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The whole chapter is with reason regarded as an interpolation by Krüger, followed by Abicht, Gomperz, Van Herwerden, and Macan. There is no proper transition to Bk. VIII, a fact which leads Stein to suspect an omission in the text. The formula introducing the digression is strange, but as Macan points out, this anecdote is not intended to be a resumption of the main thread of the story but to supply an omission, and the words mean ‘I will here return to a place in the story where before I was guilty of an omission’. The author is excusing himself for putting in the story here, where the only ground for its appearance is its connexion with Demaratus, instead of in ch. 220, where it was required to explain how the Spartans had early information of the intended Persian invasion. Krüger also regards as suspicious the postponement of the actual story in favour of a disquisition on Demaratus' motives and the author's assertion that the motive was ill-will, and subsequent willingness to leave it an open question. Such hesitation, however, may be easily paralleled from the genuine work of H. (cf. ii. 123. 1; v. 45. 2). Krüger's arguments from language are stronger. The asyndeton ἐπύθοντο is intolerable, τὸ ἐς Δελφοὺς χρηστήριον is hardly justified by (ii. 150) τὴν Σύρτιν τὴν ἐς Λιβύην; δελτίον δίπτυχον is queer Greek, as δίπτυχα in this sense is late, and elsewhere H. uses δέλτος (viii. 135); ἐπέτηξε and ἐκκνᾶν do not reappear till Aen. Tact. ch. 31, nor συμμάχεται (middle) till Xenophon, or ὁδοφύλαξ till Eustathius. It may be said that some of these strange words are quoted by Pollux (Onom. x. 58) from H., and that the story, though without names, goes back at least to (350 B. C.) Aeneas Tacticus (l. c.), but these stylistic peculiarities and late words surely betray a forger. The existence of an anonymous version of the story in Aeneas, and a variant in Trogus Pompeius (Justin, ii. 10. 12-17), in which ‘a sister of Leonidas’ figures, and Demaratus' motive is patriotic, really discredit the story, as suggesting that the narrative as here given is a gradual and relatively late fabrication (Macan). It is inferior to the similar stories of Harpagus (i. 123. 3, 4) and Histiaeus (v. 35) on which it may have been modelled. Finally, the extremely unfavourable impression given of Demaratus seems un-Herodotean. It appears highly probable that some part of the text connecting Books VII and VIII was early lost, and into the gap this chapter was thrust by an interpolator. Even if it be a genuine fragment it is misplaced here.
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