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ἀρχήν γε οὐδαμὰ δοκέων, ‘originally at least never dreaming (that Pausanias would go so far as to abandon them).’ ἀρχήν, 7. 220, 8. 128. οὐδαμά might more logically have gone with τολμήσειν. The γε serves here in contrast to προτερεόντων δέ: but cp. App. Crit.
περιείχετο ... μὴ ἐκλιπεῖν: the construction is peculiar, as περιέχεσθαι (mid.) naturally takes a genitive, even as ἀντέχεσθαι just above; cp. 7. 39, 160; 8. 60. αὐτοῦ is of course a local adverb, ‘on the spot.’ περιέχεσθαι as a passive, and in a strictly physical sense in 8. 10, 79, 80 supra, here is plainly middle, but is it purely psychological in sense? cp. the various renderings: (a) “he was urgent with them that they should stay and not leave him,” L. & S.; “he stuck to it that they should stay there and not leave their post,” Macaulay; “setzte sich darauf dass sie (alle),” Krueger; “beharrte darauf hier zu bleiben,” Baehr; (b) “remained firm in his resolve,” Rawlinson; “hielt sich an den Gedanken, dass sie,” Sitzler. As the statement is qualified by ἀρχήν, and the mentality of Amompharetos is set forth in δοκέων, and his contrasted action is purely physical (ἦγε), I do not hesitate to take περιείχετο as belonging to the external order and descriptive of the action, i.e. utterance of the man: ‘he kept on insisting that they should stay where they were, and not desert their post,’ as in the (a) group (but L. & S. give rather a paraphrase than a translation).
προτερεόντων δὲ τῶν σὺν Παυσανίῃ, ‘as Pausanias and his men were getting further and further off . ., convinced (καταδόξας) that they were really abandoning him, he led his Lochos, after the men had taken up their shields, at a slow step towards the main body.’ προτερέειν, cp. c. 66 infra; καταδόξας, cp. 8. 69. ἰθέῃ τέχνῃ: cp. c. 37 supra.
αὐτόν is remarkable: it is generally referred to the man = ἑωυτόν; it might more correctly refer to τὸν λόχον. Krueger renders it “ihn und seinen Lochos.”
βάδην, contrasted with δρόμῳ; cp. c. 59 infra, Xenophon Anab. 4. 6. 25, Hell. 5. 4. 53. στῖφος: cp. c. 70 infra. This ‘main body’ is awaiting ‘the Lochos of Amompharetos’ (sic) at a distance of 10 stades; i.e. exactly the distance given above, c. 51, as the distance separating the Island, to which the Council of War had agreed and determined to retreat, from the position of the Greek forces at Gargaphia; yet the Lakedaimonians are not at the Island, as the next words go on to say!
περὶ ποταμὸν Μολόεντα. There is no third river, beside the Asopos with its tributaries, and the Oeroe with its tributaries, to which the name Μολόεις can be applied: it follows that the name must be applied to some stream belonging to one or other of the two systems. No ancient authority clearly indicates the right identification; modern travellers and commentators are divided on the subject. Thus the Moloeis has been identified with O1 (so by Vischer, p. 547, cp. Bursian, Geogr. v. Griechenl. i. 247), while Dr. Grundy, who adopted A5 in his Topography of the Battle of Plataia, 1894, p. 33, in his Great Persian War, 1901, p. 495, now prefers A6. These (O1, A6) are respectively the two most considerable affluents, the one of Oeroë, the other of Asopos; Ridge 2, forming the watershed east and west, lies between them. Thus, as far as the R Moloeis goes, the geographical indication comes to much the same thing, and might point to Ridge 2 as the halting-place of Pausanias.
