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

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ἀμφί: cp. c. 69 infra; or for a more exact parallel 8 25 οἱ ἀμφὶ Ξέρξην, ‘Xerxes and his men.’

ἀπεκήδευσαν, ‘were done with mourning,’ cp. 2. 40 ἀποτύψωνται, 2. 73 ἀποπειρηθῇ, cp. Thuc. 2. 61. 4 “ἀπαλγήσαντας δὲ τὰ ἴδια”.

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ἐν Πλαταιῇσι: sc. ἐν τῷ χώρῳ τῷ Πλαταιικῷ, cp. c. 25 supra; in Plataia, as the city itself had been destroyed, cp. 8. 50, they could not be.

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τὸν Ἀσωπὸν τὸν ταύτῃ ῥέοντα: this expression is a remarkable one, coming as it does after the Asopos has just been mentioned without qualification (c. 30), and after the Persian encampment has been described as παρὰ τὸν Ἀσωπὸν ποταμὸν τεταγμένον c. 15 supra. Is τὸν ταύτῃ ῥέοντα merely a periphrasis for ποταμόν? But why then ταύτῃ? And why ἐπὶ τῷ Ἀσωπῷ simpliciter, in c. 30? Is it that the various passages are from various sources, and that Hdt. does not very strictly co-ordinate them? That may be so, yet hardly explains the introduction of τὸν ταύτῃ ῥέοντα. The locative adverb is strictly relative to ἐν Πλαταιῇσι, and seems to imply that the Persian moved from the Asopos, where it was not ἐν Πλ., to the Asopos where it was. But, even so, a difficulty is left, as the Laager is described in c. 15 supra as reaching ἐς τὴν Πλαταιίδα γῆν. That is, however, the Laager: here he is speaking of the line of battle. We must suppose that Mardonios moves out of his camp into battle-line, formed up along the higher course of the Asopos. It is clear in the sequel that the Persians are on the left bank of the river. Is Mardonios aiming to circumvent the Greek position by turning its left flank, or simply offering battle if they will cross the river?

G B. Grundy, G.P. W. p. 470, cp. Topography p. 19, suggests that the phrase here in question denotes the main stream of the Asopos, or even ‘the Thespian Asopos,’ as distinguished from the Plataian Asopos, though he clearly sees that ταύτῃ refers to ἐν Πλαταιῇσι. If anything but the main stream were here meant, it would be, not the branch from Lenktra, but the branch from Plataia, i.e. A1. But the contrast is not between two branches of the river, but between the main stream, in the neighbourhood of the Persian camp, and the same main stream a little higher up, in the neighbourhood of the Greek position.

Stein, who leaves the Persians and the Persian camp on the right bank of the river all this time, thinks there must be a lacuna in the narrative. No doubt there are many gaps in the narrative, and many omissions, but Hdt. has duly taken the Persians across the Asopos long ago (c. 15 supra), and Mardonios has not had to cross the river in order to take up the position here described.

We may, perhaps, paraphrase the phrase τὸν Ἀσωπὸν τὸν ταύτῃ ῥέοντα, ‘the Asopos, in this part of its course,’ i.e. where it flows through the land of Plataia: emphasis is perhaps laid on the ῥέοντα to show that there was water in the river-bed.

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ἀντετάσσοντο ὧδε ὑπὸ Μαρδονίου. This account of Mardonios' battle-array may be in part at least drawn from a source (or sources) on the Persian side, for example, Hdt.'s friend from Orchomenos (c. 16 supra); but it is hardly based on authoritative and documentary sources, or it would be fuller and more precise in regard to numbers, names of commanders, and so forth: more, in fact, like the army-list in Bk. 7. Mardonios' men are arranged in five ethnic divisions, Persians, Medes, Baktrians, Indians, Sakians (the medized Greeks not included). If each of these divisions represents a myriad, he had 50,000 men under his command (with perhaps an additional myriad (?) of cavalry); if two myriads, 100,000; or with the army corps of Artabazos, approximately 150,000: further it is hardly necessary to go. The infantry and cavalry are not distinguished from each other in the description here given. The cavalry might have been all in front of the infantry (as at the battle of the Granikos in 334 B.C.) or on the wings; it can scarcely have been in the rear, much less mixed up with the infantry. As the Persian forces all freely crossed the river, the cavalry was probably on the wings; and further, the Persian cavalry was now on the left, and the BoiotioThessalian on the right. Hdt. describes the divisions of the Persian army with reference to the ethnic divisions on the Greek side, already enumerated, but with the remarkable result of suggesting a somewhat different ordering of the two wings and the centre, especially of the centre and the left wing, the whole Greek army now falling, like the Persian, into six eorps, four in the centre, two on the wings, and the constituent items of these corps—except in the case of the right wing—being varied as against the previous army-list. This slight inconsequence again points to a difference in the sources for the two army-lists at Plataia.

