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τρίτῃ δὲ ἡμέρῃ, ‘on the third day’ (say Tuesday); the article omitted with the ordinal. δεινὸν ποιέεσθαι: cp. 7. 1. τι, if correct, aggravates δεινόν. οἱ στρατηγοί: Achaimenes, Ariabignes, Prexaspes, Megabazos; cp. 7. 97, 236. But who was in command of the flying squadron?
τὸ ἀπὸ Ξέρξεω: an admirable vagueness invests the phrase with all the more serious possibilities. But they were probably acting under the king's orders.
ἔτι: any further, as on the two days previous, when the Greeks had been left to take the initiative; a fact which supports the view that the real assault on Thermopylai was postponed till ‘the third day’; and that the two engagements at sea, on the first and on the second afternoons, were httle more than manœuvres, by which the Greeks out off straggling or helated squadrons of the Persian fleet. With the news of the wreck of the 200 vessels off Euboia the Persian admirals were driven to attempt a frontal attack. They opened, about the time when Hydarnes was descending the mountain, upon ‘the Middle Gate’ at Thermopylai; cp. 7. 225.
On μέσον ἡμέρης cp. c. 23 infra.
συνέπιπτε δὲ ὥστε κτλ. Hdt. apparently treats this essential synchronism as purely fortuitous. He follows up this oversight by the misconception that the whole and sole object of the Greek fleet was to defend the Euripos, as that of Leonidas to hold the pass. Every one can now see that the Greeks at Artemision were covering Leonidas, and that Leonidas was making it possible, yea, necessary, for the fleet to remain at Artemision. On which of the two correlated points the Greeks desired the more stress to be laid is a further question. less easy of solution; perhaps they were not quite at one on this matter. So much is clear, that a really decisive victory off Artemision might have saved Thermopylai and Athens to boot. On the first two days, according to their own account, the Greek sea-dogs assumed the offensive (though late in the afternoon!), and won two victories; but on the third day, when the Persian admirals are earlier on the move, it is the turn of the Greeks ἀτρέμας ἔχειν. The manœuvres of this day reproduce to a great extent the manœuvres reported c. 11 supra of the first engagement (ναυμαχίη καρτέρη), or, more probably, the really severe engagement on the third day has been discounted and transferred, in maiorem gloriam Atheniensium, to the first.
παρεκελεύοντο: there is a παρακέλευσις on each side, marking this day's engagement as the climax and the chief battle. Is a set speech (παραίνεσις) or mere casual exhortation to be understood? ὅκως μὴ παρήσουσι seems rather to introduce the purpose or result of the appeals than their actual contents or substance, which the infinitive (with out the final conjunction) might express; cp. App. Crit. Most MSS. have κρατήσωσι infra.
τοῦ πόρου here clearly means the actual waterway; cp. 7. 36.
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