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τοσαῦτα, ‘(so much and) no more.’
ἀνὰ τὴν Ἑλλάδα has much the air of an oral tradition; yet (i.) the proclamation, or address of Xerxes to the Argives, involves a document of necessity, was in fact, if it was anything, a written communication, and (ii.) its contents, the legendary and mythical connexion between the Persians and Argos, is not popular tradition or oral communication, but learned doctrine, no doubt long since committed to letters, but to Greek not to Persian letters. (Cp. next note.) This story has an Athenian tone about it (e.g. the iniquity of ἀπόγονοι who make war upon their πρόγονοι, cp. 8. 22); but this might very well be an ‘Ionian’ view, especially among the ‘atticizing’ party.
ἡμεῖς νομίζομεν ... Ἀνδρομέδης: this statement is flatly contradicted by 6. 54, where Hdt. says that, ὡς ὁ παρὰ Περσέων λόγος λέγεται, Perseus himself was an Assyrian, and became a Greek, and therefore was not the son of Danae, and ultimately an Egyptian, which is there given as the Hellenic version of the legend, and is here tacitly assumed as the Persian. This contradiction shows, as Blakesley pointed out, that this story of the Xerxean embassy to Argos is a fiction, and a Greek fiction. It shows also how easily Hdt. allows himself to report conflicting and contradictory views and traditions; but the present instance is easier to understand on the hypothesis that this passage is of early composition, than on the hypothesis that Hdt. composed the elaborately argumentative passage 6. 54, and then wrote down this story, 7. 150, in flat contradiction, without wincing, without a reference back or qualification. This instance goes to swell the evidence in favour of the earlier composition of this section of the work. Cp. c. 61 supra, and Introduction, §§ 7, 8. The political play on the words ‘Perseus’ and ‘Perses’ may perhaps be traced back to the close of the sixth century, and was utilized in the interests of the medizing Aleuadai, who also claimed descent from Herakles; cp. Pindar, Pyth. 10. 31, and 9. 1 infra. It is also worth while observing that this story of the mission of a ‘Herald’ to Argos by Xerxes πρότερον ἤ περ ὁρμῆσαι στρατεύεσθαι ἐπὶ τὴν Ἑλλάδα does not square very well with the report, c. 32 supra, of the despatch of heralds to the Greek cities from Sardes in 481 B C., nor of the return of these heralds, c. 131, and the list of ‘medizing’ states which there follows—in which the name of Argos does not occur. The ὁρμή of Xerxes dated before that, whether in the psychological sense (cp. c. 19 supra, and the δαιμονίη ὁρμή in c. 18) or in a mechanical sense (cp. ὁρμηθείς, c. 26 supra).
ἀντιξόους: cp. c. 49 supra.
ἄξω, ‘shall consider’; cp. ἦγον, 9. 7.
πρῆγμα ποιήσασθαι, ‘made it no slight matter’; cp. πρῆγμα οὐδὲν ἐποιήσαντο τὸ παραυτίκα, 6. 63.
οὐδὲν ἐπαγγελλομένους μεταιτέειν: Schweighaeuser understood οὐδὲν ἐπαγγέλλεσθαι καὶ οὐδὲν μεταιτέειν, or οὐδὲν ἐπαγγελλομένους οὐδὲ μεταιτέειν οὐδέν, which seems acceptable, except that μεταιτέειν requires the genitive οὐδενός, cp. 4. 147 τῆς βασιληίης μ., and this rules out Blakesley's “at the moment made no demand in their overtures” (which was not very happy anyway). But cp. App. Crit. ἐπεὶ δὲ ... παραλαμβάνειν: cp. ἐπεί γε ... οὕτω νομίζεσθαι, c. 3 supra, for the infinitive with the conjunction, and with the infinitive imperfect (de conatu, Stein) cp. παρελάμβανον c. 168 infra, and πειρήσονται παραλαμβάνοντες c. 148 supra.
ἐπὶ προφάσιος: predieative, ‘that they might have a good excuse for keeping quiet’ (ἡς. ἄγειν).
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