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

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λέγουσι: sc. οἱ Ἀργεῖοι; it looks a little as if ‘the Argives,’ whose authority Hdt. professes to follow in this passage, wished to relieve the Demos of all responsibility in regard to the conduct of Argos in the Persian war, and shifted the whole responsibility on to the βουλή. Again, on their own showing their Council had been willing to come to terms with the Confederates, and thereby to disobey the Oracle. The Apologists give too many good reasons: the Kretans were better advised in sheltering themselves simply and solely behind Delphi (e. 169 infra). The political negotiations between the Argives and the Confederates in 481 B.C. here reported discredit the ascription of the Delphic Response to the same date and occasion, and support the view that it has here been transferred some ten years down.

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ἀπαγορεύειν μή, as in c. 11 supra.

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πρός, here ‘with’; contr. πρὸς τὸν Πέρσην c. 145.

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σπουδὴν ἔχειν generally means ‘to be in a hurry,’ ‘to make haste’; cp. 9. 8 (σπ. ἔχοντες πολλήν), 9. 89 σπ. ἔχω: cp. σπουδῇ ἀπήλαυνε ib. infra: cp. also 9. 66 σπουδῆς ἔχοντα. Here the meaning appears to be=σπουδὴν ποιέεσθαι ‘to be anxious,’ ‘eager.’

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ἵνα δή σφι ... ἔτεσι: the sons of the men slain by Kleomenes would come to man's estate long before 451 B.C. Argos, indeed, joined the Athenian alliance against Sparta ten years earlier, and had even before that been at war with Sparta, cp. 9. 35. Thirty years in any case would be more than time enough for a new generation of fighting men to grow up. At Athens probably from twelve to fifteen years would have been sufficient to replace a loss of 6000 men: Athens in the fifth century was perhaps not much more populous than Argos; cp. Beloch, Bevolkerung, pp. 116-23.

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μὴ ... ἐουσέων: the participle is conditional (materially or logically it succeeds ἐπιλέγεσθαι).

ἐπιλέγεσθαι ... μὴ ἔωσι: Abicht says that ἐπιλ. has here the notion of ‘fear’ in it, cp. 3. 65, hence the construction. Blakesley observed that there is no meaning of fear in the word itself, but fear is implied in the act and circumstances: ἐπιλ. is ‘to perpend’ (contr. ἐπιλέγειν c. 147). The occurrence of πρός with dative and again with accusative (πταῖσμα πρός) is noticeable. ἄρα, cp. c. 10 supra.

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τῶν δὲ ἀγγέλων τοὺς ἀπὸ τῆς Σπάρτης: the words imply an embassy comprising representatives of other states besides Sparta; but cp. App. Crit.

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ἀνοίσειν ἐς τοὺς πλεῦνας: K. O. Mueller, Dorians, ii. 91 n.1 (E.T.) gives the passages which prove that questions of peace and war at Sparta were decided by the δᾶμος or Apella. (Cp. my note to 6. 56. 3.)

περὶ δὲ ἡγεμονίης: this question had already been raised at the Congress of Confederates, cp. 8. 3 infra; the answer here recorded stands in no relation whatever to the arrangement there reported. Even if the question of the Confederate ἡγεμονία had not been settled before the mission to Argos, the reply here put into the mouth of the Spartans is entirely inconsistent with the Spartan institutions of the period. The offer to let the Argive ‘king’ have one vote against the ‘two votes’ of the two Spartan kings implies that the two Spartan kings possess a joint Hegemonia, not to say, vote together as one man! Stein is surprised that Hdt. should have overlooked the contradiction between the statement here (οὔκων δυνατὸν . . κωλύειν οὐδέν) and the law recorded 5. 75 (upon which cp. my notes ad l.c.): as if Hdt. were not constantly overlooking contradictions between one statement and another, drawn from different sources, used in different connexions, belonging to different periods of composition! (Moreover, this story was prob ably of earlier composition in the genesis of Hdt.'s work than that passage.) Abicht avoids Stein's surprise by a still more innocent suggestion: the Spartan ambassadors forgot the law in question of set purpose. The real poiut to observe is that we have here not a Spartan but merely an Argive aecount of the transaction. If any discussion on the question of the ἡγεμονία took place in 481 B.C. we may be sure that Sparta made no such offer as this. But it is possible that the absurd Argive story may have some basis in facts loug previous, and that at some date, when the two Spartan kings still went out to war together (an arrangement which only came to an cnd after the Argive war of Kleomenes and Demaratos; see my notes l.c), there may have been negotiations between Sparta and Argos, the terms of which served as a precedent for this Argive story of the negotiations in 481 B.C.

If ever such an offer was made to Argos, the Argives were shortsighted in not accepting it: they might fairly have counted on their one king being able, as a rule, to divide the Spartan twain.

That the Argives had a real ‘king’ in 481 B.C. is not credible; but they may have had, as the Athenians had, a titular magistrate, possibly with an annual tenure, bearing the title of βασιλεύς. The position of such a republican magistracy would indeed be still weaker against the two Spartan kings (if actiug together); but this reference to the Argive king also serves somewhat to antiquate the story.

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ὲλέσθαι μᾶλλον ... Λακεδαιμονίοισι: one of the most characteristic confessions of Greek particularism on record, and its most significant note is neither the protest agaiust Spartan greed (πλεονεξία) nor the exhibition of Argive pride, but the tacit assumption that the common-sense of Hellas would fully endorse an αὐτονομία purchased by surrender to the ‘Barbarian,’ yea, that subjection to the foreigner was better than concession to the Hellene. This spirit of uncompromising self-assertion, the dogma in fact of the individual immortality of the Greek city-state, was at once the strength and the weakness of Hellas. It long helped to make Greece unconquerable, but it helped also to make her liberties a prey to any foreign power, which could divide the Greeks, city from city, clique from clique: a policy inaugurated by Persia, matured by Macedon, consummated by Rome.

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προειπεῖν, ‘to proclaim,’ ‘order’— such an order addressed to the envoys or ambassadors (ἄγγελοι) of the Confederate Greeks is almost incredibly harsh, not to say insane; it is more credible as a reminiscenee of the treatmcnt of Spartan envoys, or heralds. on this or that occasion. Cp. the treatment of Diakritos by Perikles and the Athenians in 431 B.C. (“ἐκτὸς ὅρων εἷναι αὐθημερόν” Thuc. 2. 12. 2). But on that occasion the Spartans were known to be actually on the war-trail (ἐξεστρατευμένοι): here ex hypothesi the application to Argos is purely friendly, and comes from the whole Greek Confederacy.

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περιέψεσθαι: cp. 2. 115. L. & S. say this future may be either active (middle?) or passive; but it seems more pointed when taken as passive; also the active future occurs Xenoph. Kyrop. 5. 4. 12 τοῦτον ἡμεῖς ὡς εὐεργέτην καὶ φίλον οὐχ ὡς δοῦλον περιέψομεν: cp. Il. 21. 588 (σὺ δ᾽ ἐνθάδε πότμον ἐφέψεις).