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

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τῶν μυρίων: cp. c. 55 supra, where οἱ μύριοι Πέρσαι cross the bridge before all the rest of the host.

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ἐστρατήγεε μὲν Ὑδάρνης ὁ Ὑδάρνεος. Hydarnes, the commander (Myriarch) of the Ten Thousand Immortals, is here given a place co-ordinate with the six Strategi, τοῦ σύμπαντος πέζου numhering (aecord. to Hdt.), without the Immortals, 1,690,000, or 281,6662/3 per Strategos. This co-ordination is absurd. If Hydarnes and the six Strategi were on a level, then each of them commanded 10,000 men, and the total foot amounted to some 70,000. If the total army, or infantry, amounted to 300,000, then Hydarnes' proper place is with the twenty-nine ἄρχοντες or Myriarchs already named, though as Myriarch of ‘The Immortals’ he may very well have had a higher brevet <*>ank. He figures largely in the subsequent campaign (cp. c. 215 infra). He belongs to the very highest nobility. His father, Hydarnes, was one of the Immortal Seven, 3. 70 (cp. 6. 133), his brother is presumably Sisamnes, the commander (Myriarch) of the Arians, c. 66 supra; cp. also c. 135 infra.

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ἐκαλέοντο ... ἐγίνοντο. The past tense is a little curious, as Hdt. might surely have predicated this immortality of the Guards in his own day. It seems to show that he is not here writing from his own knowledge or observation, but reproducing his authority (source), probably a written one. This observation leads to the further remark that this passage is presumably of early composition.

ἀθάνατοι: Hdt. is following his sources rather closely, or he might have been expected to have used this term for the Ten Thousand at the crossing of the bridge, c. 55 supra.

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ἐπί, ‘in consequence (honour) of’; cp. cc. 40 supra, 193 infra.

ἐξέλειπε τὸν ἄριθμον, ‘left the number incomplete’ (L. & S.), ‘made the number incomplete’ (Macaulay), but no parallel is quoted. Is it not rather ‘left (quitted) the number,’ ἄριθμος being used somewhat concretely, and almost as = τοὺς ἀριθμουμένους? The indicative mood is forcible.

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ἀραίρητο: the pluperfect has perhaps no particular temporal force, though here it might mean that the successor ‘had been’ already appointed or designated, during the man's life.

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κόσμον is military discipline, or rather its result; cp. c. 36 supra, 8. 60, 86, 9. 69, etc. The concrete meaning of ‘ornaments,’ as in 3. 123, is rare in Hdt. He is here, indeed, comparing the Persians with other ‘barbarians,’ not with Greeks. But he allows them ἀρετή (ἄριστοι) even in the latter comparison. Cp. 9. 62

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διὰ πάντων: is it masculine (‘among all the barbarians’), or neuter (‘in all respects’)? The former is borue out by the locus classicus, Il. 12. 103-4 οἱ γάρ οἱ εἴσαντο διακριδὸν εἷναι ἄριστοι Τῶν ἄλλων μετά γ᾽ αὐτόν: ὁ δ᾽ ἔπρεπε καὶ διὰ πάντων. Baehr and others give the force of πρό (prae) to διά in this phrase.

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ἥ περ εἴρηται: sc. in c. 61 supra, the first reference by the writer backwards in this Book.

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ἐνέπρεπον: cp. c. 67 supra; rather a poetical word.

ἁρμαμάξας: c. 41 supra.

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παλλακάς: cp. the anecdote of the Koan, 9. 76.

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χωρίς: the word is used three times in this c., twice with the genitive, once absolutely: such iteration is rather thin in style. Hdt. does not seem quite at his ease in reviewing these ‘Immortals.’

κάμηλοι: cp. c. 86 infra. This was probably the first occasion on which the camel made his appearance in Greece (though Mr. Evans has found something like a camel on an early Kretan seal, cp. J.H.S. xiv. 1894, p. 341). Agesilaos, on his return from Asia in 394 B.C., brought with him, by the same route as Xerxes, some camels which he had captured at the battle on the Paktolos, and which evidently made some sensation at home. Cp. Xenoph. Hell. 3. 4. 24, 4. 2. 8.