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εὐφρόνη: cp. c. 6 supra; the word appears to be used without any eulogistic intention. The pluperfect, ἐγεγόνεε, is used perhaps to avoid clashing with ἐγίνετο just below. ἦν μέν, ‘though the season (ὥρη) was midsummer, yet’ (δέ). With the date cp. 7. 206. ἄπλετος, as in 1. 14 (χρυσός), 4. 53 (ἅλες), 6. 58 (οἰμωγή), etc., ‘boundless,’ ‘no end of,’ ‘galore.’ σκληραί (bis) of the βρονταί denotes perhaps the sharp rattle of thunder in close proximity; L. & S. cp. Vergil's “aridus fragor,” G. i. 357 f.
ἀπὸ τοῦ Πηλίου: i.e. from the north, behind them, the scene of the great storm in Bk. 7. 188 ff., if, indeed, the two storms be not all one. But is the phrase here purely locative or quite void of a suggestion of causality and generation? (Cp. τὸ ἀπὸ Ξέρξου c. 15 infra.） τὰ ναυήγια: are these wrecks, with the corpses, the product of the storm itself or of the antecedent battle? ἐξεφέροντο ἐς τὰς Ἀφέτας. The wreckage and corpses were thrown ashore on the strand at Aphetai: how was that, if the storm was from Pelion<*> Was it the result of the tide and the current, or were they carried by a wind moving against the thunderstorm? In any case it is hardly safe to press this statement into a proof that there was a great storm from the south immediately in succession to the three days' storm from the north, or north-east (in Bk. 7), a somewhat improbable sequence. Hdt. says nothing here about the wind, which first makes its appearance on the ‘high sea,’ in the next chapter, as though the men at Aphetai had not been exposed to it. In this chapter what the Persians suffer from is rain, thunders (and lightnings), and all that at night. The ships apparently were not beached but in the water, otherwise the corpses could hardly have been rolling over round the prows (which slowly move through the mass of wreckage and dead bodies), much less have been interfering with the blades of the oars (τοὺς ταρσοὺς τῶν κωπέων). This description, indeed, suggests rather the position off the Magnesian coast, where the ships spent the night at sea, than the situation at Aphetai, to which the Persians have retired in the previous chapter.
οἱ δὲ στρατιῶται οἱ ταύτῃ: a rather mysterious designation: who are ‘the soldiers, or fighting men, in the place’? Are they the epibatai of the fleet? Are they the Persians in Malis? Are they a corps of Persians still in Thessaly, and in more immediate touch with the fleet? Whoever they are, they seem to be ashore, while the ships and the oarsmen are still afloat.
ἀκούοντες ταῦτα: hearing what? news of the disaster? Or, more directly, the thunder and the rain? the wreckage and the corpses? Or is ἀκούοντες used (like ταῦτα) in a vaguer and more extended reference = perceiving? The disappointment of the day (πολλὸν παρὰ δόξαν ἀγωνισάμενοι c. 11) is followed by a scare, a panic, at night, when they expect (ἐλπίζοντες) to be destroyed utterly, ὅτι ἐς τοιαῦτα κακὰ ἧκον, such was the evil plight which had befallen them.
ἀναπνεῦσαι, to recover breath. ἐκ, out of, after. The attitude here indicated is hardly consistent with the ideas and expectations ascribed to them in c. 10 supra.
ὑπέλαβε ναυμαχίη καρτερή: so much for the Greek experiment of c. 9. The ἀπόπειρα has become a ν. καρτερή, ὑπολαβεῖν, to succeed, to come on, to overtake, generally of disasters; cp. 6. 27 (bis: λοιμός: ναυμαχίη).
ὁρμημένα is noticeable, the verb being seldom used in a really passive sense, or of merely inanimate objects.
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