Ἀργιόπιόν τε χῶρον καλεόμενον. The Ἀργιόπιος χῶρος, possibly τὸ Ἀργιόπιον, is not elsewhere mentioned. A nymph Argiope is known to Pausanias (4. 33. 3), but she belongs to Parnassos, not to Kithairon: more in place here were Argiope, wife of Agenor, and mother of Kadmos; Pherekydes, Frag. 40. She is a water-nymph, for she is a daughter of Neilos: her name should perhaps be Ἀγριόπη rather than Ἀργιόπη. (Cp. Hyginus, Fab. vi. ed. Th. Muncker, 1681.) In any case, the Argiopion rather leans towards Oeroe. The attempt to connect the ‘place’ with a ‘White Rock’ (W. Irving Hunt, Papers of Am. Sch. at Athens, v. 1892, p. 276) is not satisfactory; cp. Grundy, p. 495; nor need Pape now be cited as authority for that etymological effort. Dr. Grundy was divided (in 1894) between ‘Long Ridge’ and ‘Plateau’; he has now decided for the latter. But Ridge 2, the watershed between Oeroe and his own Moloeis, has clearly as good a right as either. Δήμητρος Ἐλευσινίης ἱρόν. One of the indications, which make it difficult to believe that Hdt. had been over the ground, is the fact that there were at least two temples of Eleusinian Demeter within the area of the operations he is describing, viz. (1) at Plataia, Pausanias 9. 4. 2; (2) at Hysiai, Plutarch, Aristeid. 11. To these Dr. Grundy adds (3) one at Erythrai, on the strength of the discovery of inscribed stones on the traditional site of Erythrai, Topography (1894), p. 34. (The ναός at Skolos, Pausan. 9. 4. 3, and the ἄλσος at Potniai, Pausan. 9. 9. 1, which would raise the Demetria to five in number, may be ignored for present purposes.) Of these three temples, the Plataian, if it were inside the city, on no possible theory of the battle could be employed to define the position of the Spartans; nor would a site in Plataia in any sense accord with the other indications so far as they have been provisionally identified above, viz. the river Moloeis and the Argiopion, or Ἀργιόπιος χῶρος. But if it were outside the city, though in Plataian territory, the case would be altered. See further, below. The third, the Erythraian Demetrion, was located high up the ὑπωρέη, considerably more than 10 stades from either Gargaphia, and, what is still more against it, would indicate that the Spartans were making back to Erythrai, and to the first position (IA), from which they had advanced originally, and where the Greeks had been especially open to attack from the Persian cavalry, and also in want of water. These considerations rule out the Erythraian shrme in this place. There remains the Hysiatan, which, from the position of Hysiai and its territory, would necessarily in some sense lie between the Demetrion of Plataia west, and that of Erythrai east. Such a position obviously suits the general requirements of the story, as well as the provisional identifications of the Argiopion and the river Moloeis above. The question remains of the exact site of the Hysiatan Demetrion. Was it actually in the town of Hysiai, i.e. high up on the ὑπωρέη, in front of the middle pass, on the road from Plataia to Athens, where it entered the mountain; or was it lower down the slopes, in Hysiatan <*> Plutarch, Arist. 11, describes it as τῶν Ὑσιῶν πλησίον, ὑπὸ τὸν Κιθαιρῶνα. It was near Hysiai, therefore, not inside Hysiai; it was ‘close under Kithairon’ —a description which might be applied to any spot south of Asopos, especially by a visitor coming from the north (Thebes or Chaironeia). It is not probable that there were two temples of Eleusinian Demeter in the Hysiatis. If then, as Dr. Grundy has ingeniously suggested (Topography, p. 33; Persian War, pp. 495 f.), the modern church of St. Demetrion marks the site of an ancient temple of Demeter, that would be the Hysiatan Demetrion, outside and to the north below the city. But this identification will not suit at all either Plutarch or Herodotus. In Plutarch the Demetrion marks the position near Hysiai to which the Athenians advanced in the first instance, a position high up on the ὑπωρέη and nowhere near the church of St. Demetrion. In Hdt. the Demetrion here marks the position to which the Spartans retreated, 10 stades back, from Gargaphia: that might very well coin cide with the original position of the Athenians on the extreme left of the Greek