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

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συμπεσεῖν: cp. 6. 18.

τόνδε τὸν λόγον ... γενόμενον: λόγος is here used not of the narrative, but of the transaction narrated (just as in German, per contra, Geschichte, or Geschichtchen, meaning properly the γενόμενον, is used of the λόγος); πάντα λόγον, 1. 21 (‘all that had happened’?), is hardly so clear a case. This curious use of λόγος suggests, what the words λέγουσι τινὲς Ἑλλήνων fully bear out, that Hdt. is here following a written authority. The story of the embassy of Kallias to the court of Artaxerxes had been made the subject of actual historiography before Hdt. wrote this passage. By what author, or authors? Stein suggests Hellanikos (presumably ἐν τῇ Ἀττικῇ ξυγγραφῇ: cp. Thuc. 1. 97. 2). May not the authority more probably be put down as the Περσικά of Dionysios of Miletos? which perhaps carried down the story of the GraecoPersian wars to the date of the treaty of Kalhas. Cp. Introduction, § 10.

In any case this chapter looks like an insertion to be dated some considerable time after the thirty years' peace (445 B.C.), and may very well be among the last additions to the work by the author.

Stein would date these embassies soon after the death of Xerxes and the accession of Artaxerxes, seeing no sense in the Argive question otherwise. But (1) πολλοῖσι ἔτεσι ὔστερον τούτων suits a date about 445 better than a date about 465 B.C. (2) From 462-51 B.C. Argos was in alliance with Athens, and Athens was conducting active hostilities against Persia; there were no such embassies to Persia during that period. (3) These events are not to be connected with the battle of the Eurymedon and abortive peace-negotiations following upon it, the best date for that battle being 468 B.C. (cp. Busolt, iii. 1. 1897, 143 f.), which falls into the reign of Xerxes, and the interval between the establishment of Artaxerxes on the throne and the Atheno-Argive alliance is not worth considering, especially as (4) those events of 465-62 B.C. would hardly have been made the subject of historiography before Hdt. wrote the first draft of his history; whereas, before he laid hand on the last draft of his history, the events of 445 B.C. and the cesser of hostilities might very well have been consigned to a literary record. (5) The next chapter seems to belong to the date of the Atheno-Argive alliance, and to the same date of composition as c. 150, and indeed cc. 148, 149; but this chapter is apparently an insertion, interrupting the natural argument, which goes on from c. 150 to c. 152.

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ἐν Σούσοισι τοῖσι Μεμνονίοισι: Stein sees that this title has been borrowed from Hdt.'s literary authority (not, however, Hellanikos the Lesbian, but rather Dionysios of Miletos, where this title was in vogue; cp. 5. 53, 2. 106).

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ἑτέρου πρήγματος εἵνεκεν: why does not Hdt. specify this thing? Stein replies: because he did not know what it was! Blakesley more acutely: “The reason of Herodotus not mentioning the business expressly in this passage is obvious.” To wit, the business was to make terms with the Persian; and to mention that would rather be brushing the bloom off all the fine stories of war à outrance to follow! Why, even the mention of this Athenian embassy to Susa at all is artistically a mistake, a sacrifice which the conscientious historian makes to the evidences of Argive medism in 480 B.C.

Καλλίην τε τὸν Ἱππονίκου καὶ τοὺς μετὰ τούτου ἀναβάντας: the reference is plainly to a celebrated occasion. Concerning the identity of the ambassador named there can be no doubt; he is Kallias ‘Lakkoploutos’ (Grubenbaron, Busolt, iii. 1. 111), the leading millionaire in Athens of his time, the Eleusinian Dadouchos, member of the illustrious Eupatrid House of the Κήρυκες, a former opponent of Themistokles, the brotherin-law of Kimon and husband of Elpinike, Spartan proxenos, yet closely connected with Perikles, and employed in the negotiation of the peace with Persia, as also of the thirty years' peace with Sparta; cp. Petersen, Quaestiones de hist. Gent. Attic. (1880) p. 40; Duncker, Gesch. d. Alterth. ix. (1886) 8 ff.; Dittenberger, Hermes xx. 1 ff.; Toepfer, Att. Gen. pp. 80 ff.; Busolt l.c. supra.

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Ἀργείους δὲ τὸν αὐτὸν τοῦτον χρ<*>ον: one of the innumerable cases where the name of the Attic archon would have settled everything. But granted a great embassy to Susa, after the death of Kimon, perhaps after the conclusion of the peace with Sparta, it might very well have offered a natnral, and possibly the very first, occasion for the Argives to join with Athens in appioaching King Artaxerxes. Dahlmann, indeed, followed by Baehr, dated this embassy to 431 B.C., or between that and 425 B.C. Plutarch, Kim. 13, dated the mission and peace of Kalhas after the battle of the Eurymedon—an impossible situation; Diodoros 12. 4 preserves undoubtedly the true date, approximately, by putting it after Salamis (Kypros). For the ancient texts cp. Hill, Sources, iii. 160 ff. (pp. 123 ff.); for the modern references, Busolt, op. c. 345-58.

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εἴ σφι ἔτι ... πολέμιοι: with the change of mood, ἐμμένει ... νομιζοίατο, cp. 5. 13 τίνες εἰσί ... καὶ τί ἐθέλοντες ἔλθοιεν, 5. 97 οὔτε δόρυ νομίζουσι εὐπετέες τε χειρωθῆναι εἴησαν (in both which cases there seems to be a stronger reason for the change than here—where it is, perhaps, but an act of courtesy!). The subject of ἐμμένει (cp. App. Crit.) is φιλίη, which has been attracted into the relative clause and case. ἐθέλουσι is of course the participle, and thoroughly idiomatic. It represents here not a conditional sentence (εἰ ἐθέλοιεν) but a relative predicate (οἳ ἐθέλουσι). Its use here is perhaps facilitated by the dative preceding (σφι) and the analogy of βουλομένῳ, ἡδομένω̣ τινὶ εἷναι (cp. Madvig, § 38 c). Stein notes the treffende Kürze of the expression, and cps. 8. 10 (ἡδομένοισι), 1. 68 (παρ᾽ οὐκ ἐκδιδόντος), 6. 47 (κελεύσαντι). With φιλίην συνεκεράσαντο cp. 4. 152 φιλίαι μεγάλαι συνεκρήθησαν. νομιζοίατο is passive. πρός with genitive=ὑπό, or παρά (with dat.); cp. cc. 135, 139 supra, etc.