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Πέρσας the ‘Persians’ properly so called are stationed over against the Lakedaimonians, who, reckoning only Hoplites, counted ex hypothesi one myriad. There are besides 40,000 ψιλοί, whose exact station on the battle-field is not clearly defined. Greatly to outnumber these 50,000 the Persians must have exceeded a fifth of the whole forces of Mardonios. (That in itself is not impossible!) If only Hoplites are considered, a myriad Persians, or at most two, would serve. If the cavalry is on the extreme left, Persian footmen might easily out-flank a myriad Lakedaimonians, drawn up not less than eight deep, and possibly deeper; but Hdt., starting, of course, with a belief in the immense numerical superiority on the side of Mardonios, not only makes the ‘Persians’ overlap the Tegeatai, but gives them an extra deep formation.

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ἐπί τε τάξις πλεῦνας ἐκεκοσμέατο: the pluperfect has hardly a strict temporal force, at least from the point of view of the objective course of events. πλεῦνας means not more than the Lakedaimonians but ‘more thau he would otherwise have done,’ or ‘than was usual.’ At Marathon, where the Athenians, according to Hdt., formed up for battle after the Persians, in order to draw out a line as long as the Persian, Kallimachos had to diminish his centre ἐπὶ τάξιας (sic) ὀλίγας 6. 111. In the present case Mardonios is represented as drawing up in battle-array after the Greeks, but he has no apparent desire to out-flank them, so having men to spare he deepens his ranks. Oddly enough, the order was the same on the Greek side the wings are much stronger, and probably much deeper than the centre; the tactics of Marathon were repeated—or the legend of Marathon was composed in the light of Plataia.

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ἐπεῖχον τοὺς Τεγεήτας: Schweighaeuser (with whom Sitzler agrees) takes this phrase to mean, they had the Tegeatai “stationed over against them” (gegenuberstehen), and inserts a καί, but cp. κατά just above; Stein appears to be correct in rendering the phrase: ‘extended so as to cover the Tegeatai’— who, no doubt, as a matter of fact are stationed opposite (κατέχουσι); in other words, the part left over (τὸ ὑπέρεχον), after the Lakedaimonians are fully covered, covers the Tegeatai. Cp. Xenoph Hell. 4. 2. 21. The Lakedaimonian and Tegeatan Hoplites, taken together, form the right (east) wing of the Greek army, 11,500 strong. This passage looks as though the Tegeatai were not standing next the Spartiatai but next the Perioikoi, ep. c. 28 supra, but the words which follow here are not magisterial, but a homage to the reputation of Lakedaimonians, Spartiatai included: the Theban dictation, or inspiration, is perhaps only inferential.

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Μήδους: the Medes (one, or two myriads?) are opposed to and co-extensive with Korinthians, Poteidaians, Orchomenians, Sikyonians, that is with the first four divisions, right centre, of the Greek line, numbering 8900 Hoplites.

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Βακτρίους. The Baktrian division (including, perhaps, other Iranians, and numbering one, or possibly two ‘myriads’!) has opposite to it, and extends over, the right middle centre of the Greeks, and somewhat more; the Epidaurians, Troizenians, Lepreatai and Mykeno-Tirynthian contingents taken together comprise but 2400 Hoplites, and with the Tirynthians we reach what afterwards appears as the end of the right centre (c. 69 οἱ ἀμφὶ Κορινθίους): the addition of the Phleiasians here, 1000 strong, raises the opponents of the Baktrian myriad to 3400, but encroaches on the first section of the left centre of c. 69.

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Ἰνδούς: the contingent of the furthest east was opposed to the Greek contingents from Hermion, Eretria, Styra, Chalkis, a group numbering but 1300 Hoplites. If the ‘Indian’ levy was reckoned at a myriad, it would hugely outnumber the force immediately opposed to it here.

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Σάκας: the Sakai or ‘Scyths of Asia’ (cp. 7. 64) are drawn up over against five Greek ethnic divisions, Amprakiotes, Anaktorians, Leukadians, Paleis, Aiginetans, numbering all told but 2000 Hoplites. The division on the Persian side represents perhaps a ‘myriad’—not necessarily all composed of Sakai, properly so called! These five Greek sections carry us to the extreme left of the centre, as conceived in c. 28 above, and more certainly in c. 69 below (οἱ ἀμφὶ Μεγαρέας τε καὶ Φλειασίους), except that in the list here given the Phleiasians have been attached to the right centre, and the Megarians are now divorced from the centre altogether, and apparently reckoned to the left wing. Such inconsistencies imply that Hdt. has used various ‘Sources,’ without comparing or co-ordinating them, and has no one clear and consistent conception of the battle-array.

