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

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ἐπορεύετο κατὰ τάχος ἐς τὸν Ἑλλήσποντον: considering the time of year, once it was decided that the king should not remain in Europe, probably no time was lost on the march to Asia. Yet Hdt. has not merely detained the king ‘a few days’ in Attica after the battle (cp. c. 113 supra), but has kept him waiting in Thessaly, while Mardouios pieks out all the best fighting men, leaving only the refuse ex hypothesi to eseort the king to the Hellespont! But cp. c. 126 infra.

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τὸν πόρον [τῆς διαβάσιος]: the πόρος here appears to be the passage from shore to shore across the strait, by means of the bridge; cp. 7. 36 supra.

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ἐν πέντε καὶ τεσσεράκοντα ἡμέρῃσι: is this period intended to cover the march from Thessaly to the Hellespont only, or the whole course from Athens? If the latter, are ‘the few days’ which elapsed between the battle and the move from Athens (c. 113 supra） included or not? As forty - five days would be a longish time to spend over the march from Thessaly, the latter alternative, in one form or other, is to be preferred. In this case the exact figure would be more convincing if it did not happen to be exactly half the time consumed in the advance from the Hellespont to Athens, c. 51 supra (3 months = 90 days). In 394 B. C. Agesilaos marched from the Hellespont to Boiotia in a month, or less (Beloch, Gr. Ges. ii. 196); cp. Xenoph. Ages. 2. 1. But then he had only a relatively small force with him: Xenophon does not give the exact figures. Before the battle of Koroneia reinforcements had reached the king, and he was not inferior in numbers to the allied army opposed to him, which, a little while before, at the battle of Korinth, had numbered 24,000 hoplites with 1550 cavalry, and numerous light-armed troops; cp. Xenoph. Hell. 4. 1, 2. 16 ff., 3. 15 ff.

ἀπάγων τῆς στρατιῆς οὐδὲν μέρος ὡς εἰπεῖν. He had left (ex hypothesi） 300,000 of the best with Mardonios; he was escorted by Artabazos with 60,000 of the said 300,000 (cp. c. 126 infra). The phrase here is apparently intended to introduce the result of the losses en route between Thessaly and Sardes; but these losses are themselves to be heavily discounted in the light of that authentic escort. The millions which had accompanied Xerxes into Greece had to be disposed of somehow: he sheds most of them on the way home! Have the flight and sufferings of the survivors of Plataia been antedated and transferred to the escort of Xerxes, a year before? But even in the later disaster, Artabazos carries a substantial remnant home to Asia (9. 89). The rectification of the numbers of the host of Xerxes tends to adjust the proportion of losses. Bad as this passage in Hdt. may be, as regards horrors and exaggerations, he is by no means the worst offender: his predecessor Aischylos (Persae 484-516) and Trogus Pompeius long afterwards (Justin 2. 13) pile up the agony more unscrupulously still. Cp. Appendix VII. § 2.

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καρπόν, Blakesley objects, could not be the growing harvest, for the harvest was over; but Hdt. meets that objection in the next sentence. Nor need καρπός be restrieted to cereals. There would of course be no hardship in this, except for the despoiled owners!

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οἳ δέ: the real hardships are introduced by δέ in apodosi, with the subject repeated; cp. 7. 51 supra.

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ποίην, Att. πόαν (cp. ποιέω, ποέω).

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φλοιόν: cp. 4. 67. The people of Petelia ate it, during the siege in the Hannibalic war, Polyb. 7. 1. 3 περιλέπειν is a rare word, Iliad 1. 236, the only other ref. in L. & S. Baehr, however, cites Theophrastus, Hist. pl. 6. 4. 10, and Suidas (quoting this passage sub v. Δρέπου).

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ὑπό: cp. with genitive prae or propter; cp. ὑπὸ δέους καὶ κακοῦ 1. 85, etc.

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δυσεντερίη: cp. Plato, Tim. 86 A διαρροἱας καὶ δυσεντερἱας καὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα νοσήματα πάντα παρέσχετο. Celsus de medicin. 4. 22 (15), quoted verbatim by Baehr, gives a full medical description of the symptoms and sufferings.

τοὺς δὲ καὶ νοσέοντας κτλ. Xerxes was at least more careful of the sick than his father had been beyond the Danube, according to the story 4. 135.

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ἵνα, locative; γίνοιτο, “optative of indefinite frequency,” Madvig § 133.

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μελεδαίνειν: an Ionic word; cp. 7. 31.

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ἐν Σίρι τῆς Παιονίης: to avoid confusion with Σῖρις ἡ ἐν Ἰταλίῃ c. 62 supra. Siris in Paionia, the chief town of the Siro- or Siriopaiones (Steph. B. sub v. Σῖρις), cp. 5. 15, was situate above Lake Prasias (5. 16), apparently mentioned by Livy 45. 4 Sirae oppidum terrae Odomanticae (Baehr ad 5. 15 suggests that it became ‘Odomantian’ after the removal of the Siro-paionians to Asia by Dareios). Now Seres, the centre of an important plain, or vale; cp. Hogarth, Nearer East, 89, 101; Reclus, Univ. Geogr. E.T. i. 112.

καὶ ἐν Μακεδονίῃ is strangely out of place, like an afterthought, a correction, a gloss. ἔνθα apparently refers to Siris. But cp. App. Crit.

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τὸ ἱρὸν ἅρμα: 7. 40 supra. The road west of Siris was presumably too rough. The fact has not been recorded on the outward journey. The two passages are so wholly independent of each other that the chariot-team here is composed of mares (νεμομένας), which there was composed of horses. (Cp. 7. 55 οἵ τε ἵπποι οἱ ἱροὶ καὶ τὸ ἅρμα τὸ ἱρόν, where the horses specified are of eourse the ten Nesaian, not the eight white horses of 7. 40.)

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τῶν περὶ τὰς πηγὰς τοῦ Στρυμόνος οἰκημένων. The sources of the Strymon (Struma) appears to have been in the territory of the Agrianes; cp. Strabo 331 (36) ὑπὲρ δὲ τῆς Ἀμφιπόλεως Βισάλται καὶ μέχρι πόλεως Ἡρακλείας, ἔχοντες αὐλῶνα εὔκαρπον, δν διαρρεῖ ο Στρυμών, ὡρμημένος ἐκ τῶν περὶ Ῥοδόπην Ἀγριανῶν . . οὐ μόνον δ᾽ ὁ Ἀξιὸς ἐκ Παιόνων ἔχει τὴν ῥύσιν, ἀλλὰ καὶ ὁ Στρυμών᾽ ἐξ Ἀγριάνων γὰρ διὰ Μαίδων καὶ Σιντῶν εἰς τὰ μεταξὺ Βισαλτῶν καὶ Ὀδομάντων ἐκπίπτει. The Agrianes appear to be regarded by Thucyd. (2. 98. 3) as Paionians, though subject (in 429 B C.) to the suzerainty of the Odrysian monarch.