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λέγεται γὰρ Μίνων ... θανάτῳ: there follows a legend of Minos, which may have belonged to this Book in its earlier form, but, if so, has received some notable additions and retouches at a later time, perhaps at two subsequent periods, after Hdt.'s migration to the West. Cp. note at the end of chapter. Sophokles made the death of Minos at Kamikos the subject of a tragedy (cp. Nauck, Trag. Gr. Frag. Καμίκιοι: Μίνως), and no doubt the story had been worked by poets and logographs before him: the legend was to the effect that Minos demanded the extradition of Daidalos from Kokalos, king of Kamikos, was hospitably received by him, but treacherously murdered by the king himself, or by his daughters, in a bath. His body was recovered by the Kretans, who accompanied him, and they founded Minoa, and built a splendid tomb in his honour. (Cp. Diodoros 4. 79—where the story is told with many later contaminations.) Whether this story is older than the Dorian colonization of the south side of Sicily may fairly be doubted; it forms a justification for the Kreto-Rhodian invasion of a kind everywhere paralleled in the legends of Greek colonization; and again exhibits the wholesale appropriation of prae-Dorian cults and traditions in Krete by the Hellenic stocks. Minos is no doubt a divine person, and the double of Zeus himself: but his legend also represents historic events, conditions, and forces long anterior to the Hellenic period. It is quite certain that in Mykenaian, in Minoan times, Krete and ‘Sicania’ were not unknown to each other; and it is possible that the legend of the expedition of Minos to the West may rest on transfigured traditions of movements antedating not merely Hellenic colonization but even Phoenician settlements in Sicily. An historicised account of the rise of Minos to power in Krete is given by Hdt. 1. 173. κατὰ ζήτησιν Δαιδάλου: Daidalos is the transparent personification of the artist or craftsman, the maker of δαίδαλα (Il. 5. 60, 14. 179, Od. 19. 227; cp. δαιδάλεος, δαιδάλλειν et sim.). It would be in accordance with the archaeological evidences, now accumulated by Dr. A. J. Evans, that the eponymous artist, the master of Minoan if not of Mykenaian craftsmen, should be at home in Krete and at Knosos. Homer (Il. 16. 590 ff.), without actually calling him a Kretan, locates his most celebrated work (the χόρος made for Ariadne, on which cf. C. Robert's truly historical article ap. Pauly-Wissowa, s.v. Daidalos, iv. 1998) in Knosos. But it also speaks volumes for the early proficiency and importance of Attic arts and crafts that the name of Daidalos is actually located in Attica and attached to the soil, as eponym of the Deme Daidalidai. Naturally, in the period from which the mythical and legendary story of Greece, as we have it, dates, the Attic and the Kretan ‘Daidalos’ are identified, and Attica is represented as his original home He, the jealous master, after there slaying the too brilliant apprentice (Τάλως Diodor., perhaps Πέρνιξ Sophokl.) escapes to Krete, becoming the servant of Minos, until again (by Pasiphae's aid) he makes his way to Sicania. His ‘flight’ provokes the ‘search,’ in the course of which Minos assures himself of the presence of Daidalos in the island (at Kamikos) by his royal host's success in passing a thread through the labyrinthine whorls of a shell: thereupon, the murder of Minos. To put an end to Daidalos we must hark back to Lykia, where (according to Alexand. Polyhist. ap. Steph. B. sub v. Δαίδαλα) he died from the bite of a snake as he was passing through a marsh, and was buried (should he have drained it?) at ‘Daidala,’ a city raised in his honour. There are several cities of the name, and perhaps each had a tomb of Daidalos, as doubtless the Attic Deme of the Daidalids. Cp. Toepffer, Attische Gen. 165 ff., who strongly asserts the Attic origin of Daidalos (in ignorance of the prehistoric arts of Krete), but happily notices the connexion of Daidalos with Hephaistos (cp. Pindar, Pyth. 4. 59; Plato, Alk. i. 121 A).
