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τοὺς δὲ ... <*>ὼς κατελάμβανε. the dawn of the 13th, cp. c. 52 supra; the very day of battle, or of the supreme battle. ἀνακρινομένους, ‘quarrelling’; the verb is apparently used with this meaning only in this one passage; the subst. ἀνάκρισις in 8. 69 may be compared though used in a different sense; but cp App. Crit. ἑωυτούς here seems = ἀλλήλους.
ἐν τούτῳ τῷ χρόνῳ might better be taken of the point of dawn than of the much enduring night, now over. κατήμενος: perhaps not literally ‘sitting,’ cp. c. 72 infra, but ‘without moving.’
οὐ δοκέων ... λείψεσθαι: nothing has been recorded in the story previously to justify this belief that Amompharetos will not remain behind.
ἀποστειχόντων is a rather grand and poetical word; the simple verb is never used in prose.
σημήνας: sc. τῇ σάλπιγγι, cp. 8. 11 (c. 42 supra, the case is not so clear). The operations at night had doubtless been carried out with all possible silence and secrecy; but it was now daylight, and the movement of the Greek forces no doubt observed; there could be no reason for not employing the usual signals. ἀπῆγε διὰ τῶν κολωνῶν: the statement is precise to the effect that Pausanias was retiring, what are the κολωνοί in question? Presumably the ridges descending from Kithairon, as is more fully indicated in the next chapter. Unfortunately Hdt. does not specify the point of the compass towards which Pausanias was moving.
εἵποντο: as the Tegeatai had been standing to the west of the Spartans, if they really ‘followed’ them now, the Spartans would have moved first, and presumably in an easterly direction (however otherwise qualified); but it is possible that εἵποντο is not to be pressed, and that the Spartans really bring up the rear. The action of Amompharetos looks like that. If so, the retreat was probably in a SW. direction. But see further, below. Ἀθηναῖοι δέ κτλ. Neither is the movement and direction of the Athenians judicated or described so precisely as could be wished. ταχθέντες points to the movement being in accordance with orders, presumably the orders of Pausanias; τεταγμένοι would signify that they were in actual battle-array (as no doubt they were). Stein cps. c. 104 infra, and 7. 121, 169, 8. 7, 13. ἤισαν τὰ ἔμπαλιν ἢ Λακεδαιμόνιοι. In 7. 58 the king's fleet goes from Abydos τὰ ἔμπαλιν πρήσσων τοῦ πεζοῦ (<*> ἢ ὁ πεζός), which Hdt. explains as meaning in that case that the fleet was going west while the army was going east; i.e. he does not there mean that the fleet went on water while the army went on land; the point of difference is purely one of direction, of orientation. Yet in the present passage Stein maintains that τὰ ἔμπαλιν denotes not a difference of direction, but simply and solely the difference of the surface over which the two bodies were moving; this appears an improbable and inadequate explanation, not in accordance with the meaning of ἔμπαλιν, with the other clear instance in Hdt., or finally, with the context here. For here Hdt. says not merely that the Spartans were moving διὰ τῶν κολωνῶν (τῶν τε ὄχθων καὶ τῆς ὑπωρέης τοῦ Κιθαιρῶνος ἀντεχόμενοι) and the Athenians ἐς τὸ πεδίον (not by the way διὰ τοῦ πεδίου, or κατὰ τὸ πεδίον); he also expressly describes the Athenians as τραφθέντες or κάτω τραφθέντες (sc. ἤισαν ἐς τὸ πεδίον). There has, therefore, been a turn, a wheel, in the line, in the orientation of the Athenians. Whether there has also been a turn in the orientation of the Lakedaimonians Hdt. does not say. What amount of wheel would constitute or justify the use of τὰ ἔμπαλιν may be a question; the words obviously might be used of a movement, or double movement, much short of being in contrary directions. In the present case Hdt. need not mean that Athenians and Spartans were moving in diametrically opposite directions, starting, as it were, back to back; he may mean no more than that ‘they were moving in anything but the same direction.’ Whether he is right or not is a widely different question. If Spartans and Athenians were under orders to fill up the gap and concentrate, while at the same time retiring, ‘on the Island,’ that movement might have been effected by the wings falling back, Lochos by Lochos, from the east and the west ends of the previous line to a eommon point south, or southwest, of the position at starting; and even such a manœuvre, with reference to the termini a quibus, might be described as movements τὰ ἔμπαλιν. But the movement here predicated of the Athenians may go far beyond this. By τὸ πεδίον might be understood not merely the trough of Gargaphia and A1, but the more genuine plain north of Plataia. If so, the movement of the Athenians was westward, more or less by south, and its object may have been to balk the approach of the medizing Greeks on the Persian right, with whom the Athenians are presently engaged. Had the Greeks previously been in a hollow square, or with a φάλαγξ ἀμφίστομος round the church of St. John (Androkrateion), then the Athenians, to the north, might have wheeled round, till they were facing west, or even south-west, while the Spartans may have either remained, facing south (by west) as they had been all the previous day, or may even have turned, have been obliged to turn, until they were facing east, or north-cast.
τῶν τε ὄχθων ἀντείχοντο. It is not by any means self-evident what actual ground is here denoted by the ὄχθοι, cp. 8. 52, 4. 203 (not ὄχθαι, ‘riverbanks’), to which the Lakedaimonians were ‘holding on,’ clinging, keeping close, or anxious to do so: are they identical with τῆς ὑπωρέης τοῦ Κιθαιρῶνος? Are the Spartans already thereon, and wishing to stay thereon, or are they striving to get thereonto? Are the ὄχθοι generally the ridges running down from Kithairon to the Asopos, as distinguished from τὸ πεδίον? Or are they the ridges north of the trough in which Gargaphia was situate?—in fact, the ‘Asopos Ridge’ and ‘Long Ridge’ of Dr. Grundy's map?
φοβεόμενοι τὴν ἵππον: the Lakedaimonians are ‘afraid of the cavalry’ according to this story, and that is given as the reason for their line of retreat: a genuinely Attie touch. Oddly enough, when it comes to action, the Lakedaimonians, who are on more or less high ground, are apparently assaulted by the cavalry, while the Athenians are not expressly recorded to have encountered any cavalry below! (cp. c. 67 infra).
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