand piece to match the synchronous battle in Boiotia; cp. c. 106 infra. Tigranes, if killed on this occasion, was perhaps in command of the Persian Epibatai; cp. c. 96 supra.