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

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ἦγε τοὺς Πέρσας. Here, if anywhere, the battle begins; but the cavalry have, according to c. 57 supra, already opened the ball. Mardonios himself is mounted, cp. c. 63 infra, but he is evidently leading infantry. ‘Persians’ here used specifically, as distinguished from the rest of the barbarians; cp. just below, and cc. 31, 47 supra.

δρόμῳ, ‘at the double’; cp. c. 57 supra βάδην, and especially 6. 112.

διαβάντας τὸν Ἀσωπόν, ‘after they (had) crossed the Asopos’—words which show clearly (if anything in a narrative by Hdt. can be really conclusive), that the Persians had been beyond the Asopos, the river between them and the Greeks, so far as the main positions, and the στρατόπεδα, the armies at rest, were concerned.

How the Persians got across the Asopos Hdt. does not specify; it cannot have been all boarded over; there may have been some bridges, or planks, in use; but for all that appears they scrambled across as best they could. The passage of the Asopos, which they had steadily declined, so long as the Greeks were in battle-array on the other side, is now undertaken apparently under the idea that the Greeks are in full retreat, perhaps for their several homes; the extreme left wing is invisible to Mardonios. He may even believe that it has made good its escape; at least he may safely leave it to the tender mercies of the Thebans and his own right. He sights easily enough the glint of Greek weapons at the Heraion, and up beyond, in the gap of the road to Megara, in the gap of the road to Athens; while in the nearer foreground are the Spartans, with their commander, apparently in full retreat, and isolated from the other Greek divisions. His cavalry is riding unopposed up the road to Erythrai, as it has been free to do ever since the Greek deployed from that position.

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κατὰ στίβον: cp. 4. 122, 140, 5. 102. Not to be taken here as implying that the Lakedaimonians were invisible to their pursuers; the whole context implies the reverse.

ὡς δὴ ἀποδιδρησκόντων: such was the idea in the minds of the Persians, but it has no justification in fact.

The motivation is here to be accepted not so much on the ground that Greeks in the Persian ranks, or Persian sources themselves, might afterwards have reported Mardonios' motives to that effect; but rather on the ground that to obtain a satisfactory theory of the battle, we must suppose that the object, or a part of the object of the Greeks, in retiring, was to entice Mardonios across the river, in effecting which object the Greek commanders will have given their movement as much as possible the appearance of a ‘flight.’

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ἐπεῖχέ τε: cp. διέδεξάν τε c. 58. The verb projected with this copula appears to be emphatic. ἑπεῖχε is variously taken (a) as psychical, animum attendit, sese direxit, cp. 6. 96, Baehr; (b) as physical, sc. τοὺς Πέρσας, i.e. duxit Stein; (c) intrans. (Sitzler), which is really = Baehr's sese direxit. In any case Mardonios with his Persians, followed by the whole mass of the barbarian infantry, made after the Greek right wing, which was apparently in complete isolation.

Ἀθηναίους γάρ: the particle explains the μούνους just before. The movement of the Athenians appears here less fully developed than in c. 56 supra (τραπομένους as against τραφθέντες ... ἐς τὸ πεδίον); but the last three words there may rather be taken with the verb ἤισαν repeated, or understood from the context. We are there, however, on the Greek side, here with the Persians; and it by no means follows that the action of the Persians, as here recorded, was not antecedent to the position above reached in the description of the manœuvres of the Greeks.

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ὑπὸ τῶν ὄχθων οὐ κατώρα: he could not see the Athenians on their way down on to the plain by reason of the ridges (ὄχθοι). There is the same ambiguity here as in c. 56 supra. Are the ὄχθοι in each case the same? Are not the ὄχθοι here the ridges close to the river (almost in fact ὄχθαι)? To adduce (with Ross and Baehr) this statement, perhaps in itself true enough, as evidence that Hdt. had with his own eyes inspected the battle-field, is a fine instance of half-methods. The statement is a clear example of the dialectical production or evolution of tradition. Why did not Mardonios attend to the Athenians? Because he could not see them. Why could he not see them? By reason of the ὄχθοι—and so forth. The statement may, of course, have come to Hdt. ready made in his source. Though perhaps true, it is not an adequate explanation of the Persian general's action, for he was bound to acquaint himself at once with the proceedings of the Greek left wing; and what were the Aleuadai about to receive his rebuke so meekly in c. 58 supra, or where were the Thebans, the Makedonians? had he issued no orders to his own right wing?

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ὁρμημένους διώκειν, ‘in full pursuit of.’ διώκειν is treated as a ‘telic’ mfinitive; but the ‘purpose’ is really fully contained, or supplied by the verb ὁρμᾶσθαι as in 7. 4 ὁρμᾶτο στρατεύεσθαι, or c. 61 infra ὁρμέατο βοηθέειν, and the infinitive might be regarded not as having in itself telic, i.e. purposive force, but as being an ordinary limiting or definitive idea; in other words, as belonging not to the ‘subjective’ but to the ‘objective’ order. This view may equally prevail, even if ὁρμημένους be taken in a physical sense, of the actual motion.

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οἱ λοιποὶ τῶν βαρβαρικῶν τελέων ἄρχοντες. If the army of Mardonios had really numbered 300,000 nonHellenes, the officers here designated would have been the thirty myriarchs named in the army-list in 7. 61 ff., with allowance for deaths, promotions, etc. In fact they are the myriarchs of the Medes, Baktrians, Indians, Sakai, the four remaining τέλη which, with his own ‘Persians,’ were comprised in the corps d'armée; cp. c. 31 supra. The whole of the other corps d'armée under Artabazos is already on its way to Thrace! cp. c. 66 infra.

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ᾔειραν τὰ σημήια, ‘raised the signals’ (for battle, pursuit, or what not). In a Roman army the first sign of battle was the scarlet flag raised at headquarters; the trumpet - sound followed. Cp. Caesar, B.G. 2. 20. 1. Greek armies had apparently a very similar procedure; cp. Thuc. 1. 49, 63, 4. 42, 111, 7. 34, 8. 95 (Baehr). Something of the kind must have been in vogue in all armies, with any organization to speak of; cp. 7. 128 (on the fleet). Xenophon, Kyrop. 8. 5. 13, may be describing rather Greek than Persian organization, but the differences in this respect were probably not great.

ὡς ποδῶν ἕκαστοι εἶχον: ποδῶν ἔχειν, ‘to be off for feet,’ i.e. to be furnished with; ἔχειν τινος εὖ, κακῶς, or absolutely; cp. 8. 107, and almost this very phrase 6. 116. ἔκαστοι, i e. each set, Medes, Baktrians, Indians, Sakai—it was a race among them to overtake the Greeks.

οὔτε κόσμῳ ... οὔτε τάξι: κόσμος is the general expression or the whole results of νοῦς: τάξις is the particular position in the battle-array; cp. 8. 86. The statement here of the chaos and the disorder of the Persian pursuit is perhaps exaggerated: the crossing of the river and river-banks would tend to bring about a certain amount of confusion.