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τοῦτο μὲν τὸ Ἀρτεμίσιον, ‘in the first place Artemision’—the article here owing to the repetition of the name. The construction is pendent, and more like English than Greek idioms. The punctuation is due to Stein. The description of Arteinision before Thermopylai is an apparently unconscious witness to the primary import of the naval station; but the descriptions, or the greater part of them, appear to be insertions; cp. note on l. 27 infra.
τοῦ πελάγεος τοῦ Θρηικίου: that is, the northern portion of the Aegean, clearly cut off from the middle portion (or Aegean proper) by a line of islands extending from the Artemisian straits to the Hellespont (Skiathos, Peparethos, Ikos, and the remaining north Sporades, Halonnesos, Lemnos, Imbros). Cp. Strabo 28 κατὰ τὴν Θρᾳκίαν θάλατταν . . αὐτοῦ τοῦ Αἰγαίου μέρος οὖσαν. (The Mare Creticum supplies a balance in the south.) ἐξ εὐρέος corresponds with στεινὸν ἐόντα, which is a predicate. With ἐκ τοῦ π. ἐξ εὐρ. cp. ἐς τὰ Τέμπεα ἐς τὴν ἐσβολήν c. 173 supra. συνάγεται: in neuter passive construction: contrahitur.
τὸν πόρον: here plainly of the actual water-way, and that considered, not across, but lengthways; cp. c. 36.
Σκιάθου: Skiathos appears frequently in the story of the naval operations (cc. 179, 182, 183, 8. 7, 92), but was not intrinsically an important island. It was afterwards included (with Peparethos and Ikos) in the Θρᾴκιος φόρος on the Attic lists, and paid one thousand drachmai tribute. The population was said to be ‘Pelasgian’ from Thrace, like that of Skyros (while Peparethos and Ikos were said to have been occupied by Kretans from Knossos), ps.-Skymnos, 579 ff. Μαγνησίης, sc. γῆς (ἠπείρου being co-ordinate with νήσου): i.e. the land of the Μάγνητες (cp. c. 132), which has a geographical record out of all proportion to its apparent historical importance. It comprised the mountain systems of Ossa and Pelion (cp. c. 129 supra) and Hdt. marks it with the names of Kasthanaia (cc 183, 188), Meliboia (c. 188), Ipnoi (ib.), Cape Sepias (cc. 183, 188), and even reckons Pagasai (c. 193) to the Magnesian territory. τῆς Εὐβοίης, with the article, although this is the first mention of Euboia (in these Books), the island being notorious. The word goes with what follows, not with τοῦ στεινοῦ (neuter): ἤδη is practically local, but like δέκεται suggests motion in time to the place. On Artemision cp. previous c.
ἐν δὲ Ἀρτέμιδος ἱρόν, ‘on it is (ἕνεστι) a Hieron of Artemis.’ This Holy Place must account for the extended local use of the name, and no doubt existed long before 430 B.C., though Hdt. here writes in the present, and the fullest description (Plutarch, Them. 8) describes the place as it was when enlarged and beautified in honour of their naval achievements by the Athenians, after their occupation of the island (cp. 8. 23 infra). This Artemis had the title Προσηῳα, which seems to suggest that the temple was on the extreme promontory (NE.) of the island (a welcome beacon to mariners on the Thrakian sea), though a site about half a mile from the modern Kourbatsi, and therefore far to the west of the point, has been preferred by the archaeological travellers (Lolling, Ath. M. viii. 7 ff., 200 ff.).
