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

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οἱ δὲ βοηθήσαντες ... πανδημί: evidently some great eredit is taken for this βοήθεια: in six lines the title or term is used thriee, the effort is emphasized (πανδημί), the eomplete list of folks represented in the muster is given nominatim, the rest of the Peloponnesians are stigmatized for their indifference. Yet, in truth, what the Spartans and their allies deserved was a severe eensure for broken pledges, and the selfish abandonment of Attiea. This Isthmian wall was no credit to the Peloponnesians, and hardly eonsistent with Spartan principles (though they had used the wall at Thermopylai likewise, 7. 176 supra). The levy for Plataia was also πανδημί, i.e. the twothirds, or all save οἱ πρεσβύτεροι and οἱ νεώτεροι, and the figures for Plataia would give a total here of not less than 22,000 hoplites, while, of course, large masses of ψιλοί and of slaves would have been employed upon the actual building.

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Λακεδαιμόνιοι. It is perhaps not to be assumed that Sparta sent as many men to the Isthmos in 480 B.C. as to Plataia in 479 B.C. (supposing the figures for the latter to be correct, 9. 28).

Ἀρκάδες πάντες. Tegea, Mantineia, Orchomenos would certainly be included—and probably other places. The phrase is remarkable, as though relative to a κοινὸν τῶν Ἀρκάδων. At Thermopylai the Arcadians are represented by 2120 men, 7. 202. But what of the medizers, c. 26 supra?

Ἠλεῖοι: no figure is given for their contingent at Plataia; cp. 9. 77 infra. They could number at least 1000 hoplites.

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Κορίνθιοι, if they sent 5000 to Plataia, might certainly send 5000 to the Isthmos, though they have a squadron at Salamis, and had only sent 400 to Thermopylai; 7. 202.

Σικυώνιοι had at least fifteen ships at Salamis (cp. c. 43 supra), and sent 3000 hoplites to Plataia.

Ἐπιδαύριοι—like Korinth represented at Salamis, and by ten ships— sent but 800 hoplites to Plataia.

Φλειάσιοι have a Chiliad at Plataia in 479 B.C., but only 200 at Thermopylai, 7. 202 supra, and are unrepresented at Salamis.

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Τροιζήνιοι have five ships at Salamis, and send 1000 men to Plataia next year.

Ἑρμιονέες have three ships at Salamis, and were to send 300 hoplites to Plataia.

This list of nine states named as sending contingents to the Isthmos is curious, and not on the face of it authoritative. The figures for each contingent are left to be inferred or conjectured; and, what is worse, there may be omissions in it. Were not the Megarians too, who had twenty ships at Salamis, and sent 3000 hoplites to Plataia in 479 B.C., also behind the wall? The order in which the contingents are named is odd, the Phleiasians at least curiously breaking into the geographical continuity.

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καὶ ὑπεραρρωδέοντες: i.e. they are more afraid even than their fellowcitizens at Salamis For themselves— or for the fleet? Only the latter would be to their credit: the fate of Hellas hung on the fleet. If so, the βοήθεια at the Isthmos must be conceived as intended to co-operate with the fleet: perhaps Kleombrotos is counting on the fleet falling back on the Isthmos.

τοῖσι δὲ ἄλ. Π. ἔμελε οὐδέν: a sentence which obviously betrays the apologetic purpose of the passage; it must be false, so far as the list is incomplete, and it is hardly likely to have been strictly true in auy case—even of Argos, etc.

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Ὀλύμπια ... Κάρνεια ... ἤδη appears to be a clear reference back to 7 206 supra, and a reference of a kind which could occur only in a work intended for a reading public. The passing of the festivals sets the Peloponnesians free to occupy the Isthmos πανδημί. But the story has advanced long past the Olympia: the ‘night’ in c. 70 supra is the night of Boedromion 20. One might perhaps suppose with safety that as soon as the Olympia were over, certainly as soon as the news of the end of Leonidas reached Sparta, the move to the Isthmos was made—if, indeed, it was not rather a halt of the forces which were on their way into Central Greece, to support Leonidas (cp. 7. 203 supra), or to cover Attica (c. 40 supra).