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

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νόῳ δὲ λαβών: the dative may be ‘instrumental’ or even ‘locative’; the verb, which denotes physical action (9. 22, 119 etc.), may also denote a psychological act; cp. 9. 10 (6. 137, 4. 79).

ὁ Θεμιστοκλέης. The article may be taken to refer back to the occurrence of the name in c. 4 supra; cp. also c. 5. This fresh anecdote is less discreditable but hardly more credible, at least in its details and surroundings, than the other. Themistokles here assumes an initiative which belongs to Eurybiades (cp. c. 2 supra). Moreover, he summons the Strategoi to a council, when a council is already sitting (ἐβούλευον just above, cp. c 21 infra). Further, he treats the question of retreat as settled, though that is just the question at issue—or rather, we may say, though Themistokles eannot have dreamt of retreat, so long as Leonidas held out; nor is it likely that Eurybiades and the Peloponnesian admirals committed themselves blindly to Themistokles. In the speech put into the Athenian's month two or three different devices with different objects are confusedly combined, and there is a suggestion of deceit and unscrupulousness imparted to the words and acts of Themistokles, quite in the style of the partisan legend. But that there is something historical at the back of this anecdote is likely enough. After retreat became inevitable, Themistokles and the Athenians perhaps volunteered, or were detailed, to cover the retreat (cp. c. 21). All along Themistokles (and the Athenians) will have been hoping and planning to detach the Ionians from the king's forces, perbaps to foment a new Ioman ‘Revolt’; and Themistokles may have made or left appeals, addressed to the Ionians, behind him at Artemision (cp. c. 22 infra) The treatment of the Euboians and their flocks requires no justification; but the fires were not, we may suppose, merely sacrificial or culinary, but intended to deceive the Persians into the belief that the Greeks were still encamped at Artemision long after they had cleared out: a common stratagem (cp. Livy 22. 43. 6).

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τοῦ βαρβάρου Baehr takes as masculine, and refers to the king; Stein, more subtly, as neuter, while admitting that the Attic form would be βαρβαρικοῦ, which is actually read; cp. App. Crit.

τό τε Ἰωνικὸν [φῦλον] καὶ τὸ Καρικόν: including doubtless the Dorians in Karia, and the neighbouring islands, whom, however, Hdt. does not specify. When Themistokles is represented as calling the Ionio-Karian contingent τῶν βασιλέος συμμάχων τοὺς ἀρίστους, he is made to use language which represents neither the Persian nor the Herodotean view; cp. below.

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τῶν λοιπῶν κατύπερθε γενέσθαι: the two latter words = κρατῆσαι, cp. cc. 60, 75, 136 etc. The Greek contingents in the Persian fleet amounted all told to some 400 (407) vessels, according to the navy-list in Bk. 7. 89 ff.; the IonioKarian (+ Dorian) in the stricter sense to exactly 200. Ariabignes was admiral of this squadron, but whether the IonioKarian division strictly corresponded to its title may be questioned. In either case the detachment of these contingents, especially after the losses of the king's fleet in the storm, or storms, would be a very serious blow. Baehr maintains that ἄν is not necessary in this apodosis.

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ἐλαυνόντων τῶν Εὐβοέων πρόβατα, as usual; but what the practice, or the phrase, has to say to the context here is anything but obvious. The fate of the sheep has nothing to do with the Ionian question, or the device for detaching the Ionians from the king's fleet. Is it possible that the whole line is a mere gloss, which has made its way into the text, and at an absurd point? It would come in more logically after ἔλεγέ σφι ὼς below, or after ἔλεγε in 1. 8.

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συλλέξας τοὺς στρατηγούς: Themistokles could not do that; and they were already collected in council. Hdt. has apparently ‘contaminated’ two or three different anecdotes: (1) the appeal to the Ionians; (2) the provisioning of the fleet at the expense of the Euboians; (3) the ruse by which the Persians were led to believe that the Greek fleet was still at its moorings, and the soldiers still ashore at Artemision.

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παλάμην = τέχνην, Suidas sub v. The word is Homeric, but not in that meaning, which is, however, frequent in Pindar; e.g. Ol. 13. 52 Σίσυφον μὲν πυκνότατον παλάμαις ὡς θεόν. Cp. Aristophanes, Wasps 644 f. δεῖ δέ δε παντοίας πλέκειν εἰς ἀπόφυξιν παλάμας. The word is especially appropriate on the lips of Themistokles, a veritable Palamedes.

συμμάχων ... τοὺς ἀρίστους: they are involuntary σύμμαχοι, but the word is used, perhaps, less in the derivative sense, of allies, than in the literal sense, of co-fighters; ‘the most valiant’ they could scarce be truly called among the king's fighting men (have not the Egyptians just gained the Aristeia? c. 17 supra); perhaps there is a slight Herodotean irony in the use of the term here.

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ἐς τοσοῦτο παρεγύμνου, ‘so much, and no more, he revealed’ of his plan; cp. 5. 50, 7. 99. With παρεγύμνου cp. 1. 126 ὁ Κῦρος παρεγύμνου τὸν πάντα λόγον.

ἐπὶ τοῖσι κατήκουσι πρήγμασι: pro praesenti rerum statu, Baehr. Cp. 5. 49.

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καταθύειν: no doubt the sacrifice was to be followed by a feast; the animals were to be eaten by the fleet. Themistokles did not expect his men to fight on an empty stomach.

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παραίνεέ τε ... πυρὰ ἀνακαίειν: there seems to be some confusion between the fires for burning, or roasting, the meat, and fires left burning, after the retreat of the Greeks, in order to deceive the enemy. It is not likely that the Greeks postponed seizing the sheep until the moment of their departure.

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κομιδῆς δὲ πέρι: this sentence treats the resolution to retreat as already taken, at least by Themistokles. It could not have been so, before the disaster at Thermopylai was known.

τὴν ὥρην: cp. c. 14 supra.