Σικανίην τὴν νῦν Σικελίην κ. Before it was Sicania the name of the island was Τρινακρία, cp. Thuc. 6. 2. 2-5. The invasion of the Sicels (from Italy) Thuc. dates ‘nearly 300 years before the coming of Hellenes to Sicily,’ i.e. by the conventional chronology 735+ 300=1035 B.C., but the Sicels of course did not at once give their name to the island, and the delay might account for the name Σικανίη occurring in ‘Homer’ (to wit, in a late passage, Od. 24. 306, and only there: presumably=Sicily); to whom nevertheless Σικελοί are known, Od. 20. 383 (as slave-dealers), but whether in ‘Italy’ or in ‘Sicania’ is not apparent (and as slaves in Greece itself: “γυνὴ Σικελὴ γρηύς” Od. 24. 211, 366, 389). The Sicani, according to Thuc., were themselves immigrants from Iberia, though claiming to be autochthonous; but he ventures on no date for that immigration. Niebuhr long ago suggested that the difference between ‘Sic-ani’ and ‘Sic-uli’ was a difference of degree, not of kind; cp. also Nissen, Italische Landeskunde, i. 548. How untrustworthy Thucyd.'s theory is may be seen in his statement that the previous name of the island was Trinakria. The one thing certain about the Homeric Θρινακίη is that it is not Sicily; nor could a Greek name for the island (meaning ‘the Triangular,’ or ‘the Three-caped’) possibly be the primitive name (nor is it likely that ‘triquetra’ was its ‘name’ then; cp. Lucretius 1. 717, Horace, Sat. 2. 6. 55). Hdt. in fact is probably right in not going behind the name ‘Sikania’ for the island as a whole.
θεοῦ σφι ἐποτρύναντος: presumably Zeus (i.e. ‘Minos’ himself—if Hdt. had only known it). The aorist points to a definite act, or manifestation; a famine, pestilence, or what not.
πλὴν Πολιχνιτέων τε καὶ Πραισίων. If the men of Polichne and Praisos took no part with Minos, then presumably they were no subjects of his. Polichne was near Kydonia (Kanea) but not on good terms with it (in 429 B.C.); cp. Thuc. 2. 85. 5 (though possibly friends with Gortyn). Praisos, at the east end of Krete, still bears the same name, and was undoubtedly an Eteokretan city (cp. Pashley, Travels in Crete, i. 290), and has recently been the scene of excavations by the British School; cp. The Annual of B.S.A. viii. This excommunication of the Eteokretans proves how completely the Dorian, or Hellenic, elements had appropriated the past with the present. In the legend followed by Diodoros 4. 79 the Kretans who accompanied Minos to Sicily made good his death. That is Greco-Sicilian theory; Hdt. seems to follow Kretan authorities, cp. c. 171 infra.
ἐπ᾽ ἕτεα πέντε: the figures ‘ten’ and ‘five’ are conventional siege-periods; cp. Grote i. 274 (Freeman, i. 115, converts the ‘five’ to ‘seven’). For the temporal use of ἐπί (with acc.) cp. 5. 55. πόλιν Καμικόν: the last researches apparently fix its site, not between Akragas and Minoa, but “further to the north, among the mountains, which rise inland above the baths of Selinous”; Freeman, Sicily, i. 112 (cp. xxxi.), and Appendix V.
τὴν κατ᾽ ἐμὲ Ἀκραγαντῖνοι ἐνέμοντο: these words might be an insertion from the author's hand; they could hardly have been written before his journey west; they cannot prove a visit on his part to Kamikos. The Akragantines in question were apparently exiles, or rather the representatives or descendants of exiles, who had left Akragas in the days of Theron: Schol. Pindar, Pyth. 6. 4. For the temporal use of κατἀ (with accus.) cp. Index.
λιμῷ συνεστεῶτας: cp. λιμῷ συστἀντας καὶ καμάτῳ 9. 89.
κατὰ Ἰηπυγίην. The geographical significance of Ἰνπυγίη (the ‘Calabria’ of the Romans=peninsula south of Brindisi and Taranto), for Hdt. is determined by 4. 99, 3. 138 (cp. Ἰαπυγία ἄκρα in Thuc. 6. 30. 1 etc.). How far the ‘Iapygians’ extended is a question. The ‘Iapygia’ of Hdt. is but one of three parts of modern Apulia, which form a natural unity; but Greek writers from Polybios on use ‘Iapygia’ for Apulia + Calabria. Cp. Nissen, Ital. Landeskunde, i. 539.
