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εἴρηται δέ μοι καὶ ὡς. As the reference is to the immediate context, and as ὡς appears to be used in a doubtful sense, this whole sentence is naturally suspect. The verb παρείχοντο, too, is unfortunate, repeated, as it is, just below. Yet the μοι makes for authenticity, and there is a sufficient reason for the introduction of the senteuce, the purpose of which is evidently to justify the order in which the ethnic names have been given, as corresponding to the relative strength of the respective contingents. A. G. Laird in Class. Rev. xviii. 1904, 97 ff. suggests, on the analogy of an Ionic inscription circa 400 B.C., that Hdt. might have intended εἴρηται ( = εἰρέαται) as a plural; a corruptela might seem the simpler alternative. The difficulty in the sentence appears to arise less from the use of ὡς to signify the order of the list than from the presence of καί and τό (πλῆθος). The sentence would certainly be easier if it ran εἰρέαται δέ μοι ὡς καὶ (τὸ) πλῆθος ἕκαστοι (τῶν) νεῶν παρείχοντο. The article, however, may be referred in the first place to the particular contingents, taken severally, and in the second place to the total fleet; but the words καὶ ὡς, especially in that order, appear suspicious.
ἀριθμός. The total 271 agrees with the items. Diodoros 11. 12 gives 280 as the total, including, apparently, the 9 pentekonters.
πάρεξ τῶν πεντηκοντέρων. It is apparently to be understood that the only pentekonters were the two from Keos and the seven from Opuntian Lokris enumerated above. There were some still smaller and lighter boats in commission (cp. c. 21 infra), though not included in the navy-list.
τὸν δὲ στρατηγόν. Each of the distinct contingents enumerated above was presumably under an enchorial strategos: the process, by which the Spartan navarch (ὁ Λάκων) came to be commander-in-chief of the whole fleet, is not quite clearly exhibited by Hdt. The aorist (ἔφασαν) may here have temporally the force of a pluperfect, and the next chapter, not to say the very necessities of the case, will show that the question of the hegemony by sea and by land had been raised and determined before any operations at all were undertaken, probably at the Isthmus in the previous year. Cp. further Appendix III. § 5, and c. 3 infra.
Σπαρτιῆται: the navarch was probably elected in the Spartan Apella to hold office for a year, beginning about the autuinnal equinox (cp. Thuc 5. 36. 1). Though ‘Eurybrades son of Eurykleides’ is the first Spartan navarch whose name has reached us, we are not justified in assuming that the office itself came into existence for and with him. It may have been of long standing, though of little importance, before the Persian war (cp. 3. 39). Eurybiades was not (perhaps) elected in view of the Persian war, but in the ordinary course of business; he is credited, by tradition, with little aptitude for the post, and in the two ensuing naval campaigns the command is entrusted to men of royal standing, Leotychidas, Pausanias.
ἢν μὴ ὁ Λάκων ἡγεμονεύῃ: this sentence, or else the words Ἀθηναίοισι ἡγεομένοισι, may be regarded as superfluous; the two conjoined are, indeed, logically inconsistent. What the allies declared was that (a) they would abandon the whole undertaking if the Athemans were to have the leading, (b) that they would join in the undertaking if the Spartans had the lead. Two further points may be remarked. (i.) The question of leading is not necessarily confined to the naval operations; τὸ μέλλον ἔσεσθαι στράτευμα has a more extended reference, actual or potential. (ii.) That being so ὁ Λάκων need not be referred specifically to Eurybiades, or even to the Spartan navarch (whoever he was, or was to be), but should be taken to refer generally to ‘the Lakonian,’ the man of Lakedaimon.
λύσειν τὸ μέλλον ἔσεσθαι στράτευμα: the two-fold, if not triple, future must place the declaration of the Symmachoi well before the despatch of the forces to Thermopylai-Artemision. στράτευμα is used by Hdt. both for ‘expedition’ (e.g. 3. 49 = στρατεία) and ‘forces’ (= στρατός 7. 48). Whichever sense be here preferred, the application need not, and indeed cannot, be restricted to the navy, for the defence of Thermopylai and Artemision is a single undertaking, a single plan.
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