ἡ δὲ αὖ διὰ Τρηχῖνος ἔσοδος: δὲ αὖ seems in reply to τοῦτο μέν supra, but carries a long way. By ‘the pass through Trachis’ Hdt. is generally, and perhaps rightly, taken to mean Thermopylai; but would not the term as well or better suit that other pass, which led from the Trachinia into Doris. a pass by which at least one column of the Persians afterwards marched (cp. 8. 31 infra), and by which they might have circumvented the Greeks at Thermopylai, sooner or later, had the Anopaia path been successfully defended? Just as Hdt. misapplies the term τὴν ἐσβολὴν τὴν Ὀλυμπικήν to Tempe (c. 172 supra), so he may misapply here the term ἡ διὰ Τρηχῖνος ἔσοδος to Thermopylai. Τρηχίς is a city (cp. c. 199 infra） but might in this phrase be used as= Τρηχινίη (cp. ib.), itself a part of Μῆλις (c. 201); cp. 9. 17, ἐς Μίλητον 1. 15. ἐστὶ τῇ στεινοτάτη η<*>μίπλεθρον i.e. the twellth part of a stade, or about 50 ft. To say that ‘where the pass is narrowest it is but 50 ft. wide, but that there are two other spots in the neighbourhood (τῆς χώρης τῆς ἄλλης） where it is still narrower’ is to commit a contradictio in adjecto. This contradiction arises when the term ἡ διὰ Τρηχῖνος ἔσοδος is erroneously taken to signify the pass of Thermopylai (τὴν ἐν Θερμοπύλῃσι ἐσβολήν); and Hdt. himself may be guilty of this error in common with all his commentators hitherto. Certaiuly his description is confused and obscure. But it is just possible that he intends to say what he probably ought to have said: ‘the pass via Trachis is in its narrowest part less than 50 ft. wide, but the pass via Thermopylai is even narrower: for there are two spots on the latter road barely 6 ft. wide’: τῆς ἄλλης below and αὖ above support this charitable criticism, which would be destroyed by the conjectural emendations of the text; cp. App. Crit. (Grundy, p. 261, makes the Asopos-chasm “only twelve feet wide” at one place.)
οὐ μέντοι κατὰ τοῦτό γε ἐστὶ τὸ στεινότατον τῆς χώρης τῆς ἄλλης. We may, then, fairly take these words to mean, ‘it is not the pass διὰ Τρηχῖνος which is the narrowest pass in the immediate neighbourhood.’ See the two previous notes.
ἔμπροσθέ τε Θερμοπυλέων καὶ ὄπισθε: i.e. to the west and to the east of Thermopylai there is a road which in those two places, at the river Phoinix, near Anthela, and at Alpenoi, is only wide enough for a single wagon. Hdt. indeed by ἔμπροσθε means ‘north’ and by ὄπισθε means ‘south,’ for the next sentence shows that he was in error to the tune of 90° in his orientation of the pass. The immense change in the contour of the coast has destroyed the applicability of Hdt.'s description to the pass of Thermopylai as it presents itself to the eyes of the modern traveller (e.g. ipsius mei, 9th April 1899); but the inner wall of the pass, so to speak, the ὄρος ἄβατόν τε καὶ ἀπόκρημνον, ὑψηλόν, has altered but little in two thousand years; it is the sea which has ficd, vastly extending the τενάγεα and allnvial deposit, allowing the lowland to advance, altering the courses of the rivers, and largely destroying the picturesqueness of the scene. Yet, thanks mainly to the inner frame of rock, it is possible to think away the accretions and alterations and to restore the physiographical conditions as they were in 480 B.C., and now more easily than ever before, thanks to the map based upon the accurate survey of Dr. G. B. Grundy. See his Great Persian War. The description of Hdt., though incorrectly ‘oriented,’ reproduces the main strneture and featuies of the scene, as it was in his time. The pass of Thermopylai then lay between a precipitous mountain and the land-locked sea—such was its peculiarity, like the Klimax in Pisidia (cp. Arrian, Anab 1. 26, Strabo 666), but, unlike the Klimax, it was at no time rendered actually impassable by tide - water. The pass consisted, further, of three parts or sections: the western gate, the eastern gate, both extremely narrow, and a wider amphitheatre, or rather two half-amphitheatres, lying between them. The western gate is formed by the projection of a mountain ridge, or spur, which descends with an accessible slope towards the sea, its extreme point being abruptly cut off (perhaps in part by human ageney) so as to form a sheer but not lofty cliff, below which curved the road, ἁμαξιτὸς μοὐνη, for some considerable distance. The ‘city’ of Anthela may have been situate on the slope, or lower plateau (no/wadays crowned by the remains of a Turkish barracks), commanding this passage, though