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

---

---

ἐξ εὐωνύμου χειρός. The king did not pass through these cities, but had them on his left as he marched: c. 121 infra shows that Xerxes was with the middle colnmn of the army, which may explain this curious notiee, though Hdt. himself seems hardly to understand it.

---

ἀπέργων: c. 43 supra.

ἔθνεα. Xerxes passed not along the Greek littoral but further inland, through country occupied by native tribes, all with one exception (see next chapter) his subjects.

---

Παῖτοι. Arrian, Anab. 1. 11. 4, places Παιτική between the Hebros and the Melas. Hdt. here enume<*>ates in order from E. to W. all the Thracian tribes through whose territory the king passed. (Has the Latin paetus no connexion with this tribal name?)

Κίκονες: cp. c. 108 supra.

Βίστονες have been located above (c. 109).

Σαπαῖοι: Steph, B. Σάπαι, ἔθνος Θρᾴκης: λέγονται δὲ Σάπαιοι καὶ Σάπιοι. Appian, B.C. 4. 105, 106, deseribes a pass, τὰ στενὰ τὰ Σαπαίων τε καὶ Κορπίλων, as E. of Philippi (=Datos-Krenides), τὰ ὀκτὼ στάδια δίοδος ἦν ἐς τὴν Ἀσίαν τε καὶ Εὐρώπην καθάπερ πύλαι: cp. c. 87 ᾗ μόνη διεκθεῖν ἔστιν ὲς τὴν Εὐρώπην ἐκ τῆς Ἀσίας τὴν γνώριμον ὁδόν. This is the pass over Pangaios.

Δερσαῖοι: mentioned by Thuc. 2. 101. 3 among autonomous inland Thracian tribes E. of the Strymon, oecupying ‘plains.’

---

Ἠδωνοί had been apparently driven by the Makedonians across the Strymon; cp. Thuc. 2. 99. 4. Myrkinos on the Strymon was in their territory in 512 B.C., Hdt. 5. 11, 124; and so Datos (KrcnidesPhilippi) 9. 75 infra, and Ennea Hodoi (Amphipolis) c. 114 infra (Ἠδωνίδ᾽ αἶαν Aisehyl. Pers. 498).

Σάτραι. As the Satrae disappcar, while the Bessi (cp. next c.) become more and more important in later history, it is possible that (a) Hdt. has reversed the true relations between Satrae and Bessi, or (b) the name of the religious order or clan gradually asserted itself as the national designation. The latter hypothesis does less violence to Hdt. and also tides over the gap between the Satrae of this passage and the Bessi of the Roman empire more easily. Neither name figures in the history of Alexander.

τούτων must be taken to cover not merely the Thracian tribes just named but also the Greek cities on the coast.

---

τὴν μεσόγαιαν οἰκέοντες. If the Thracian tribes inhabiting the Mesogaia joined the army of Xerxes under compulsion, a column must plainly have taken its way through their territories. They were already, no doubt, in at least nominal subjection to the king.

---

καταλεχθέντες τε ὑπ᾽ ἐμεῦ: just immediately before, the back reference being only over two lines. Hdt. can hardly mean that no one had drawn up a list of these seven Thracian tribes before him.