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

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Αἴγιναν: a relatively advanced post, which would have left Salamis exposed, if all the Greek ships had been taken so far; we may reasonably doubt whether Salamis was thus exposed during the reoccupation of Attica. 110 ships would not account even for the Athenian fleet.

Ἰώνων ἄγγελοι=πρέσβεις Ἰ. (cp. 7. 1 supra): six in number; see below. The genitive is observable; they were apparently all Chians, but they act in the general interest, and with authority, for they demand the liberation of ‘Ionia.’ The story is curious and probably incomplete.

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ὀλίγῳ πρότερον τούτων: the chronological indication leaves something to be desired, but suggests the winter or spring of 480-79, and even a point after the rendezvous of the fleet at Aigina.

ἐδέοντο: Stein remarks on this as a surprising use of the imperfect; but explains it (in a note on ἐφέροντο 1. 66) by two considerations: (a) the extremely free use made of the imperfect by Hdt. (wie wohl kein anderer Autor), not so much with strict temporal reference, as with regard to the importance or energy of the action; (b) and especially in relative or secondary sentences, where it is freely so used without regard to the temporal relation of the verb to the main sentence and its predicate. As a specially characteristic case he cites 5. 21 καὶ οὗτοι ... διεφθάρησαν ... εἵπετο γάρ κτλ. (a passage in which immediately afterwards the pl. p. ἠφάνιστο occurs); cp. also 7. 195 ἦγε, etc.

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Ἡρόδοτος ὁ Βασιληίδεω. Baehr approves Dahlmann's supposition that the author would not have named his namesake unless they had also been relatives; but surely the coincidence in their names (and their fortunes, each opposing the ‘tyrannis’ in his native place) might be reason enough. Herodotos, son of Basileides, the Chian, is not otherwise known to fame. Baehr, vol. iv. p. 401 ff., has compiled a list of about a score of men bearing the name of Herodotos, the majority late - comers. Cp. also Pape-Benseler. The Chian, and the Theban for whom Pindar wrote Isthm. 1, are the only ones contemporary with or prior to our author. (An old Chian inscrip., however, has Ἀθηναγόρης Ἡροδότου C.I.An. 382, Stein.) Basileides, too, is a not uncommon name attested for Athens, Kos, Rhodes, etc. PapeBenseler, i. 199 sub v.

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στασιῶται σφίσι γενόμενοι: σφίσι = ἀλλήλοις. Stein takes the phrase as implying that the conspirators came together from various cities (or townships), six or seven of which can just be discovered in Chios; cp. Forbiger, Alt. Geogr. ii. 199 (Chios, Delphinion, Bolissos, Kaukasa, Polichne, Leukonion, ‘the Hollows’): but why should not all the cabal have been resident in the capital? For the figure ‘seven’ there was high precedent; cp 3. 70.

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Στράττι. A Strattis is named in 4. 138 as one of the Ionian ‘tyrants’ on the Danube in 512 B.C., i.e. 33 years or so before the date here reached: is this the same man, or his descendant? And at what date was the plot actually hatched? ἀρχήν, as in c. 128 supra.

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ἐξενείκαντος τὴν ἐπιχείρησιν: one of the participants published, or betrayed, the plot; for this meaning of ἐκφέρ̀ειν cp. 3. 71, 74.

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ὑπεξέσχον, as in 5. 72, ‘made their way out secretly.’

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καὶ δὴ καί, a phrase perhaps not so common in these Books; cp. c. 134. 4.

τότε seems to separate somewhat the visit to Aigina from the visit to Sparta; otherwise it might be supposed that they had been referred by the home government to the King Navarch at Aigina.

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προήγαγον αὐτοὺς μόγις μέχρι Δήλου, ‘with difficulty the Ionian ambassadors persuaded the Hellenic admirals to move forwards as far as Delos.’ There follows the motivation, or rationale, of this reluctance in the form of two reasons: first, ignorance of the topography, a point further emphasized by the remark upon Samos and the pillars of Herakles; and secondly, apprehension of encountering resistance, that is, of course, in the shape of the Persian fleet Hdt. does not suggest that the naval movements were in any degree dependent on the operations of Mardonios and the Persian forces behind them in Greece. In his scheme of presenting the facts Mardonios has not yet been brought into Central Greece, but is wintering in Thessaly. Literary methods here help to obscure the real sequence and nexus of events.