the words of Hdt. rather suggest a site for Anthela outside the passage or the Gates proper. The Phoinix certainly flows just beyond the gate, now into the Spercheios, at one time formerly into the Asopos (Strabo 428). Beyond, or west of this river, the plain extends, ringed round on the left by a great circle of cliffs, and hills and mountains (as not badly described c. 198 infra). This western gate, however, is ill to defend, as the projecting spur of mountain forming it might easily be attacked and crossed from the west or Trachinian side. At the other or extreme eastern end, distant about four E. miles or more by road, the cliffs and mountain wall again sweep forward and decline to the sea, and form another ‘gate,’ a little in front of the probable site of Alpenoi, as narrow of yore as the western (ἁμαξιτὸς μούνη), perhaps even narrower, and probably in itself more defensible, being backed rather than fronted by the hill, and only to be turned by a force that should have made its way right round behind the ὄρος ἄβατόν τε καὶ ἀπόκρημνον on the left, inland. A path, however, ascends in front (W.) of this gate, and strikes across the projecting ridges or spurs of the mountain to join the Anopaia route, to and from Aipenoi; and this ascent (which might enable a force attacking the Eastern Gate in front to turn the position) must be reckoned with in any reconstruction of the story of Thermopylai. Between the Western and Eastern Gates lies, and lay (to a less extent), a double amphitheatre, between the mountain and the sea, roughly comparable to a double U (W). It is here, along the chord of these two rough arcs, that there is most room for doubt in regard to the ancient line of coast. Dr. G. B. Grundy contracts the interval between sea and mountain-spurs about half way between the Eastern and the Western Gate, and recreates for 480 B.C. a third, i.e. Middle Gate, or rather low pass, the road deserting the level and rising over the slopes, in order to avoid the sea, which here for a longer space than at the western or eastern ends is made to wash the very skirts of the hills. This is a feature of which no clear account is taken in Hdt.'s description of the pass as a whole. The West Gate he recognizes (making it north), the East Gate he recognizes (making it south), but the Middle Gate, or Passage, he does not well describe; it is, however, at this middle gate that he apparently locates the name Thermopylai, and so the expression ἡ ἐν Θερμοπύλῃσι ἐσβολή may be taken to signify, in the strietest sense, not the whole road from the western to the eastern ends, or gates, but the col, just about half way between them. (But in no sense could this be called ἡ διὰ Τρηχῖνος ἔσοδος, cp. l. 6 supra, though possibly διὰ Μήλιδος, cp. c. 216 infra.）
κατά τε Ἀλπηνοὺς ὄπισθε ἐόντας: sc. ὄπισθε Θερμοπυλέων. The description is from a Greek point of view, from the point of view of the defence, of the source. Ἀλπηνοί is described as a κώμη here lower down (l. 27), and appears in c. 216 in the singular (from a different source?). The form Ἄλπωνος is given by Steph. B. from Hellanikos, and confirmed by Aischines 2. 132 (Ἄλπωνον καὶ Θρόνιον καὶ Νίκαιαν, τὰ τῶν παρόδων τῶν εἰς Πύλας χωρία κύρια), and still more by inscription (Delphi), Dittenberger, Syll. i.1 185. Its identity with Ἄλπα (see Hirschfeld ap. Pauly-Wissowa, i. 1599) is more questionable. It was in Lokris Epiknemidia (Steph. B.), and probably just east of the ‘Eastern Gate,’ or on the hills about. Cp. Grundy, Great Persian War, p. 291, ‘half a mile beyond the east gate’ (against Leake). ἐόντας ἐοῦσα is not very elegant: cp. c. 104. 11 supra (ἐόντα ἐοῦσα would have been worse: hence the plural?). Cp. App. Crit.
Φοίνικα ποταμόν: a tributary of the Asopos? Strabo 428. Cp. c. 200 infra, as also for Ἀνθήλη.
τῶν δὲ Θερμοπυλέων has been generally taken to embrace the whole passage, with its two or even three ‘gates’ and so, no doubt, the word frequently may do. But here, to clear up many difficulties, let us take it in a stricter and narrower sense, as the middle passage, laying stress, as it were, on the Θερμά rather than on the Πυλαί. It would, perhaps, be pressing the words of Strabo 428 unduly to see in them a recognition of the tripartite character of the pass: τὴν μὲν οὖ πάροδον Πύλας καλοῦσι καὶ Στενὰ καὶ Θερμοπύλας. Strabo seems to mean that the three names are interchangeable: <*> what if they properly designated the Western, Eastern (cp. c. 216 infra), and Middle Gates?
