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

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Θεμιστοκλέης ὡς ἑσσοῦτο τῇ γνώμῃ: a strange phrase to be used of Themistokles! cp. 9. 122 infra. Themistokles surely had much the best of the argnment, cp. c. 60 supra; and he is backed by the Aiginetaus and Megarians. The phrase is, iudeed, a concession to the necessities of the false tradition, which represents the Peloponnesians as resolved, at all costs, to abandou Salamis. But ἑσσοῦτο (i.q. ἡσσᾶτο) is of course imperfect, and therefore, perhaps, not quite conclusive.

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λαθὼν ἐξέρχεται ἐκ τ. συνεδρίου. This is plainly a meeting of the Strategoi (cp. c. 78 infra), and it would be at least the third recorded in Hdt. (cp. cc. 49-56, 59-64 supra). It is apparently being holden at night—like the previous one!—and the night would be Boëdromiou 20 (by Attic reckoning; cp. c. 65. 19), on which the Persian army was reported or believed to be moving ἐπὶ τὴν Πελοπόννησον, c. 70 supra, while the Persian fleet had been manœuvring all, or most of the day previous, with a view to bringing about a battle: ibid. These manœuvres, these movements, may well have given rise to fresh debate among the Greek Strategoi. The question would be, whether to assume the offensive, or to await attack; and if the offensive was to be assumed (as at Artemision, cp. c. 9 supra), at what particular point: were the Greeks to advance right out of the straits—as the Persians appeared to desire—and to encounter the king's fleet in comparatively open water? Or were they to allow, or to induee, the Persian admirals to enter the narrow waters, and to expose themselves, in entering, to a flank attack?

It is possible that the Peloponnesians were prepared to go out into the open waters: the move to the Isthmos, the selection of the open water there as the scene of the engagement which (all agreed) had to be fought somewhere, might almost justify the suspicion that the Peloponnesians were now advocating an advance against the Persian fleet in the open waters to the S. of Salamis. But such an hypothesis were rash. To fight in the open water off the Isthmos, the bay of Kenchreai, with the Peloponnesos immediately in the rear to fall back upou, is one thing; but in the open water off Salamis, another. The risk of being shut up and besieged in Salamis was, indeed, not in that case inevitable; they might make good their escape, if needs were, to the Peloponnese; but still, with difficulty, and not without risk of being surrounded and cut off, which would not he possible, in the bay of Kenchreai.

To fight at Salamis, and in the narrow waters between Salamis and the Attic shore, was clearly the plan of Themistokles. But to procure the realization of this plan, the Persian fleet should enter the straits; and it had not yet done so (cp. c. 70 supra). His problem was to bring that movement about. The Persiaus presumably wished to fight in the open waters off Salamis: some of the Peloponnesians perhaps preferred to fight in the less open, but also less confined, waters of the bay of Keuchreai.

But the plan of Themistokles had been already endorsed and adopted. The movement of the Persian army towards the Peloponnese (if it really was moving thitherwards) could not affect that plan. What did affect it was the clear perception that the Persian admirals had apparently no intention of entering the straits: how, indeed, could they venture to do so, with the Greek fleet drawn up in the bay of Salamis, ready to charge them in flank? A debate might very well arise among the Greek Strategoi as to the means of inducing the Persian fleet to enter the channel. Such a debate once started, the previous question may possibly have been raised again, as to whether the Greek fleet had not better make for the Isthmos. A battle had to be fought somewhere. If the Persians would not fight in closed waters, the battle must be fought in the open. The bay of Kenchreai was clearly more favourable to the Greek chances than the open waters off Salamis. The ruse of Themistokles, presently related, undoubtedly led to the battle in the straits; but it is extremely difficult to believe that in effectuating that ruse he acted without the knowledge and connivance of his colleagues (see below); it is, therefore, difficult to believe that at this stage at least the question of retreating to the Isthmos was again seriously debated. The real problem before the council was to devise, or to accept, a plan by which the Persians might be induced at dawn of day to be entering the straits. The plan devised, employed, perhaps expounded, by Themistokles was a bold one, not to be accepted without discussion.

The notion that Themistokles could slip unobserved out of the Synedrion, the debate still continuing without him, make his elaborate arrangements, remain outside for hours, until Aristeides arrives to report that the ruse is successful, the Persian fleet already fully surrounding the island, and then reenter the council—still sitting—with the startling news, is simply absurd. Moreover, the reception of the news seems to show that the Greek admirals are not taken by surprise. The story, as told by Aischylos, lends absolutely no support to the tradition that the plan of Themistokles was devised as much against the Greeks themselves, his colleagues, as against the Persians, their enemies.