ὑπολαβόντα. What is subtle, or secret, may be gentle and slight, but is apt to be sudden, and so violent: a line of argument which may help to explain the many uses of ὑπολαμβάνειν illustrated in Hdt.; cp. 8. 96, 118. ἐκβαλεῖν: cp. 4. 42.
Ὑρίην πόλιν. Strabo 282, in the classical passage on ‘Iapygia,’ identifies the Hyria of Herodotus with Οὐρία, i.e. Uria (mod. Oria), situate on the midisthmus, and containing still in his days the palace of a former (Messapian) king. That it was a ‘Kretan’ foundation is probably but a legendary fiction designed to do justice to the quasi-Hellenic character of the inhabitants and their culture. See further, below.
μεταβαλόντας: intransitive; cp. 8. 109, 1. 65 etc.
Ἰήπυγας Μεσσαπίους seems to suggest a wider extension of the name Ἰήπυγες than to the Calabrian peninsula. The ‘Messapians’—as near neighbours of Tarentum—are the most frequently mentioned division of Iapygians in the Greek writers; cp. Thuc. 7. 33. 4 (where they appear to be under a ‘dynast’ or chieftain): Polyb., Strab., etc. Their Kretan origin is a fiction ranking with the Arkadian origin of the neighbouring Πευκέτιοι (Dionys. Hal. 1. 13) and the Argive (Diomedeian) origin of the ‘Daunian’ cities in Apulia (Strabo 284). Cp. H. Nissen, op. c. 542 f. The fiction points, however, to two facts as necessary to account for it. (1) The Messapians were older residents in the land than the Hellenes. (2) They had a cognate, though more archaic or primitive, culture. But even the ‘Messapians’ found in occupation, and subdued or expelled, an earlier (Italic) folk, the Ausonii (Dionys. Halik. 1. 22); cp. Nissen p. 544. The real origin of the ‘Messapians’ is to be sought in the Greek peninsula, where Thucydides recognizes Messapians in Ozolian Lokris, 3. 101. 2. The ‘Kretan’ parentage of the ‘Bottiaioi’ through Messapia enforces the conclusion; cp. c. 123. 18 supra. The two shores of the ‘Ionian’ sea had a cognate population long before the coming of the ‘Hellenes’ or of the ‘Dorians.’ ἀντὶ δὲ εἶναι. The construction and the change of construction is remarkable; cp. 6. 32 and App. Crit. There is also here a pseudo-antithesis between γενέσθαι and εἶναι.
τὰς ἄλλας οἰκίσαι. Uria is given a kind of metropolitan position, but it can hardly have been an earlier ‘Messapian’ foundatiou than Brundisium, for example. The other Messapian cities are scarcely known to fame. Strabo 281 gives the number as thirteen in the most flourishing days. (Cp. for nomenclature Forbiger, Geogr. iii. 751 ff., without any adequate attempt to distinguish Hellenic, Messapian, and Ausonian names or settlements.) Ταραντῖνοι. The men of Taras, or Tarentum (cp. 4. 99) were accounted Dorians or quasi-Dorians of Sparta (“Lacedaemonium Tarentum,” Hor. Od. 3. 5. 56), but the purity of their Dorism was confessedly doubtful, and tradition hints also at an ‘Achaian’ element (from Sybaris and Kroton) in the foundation (circa 705 B.C.). The legend of the ‘Partheniai’ is reported by Strabo 278 f. in two versions, from Antiochos, from Ephoros; the latter version making them in effect better Lakedaimonians, better Dorians. No stronger contrast could be devised than that between the austere Spartan discipline and the luxury of ‘molle Tarentum,’ already proverbial in the time of Hdt. (cp. 6. 127 and 1. 24). The Tarentines were no doubt Hellenes, and from Peloponnese, perhaps from Lakedaimon; but the ‘Dorian’ element in them was surely very small—Dorians could ill be spared by the conquerors in Sparta. Tarentum was a ‘Messapian’ before it was a ‘Lakedaimonian’ settlement, and the Peloponnesian hellenized Tarentines aimed at exploiting or subduing (ἐξανιστάντες) the whole of Calabria —in which attempt they encountered the disaster next reported. (προσέπταισαν: cp. πταῖσμα πρός c. 149 supra.）
χρόνῳ ὕστερον πολλῷ: in the year 473 B.C. according to Diodor. 11. 52.