ἀνατεῖνον ἐς τὴν Οἴτην. This statement is hardly quite correct, but not inconsistent with c. 217 infra, where the ὄρεα τὰ Οἰταίων are separated from τὰ Τρηχινίων, by the valley of the Asopos and by the Anopaia-path. But in a more general sense, perhaps, the mountain above Thermopylai (Kallidromos) might be regarded as belonging to the Oitaian group. So Strabo 427-8 regards Oita as extending from the Ambrakian Gulf to the Malian (Thermopylai) and cutting the range of Pindos-Parnassos at right angles, the name ‘Oita’ belonging particularly to the eastern portion of this (rather schematic) range. Strabo's assertion that the highest point is immediately above Thermopylai is incorrect.
ἐν τῇ ἐσόδῳ ταύτῃ: if ταύτῃ is taken as agreeing with τῇ ε<*>σόδῳ, then αὔτη ἠ ἔσοδος may he taken to signify ‘Thermopylai pass,’ ἡ ἐν Θερμοπύλῃσι ἐσβολή, in the narrowest sense, the socalled ‘Middle Gate.’ But if ἡ ἔσοδος means (as more probably) the whole passage, from east to west, or vice versa, then ταύτῃ may be taken as locative adverb, ‘here,’ that is at Thermopylai proper, or hard by ‘the Middle Gate.’
θερμὰ λουτρά, ‘hot baths’ or bathing water: not necessarily springs. So “θερμὰ λοετρά” Il. 14. 6, θερμὰ λουτρά Aischyl. Choëph. 670, Aristoph. Clouds 1045, of the ordinary domestic tub, and “πετραῖα θερμὰ λουτρά” Sophokles, Trachin. 633, of the actual waters here in question. They were, and are, undoubtedly in this case natural hot springs, emerging from the rock under the foot of Kallidromos, at an easily identified spot, now fitted with rude appliances for bathing, and possibly used therapeutically in Hdt.'s day. The term λουτρά might, however, apply to the way in which the springs wash over the surface of the ground, leaving heavy deposits of sulphur etc. behind them. The water is very hot (“over 120° F.” Baedeker), is bluish in colour, and leaves a white deposit. τὰ Χύτρους καλέουσι οἱ ἐπιχώριοι: χυτρὶς (ἡ) is a vase, 5. 88, or earthenware vessel, diminutive of χύτρα: it is observable that Hdt. uses the Attic forms there and here. The name seems to suggest bathingairangements, earthenwaie baths; cp. Pans. 4. 35. 6 γλαυκότατον μὲν οἶδα ὕδωρ θεασάμενος τὸ ἐν Θερμοπυλαῖς, οὔτι που πᾶν, ἀλλ᾽ ὄσον κάτεισιν ἐς τὴν κολυμβήθραν ἥντινα ὀνομάζουσιν οἱ ἐπιχώριοι Χύτρους γυναικείους. Pausanias declares that he saw; Hdt. only reports the local name; and the formula here by no means justifies an inference to a personal visit or autopsy.
βωμὸς ... Ἡρακλέος ἐπ<*> αὐτοῖσι, sc. τοῖς λουτροῖς. The cult of Herakles was especially prominent in the Oitaian region, and the hero himself was especially associated with hot water (always in it! Aristoph. Cl. 1051 ποῦ ψυχρὰ δῆτα πώποτ<*> εἶδες Ἡράκλεια λουτρά;), the Schol. on which passage records that Ibykos represented Hephaistos as having produced λουτρὰ θερμῶν ὑδάτων, others Athene, and quotes Peisandros: τῷ δ᾽ ἐν Θερμοπύλησι θεὰ γλαυκῶπις Ἀθήνη ποίει θερμὰ λοετρὰ παρὰ ῥηγμῖνι θαλάσσης. So too Hesychios and Photios, sub vv. Ἠράκλεια λουτρά, both also recording a third variant, that the nymphs had produced them for Herakles in Sicily, and Photios a fourth, that the hero had produced them himself. Strabo 428 explains the name ‘Thermopylai’: ἔστι γὰρ καὶ θερμὰ πλησίον ὕδατα τιμώμενα ὡς Ἡρακλέους ίερά. The greatest literary monument we have of the association of Herakles with this region is the Trachiniai of Sophokles; the foundation of Herakleia by Sparta in 426 B.C. (Thuc. 3. 92. 1) is a significant witness of another order. ἐδέδμητο δὲ τεῖχος κατὰ ταύτας τὰς ἐσβολάς: one of the most genuine pluperiects, temporally, in Hdt., for it is related not to the date of writing but to the date given in the narrative, at which time, indeed, the wall was in ruins, and required rebuilding; cp. l. 25 infra. But there is no call to insist on a pluperfect force for ἔδειμαν.
