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προθυμεομένῳ μάχης ἄρχειν. This assertion may rest on a genuine tradition, and the fact remains that Mardonios did finally begin the decisive battle. Good reasons for his desire are not far to seek:—(i) He was the aggressor, the invader, and the initiative naturally lay with him. (ii.) His own reputation was at stake, and there was opportunity for great distinction. (iii.) A victory in the field was desirable, (1) to impress his allies, (2) to secure his rear and communications, (3) perhaps to ease the situation in Asia and especially to recall the Greek fleet. (iv) A Persian victory at Plataia would virtually cancel Salamis, disrupt the Greek alliance, and probably lead to the submission of the Hellenes. (v.) He had succeeded in drawing the Peloponnesians beyond the Isthmos, and on to a terrain of his own selection (cp. c. 13 supra). (vi.) Delay was in their favour, and they were receiving reinforcements daily; thus a quick decision was desirable from his point of view. Mardonios, however, evidently respected his adversaries, and wished to fight the battle on his own terms. He was all but as unwilling as the Greeks themselves to cross the Asopos, at the point which they had selected for defence —τὸν Ἀσωπὸν τὸν ταύτῃ ῥέοντα c. 31— and having drawn them beyond the Isthmos, and over Kithairon, and even down to the river bank, he may well have hoped to induce them to cross the stream. In the sequel, indeed, he seems to have attempted to push, or sweep them over it from behind, by sending his cavalry round the hills, on which they were posted, and cutting them off from their water-supply in the rear. Their retreat surprised him, far more than their further advance would have done; and finally lured him across the river, with disastrous results.
ἐπιτήδεα, ‘suitable thereto,’ i.e. to beginning battle. The adverb is used c. 7 supra in a more a bsolute way.
Ἑλληνικοῖσι ἱροῖσι ἐχρᾶτο: an admission which goes to show how little the Persian war was a religious crusade against the idolatrous Greeks! Cp. 8. 109. 15 supra. Mardonios is especially philhellenic in these respects, cp. 8. 133.
Ἡγησίστρατον: a name of good omen on either side, and strangely enough, at this same moment, in full operation in the Greek fleet, cp. c. 91 infra. Like Teisamenos, the diviner on the Greek side c. 33 supra, Mardonios' diviner is an Eleian, but of another mantic family or clan, the Telliads, founded or represented by that Tellias who had wrought the Thessalians woe, in the service of the Phokians, 8. 27. There was probably a very pretty rivalry between the Iamid on the national side and the Telliad on the Persian.
πρότερον τούτων. Hdt. expressly dates the origin of the feud between Hegesistratos and the Spartans before τὰ Πλαταιικά, but he does not explain its origin, nor how Hegesistratos came to leave Tegea for the Persian eamp; nor what became of him between the battle of Plataia and his arrest in Zakynthos. Hdt. possibly starts this story with an anachronism; the great enmity of the Spartans for Hegesistratos may only date from his medism, and his capture at Plataia, his escape from Sparta, have been subsequent to that event. If he was following his father's career in central Greece, there is no difficulty in understanding how he came to be diviner to Mardonios. Could he ever have given the Spartans greater cause of offence?
ἔδησαν ἐπὶ θανάτῳ: cp. 3. 119 ἔδησε τὴν (sc. δέσιν) ἐπὶ θ. There would be some form of trial before sentence was actually pronounced, or carried out (was the Gerousia the court? Cp. Aristot. Pol. 2. 9. 25 = 1270B, 3. 1. 10 = 1275B, of course under presidency of the Ephors). ὡς πεπονθότες ... ὑπ᾽ αὐτοῦ. It is a weak point in the story that the injuries inflicted by Hegesistratos upon the Spartans are not specified. The conjecture that he had acted as diviner to the Tegeatai in a war with Sparta (Stein) assumes that there had just been such a war, and also that it would have been lawful to put him to death on such a charge, which is hardly tenable. A charge of ‘medism’ would be another matter, cp. 7. 214. But his offence was manifold (πολλά)!
ἀνάρσια: c. 110 infra. ὑπό, with a neuter verb, as often; cp. 5. 61 ὑπὸ Βοιωτῶν ἀναχωρέουσι, etc. ἐν τούτῳ τ. κακῷ ἐχόμενος: cp. ἐν θώματι ἐνέχεσθαι infra, and ἀπορίῃσι ἐνέχεσθαι 8. 52. Here, however, the situation is more definitely material. ὥστε = ἅτε: cp. 5. 101 ὥστε τὰ περιέσχατα νεμομἐνου τοῦ πυρός, 6. 44 ὥστε γὰρ θηριωδεστάτης ἐούσης τῆς θαλάσσης ταύτης κτλ.
τρέχων περὶ τῆς ψυχῆς: cp. 8. 102 δραμέονται περὶ σθέων αὐτῶν, 7. 57 περὶ ἑωυτοῦ τρέχων. πρό τε τοῦ θανάτου: i.e. he was prepared to undergo a good deal rather than die, to escape death; before, instead of death: on this πρό cp. cc. 139, 157 supra.