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ἀντία Ἀθηναίων τε κτλ.: cp. ἀντίον Λακεδαιμονίων above. The variation from κατά to ἀντία is noticeable and emphatic; the neuter (s. and pl.) of the adj. is used adverbially, or as a preposition, cp. 7. 209; also with the dative, 7. 236. This use is not Attic. The plural form is here perhaps preferred, as the corps opposed to the Athenians was composed of a number of Greek contingents. The order of the names on the Greek side too is here varied; proceeding consistently from Mardonios' left to right they would run, Megarians, Plataians, Athenians. Again, the formula is further varied by introducing the names on the Greek side before the name, or names, on the Persian. Among other results, the exact order in which the various sections of Greeks on the Persian side stood opposed to the left wing of the Greeks, including the Megarians, remains problematic.

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Βοιωτούς τε κτλ.: the extreme right of Mardonios' line, his right wing in fact, is composed of medizing Greeks, to wit, Boiotians, Lokrians, Melians, Thessalians and Phokians, 1000 strong, the only figure given for an individnal contingent. Hdt. below estimates the total of this sixth division at 50,000, an absurd exaggeration, suggested to him perhaps by the assumption that each of the six divisions, like the division of Artabazos, which is not here brought into line, consisted approximately of 50,000 men. That would involve an average twelve thousand each for Boiotia, Lokris, Malis, Thessaly! The Boiotians might have brought 5000-6000 Hoplites (cp. Thuc. 5. 57. 2, Xenoph. Hell. 4. 2. 17); the Thessalians will have been chiefly mounted men; the Lokrians and Malians may have raised 1500-2000 Hoplites between them: all told, the Greek Hoplites on the Persian right wing will not have numbered more than one myriad, and they are here opposed to the Athenians, Plataians and Megarians, who number together 11,600 men. But there are the Thessalian and Boiotian cavalry to be reckoned with, on which see c. 32 ad f infra; as well as the Makedonians, jnst below.

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Φωκέων τοὺς χιλίους: the article is important; this is that Chiliad which had shortly before arrived in camp, c. 17 supra, and had covered itself with dishonour at Thermopylai, 7. 217. It may fairly be concluded that this regiment had ‘medized’ there and then. Not so all the nation: a remnant, remaining in the land, gained credit for more patriotism.

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τὰ Ἑλλήνων ηὖξον, sc. πρήγματα, favoured the Greek side, were for its growing. Cp. 3 39 τοῦ Πολυκράτεος τὰ πρήγματα αὔξετο, 6. 132 τότε μᾶλλον αὔξετο (sc. ὁ Μιλτιάδης). Cp. also 8. 30 supra.

περὶ τὸν Παρνησσὸν κατειλημένοι: cp. 8. 27 κατειλήθησαν ἐς τὸν Παρνησὸν (sic) οἱ Φωκέες (on another and previous occasion). Parnassos was naturally the refuge of the Phokians, whether from Thessahans, Persians, or others; cp. 8. 32. Hdt. may have varied in spelling; cp. the singnlar ‘Plataia’ in 8. 50 supra.

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ἐνθεῦτεν ὁρμώμενοι: cp. 8. 133, ‘from that, as their headquarters.’

ἔφερόν τε καὶ ἠγον, ‘kept on looting.’ φέρειν would primarily suggest portable commodities, ἄγειν living beasts, etc. The assistance rendered by the ‘loyal’ Phokians does not appear to have amounted to very much. A really large force of confederate Greeks on Parnassos, in the rear of the Persian position in Boiotia, might have been of considerable strategic importance but perhaps less than justice is done to the services of the Phokians.

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Μακεδόνας: the Makedonian contingent was probably in the main cavalry, which was the chief strength of Makedonian armies, from the one Alexander to the other; though the great development in this respect is put down by Thucydides (2. 100. 2) to Archelaos (413 B.C.), it is doubtful whether any ‘hoplite’ organization existed in the Makedonian army before Philip II., cp. Kaerst ap. PaulyWissowa, ii. 447. There may also have been some Makedoman ψιλοί. On the previous service of the Makedonians cp. 8. 34, 140, c. 1 supra.

τοὺς περὶ Θεσσαλίην οἰκημένους. As Θεσσαλοί have already been specified, this phrase is to be understood of ‘dwellers in the parts about Thessaly,’ other than Thessahans proper, e.g. ‘Achaians.’ Cp. the list of medizing Greeks in 7. 132, and more especially the list of contingents 7. 185 (including Perrhaiboi, Enienes, Dolopes, Magnetes, Achaians).