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

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οὗτοι οἱ λόγοι can only refer to the short reply, of less than three lines, just preceding; perhaps that is to be regarded only as a summary of a longer reply, or speeches: ἀνηνείχθησαν, were ‘reported.’

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κεχολωμένοι: no doubt specifically by the title of ‘traitors’ just flung at them. Hdt. is rich in terms for the Thessalo-Phokian feud: ἔχοντες αἰεὶ χόλον c. 27, ἔχοντες ἔγκοτον c. 29, τὸ ἔχθος c. 30.

ἡγεμόνες ... τῆς ὁδοῦ: cp. 7. 197 οἱ κατηγεμόνες τῆς ὁδοῦ, where ὁδός is abstract, or conceptual.

τῷ βαρβάρῳ: sc. τῷ βασιλέι, or τοῖς Πέρσῃσι.

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ἐκ μὲν δὴ τῆς Τρηχινίης ἐς τὴν Δωρίδα: one of the most luminous hints in the record. The term clearly implies and only applies to a pass west of and at right angles to Thermopylai, and roughly parallel to τῇ ἐσβολῇ ἣ ἐστὶ κατὰ Ὑάμπολιν mentioned up above incidentally, c. 28. This western pass (running north and south) led over from the plain of the Spercheios and the Asopos to the upper plain of the Kephisos, and so to Delphi, and further. It has been identified above, 7. 176, notes, with ἡ διὰ Τρηχῖνος ἔσοδος ἐς τὴν Ἑλλάδα, a formula which Hdt. himself apparently (mis)applies to Thermopylai. However that may be, in the present context Hdt. undoubtedly carries the whole Persian land-forces by this route, and by this route alone, from the banks of the Spercheios to the banks of the Kephisos. That is a manifestly absurd proceeding. One Persian column, of course, marched by Thermopylai, Kleonai, Hyampolis, and so forth. But what we have here to be thankful for is the clear indication that another column (probably more lightly equipped) made its way direct from Trachis into Doris. The cavalry may all have passed by the easier route to Hyampolis (cp. the Thessalian case c. 28 supra). There is no clear indication of the continued tripartition of the Persian forces (unless c. 34 contains it obscurely), but probably the system was maintained (unless one whole corps d'armée had remained behind in Makedon and Thrace). Perhaps while one column crossed by the Asopos gorge or Trachinian pass, and another followed the coast-route and then turned inland to Hyampolis, a third may have made its way across the hills, between the two, by the modern Boudonitza—then, as now, a sufficiently easy route (as I found to my own satisfaction in 1899).

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τῆς γὰρ Δωρίδος χώρης ποδεὼν στεινὸς ταύτῃ κατατείνει, ‘for there is a narrow neck, or strip, of the Dorian land (Doris) stretching down in this quarter’—to the vale of the Kephisos. Hdt. appears to give an extension to ‘Doris’ which would make it include not merely the higher ground of the Dorian tetrapolis but the head streams of the upper Kephisos valley. K. O. Mueller, Orchomenos2 (1844) p. 486, observes that Pindos (= Dorion, Aischin. de f. L. 286. 2), Boron, Kytinion, Erineon formed the Dorian tetrapolis, properly so called: Lilaia, Karphaia (= Skarphaia), and Dryope, “if there ever was a town of this name,” were ‘Dorian’ in 480 B.C. (Schol. Pindar Pyth. 1. 121, Tzetz. Lyk. 980), and constitute the στεινὸς ποδεών here described. For ποδεών cp. 2. 121. Stein remarks that the forms Δρυοπαῖος, Δρυπαῖος on Delphian inscripp. implies a township Δρυόπη.

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ἥ περ ἦν τὸ παλαιὸν Δρυοπίς. These words must refer to the whole Δωρὶς χώρη, and have the air of a gloss, which has crept into the text, and at an awkward place: in any case they should follow the Δωρίδος χώρης and not the Φωκίδος χώρης. Cp. c. 43 infra.

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μητρόπολις Δωριέων τῶν ἐν Πελοποννήσῳ: a memorable note, marking Dryopis-Doris as the last station in the chart of the Dorian wandering before the invasion of the Peloponnesos and ‘the return of the Herakleidai’; cp. c. 43 infra. Whether Hdt. is right in bringing all the Dorians in the Peloponnesos from this ‘metropolis’ (and apparently by one route? at one time?) is a further question, or group of questions, too large to discuss here in a note. It seems, however, that the Legend of the Return lay completely developed before Hdt.; cp. 9. 26 infra. The fact that the name of the Dorians attaches itself to this Dryopis, and to this place alone on the whole map of Greece, is at least proof of a genuinely Dorian character in the folk of that place. In 457 B.C. the Phokiaus invaded “Δωριᾶς τὴν Λακεδαιμονίων μητρόπολιν Βοιὸν καὶ Κυτίνιον καὶ Ἐρινεόν” Thuc. 1. 107. 2, and in 426 B.C. ξυνεπρεσβεύοντο δὲ αὐτοῖς (sc. Τραχινίοις) “καὶ Δωριῆς ἡ μητρόπολις τῶν Λακεδαιμονίων” Thuc. 3. 92. 3. This application led to the foundation of Herakleia, the fortress which eommanded the road from Trachis into Doris, used by the Persians in 480 B.C. In Amphiktyonic inscripp. the official title of these Dorians is Δωριεῖς οἱ ἐκ τῆς Μητροπόλεως, Buergel, Amphictyonie (1887) p. 29.

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οὐκ ἐσίναντο ἐσβαλόντες, ‘they entered it, but they did it no harm,’ for two reasons: (1) the Dorians ‘medized,’ (2) the Thessalians disapproved. This patronage or prostasia of Thessaly over Doris challenges observation.