φόνος Ἑλληνικὸς μέγιστος . . τῶν ἡμεῖς ἴδμεν: on the formula cp. c. 111. 2 supra. Blakesley observes that this must have been written before the Athenian disaster in Sicily: of course—there is no clear reference in Hdt. to any event even within a decade of that; cp. Introduction, § 9. Notwithstanding the immense but undefined losses of Tarentum on this occasion, the power of the Messapians declined and that of the Hellenes continued to increase thereafter: the loss affected the inner more than the external relations of Tarentum. (About 510 B.C. there had been a tyrant or ‘king’ at Tarentum, 3. 136.) Aristot. Pol. 8. (5.) 3. 7=1303 A explains the conversion of the city from Politeia to democracy by the losses of the γνώριμοι on this occasion; and no doubt the influence of the ‘Pythagoieans’ was destroyed. Hdt. has probably exaggerated the actual numbers, but such were the resources of Tarentum that it could well sustain the blow; Strabo l.c. puts the land forces of Tarentum, under the extreme democracy, at 30,000 foot, 3000 cavalry, 1000 ‘hipparchs.’ Why is nothing heard of an application to them from Sparta, or the Hellenes, in 481 B.C.?
Ῥηγίνων. The association with Tarentum was apparently not voluntary (ἀναγκαζόμενοι), and was, indeed, a little unnatural, as the subsequent relations of Rhegion and Taras to Athens might suggest. It was only, however, a part or a party of the citizens (τῶν ἀστῶν） which was thus treated by Mikythos or Smikythos (Pausan. 5. 26. 3), and so came to an involuntary end (οὕτω: but cp. App. Crit.). Probably 3000 was the whole contingent.
ὁ δὲ Μίκυθος. We have here, and indeed in the whole παρενθήκη, one of those invaluable aperçus into the history of the Pentekontaëteris for which Hdt. must rank as an even better authority than for the Persian war; cp. Introduction, § 10. It is matter for regret that Hdt. should not have felt himself moved to relate more fully the life and adventures of Mikythos, which undoubtedly would have well repaid fuller treatment. Diodoros 11. 66 has to some extent attempted to fill the void; Strabo 253, Pausanias, Justin, etc., confirm or amplify the biography. Hdt.'s brief note supplies five capita, as will be seen from the commentary: (i.) Mikythos, his antecedents; (ii.) his stewardship, or ἐπιτροπή, including the alliance with Tarentum; (iii.) his expulsion or retirement from Rhegion; (iv.) his residence in Tegea; (v.) his Olympian offerings. οἰκέτης ἐὼν Ἀναξίλεω. That Mikythos the famulus (οἰκέτης, Hdt.; δοῦλος καὶ ταμίας Pausan.; servus spectatae fidei, Justin) has a father Χοῖρος, is of known paternity, shows him to have been born a freeman. Diodoros calls him merely ἐπίτροπος. Freeman, ii. 546, justly doubts his ‘servile’ condition and cps. case of Maiandrios, 3. 142, and ‘fancies’ that he was an Arkadian of Tegea who had come to seek his fortune in Sicily. The father's name Χοῖρος forestalls ‘Verres’ (Freeman). The name is found on several inscriptions; and oddly enough the feminine Χοίρα as a nickname of Marpessa or Perimene at Tegea, Pausan. 8. 47. 2 (cp. Χοιρεᾶται at Sikyon, 5. 68 supra). The diminutive Χοίριλος is more common. The son's name in both forms is comparatively common, as in Athens (Aristoph. and Inscripp.).
ἐπίτροπος Ῥηγίου καταλέλειπτο: of course by Anaxilaos (cp. c. 165 supra), who died 476 B.C. The Regency of Mikythos lasted apparently some ten years till 466 B.C. (Diodor. 11. 66), in Rhegion and Messene (where Kleophron had predeceased his father). The disaster in Messapia (473 B.C.) does not appear to have weakened his position: perhaps it did not fall chiefly upon his own supporters. The jealousy which his rule excites in Hieron suggests that Rhegion under Mikythos was formidable to Syracuse.