λυγρός is a decidedly poetical word. μέζον λόγου, ‘beyond description,’ ‘too great for words’—as we too say, when about to describe anything!
σιδηροδέτῳ: which explains why he could not cut the stocks to pieces. Cp. story of Kleomenes 6. 75, which may also suggest how Hegesistratos managed to possess himself of a knife. σιδήριον: 7. 18 in a somewhat different sense.
πάντων τῶν ἡμεῖς ἴδμεν: a mere formula; cp. 8. 105, 124, c. 64 infra, etc.
σταθμησάμενος (σταθμέομαι, or -άομαι: on the form σταθμωσάμενος cp. Veitch, Verbs, sub v.): he might in this case actually ‘measure,’ or merely ‘calculate’; ‘weigh’ he could not. ἐξελεύσεται: of course ‘out of the stocks.’
τὸν ταρσόν would, strictly speaking, be only the flat or fore-part of the foot, cp. 8. 12, but he must have cut off rather more than that. Did he not amputate his foot at the ankle? And had he only one foot in the stocks? Or did the liberation of one foot enable him to withdraw the other also? These diviners were perhaps not merely ‘medicine-men,’ but something of ‘surgeons’ (as well as comparative anatomists, from their extispications!).
διορύξας τὸν τοῖχον: no doubt merely a mud wall, or built of adobes. He might use the same knife as he had used for the operation on his foot.
αὐλιζόμενος: sc. ἐν αὐτῇ. For the verb cp. c. 93 infra. πανδημὶ διζημένων: there was a hue and cry raised after him; πανδημί does not necessarily imply an expedition under arms. The verb δίζημαι is of frequent occurrence in Hdt. and is not to be confounded with the rarer διζω, δίζομαι.
τρίτῃ εὐφρόνῃ. Tegea is only about thirty miles from Sparta, but Hegesistratos will have had to go a good deal out of the direct road, travel only in the dark, and with a bad wound. τοὺς δέ, as though αὐτὸν μέν had preceded, which must indeed be nnderstood before γενέσθαι.
ἐνέχεσθαι: cp. l. 7 above. Not quite exact is the co-ordination of the two points, or causes, of their astonishment, viz. his hardihood in amputating his foot, and his snccess in escaping. τὸ ἡμίτομον: cp. 7. 39. (But would he have surprised them less if he had not left it about?)
ἐοῦσαν οὐκ ἀρθμίην Λακεδαιμονίοισι. Tegea was at war with Sparta not so very long after τὰ Πλαταιικά: cp. c. 34 supra, and in some ways, as already shown, the later feud between Tegea and Sparta would suit very well the story of Hegesistratos, except so far as the words πρότερον τούτων up above may be held to bar the way If Tegea was at war with Lakedaimon before the Persian invasion, of which no other record survives, then this feud should have been noticed in 7. 145 as one of those composed in 481 B.C. If so, the reconciliation did not extend to the Eleian diviner; the Spartans were already provided with Teisamenos. Might they not have had Hegesistratos on easier terms? Was Teisamenos himself at all responsible for their implacable hostility to the Telliad?
προσποιησάμενος ξύλινον πόδα: he did not make his wooden foot with his own hands, but probably employed a statuary. Artificial limbs were apparently unusual (except as ex voto offerings). κατεστήκεε ... πολέμιος: he took his stand, took up a hostile attitude; or simply ‘became’; for the verb cp. c. 70 infra. ἐκ τῆς ἰθέης, ‘openly,’ palam; sc. ὁδοῦ or τέχνης: cp. c. 57 infra. Had he ever pretended friendship for them?
ἐς τέλος, ‘finally,’ ‘at last.’
συνήνεικε: sc. ἐς τὸ ἄμεινον, ‘went well,’ was suceessful; cp. 8. 87 where the word is used absolutely, as here; followed in c. 88 by συνήνεικε αὐτῇ ἐς εὐτυχίην. †συγκεκυρημένον: the passive form is unique and constitutes a difficulty; it can hardly be right, though Schweighaeuser ingeniously gets the idea of ‘mutuality’ (mutuum odium) out of it. Eltz thought that the reading of S was a correction of the true reading συγκεκρημένον which Reiske conjectured afterwards; cp. App. Crit.
μαντευόμενος, ‘acting as diviner’ (cp. c. 36. 2 supra), but not necessarily in battle; it was this assumption of mantic functions apparently which gave such great offence in Sparta: that he had prostituted his art in the service of Persia might be his chief offence. ἐν Ζακύνθῳ: what would be the date of his arrest in Zakynthos? Schoell dated it to the second summer of the Peloponnesian war, cp. Thuc. 2. 66, which would give Hegesistratos indeed a long life! Busolt, ni. 1. 123, places it with more probability just after the battle of Dipaia. Fugitives from Sparta naturally went west; Demaratos had been overtaken in Zakynthos (6. 70 supra) but not extradited; Themistokles started in the same direction, Thuc. 1 136. ἀπέθανε: sc. ὑπ᾽ αὐτῶν, cp. l. 7 supra.
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