κατὰ ταύτας τὰς ἐσβολάς would be almost unmeaning, or too vague at least, if it referred generally to the whole pass-way, some five miles long; the words, though in the plural (by a sort of attraction to Thermopylai), refer specifically to this part of the pass near the Hotsprings, and the Chytroi, or Baths, in fact to ‘Thermopylai proper,’ or ‘the Middle Gate.’ τό γε παλαιὸν πύλαι ἐπῆσαν: hence the specific name of Thermopylai (to distinguish this spot from the Pylai, or western entrance?). τὸ παλαιόν is adverbial,=πάλαι, not merely from the writer's point of view, but in relation to Ol. 75, 480 B.C.
ἔδειμαν δὲ Φωκέες κτλ. That ‘Phokians,’ not ‘Lokrians,’ built this wall is noticeable; it was, properly speaking, in Lokris. If the Phokians were its huilders, it must have been built at a time when the Phokians exercised a hegemony, or suzerainty, over the Epiknemidian Lokrians at least. Strabo 424-5 describes Δαφνοῦς as a Phokian inset, reaching to the sea, and dividing the eastern Lokrians into ‘Epiknemidian’ and ‘Opuntian’: Phokis as a whole may be regarded as a larger wedge, splitting primitive ‘Lokris’ into the eastern and western (Ozolian). Θεσσαλοὶ ἦλθον ἐκ Θεσπρωτῶν. The ‘Thessaloi’ are absolutely unknown to ‘Homer,’ or more completely ignored than the ‘Dorians’ themselves. (A Herakleid ‘Thessalos’ appears in the Catalogue, B 679, as father of Pheidippos and Antiphos, the leaders of thirty ships from Kos, Nisyros, Krapathos, Kasos, Kalydnai, i.e. Asianic islands (afterwards) occupied by ‘Dorians.’) Their migration from Epeiros (a term first expressly found in Xenoph. Hell. 6. 1. 7), into (historic) Thessaly was therefore dated after the Trojan war; and there the historic ‘Thessaliotis’ (cp. 1. 57), with its capital Pharsalos (not mentioned by Hdt.), may naturally be regarded as one of the chief seats of the conquerors. The ‘Thesprotia’ from which they come was not merely the restricted territory bearing that name in the days of Hdt. and Thuc. (cp. 8. 47 infra), but probably coextensive with southern Epeiros, in which region ‘Homer’ already locates Thesprotoi ou the sea-coast, and only clearly there Od. 14. 315, etc. As the Molossoi (unnamed by Homer) are the dominant element in S. Epeiros during the historic period, we may infer that the Molossian invasion (from Illyria?) burst up the Thesprotians from the mountain to the sea, and that the Thesproto-Thessalians under this pressure went across Pindos into historic Thessaliotis and Thessaly. (To speak of Homeric ‘Thessaly,’ with, for example, Buchholz, Homerische Realien, i. 88, etc., is rather misleading, though of course none knows better that it is not a Homeric term; cp. i. 97 ff.)
γῆν τὴν Αἰολίδα, τήν περ νῦν ἐκτέαται: cp. Diodor. 4. 67. 2 “τὴν τότε μὲν Αἰολίδα νῦν δὲ Θετταλίαν καλουμένην”. ‘Aiolos’ is at home at Alos in ‘Achaia,’ c. 197 infra; in Hdt.'s own time ‘Aiolis’ was a definite region in Asia (cp. 1. 149, 5. 123). ‘Aiolian’ and ‘Achaian’ may be different forms of the same name, Bury, Hist. Gr. i. 42n.