position, which was now become the extreme right of the position; but it is nowhere near the church of St. Demetrion. Thus, if Dr. Grundy is right, Plutarch and Hdt. are wrong in relation to the Demetrion. Mr. W. Irving Hunt, op. c. p. 276, places the Plataian Demetrion “on high ground south-east of Plataia at a point where are now the foundations of a large Byzantine church.” He further defines the position as “about six minutes' walk east of the spring Vergoutiani.” This position might do for the Plataian Demetrion, but Plutarch professes to be dealing with the Hysiatan; Mr. Hunt has not marked the difference. It appears to me that Dr. Grundy has really hit upon the position of the Hysiatan Eleusinion; but that it was the Plataian Eleusinion (if Mr. Hunt is right in regard to its site), of which Plutarch onght to have spoken in that passage, and Hdt. in this. It is quite obvious that if the church of St. Demetrion marks the site of the Hysiatan Demetrion, that site, and that edifice, can have nothing to say to the former position of the Athenians (Plutarch) nor to the latter position of the Lakedaimonians (Hdt.). The wonder recorded by Hdt., c 62 below, if occurring in the Persian rout, however, might suit with the site of the church. The cause of all the confusion is Hdt.'s ignorance that there could be more than one Demetrion in question. By a somewhat unusual infelicity Hdt. here applies ἱδρυμένον to the army (στῖφος） and nses the term ἧσται of the temple (ἱρόν). ἡμένον, or κατημένον of the army, ἵδρυσται of the temple, would have been more natural. Buttmann (ap. Baehr) even said that ἧσθαι for ἵδρυσθαι was inadmissible: cp. c. 51 supra (περισχίζεται ῥέουσα). (If ἱδρυμένον was to be used of the man, and ἡμένον of the temple, Amompharetos, rather than Pausanias, would seem to be the proper man. As far as the word goes it might here agree, not with τό (sc. τὸ ἄλλο στῖφος) but with τὸν Ἀμομφαρέτου λόχον, in which case it would be easier to identify the Demetrion with the church of Demetrion. But the argument demands that Pausanias' position should be the one described; the position of Amompharetos is ex hypothesi near Gargaphia, and this would be a curiously late point at which to be describing it; cp. c. 53 supra.）
ἀνέμενε δὲ τοῦδε εἵνεκα: the fact that he waited for Amompharetos, or at any rate halted and was afterwards joined by Amompharetos, is much more likely to be true (in accordance with a constant canon of Herodotean criticism) than the reason given for the fact, the motivation. The statement here made that, if only Amompharetos had carried his obstinate insubordination a little further, Pausanias would have yielded and returned to support him, is very little short of absurd. The obvious hypothesis is that Amompharetos, like every other good Spartan, was strictly obeying orders; that his λόχος was the last to movc because such was his commander's will; that it was really told off to cover the movement backwards. The words ἐν τῷ ἐτετάχατο ὁ Ἀμ. τε καὶ ὁ λόχος unconsciously support that view, but Hdt. unfortunately does not further define this χῶρος (unless ἱδρυμένον above be taken to agree with λόχον).
οἵ τε ἀμφὶ ... καὶ ἡ ἵππος: a parataxis. Amompharetos and his men joined them just as the whole Persian cavalry attacked them. This statement is somewhat puzzling. The Spartans have retired from their previous position 10 stades backwards, to avoid the cavalry (φοβεόμενοι τὴν ἵππον) and on to higher ground. How can the whole cavalry be attacking them? The vagueness of the statement is further exhibited by what immediately follows. Hdt. says that in thus attacking them the cavalry was only doing what it had been doing all along on the previous days. In c. 40 supra a similar generalization occurs; but, if we look for details in confirmation, none is forthcoming. On the contrary, it appears that for upwards of a week the Greeks had enjoyed immunity from the cavalry (c. 39 supra). The vague generalities in c. 40 and here look like a priori or inferential saving clauses, while in fact the Greeks in Position IB had enjoyed immunity from the cavalry, and it was very much that position which the Spartans were now attempting to regain.
κεινόν: vacant, vacated.
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