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τῶν δέκα: i. e. the eight days mentioned in ch. 39. 1 and the two in ch. 40. 1. It is, however, a suspicious circumstance that throughout the story of this campaign H. reckons in periods of ten days, i. e. in Greek weeks. The Athenian envoys are ten days in Sparta (ch. 8), the Greek army is in position inactive for ten days, it advances on Thebes ten days after the battle (ch. 86), while Thebes surrenders after a siege of twenty days (ch. 87. 1); cf. Busolt, ii. 726 n.; Meyer, iii. § 236 n. Woodhouse (J. H. S. xviii. 58) further argues that the point of departure in H.'s chronology is uncertain; the words ἀντικατημένοισι ἐν Πλαταιῆσι (cf. ch. 39. 1), usually and naturally taken to refer to the occupation of the second position by the Greeks (ch. 25), he would refer to the opening of the campaign when the Greeks seized their first position on the slopes of Cithaeron. He also suspects H. of duplicating the interval of two days between the closing of the passes and the final battle, regarding the two days of waiting as purposeless, and the Persian Council, the visit of Alexander, and the challenge of Mardonius as fictitious. He thus compresses the campaign from the occupation of the first position to the final battle within a space of eleven days. Such bold reconstructions must of necessity be hypothetical. We may, however, agree that H.'s chronology is too vague to be satisfactory, and that there is more than one improbable incident in his narrative. Especially we may note with Munro (J. H. S. xxiv. 160) and Macan (ii. 349, 369, 376) the improbability that the Greeks remained so long in their advanced position on the Asopus Ridge, and that Mardonius on his part delayed so long the cutting of their communications (cf. Appendix XXII. 5). ἕδρῃ, ‘chafed at inaction’; cf. Thuc. v. 7 “ἀχθομένων τῇ ἕδρᾳ”, Bacchylides (fr. 23 Bergk, 52 Kenyon) οὐχ ἕδρας ἔργον. Ἀρτάβαζος: cf. viii. 126. 1 n. His prudent counsel is contrasted with the infatuation of Mardonius. He is to him what Solon is to Croesus, Croesus to Cyrus, or Artabanus and Demaratus to Xerxes.
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