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

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ἐσήμηνε: sc. ὁ σαλπιγκτής: cp. Aischyl. Pers. 395. The Greek manœuvres are proceeding with the utmost coolness and precision; their ships are conglobated, and with their sterns centred on one point (ἐς τὸ μέσον τὰς πρύμνας συνήγαγον): this position is assumed at the first signal, for previously they were rowing forward (ἐπανέπλεον ἐπὶ τοὺς βαρβάρους c. 9 supra); at the second signal (δεύτερα δὲ σημήναντος) they shot forwards, although by that time they were surrounded, the περίπλοος, the κύκλωσις of the enemy's more numerous fleet having now developed itself: the Greek ships charged the enemy bow to bow (κατὰ στόμα). This account looks at first sight plausible; reflexion shows it to be deficient. Was the κύκλωσις indeed complete? Was the Greek fleet completely surrounded, and the individual vessels radiating from a centre, like spokes from a wheel, all round? Could 271 galleys really be arranged for practical or tactical purposes on such a plan? Or was the formation, perhaps, but in a crescent or arc? And again, were the Persian ships advancing κατὰ στόμα, or were they rowing round and round the Greeks in the attempt to compress them into a small space? In the first of the two engagements, afterwards so celebrated, between Phormion and the Peloponnesians, anno 429 B.C., the Athenian admiral, with but twenty ships, succeeded in rowing all round a fleet of 47 sail, which the incompetent Knemos had drawn up in a hollow circle, their prows outwards, round their tenders and convoys. If the Peloponnesian ships on that occasion ἔργου εἴχοντο ἐν ὀλίγῳ περ ἀπολαμφθέντες, they might have struck Phormion's ships, but not κατὰ στόμα, bow to bow, but much more advantageously, amidships or broadside. As it was, the result of Phormion's manœuvre was to compress the fleet of Knemos into an ever-narrowing space, and finally to throw it into complete confusion (Thucyd. 2. 83 f.). But the case here is different. A vastly superior force is encircling an inferior number: possibly in this case the ships advanced κατὰ στόμα, prow to prow, albert ramming on that system was not likely to result in a Greek victory. Hence the suspicion arises that there is something confused and inaccurate in Hdt.'s description of this engagement: the capture of the thirty ships by the Greeks certainly ensues with surprising rapidity. If these thirty ships were cut off in some way from the main fleet, the result would be more intelligible. And again, if the story (in 7. 194) of the capture of fifteen ships, owing to a misunderstanding, be the Asianic version of this first engagement, we have to seek for a tertium quid, between that account, which reduces the engagement to a mere contretemps, and this account, which magnifies it into a pitched battle and a glorious victory, as the real event.

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κατὰ στόμα: ex adverso, a fronte, Baehr; Bug gegen Bug, Stein, which seems better than his first idea, und zwar nur von vorn.

τριήκοντα: just twice as many as the Asianic tradition (7. 194) allows.

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Φιλάονα: on Philaon and his family cp. note to 7. 98. In the fifteen ships was captured the Paphian Penthylos (7. 195), as well as Sandokes and Aridolis.

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στρατοπέδῳ: doubtless the fleet, or naval force, cp. c. 10 supra.

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Λυκομήδης Αἰσχραίου: Plutareh, Themist. 15, transfers the exploit to Salamis, which contradicts c. 84 infra, but at any rate suggests other possible transferences: πρῶτος μὲν οὖν λαμβάνει ναῦν Λυκομήδης ἀνὴρ Ἀθηναῖος τριηραρχῶν, ἧς τὰ παράσημα περικόψας, ἀνἑθηκεν Ἀπόλλωνι δαφνηφόρῳ Φλυῆσιν. The last word may be a gloss (cp. Bauer, Plutarchs Themistokles, 1884, p. 56); but was not Lykomedes a member of the clam (γένος) of the Lykomidai, to which Themistokles certainly belonged (cp. Plutarch, op. cit. 1)? The names Αἰσχραῖος, Αἰσχρίων, Αἴσχρων are all epigraphically attested for Athens (cp. Pauly-Wissowa, 1. 1063 f.), while Αἰσχριωνίη appears 3. 26 as the name of a φυλή in Samos A Lykomedes of Phlye appears on an inscription of 418-17 B.C. Dittenberger, Sylloge1, 38; Hicks, Manual2, 70 [53]. He might be grandson of the one here in the text.

τὸ ἀριστήιον ἔλαβε οὗτος. The Aristeion is a definite award (cp. c. 93, 9. 71, 105), and this notice may be historical; yet in view of Plutarch's statement, touching τὰ παράσημα, a sus picion suggests itself of some possible confusion.

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ἑτεραλκέως ἀγωνιζομένους: cp. 9. 103 ὡς εἶδον αὐτίκα κατ᾽ ἀρχὰς γινομένην ἑτεραλκέα τὴν μάχην. The word is taken to mean in Hdt. ‘doubtful,’ ancipiti Marte, though it is an Homeric word, and the Homeric meaning is ‘decisive.’ An engagement in which one side loses thirty triremes to the other is hardly indecisive, or of doubtful issue; and the barbarians return to Aphetai πολλὸν παρὰ δόξαν ἀγωνισάμενοι.

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νύξ: simply prosaic and depersonified. The movements resulting in the engagement had started late in the afternoon; cp. c. 10 supra.

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Ἀντίδωρος Λήμνιος. The name Antidoros is epigraphically attested for Athens in the fourth century B.C. (PaulyWissowa, i. 2397, where this Lemnian does not appear at all). The island of Lemnos was claimed for Athens in virtue of the act of Miltiades (cp. 6. 137-140), and as the Athenians recovered possession within a few years (cp. Busolt, Gr. Gesch. III. i. 414 f.), it is, perhaps, doubly remarkable that they settled this ‘Lemnian’ in Salamis rather than in his native place. His exact status in Lemnos, in Salamis, and in Athens, is not quite clear. Was he an Athenian citizen? Had he been so all along? Had he been a citizen and forfeited his rights? Salamis was not a ‘deme,’ and never appears as such: the Athenian settlers were technically ‘Kleruchs’; but there were doubtless natives also, and the possession of a χῶρος ἐν Σαλαμῖνι probably did not carry with it full citizenship. The word κλῆρος here would have been less embarrassing.