ἐκπεσὼν ἐκ Ῥηγίου. Diodoros l.c. gives details, and represents the retirement of Mikythos as voluntary. The two sons of Anaxilaos were now of age (cp. c. 165 supra), and were incited by Hieron of Syracuse to demand of Mikythos an account of his stewardship (ἀπαιτῆσαι λόγον παρὰ Μικύθου τοῦ ἐπιτροπεύοντος） and themselves to assume the reins of government. Mikythos acquits him of this audit to the astonishment of the auditors; and the young men—no doubt thoroughly ashamed of their suspicions— beg the just steward to resume authority. But Mikythos (respectfully yet firmly) declines, and embarking with his private belongings ἐξέπλευσεν ἐκ τοῦ Ῥηγίου, προπεμπόμενος ὑπὸ τῆς τῶν ὄχλων εὐνοίας. The story is obviously moralized, and coloured: the main elements in the political and domestic drama are simple enough, but they have been fabulized in the search for another ‘just’ man. Busolt emphasizes Hdt.'s ‘was expelled’ (ἐκπεσών); Freeman (less wisely) prefers Diodoros (ἐξέπλευσε). Τεγέην τὴν Ἀρκάδων οἰκήσας. ‘after taking up his abode at Tegea in Arkadia.’ Howlong he lived there Hdt. unfortunately does not say, but probably he survived, not merely the death of Hieron (466 B.C.) and the fall of the tyrannis in Syracnse (465 B.C.), but likewise the expulsion of the sons of Anaxilaos from Rhegion and Messene 461-460 B.C. (Diod. 11. 76. 5) and the general pacification of Sicily—to which he had, at least indirectly, contributed; and then died full of years and honours, leaving a handsome property to his son. (Cp. infra.） ἀνέθηκε ἐν Ὀλυμπίῃ τοὺς πολλοὺς ἀνδριάντας. A description of these, with express reference to this passage, is given by Pausanias 5. 26. 2-5, where upwards of a dozen large statues (some of them forming groups) are enumerated; others from the same donor had been removed by Nero, before Pausanias' time. Pausanias understands Hdt to say that the offerings at Olympia were made after Mikytho<*> had taken up his abode at Tegea; an<*> this statement, whether right or wrong, is (pace Freeman ii. 545) the plain meaning of the words (οἰκήσας ἀνέθηκε). Pausanias thinks it wrong, because the dedications not merely gave his father's name butalsonamed ‘Rhegion and Messene on the straits’ as the fatherland (πατρίς) of Mikythos, but said nothing about his residing at Tegea. It is, however, conceivable that the son of Choiros might have preferred to go down <*>o posterity as the citizen of RhegionMessene rather than as the metic of Tegea. It is also conceivable that Hdt. has made a mistake, and that the statues were dedicated while Mikythos was still governor of Rhegion-Messene: Freeman, indeed, holds that “the offering is much more like the act of a ruler than that of a private man,” and that “the inscriptions show the statues to have been dedicated while the two cities were in his charge,” ii. 545. If so, that would settle the date of the name ‘Messene’ (for ‘Zankle’） in a sense adverse to Freeman's own argument; cp. p. 231b supra. Pausanias adds that the Olympian dedications of Mikythos were made in fulfilment of a vow for the restoration of a son to health. Such a dedication might be a private one: but does the remark apply to any of the statues save the Asklepios - Hygieia group? And need all the statues necessarily have been dedicated at the same time? Hdt.'s reference to these statues prove<*> them to be celebrated in the Greek world at the time of writing: years no doubt have elapsed since the date of dedication: Mikythos himself is prohably no more (ἐν Τεγέαις τῆς Ἀρκαδίας κατεβίωσεν ἐπαινούμενος, Diodor. l.c.). Hdt. had probably seen the dedication at Olympia, perhaps on his way to or from the west (cp. 4. 195), and he may have got the patronymic from the Olympian dedication. But his main interest in this παρενθήκη is the Tarento-Rheginc episode, in the account of which the note on Mikythos might itself be an insertion. If so, we have in the passage the three strata of composition. I. The original ‘Kretan’ λόγος. II. The western λόγος. III. The note on Mikythos added last. Cp. Introduction, § 9.
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