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

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ἠώς τε διέφαινε καὶ διαλλάσσοντο τὰς τάξις: the dawn of the twelfth day, according to the Journal, cp. cc. 41, 44 supra. The grammatical parataxis is observable, cp. 7. 217 ἠώς τε δὴ διέφαινε καὶ οἳ ἐγένοντο ἐπ᾽ ἀκρωτηρίῳ τοῦ ὄρεος. The tenses are important; it does not appear that the exchange of positions was ever fully carried out between the Spartans and Athenians: dawn broke and found them still engaged in the manœuvre. τὸ ποιεύμενον, too, is imperfect. (Blakesley's trans. is misleading: “with the very break of day they changed their respective positions.”） Hdt. indeed does not expressly say that the manœuvre was not carried out; he leaves, however, the impression that it was not fully carried out, but was arrested, by the rapid counter-development on the Persian side, which showed Pausanias that his purpose had been discovered.

This chapter perhaps conceals a great mystery. Presumably there was an excuse in fact for the story of the exchange of positions. Some manœuvre, some development in the position of the Greeks took place, which lent colour to the Athenian version of the affair. Speeches and motivation with Hdt. are in a different category to acts and events: the reported order, the chronological succession of acts and events, is often less acceptable than the bare acts or events themselves; they, in turn, seldom present a complete series, and frequently undergo a transfiguration, for better or for worse; but Hdt. is nevertheless not a mere novelist, not even a mere historical novelist. All this justifies considerable freedom in the hypothetical reconstruction of a story, which in its traditional form is inadequate and incredible; and it makes reconstruction inevitable. The exchange of positions, according to Hdt., is to take place on the twelfth day of the occupation by the Greeks of the position ‘on the Asopos’ marked by the Androkrateion and Gargaphia. Is it credible that for eleven days the Greeks occupied this position unmolested? Why then suddenly on the twelfth day is the cavalry loosed upon them, and the position immediately rendered untenable? Again, why is so much stress laid on the fact that it was a man on horseback that came to the Athenian lines on the night of the eleventh, if the Greek and Persian armies were then in close contact, only separated by the Asopos? If the Makedonian came on a horse, it was because he had a good deal of ground to cover; in other words, the Greeks were not ἐπὶ τῷ Ἀσωπῷ on the eleventh, or any of the preceding days. Hdt. has apparently antedated the occupation by the Greeks of the position ‘on the Asopos,’ that is, round the Androkrateion, with Gargaphia in their rear; and has underestimated and misconceived the ‘first position’ and its developments, in front of Hysiai and Plataiai. It was only on the twelfth that the Greeks descended to the ‘second’ position, i.e. the hills in front of Gargaphia ‘on the Asopos’ —probably counting on the Persians crossing the river to attack them. In the process of advancing a tactical manœuvre, or series of manœuvres, is performed, which is misunderstood, parodied, and converted ad maiorem gloriam Atheniensium in this passage at the expense of the Spartans; exactly as in a previous passage the move from the position at Erythrai to the position at Hysiai had been similarly exploited, at the expense of the Tegeatai. The exact nature of the manœuvre may be a matter of dispute. Hdt. treats the μετάταξις, or μετακόσμησις, as purely a question between the two wings, the centre taking no part in it. In reality the whole line was doubtless involved. There was an advance en échelon, which Atticizing tradition interpreted as an attempt on the part of the Lakedaimonians to get into the Athenian position. There was perhaps more than that, an actual development, whereby the Lakedaimonians came to stand where the Athenians had been standing, on the extreme left of the line; and again the Athenians finally, when Gargaphia was passed, were again standing on the extreme left of the line. This was the manœuvre by which the position ἐπὶ τῷ Ἀσωπῷ was actually occupied. Whether it had the appearance of an attempt to outflank the Persians, or not, may be questioned; such can hardly have been its real purpose. With their hopeless inferiority in mounted men the Greeks would have been courting certain destruction in moving, or attempting to move, on Thebes, by the Plataia-Thebes road. Mardonios draws out his line of battle on the north bank of the Asopos; he deploys to the west. The medizing Greeks, occupying the extreme west of the Laager, may have been potentially opposite the Greek right for a while, until they pushed up the river westwards, their places being taken by the Medes and Persians. Mardonios has now drawn the Greeks down to the Asopos; he hopes to draw or drive them across. He gives them no peace all this day: the cavalry ride round the position freely, harass them extremely, and destroy and cut off the water-supply. For but one single day do the Greeks maintain themselves in this position; they have been disappointed of their expectation that Mardonios would send his infantry across the Asopos to do battle, and they determine to retreat (or to return?) to the position on ‘the island’ (c. 51 infra), or the position of which the island was the most prominent feature.

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ὣς δὲ αὕτως καὶ ὁ Μαρδόνιος: sc. ἦγε τοὐς Πέρσας.