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εὖ τε ... καί. . : a parataxis. Xerxes' commendation is very ill-deserved by the speech of Achaimenes; but that the king endorsed the principle of jointaction and touch between the fleet and the army, the whole history of the campaign demonstrates.
ἔλπεται, ‘expects,’ ‘believes’: 9. 113.
τοῖσί τε λεγομένοισι πρότερον: sc. in cc. 3, 101 ff., 209 supra. The maintenance of the present λεγόμενα with the adverb πρότερον helps to stamp the conversations as literary fictions. (Xerxes would have said λεχθέντα.)
τῷ ἐόντι, ‘the fact,’ which he proceeds to state. πολιήτης μὲν πολιήτῃ: this is eminently a Greek gnome, and no doubt embodies Greek experience and common sense. φθόνος, στάσις, was the price the Greek paid for ἐλευθερία, αὐτονομία, the πόλις (avons-nous changé tout cela?). In 3. 80 Hdt. spares neither Greek nor barbarian: φθόνος δὲ ἀρχῆθεν ἐμφύεται ἀνθρώπῳ. This politic and mortal vice becomes a cosmic or divine principle, as in c. 46 supra, or in c. 10; cp. 236 above.
τῇ σιγῇ: “tacite, clam,” Baehr; “by his silence,” Stein. But cp. App. Crit.
συμβουλευομένου: i.e. ‘consulting him’; cp. c. 234 supra, for the middle.
εἰ μὴ πρόσω ἀρετῆς ἀνήκοι: “nisi magnos in virtute fecisset progressus,” Baehr; cp. c. 9 supra ἐς τοῦτο θράσεος ἀνήκει: cp. also c. 13. The ἀρετή here mentioned is plainly not polemical, but political; not courage, nor even justice, so much as benevolence (φιλία).
ξεῖνος δὲ ξείνῳ: Xerxes, the Persian king, extols the eminently Greek institution of ξενία, as a corrective and contrast for the relation of πολιήτης πολιήτῃ. Though the term is used by Hdt. of Xerxes' own relatives, cc. 29, 116, yet manifestly the true ξενία which is here in view can only obtain between equals, and, properly speaking, between equals who are members of different political associations—tribal, civic, national. Thus, curiously enough, Hdt. in this passage preaches, as the cure or corrective for inner discords, rivalries, jealousies, party struggles, in a society, not a development of virtue, or friendship in the given society—that is too much to expect—but the encouragement of international amities (between individuals).
συμβουλευομένου τε ἂν συμβουλεύσειε τὰ ἄριστα, ‘and when you consult him he would give you the best advice,’ i.e. according to his ability, τὰ ἄριστα ἔλπεται εἶναι.
κακολογίης ... [πέρι]. Stein's comparison of 8. 77 (ἀντιλογίης χρησμῶν πέρι） might justify the maintenance of πέρι here secundo loco; but his punctuation with a comma after Δημάρητον is questionable (unless another comma be placed after ξείνου). ἐόντα ἐμοὶ ξεῖνον would have been clearer, and may have been the original reading; but Baehr defends the genitive abs. as meaning not qui but quia meus est hospes.
ἔχεσθαι, ‘refrain,’ ‘hold himself off’; and much more forcible with the direct genitive. τινά is courteous. τοῦ λοιποῦ: sc. χρόνου: primarily a partitive genitive, serves as a date (cp. c. 166 supra) or period. Madvig, § 66.
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