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ἐς τὸ στρατόπεδον τὸ Μήδων. It is not clear above, in c. 70, whether Hdt. conceives the Persian fleet, after the manœuvres of the day, as remaining at sea, or as returning to Phaleron. This passage seems to imply that the admirals at least are ashore, for τὸ στρατόπεδον can hardly be used consciously for the fleet at sea. From Salamis to Phaleron it would take a man in a boat some hours to go and return— to say nothing of obtaining his mterview with the Persian admirals. The admirals (οἱ στρατηγοὶ τῶν βαρβάρων, cp. c. 67 supra) make their appearance here again; in Aischylos the messenger from the Greek camp has audience of the king himself (Pers. 355 f.).

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Σίκιννος. The name is Greek (cp. Σίκινος ἡ, the island), Aischyl. Pers. 355 makes the messenger a Greek, and Plutareh Them. 12 is probably wrong in calling this man a ‘Persian’ (cp. c. 110 infra), though he was, no doubt, a ‘domestic slave,’ and ‘paedagogue’ or tutor. Themistokles had five sons in all, Plutarch Them. 32; but Polyainos 1. 30. 3 has παιδαγωγὸς τοῖν παίδοιν—so perhaps he had only two in 480 B. C., or two of age to have a tutor.

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τὸν δὴ ὕστερον ... ὄλβιον: the emancipation, enfranchisement, enrichment of Sikinnos followed, presumably, soon after the battle of Plataiai, and, of necessity, before the ostracism of Themistokles (in 473 or 472?). The rebuilding and restoration of Thespiai, by the admission of citizens, was, of course, necessitated by its ruin in the war; cp. 7. 222 and c. 50 supra. The active ἐποίησε is remarkable: was the business actually entrusted to Themistokles? Thespiai may be expected to have ‘atticized’ subsequently: but the Thespians in 424 B. C. were severely handled by the Athenians in the battle of Oropos (Delion), Thuc. 4. 96. 3, a misfortune which enabled the Thebans shortly afterwards to demolish the walls; ib. 133. 1. Ten years later there was an abortive coup d'état by the atticizing party, Thuc. 6. 95. 3, and the dominant faction sent hoplites to Syracuse to take part in the ruin of the Athenian armada (ib. 7. 19. 3, 25. 3). In the next eentury Thespiai is the chief basis of the Spartan operations against Thebes, during the deeade preceding the battle of Leuktra (Xenoph. Hell. Bks. 5 and 6), and suffered accordingly, but must have enjoyed (like Plataia) a second or third resurrection (after the ruin of Thebes), as in the first century Thespiai and Tanagra were the only two flourishing cities in Boiotia: Strabo 403.

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τάδε: the message of Themistokles, by the lips of Sikinnos, as reported by Hdt. differs in several notable respects and cireumstances from the anonymous message reported by Aischylos. (i.) In Aischylos the message is despatched and received by daylight: in Hdt. by night. (ii.) In Aischylos it is received by the kmg: in Hdt. by the admirals. (iii.) In Aischylos the message leads the king to resolve on action, to wit, the advance of the fleet: with Hdt. the king has previously resolved to do or to offer battle. This difference is more apparent than real, as in each case the Persian fleet advances to pursue the Greeks supposed to be in flight—but the effect of the difference is to make the message perhaps even more prominent in Aischylos than in Hdt. (iv.) Far more important, with Aischylos the message in no way compromises the sender or the messenger, and there is nothing to show or to suggest that it was despatched with other than the full knowledge and approbation of the anthorities on the Greek side: with Hdt. and the main tradition after his time the message is designed to ontwit the Greeks no less than the Persians, nay, rather, to force the hand of the Greeks in the first instance, and compel them, against their will, to do battle at Salamis. (v.) As a further difference, the message in Aischylos reports simply a projected flight of the Greeks: the message in Hdt. proclaims the ‘medism’ of the sender, and of a great part of the fleet

The ‘flight’ motif and the ‘medism’ motif might be alternatives, combined in the message as given by Hdt. The flight of the Greeks means that they are not going to do battle, but to escape, and that under cover of night The message as given by Aiscliylos is thoroughly consistent with itself, and with the time and circumstances of its despatch. The message as given by Hdt. reports instant flight (in the night), but also promises medism if the flight is stayed and a battle forced on. Possibly the ‘medism’ has been projected baek into this message from the later career of Themistokles.

στρατηγὸς ὁ Ἀθηναίων: what of his colleagues? Cp. c. 79 infra.

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οἱ Ἕλληνες δρησμὸν βουλεύονται καταρρωδηκότες: this is virtually identical with the message as reported by Aischyl. Pers. 357-9. In itself it might have been sufficient to induce the Persians to resolve—not on battle, for you cannot fight a flying enemy—but on pursuit, on a forward movement, which would bring a portion at least of the Persian fleet within the straits. As the Greek fleet by that time would be well under way, the Persians might be expected to overhaul it, and come upon its rear in the bay of Eleusis, or in the narrower waters beyond. As the (fresh?) plan or disposition of the Persian admirals certainly included the stopping of the narrow channel between Salamis and the Megarid, they might be expecting to find the Greek fleet thrown into utter confusion when they came upon it by the Eleusis channel.