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

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τοῦ δὲ Ἀλεξάνδρου τούτου ἕβδομος γενέτωρ. An excursus follows (cc. 137-139) on the origin of the Makedonian monarchy. That this story is given in these Books rather than in Bk. 5. 22, yea, actually there promised, is strong evidence in favour of the hypothesis that Bks 7, 8, 9 are of earlier composition; cp Introduction, §§ 7, 8: that it is given here rather than at 7. 173 is perhaps in favour of regarding that passage as of later insertion; cp. Introd. § 9.

The Makedonian pedigree could hold its own with the Achaimenid (7. 11 supra), to say nothing of its affiliation, through Temenos, with Herakles (cp. c. 139 infra). The ‘seven’ are reckoned inclusively, notwithstanding γενέτωρ (pro-genitor: an hapaxlegomenon in Hdt.).

Περδίκκης Did Alexander himself emphasize the founder's name by giving it to his own son and successor (c. 454 B.C.)? Is the legend, in its Herodotean form, older than the accession of Perdikkas II. (c. 454 B.C.)? See below. In any case Hdt. was hardly the first author to reduce it to writing, or even to prose: that had surely been done already at the Makedomian Court. Thucydides in 2. 99. 3 asserts the Argive and Temenid descent, in 2. 100. 2 gives the same number of kings (without the names), adding Perdikkas and Archelaos his own contemporaries; and in 5. 80 supphes a practical illustration of the force of the Argive claim (alliance in 417 B.C.). Another and perhaps later saga made Karanos (Καρανος), son or brother of Pheidon of Argos, found the dynasty, to be succeeded by Κοῖνος, Τυριμμας, Περδίκκας. This version was first given vogue by Theopompos; cp Vell. Pat. 1. 6. 5 Circa quod tempus (sc. Carthag. cond.) Caranus, vir generis regii, sextus decimus ab Hercule (?), profectus Argis, regnum Macedoniae occupavit a quo magnus Alexander quum fuerit septimus decimus, iure materni generis Achille auctore, paterni Hercule gloriatus est. Cp. Pompeius Trogus 7. 1. 7 ff., Theopompus Frag. 29, 30 (Mueller i. 283). A third variant was supplied by Euripides' Ἀρχέλαος, cp. Nauck1 p. 339, Hyginus Fab. 219 (quoted in full by Nauck and by Stein). This story was more romantic. Archelaos, a son of Temenos, exiled by his brethren, took refuge in Makedonia, and having won a victory for the king, demanded his promised reward (regnum et filiam): the king, however, sought his benefactor's life: the plot was betrayed: Archelaos took his would-be slayer in the pit prepared for him: inde profugit ex responso Apollinis in Macedoniam capra duce oppidumque ex nomine caprae Aegas constituit. As this story was obviously adopted by Euripides in compliment to the reigning Archelaos, so the version in Hdt. is probably a compliment to Perdikkas, devised on his accession (the precise circumstances of which are obscure; cp. Busolt, III. i. 558, ii. 792).

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τῶν Μακεδόνων τὴν τυραννίδα: the phrase is remarkable: had Hdt. not yet acquired his horror of the τυραννίς, or does he mean to condemn Perdikkas I. and his whole descent, or does he take the phrase over from his source, or does he design to prepare the way for the Spartan epigram (c. 142 infra), or does calling the Makedonian principality a tyranny assimilate it to Greek conditions, or is τυραννίς used here as it might be of the Lydian, or any foreign monarchy? Cp. 7. 52 supra.

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ἐξ Ἄργεος. There existed an Ἄργος Ὀρεστικόν in the Orestis (cp. Thuc. 2. 80. 6), a district round the sources of the Haliakmon, in Upper Makedonia; Strabo 326 reckons the Orestis to Epeiros, and records the foundation of this Argos by Orestes: obviously an etymological fallacy. Probably the Makedonian royal house had as little real connexion with Peloponnesian Argos as had Orestes with the Orestis in Upper Makedonia. ἐς Ἰλλυριούς perhaps gives the real ὅθεν ὁρμώμενοι. Cp. 1. 5 infra.

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Γαυάνης: Stein takes the name as = βουκόλος, cp. Sansk. gô = βοῦς, γῆ. If so, Hdt. has got the translations or interpretations just below in reverse order.

