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λέγεται δὲ λόγος. The formula seems to suggest a doubt, and to he used here of an oral report; cp. φάτις infra. It is remarkable that Hdt. sets this story in no relation to the Delphic story, c. 178 supra, which is there reported without the least hint of misgiving. Nor does he say that the oracle which ‘came’ to the Athenians (ἄλλου in contrast to the response in c. 140, or even that in c. 141) is the oracle ‘announced’ by the Delphians; nor could it be, for the terms are different: τὸν γαμβρὸν ὲπίκουρον καλέσασθαι this, Ἀνέμοισι εὔχεσθαι κτλ., that. Apparently Hdt. thought that the genuine and true oracle and story; this, an afterthought and fiction. But the reverse is probably the truer view. (1) The Athenian story is based on the precedent of Athos. (2) The terms are more oracular: the Athenians had several sons-in-law, Tereus for example (Thuc. 2. 29. 3), or Xouthos (Euripid. Ion 57 f.), not to say Apollon himself (ibid. 10 f.), or possibly Ion, or any hero, who had ever led or misled an Attic bride. Thus the Athenian oracle is sure to turn out well! The Delphic is much blunter. (3) The Delphic oracle is compromised by its too obviously apologetic purpose, and by the attitude of Delphi in the war, which was so sorely in need of apology afterwards. (4) If, as seems probable, this is not merely not the Delphic publication mentioned above in c. 178, but not a Delphic oracle at all (rather an utterance of Bakis, 8. 20 etc.), produced and interpreted for the occasion, then it has all the more a ‘genuine’ ai<*>, and the Delphic story all the more appearance of an express reply to this Attic story: Delphic Θυία besting Attic Ὠρείθυια. Hdt. was a good friend to Athens (c. 139), but if it came to choosing between Athens and Delphi, he preferred to err with Delphi.
κατὰ τὸν Ἑλλήνων λόγον, i.e. according to Greek literature, logography, which had doubtless already dealt with the myth, as poets and artists assuredly had done. Both Aischylos and Sophokles had composed dramas on the theme (cp. Nauck, Trag. Gr. Frag., sub v. Ὠρείθυια), but the oldest Attic evidence for the localization and popularity of the story is probably to be found not in literature, but in the vases of archaic style, nine of which are enumerated by Wernicke ap. Pauly-Wissowa, iii. (1897) 727, and doubtless rightly dated as older than the Persian war (ibid. 726), and therefore than the traditional date of the Ilissos foundation recorded below (Rapp ap. Roscher, Lexikon 810, erroneously dates them all after the Persian war). On the other hand, the supposed representation of the Rape of Oreithyia on the Chest of Kypselo<*>, Pansan. 5. 19. 1 (cp. H. Stuart Jones. J.H.S. xiv. (1894) p. 74), must be abandoned; Wernicke l.c. Plato, Phaedr. 229, indicates the Attic form of the story (with some variants), and contains the celebrated protest against the ἅγροικός τις σοφία of attempting to rationalize this or any myth.
ἔχει ... τὴν Ἐρεχθέος. In Homer Il. 20. 219 ff. Erichthonios, the Trojan, or rather ‘Dardanian’ king, has a herd of 3000 mares, attended by youthful fillies, of whom Boreas becomes enamoured, and in likeness of a dark-maned steed, the sire of twelve (other) filhes, who could skip over the coin-field without bending the ears, and over the waves without breaking the foam. The Attic mythologists have improved on that, but Oreithyia, ‘daughter of Erechtheus’ (Poseidon), still betrays her Nereid origin. The etymology of the name is obscure. It can hardly be participial. The similarity of the termination to Θυία (cp. c. 178 supra) suggests a compositum; but the Ω is rather hard to explain; cp. Roscher, Lexikon, 812 f. (ὦριος, ὦρος, night, much less ὥριος (ὥρα), do not seem to have suggested themselves: cp. Ὠρίων). Etym. Mag. 823. 43 connects it with ὄρος (and θύω), “Bergdurchstürmerin.” In any case Oreithyia is originally, perhaps, a ‘Ross-madchen’ and very like a Valkyrie (of wind, or wave). ἔχει, has to wife. Βορέης, by the way, is the north-wind, only here expressly personified by Hdt. He never loses his transparently physical character, but he changes a little his point of the compass; cp. Habler ap. Pauly-Wissowa, iii. 721; also c. 188 supra.
κῆδος: in Homer this word means only ‘care, trouble, sorrow, mourning,’ as with Hdt. 2. 36, 6. 58 (funeral). But here, as in Thucyd. 2. 29. 3, it is used of a marriage, or marriage-connexion (so too in other Attic writers). ὡς φάτις ὅρμηται, sc. λέγεσθαι: cp. 4. 16, 6. 86, and ὁρμήθη without λέγεσθαι 3. 56. Cp. also 5. 50 τὸν λόγον τὸν ὅρμητο λέγειν. (But Stein takes it absolutely: ex<*>it.) φάπις is depreciatory, and refers to oral information; cp. Introduction, § 10.
ναυλοχέοντες ... ἐν Χαλκίδι. ν.. is perhaps ‘lying in wait,’ cp. Thuc. 7. 4. 7. Are the Athemans alone in Chalkis (cp. 8. 14)? Or is all the Greek fleet there, cp. c. 183 supra? Hdt. may, perhaps, have taken the statement in the latter sense, on the strength of the absurd story to which he has committed himself above; but his Athenian informant more probably intended it in the former sense. This offering and prayer was made by the Athenians in (command of) the 53 ships guarding Chalkis.
ἢ καὶ πρὸ τούτου. It would have been rather late to have waited till the storm actually began: at least, had they done so, the case could hardly have been adduced (it evidently was) as a manifest answer to prayer.
ὡς καὶ πρότερον περὶ Ἄθων. These words are part of the Athenian petition, not an addition by the author, or even by the Athenian narrator. If the prayer is anthentic, the belief in the divine intervention in 492 is therefore older than 480 B.C. The story (naturally ignored by Mardonios c. 9 supra) as told in 6. 43-45 is an intensely Athenian one (perhaps Hdt. did not know the details when he wrote this passage).
εἰ μέν νυν ... οὐκ ἔχω εἰπεῖν. ‘if it was on that account.’ διὰ ταῦτα predicative: but so is Βορέης, in a minor degree. Why this access of doubt, of scepticism? Because (i.) the story does not quite fit in with the Delphian alternative c. 178 supra. (ii.) Not Βορέας but Ἀπηλιώτης or Ἑλλησποντίας fell upon the ships. (iii.) There is a doubt as to whether the Athenians begau praying before the storm: it not, of course their prayers did not produce it. (iv.) Has Hdt. any doubt that prayers avail? Cp. note to c. 178.
οἱ δ᾽ ὦν᾽ Αθηναῖοι ... λέγουσι: the Attic provenience of the story is now revealed, at the third time of asking (λέγεται λόγος: φάτις ὅρμηται). <*>. has a delicacy and reluctance in discrediting an Attic tradition. δ᾽ ὦν: cp. c. 145 supra.
ἱρὸν ... Ἰλισόν: cp. Plato, Phaidr. 229; Pausanias 1. 19. 5. The cult of Boreas and Oreithyia was perhaps older, as the myth certainly was; perhaps also this very foundation on the Ilisos; but it was at any rate given a new and enlarged significance after this oecasion. Cp. notes to c. 178. The ‘Ilisos’ is not elsewhere named by Hdt. Its course is still to be traced on the map of Attica, but the water is conspicuous by its absence, and a new myth, or miraele, is badly wanted, in that neighbourhood, to restore the Baumkultus.
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