πειρωμἐνων τῶν Θεσσαλῶν καταστρἐφεσθαι σφέας: one might be tempted to suppose that the wall had originally been built (by the Lokrian ‘Leleges’） to bar the invasions of ‘Boiotians’ and ‘Phokians’ (expelled by ‘Thessalians’） from the north. However that might be, the secular hostility of ‘Thessalians,’ properly so called, and Phokians (cp. 8. 27-30) may confirm the view that this wall had last been used as a bar to Thessalian inroads. Whether these aimed at the actual conquest of Phokis or not is another question.
οἱ Φωκέες: the ethnology and origin of the ‘Phokians’ is open to discussion. Thucydides believes, perhaps rightly, that the ‘Boiotoi’ of his day had been driven out of Arne (=Kierion, of Thessaly) by the Thessalians, 1. 12. 3; but he has nothing to tell us of the local antecedents of the Phokians (any more than Hdt.) except apparently that the land ‘now called Phokis’ had once been occupied by ‘Thrakians,’ 2. 29. 3. The Homeric Catalogue places the Φωκῆες in their historic habitat, B 517-26, and their best man before Troy was Schedios, son of Iphitos, from Panopeus, Il. 17. 306; the eponyms (1) Phokos, son of Ornytion, son of Sisyphos, and (2) Phokos, son of Aiakos (son of Zeus), only meet us in Pausanias 10. 1. 1 (cp. 2. 4. 3, 2. 29. 2 f., 9. 17. 4), and the supposed connexion with Korinth and Aigina rests, perhaps, upon a mere verbal confusion (φῶκος= φώκαινα, a porpoise; cp. φώκη, also Δελφοί and δελφίς). It seems most natural to bring the historic ‘Phokians’ from the north, and to date their enmity with the ‘Thessalians’ even back to the days when these came from ‘Thesprotia’ into ‘Aiolis’: the invasions of Boiotians and Phokians then account for the disruption of eastern and western Lokrians. τὸ ὕδωρ ... ἐπὶ τὴν ἔσοδον: Hdt. here perhaps ascribes to human agency what was a purely natural phenomenon, the overflow of water and deposit of irregular mineral alluvium over the whole area between the ‘west’ and ‘middle’ gates. The date (τότε) is sufficiently vague, but at any rate it is out of the memory of living man in Hdt.'s time. Strabo 428 extends the observation to the whole district: ποιεῖ δὲ δυσείσβολα τὰ χωρία ταῦτα ἥ τε τραχύτης καὶ τὸ πλῆθος τῶν ὑδάτων φάραγγας τοιούντων, ἃς διέξεισι.
ὑπὸ χρόνου: owing to, under the influence of, by reason of, time, i.e. length of time; cp. Index s.v. ὑπό. ἔκειτο: had fallen down; lay in ruins. τοῖσι δέ without the emendation would refer back to c. 175—a rather remarkable carry. They resolved to restore the wall (αὖτις ὀρθώσασι: the resolution is prior to the restoration), and in this place (ταύτη, predicative) to make their first attempt to repulse the attack on Hellas. (Cp. c. 175 μὴ παριέναι ἐς τὴν Ἑλλάδα τὸν βάρβαρον.) This is a κοινὸν δόγμα τῶν συμμάχων (ἔδοξε); cp. notes to c. 175.
κώμη δὲ ... Ἀλπηνοὶ οὔνομα: a clumsy note, after the meution of Alpenoi just above; and (1) this note, (2) the τοῖσι δέ, (3) the wild confusion of the preceding description of Thermopylai, (4) the subsequent descriptions of the same places in the course of the narra tive, suggest the hypothesis that the greater portion of this cbapter is a later insertion (probably in the second draft), made perhaps after Hdt. had been past the scene in a ship; cp. Introd. § 9.
ἐκ ταύτης δὲ ἐπισιτιεῖσθαι ἐλογίζοντο οἱ Ἕλληνες: a welcome though purely incidental indication that the Greek warfare was conducted on rational principles, and took account of the ‘Realien,’ quickly followed up by one still more elaborate.
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