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

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εἶπον: this is presumably the first person singular, not the third plural, and refers back to c. 194. The use of 1 aor. as in c. 11 supra (ὅσα περ εἶπα) or as in 4. 44 τοὺς πρότερον εἶπα, a more exact parallel, would have avoided the ambiguity. Yet if the passage in c. 194 supra, τῶν ἐστρατήγεε κτλ., is, as above suggested, a later insertion, then this εἶπον originally referred to a statement of the prisoners just sent to the isthmus of Korinth.

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πορευθείς: in the active voice a transitive verb; cp. Thuc. 4. 132. 2 ἐτύγχανε γὰρ τότε Ἰσχαγόρας ὁ Λακεδαιμόνιος στρατιὰν μέλλων πεζῆ̣ πορεύσειν ω<*>ς Βρασίδαν.

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Θεσσαλίης: cp. c. 129 supra, where Thessaly is all hollow, or lowland, and distinct from Achaia. The physiographieal justifieation for this distinction is beautifully shown on G. B. Grundy's map, Graecia, Murray, London. n.d.

Ἀχαιίης. Hdt. uses the term Ἀχαιίη c. 94 supra of the Peloponnesian region once populated by Ionians (cp. 8. 73, 9. 26, 1. 145), and so also plainly infra 8. 36. He uses the term here, as in e. 173 supra, no less plainly of the (mountainous) region on the Pagasaian gulf, the southern district of Thessaly, or the distriet south of Thessaly (from which he distinguishes Achaia, as here). This is the distriet named Φθιῶτις in 1. 56; for though Hdt. nowhere actually uses the term Ἀχαιίη Φθιῶτις, yet the term Ἀχαιοὶ οἱ Φθιῶται occurs once (c. 132 supra, in the list of medizing Hellenes), and he elsewhere (2. 98) makes ‘Phthios’ the son of ‘Achaios.’ He nowhere expressly explains the relation, if any, between the two Achaias, and the two sets of Achaians, but as the Achaians are (with him) one of the autochthonous folks of Peloponnesos (8. <*> he probably thought of the Achaians of Phthiotis as immigrants. (Immigrants they may have been, but not so surely, not so lately, as the Achaians in Peloponnesos; ep. J. B. Bury, J.H.S. xv. 1895, 217 ff.)

ἐσβεβληκὼς ἧν καὶ δὴ τριταῖος ἐς Μηλιέας: i.e. when the fleet reached Aphetai, Xerxes had been already in ‘Melis’ three days (not that it took him only three days to pass through Thessaly and Achaia). There is, however, the ambiguity left, that the days may be reekoned inclusively, or exclusively: in the one case Xerxes might have been only one clear day in Malis; in the other, the day of the fleet's arrival at Aphetai might be the fourth, if not the fifth, since the arrival of Xerxes. For the Chronology cp. Appendix V. § 4.

ἐσβεβληκὼς ἧν is not a s<*> pluperfect, but marks the accom<*> ment of a previous action or condition, the effects of whieh are still operative at the time of the given action. This fine distinction was doubtless lost in the case of those verbs which could not conveniently form perfects and pluperfects (at least in the passive); but it should be felt in the case of verbs not so povertystrieken. Here ἐσβεβλήκεε would hardly give the same sense.

The Μηλἱς γῆ is described in the next chapter.

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αἱ Ἑλληνίδες ἵπποι ἐλείποντο πολλόν: if this is true, and the competition was a bona fide one, it speaks volumes for the management of the Persian cavalry and remount department. The story is not from a Thessalian souree. The sporting instinet in Xerxes is another redeeming trait in the king's character. Hdt. seems to represent Xerxes as having instituted the ἅμιλλα on this occasion. The fourteenth Epinikion of Bakehylides proves the existence of a local festival in Thessaly, with chariot raees, in honour of Poseidon Petraios, and perhaps this festival was in progress when Xerxes suggested a race for mounted men.

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Ὀνόχωνος: cp. c. 129 supra.

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Ἠπιδανός: cp. e. 129 supra. If the readings are correct, the variation in the spelling would be a good indication of a difference in Hdt.'s sources; and this passage is plainly from the Ionian.

On the rivers that failed cp. c. 21 supra.