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πένθος ἐποιήσαντο Μασιστίου . . μέγιστον, ‘made a very great mourning for Masistios’; cp. 2. 1 τῆς ... Κῦρος αὐτός τε μέγα πένθος ἐποιήσατο καὶ τοῖσι ἄλλοισι προεῖπε πᾶσι τῶν ἦρχε πένθος ποιέεσθαι. Their grief would be increased by their failure to reeover the body. It was shown partly by the shaving and hair-cutting of man and beast, and partly by wailing, the sound of which was heard throughout the length and breadth of the land. Was there anything especially ‘barbarous’ in this style of mourning (τρόπος ὁ σφέτερος c. 25)? Just in like manner the Lakonians bewailed the death of a king 6. 58; cp. οἰμωγῇ διαχρέωνται ἀπλέτῳ ib.; though that, indeed, Hdt. regards as Asiatic and barbarous; cp. also 8. 99 supra, 3. 66. Hair-cutting as a sign of grief Hdt., 2. 36, reports as a custom to whieh Egypt supplies the only exception. Blakesley quotes Eurip. Alk. 428 to prove that cutting the manes of the horses was a Thessalian practice; Larcher shows that it was done by Greeks, and it is recorded in the case of the death of Pelopidas (Plutarch Pelop. 33), but perhaps the higher culture tended to discountenanee it. Aischylos in the Persai (1055) seems to mark it as ‘barbarous,’ like Hdt.; and Alexander Magnus was evidently much censured for the extravagance of his grief and mourning (πένθος) for Hephaistion; ep. Arrian, Anab. 7 14. 2. But letting the hair grow abnormally may have much the same significance, though it takes longer to operate; cp. Suetonius, Julius 67.
κατεῖχε ἠχώ. Blakesley rationalistically understands this to mean merely that wailing was heard wherever troops were posted. That is hardly adequate to the phrase: Boiotia echoed with the sound of lamentation, and mourning and woe. L. & S. is prosier still: ‘all Boeotia rang with the news!’ (ὡς?)
ὡς ἀνδρὸς ... βασιλέι. That Masistios, son of Siromithres, took precedence of every one save Mardonios (Artabazos, for example) in the king's eyes might support the error of Tzetzes, cp. c. 20 supra; but it is not conceivable that Hdt. should not have known it had Masistios been an Achaimenid, or nearly related to the king. His value to the king is perhaps but an inference from his position in the army and the mourning made for him. It also heightens the Athenian achievement; cp. c. 64 infra.
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