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τὴν δὲ Σάμον ἐπιστέατο δόξῃ καὶ Ἡρακλέας στήλας ἴσον ἀπέχειν. At Delos they were considerably more than half-way from Aigina to Samos. This is the only passage in these Books in which ‘the Herakleian Pillars’ are mentioned: indeed, save for the mention of them in 2. 33, they are only mentioned in Bk. 4 (and therein seven times, cc. 8, 43, 152, 181, 185, 196), a striking illustration of the ‘Western’ interest in that Book The form of the designation in Hdt. is always adjectival (never Ἡρακλέος στῆλαι, as in Strabo 169), and the passages cited leave no room for doubt as to its geographical significance (=straits of Gibraltar), but Hdt. nowhere indicates exactly what he understands by the phrase. His contemporary Euktemon, of Athens, apparently understood the expression to apply to two Islands, 30 stades distant from each other, covered with wood, and inaccessible for large vessels, and each provided with a temple and an altar of Herakles: Euktemon ap. Avienum, Or. maritim. ed. A. Holder (cp. Berger, Gesch. d. Wissensch. Erdkunde, ii. 67). Pomponius Mela (temp. Claudii), a native of the region, considered the Pillars, or Columns, to be the two mountains, Calpe (Gibraltar) and Abyla (Ἀβίλυκα. Strabo 170: Ceuta), rising on the European and African side of the straits respectively (2 6. 96: cp. Bunbury, Anc. Geogr. 11. 358). Poseidonios, however, his predecessor, who spent a considerable time at Gades (Strabo 174), believed that the Pillars were literally Pillars, to wit, the bronze Pillars 8 cubits (12 feet) high in the Herakleion at Gades; cp. Strabo 170, where the various alternatives (including that afterwards favoured by Mela) are set out and discussed, Strabo himself finally inclining to the metaphorical meaning (but not deciding between ‘islands’ and ‘mountains’). Our clearer knowledge of the early import ance of Pillar-worship (cp. A. J. Evans, Mycenaean Tree and Pillar Cult, 1901), and its undoubted association with the Tyrian Herakles (cp. Hdt. 2. 44) might incline us to take the western ‘Pillars of Herakles’ as really marking the limits of Phoenician navigation, and the metaphorical application as an afterthought; but such phrases as δἰ Ἡρακλέων στηλέων ἐκπλέειν, διεκπερᾶν (4. 42, 43, 152) suggest that Hdt. uses the phrase with the metaphorical reference, and would have set the pillars either side the strait. The statement that “the Greeks at Delos (in 479 B.C.) believed (ἐπιστέατο δόξῃ, an interesting collocation) Samos as far off (ἀπέχειν, cp. 9. 52 infra) as Gades” is characterized by Rawlinson as “perhaps the grossest instance in Hdt. of rhetorical exaggeration” (5. 97 runs it close). But it should not be put down primarily to Hdt., least of all with the object, “by an imaginary effect of contrast, to place in a more striking light the rapid increase during his own time of nautical power and enterprise among his European fellow-countrymen” (Mure, quoted by Blakesley ad l.). Nor is it to be treated (so by Blakesley himself) as a serious record of real matter of fact, or feeling, explicable by the evil associations which had gathered at Sparta round “the voyage to Samos” (cp. 3. 56). The case is really much simpler. The phrase reproduces the impatience of Hdt.'s Ionian source with the cautious policy of the Spartan navarch (for which there were good grounds enough); or perhaps it even reflects the scornful witticisms of a period, the Pentekontaeteris, when Athenian policy had practically made the Aegean a mare clausum to Peloponnesian longships. At Delos the Hellenic fleet was in sight of Samos on a clear day, and before very long, in this very same year, crossed boldly to that bourne (9. 90 ff.) Hdt.'s device of projecting this account of the naval movement into the record of the previous winter and early spring has softened the inconsequence. What kept the Greek fleet at Delos was, first, that they demanded further assurances from the Ionians, and secondly, that they had to consider the situation behind them in Greece. Cp. Appendix IV. § 9, VII. § 7.

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συνέπιπτε ... ὥστε: cp. c. 15 supra; there of a strictly formal coincidence, here of a rather more material one.

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καταπλῶσαι Stein regards as a slip on a copyist's part for ἀναπλῶσαι, cp. καταπλῶσαι ἐς τὴν Ἰωνίην just above, but καταπλῶσαι would then need to be supplied with κατωτέρω Δήλου, so the passage is not quite precisely composed; hence van Herwerden's suggestion is preferable; cp. App. Crit.

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χρηιζόντων Χίων: the six Chians had presented themselves at Sparta, at Aigina, as Ἰώνων ἄγγελοι, but they were really or primarily mere στασιῶται, and their credentials may have been incomplete: the fleet advances on the advent of a Samian embassy, 9. 90 infra.

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τὸ μέσον, ‘the intervening space,’ i.e. mutual fear kept them apart. Cp. 7. 11 supra.