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

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ἐν τῇ Σαλαμῖνι is rather a cnrions way of describing the locality; it seems to lay the scene at least between Salamis and the mainland; the battle has always and everywhere been named by the Hellenic base.

ἐκεραίζετο: the verb (κεραΐζειν, ep. 1 88, 159, 2. 115, 121) is used rather (in its Homeric sense) to mean ‘plundering’ than merely ‘destroying’; but cp. 7 125 supra. We recur here, with the Athenians and Aiginetans, to the chief rival sources of c. 84 above.

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ἅτε γὰρ τῶν μὲν Ἑλλήνων: the term is applied here only to those on the national side (cp. 7. 149 etc., cc. 111, 121, 132 infra); cp. Ἑλληνίς c. 87 infra, also Ἑλλήνων c. 89.

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σὺν κόσμῳ is more or less reproduced just below by σὺν νόῳ, and κατὰ τάξιν is paralleled by τεταγμένων ἔτι, the two merits affirmed of the Greeks, denied of ‘the barbarians,’ albeit hitherto the Phoenicians have been admittedly ‘better sailors’; cp. e. 10 supra, while the exploits of sundry Greeks on the Persian side, recorded below, cc. 87, 90, seem to declare a certain degree of νοῦς. κοσμός Stein refers to (a) the command of individual ships, (b) the general discipline of ciews, etc.; τάξις to inanœuvres of divisions, each ship keeping its own place, etc., perhaps a little hypercritically; κόσμος particularly need not be denied of the ensemble.

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ἔμελλε, ‘was bound,’ ‘was sure’ . . συνοίσεσθαι and ἀπέβη mark a distinction without a difference; the συμφορά comes more home than the ἀποβάν, and the two words denote one and the same event looked at as it came home to the person, or as it ‘went off’ in its natural order or sequence.

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ἦσάν γε καὶ ἐγένοντο κτλ. Hdt. apparently says two things in one sentence: ἦσαν ταύτην τὴν ἡμέρην (acc. of time; cp. Index) ἀμείνονες ἑωυτῶν, i.e. they surpassed themselves, cp. 5. 118; and ἐγένοντο ἀμείνονες ἢ πρὸς Εὐβοίῃ. 2. 25 αὐτὸς ἑωυτοῦ ῥέει πολλῷ ὑποδεέστερος ἣ τοῦ θέρεος is not an exact parallel, as there is only one verb in that passage. But the double redundance here is not unnatural, and the alternative does not so much he between ἦσαν and ἐγένοντο as between αὐτοὶ ἑωυτῶν and ἢ πρὸς Εὐβοίῃ—the extra verb rather eases this alternative. There is a clear though general reference back to the account of the sea-fights off Artemision, cc. 6-17 supra, as in the words with which the chapter concludes back to c. 69 supra. Such implicit references are natural in a work composed for a reading public.

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ἐδόκεέ τε . .: this sentence is coordinate grammatically not with the preceding participles, but with the principal verbs ἦσάν γε καὶ ἐγένοντο above. θεήσασθαι: the aorist is observable; each was feeling that the king saw him —the king's eye was on him. (It might be for a moment—any moment; but that would be enough!)