Ἀέροπος: the name appears in its Ionic form 9. 26 infra; the preservation of the proper form here will be due to the source. The name might perhaps be applicable to the herder of horses, ‘swift as air,’ but there was a mountain bordering on the Aous of that name, Livy 32. 5. 11, and Hesychios has the gloss Ἀέροπος, ἐν Μακεδονίᾳ γένος τι, an indication of the real significance of the three names as divisions of the Makedoman folk, or perhaps of the Ἀργεάδαι, Strabo 329 (cp. the tripartition of the Skyths 4. 5 etc.) (Stein). The name Aeropos as a proper name recurs, however, in the list of Makedonian kings in the fourth century B.C. Cp. c. 139.

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Περδίκκης: he looks after τὰ λεπτὰ τῶν προβάτων, a true shepherd, or goatherd. The expression suggests that Hdt. might use πρόβατα of larger animals; cp. 9. 93 infra.

ἐκ δὲ Ἰλλυριῶν ὑπερβαλόντες looks like a genuine reminiscence of the origin of the Makedonian Ἀργεάδαι. The route indicated would be over Mt. Skardos, presumably by the line of the later Egnatian Way. ὑπερβ. 7. 168 in a somewhat different sense.

ἐς τὴν ἄνω Μακεδονίην: cp. 7. 128. Λεβαίη is nowhere else mentioned, nor identifiable; a problem of the same order as Kritalla, 7. 26.

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ἐθήτευον ἐπὶ μισθῷ: Homeric (not to say feudal); cp. Od. 4. 644. The μισθός included board and lodging.

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παρὰ τῷ βασιλέι: Pausan. 9. 40. 8 gives his name as Κισσεύς. So too Hyginus (Euripides); cp. note, 1. 1 supra.

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ἡ δὲ γυνή: was the ἀρτοκόπος of Kroisos a queen, 1. 51? Hardly; the circumstances here are more primitive. Cp. the story of the Molossian queen, Thuc. 1. 136.

ἦσαν γὰρ ... χρήμασι: a note worthy of Thucydides' Archaiologia! The use of αἱ τυραννίδες after βασιλεύς (bis) is significant; cp. 1. 2 supra. For textual critique cp. App. Crit. Does the note explain why the queen was cook, or why the herds were provided for in the house (or both)? The story is all in one genre, making it easier for the herd to turn king, that he has had a queen a-baking for him. Blakesley cites Nausikaa a-washing (Od. 6) and the brothers of Andromache tending herds. Il. 6. 422. Cp. Psalm 78, elegit David servum suum et sustulit eum de gregibus ovium.

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ὁ ἄρτος ... διπλήσιος ... αὐτὸς ἑωυτοῦ, ‘the loaf of the laddie became twice its own proper size.’ The ‘double portion’ was a portent (τέρας) indicating kingship; cp. 6. 57, 7. 103. διπλήσιος is treated as a comparative; cp. also 2 25.

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φέροι μέγα τι: of great significance, portentous.

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οὕτω: i.e. ἀπολαβόντες: they declined to depart until they had received their wages; the nominatives δίκαιοι . . ἀπολαβόντες are nicely idiomatic. κατά, ‘down.’

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καπνοδόκη: cp. 4. 103, probably a simple aperture in the roof, or dome. The construction of the Balkan house or palace is in question! It had only a clay floor. Was it more than a domed hut?

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ἐσέχων, ‘streaming in,’ yet not quite like one river into another, as in 1. 193, nor as a canal into a sea, 2. 158, nor as a bay of the sea into the land, 2. 11. But cp. ἀρυσάμενος infra.

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ἐτύγχανε ... ἔχων μάχαιραν: how did he come by it? If the truth were told, probably this μάχαιρα had a good deal to say to the sequel! Was it of iron? Was it a claymore? Or merely a serving man's dirk?

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δεκόμεθα ὦ βασιλεῦ τὰ διδοῖς: exactly the same motif appears in the anecdote, c. 114 supra; and with the corresponding motifs οἵας ἐκείνοισι πρέπει, ὑμέων ἄξιον.

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τρὶς ἀρυσάμενος, 6. 119, as though it had been water, a symbolical action, repeated, symbolically, thrice: for ‘three’ and its multiples are significant numbers; cp. 1. 86, 5 105, and countless illustrations in all literatures, rituals, games and formulae.