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τῶν δὲ ἄλλων ... ἐθελοκακεόντων. ‘The other Greeks’ are in contrast to the Boiotians, and must be taken to cover the Makedonians, and to number, on Hdt.'s own showing, at least 40,000 ! cp. c. 32 supra. τῶν μετὰ βασιλέος: cp. c. 61 supra. The action, or inaction, of these ‘Hellenes’ is most remarkable, and Hdt. seems to make euriously little of it. On his own showing some 40,000 of Mardonios' allies are useless, or worse than useless, in the supreme hour. None of the Greeks on the Persian side, with the exception of the Thebans, showed any fight; the whole right wing, with that one exception, was hors de combat. This arrangement left a fairly easy field for the Athenians. Was there not alieady an understanding to this effect? The omission of any explicit notice of the Makedonians at this point is remarkable. The action of Artabazos and his section of the army can hardly be divorced from the action, or inaction, of these medizing Greeks.
Βοιωτοὶ Ἀθηναίοισι ἐμαχέσαντο. This situation is apparently treated almost as a separate μάχη. Βοιωτοί might cover more than Θηβαῖοι. The golden shields dedicated by the Athenians at Delphi ἀπὸ Μήδων καὶ Θηβαίων (Aischines in Ctesiph. 116), if genuine, may represent the political position of the Thebans as heads of Boiotia at the time, but perhaps rather expresses the intensity of anti-Theban feeling at Athens. The very next words here show that even in Thebes the Thebans were divided.
οἱ μηδίζοντες τῶν Θηβαίων implies the presence of others; so too Thucyd. 3. 63. 3 f. (in a Theban speech).
τριηκόσιοι αὐτῶν. a favourite, perhaps a conventional figure οἱ πρῶτοι καὶ ἄριστοι has a strong political flavour about it, though the immediate question is one of pure fighting.
ἔπεσον ὑπό: cp. c. 37 supra. καὶ οὗτοι, ‘as well as the Persians.’ Cau we be quite sure that the fight between the Athenians and the Thebans out-lasted the fight between the Spartans and the Persians? The tardy arrival of the Athenians at the ξύλινον τεῖχος (c. 70 infra) might be easily accounted for otherwise, by a greater distance to cover, by an initial doubt how far to pursue, and so on. Yet it is possible that the retreat, or flight, of the Thebans on the Persian right wing was determined not so much by the valour of the Athenians, as by the victory of the Spartans over the other wing. That consideration is obscured by the way in which Hdt has isolated the operations upon the right from those upon the left, to say nothing of the retreat of Artabazos and his myriads!
οὐ τῇ περ οἱ Πέρσαι: by a different road to that taken by the Persians. No doubt the Thebans retreated along the direct road from Plataia to Thebes, while the Persians recrossed the Asopos (as far as possible) by the bridge on the other road, from Erythrai to Thebes. τῶν ἄλλων συμμάχων can hardly reinclude the medizing Greeks, who have been already accounted for, nor yet the menunder the command of Artabazos, but rather refers to the nations, other than the Persians proper, included in the forces of Mardomos, cp. c. 31 supra; the βαρβαρικὰ τέλη of c. 59 supra. ἄλλων is idiomatic; neither the Persians nor the Thebans are here referred to as σύμμαχοι.
ὅμιλος: cp. c. 60 supra. διαμάχεσθαι ought to mean ‘to fight to a finish,’ cp. c. 48 supra. ἀποδέξασθαί (N.B. middle) τι, cp. c. 27 supra.
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