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πρότερον τούτων: the τούτων must refer to his employment by Gelon in 480 B.C. Previously he had distinguished himself by (at least) three great acts: (i.) the acquisition of ‘tyrannic’ powers in Kos παρὰ πατρός; (ii.) the abdication of the same; (iii.) the acquisition and settlement of Zankle in Sicily παρὰ Σαμίων. But the chronology is unfortunately rather vague; the reading παρὰ Σαμίων upon which a good deal turns is doubtful; the description of the circumstances in Kos, and of the ‘righteousness’ of Kadmos, is obviously tendenzios, pragmatic; and the problem of his father's position and identity is obscure. Altogether we have in this brief excursus or note upon Kadmos (ὁ δὲ Κάδμος οὗτος ... πόλιν Ζάγκλην） one of the prettiest little problems in the whole work of Hdt. It will be convenient to discuss each point as it arises in the text. παραδεξάμενος παρὰ πατρὸς τυραννίδα Κῴων. Had his father been ‘tyrant’ in Kos before him? Did the father die before the son's accession? The presumption is in favour of an affirmative to both questions, but the language, especially in relation to the second question, is not conclusive. The father might have abdicated in the son's favour. παραδέκομαι (-δέχομαι) is not a common word in Hdt.; cp. 1. 17 παραδεξάμενος τὸν πόλεμον παρὰ τοῦ πατρός: 1. 18 παρὰ τοῦ πατρὸς τὸν πόλεμον: 1. 102 Φραόρτης ... τελευτήσαντος Δηιόκεω . . παρεδἐξατο τὴν ἀρχήν. In these cases the death of the father is expressly recorded, or clearly implied. But in 9. 40 εἰ γὰρ Θηβαῖοι ... αἰεὶ κατηγέοντο μέχρι μάχης, τὸ δὲ ἀπὸ τούτου παραδεκόμενοι Πέρσαι τε κτλ. shows the word in an unprejudiced light. ἐκδέκεσθαι is the more usual word for royal or family succession (cp. 6. 60 ἐκδέκονται τὰς πατρωίας τέχνας, 2. 166 παῖς παρὰ πατρὸς ἐκδεκόμενος: cp. 1. 7 etc. ἐξεδέξατο abs. in 1. 16), but οἱ Πέρσαι ἐκδεξάμενοι c. 211 infra, absolutely, of fighting, just as παραδ. in 9. 40. If, then, Skythes of Kos and Skythes of Zankle are one and the same person, we must suppose that Kadmos succeeded his father by the latter's abdication or withdrawal. But why did Skythes withdraw from Kos? Was it to go up to Susa with King Dareios, perhaps after the ‘Skythian’ invasion, like Histiaios? To Susa he certainly went at some time; cp. c. 163 supra.
εὖ βεβηκυῖαν, ‘firmly established’ —on Persian support: like all the tyrannies of the neigh bourhood at that time. The suppression of this relation of the tyrannis to medism in this story is in itself evidence of its ‘pragmatism.’ The evidence is angmented by the ensuing sentence, which represents Kadmos as voluntarily (ἑκών τε εἶναι) and under no external pressure or prospect (δεινοῦ ἐπιόντος οὐδενὸς) laying down the tyranny in favour of a republican constitution (ἐς μἐσον Κῴοισι καταθεὶς τὴν ἀρχήν: cp. 3. 80 Ὀτάνης μὲν ἐκέλευε ἐς μέσον Πέρσῃσι καταθεῖναι τὰ πρήγματα: 3. 142 ἐς μἐσον τὴν ἀρχὴν τιθεὶς ἰσονομίην ὑμῖν προσαγορεύω). just as in the story of Maiandrios of Samos in 515 B.C., from a sheer sense of justice (ἀπό if read with δικαιοσύνης is ‘causal’). This motivation looks suspicious because (i ) it is intrinsically improbable, or at least highly coloured; (ii.) οἴχετο ἐς Σικελίην; (iii.) the circumstances of the time make against it. Kadmos of Kos went off to Sicily apparently about the time of the ‘Ionian revolt’: the δεινοῦ ἐπιόντος οὐδενός is a little too bold! What part the tyrant of Kos played in the Ionian revolt is purely a matter of conjecture. Was he among the ἄλλους συχνούς arrested by Iatragoras on behalf of Aristagoras at the outbreak of the Revolt, the τυράννων κατάπαυσις in 499 B.C.? cp. 5. 37: in which case he was handed over by Aristagoras to the Koans, and by them generously dismissed, and — οἴχετο ἐς Σικελίην. Or did he hold on throughout the revolt? if so, on which side? Did he emulate the rôle of Aristagoras (5. 37 λόγῳ μετεὶς τὴν τυραννίδα ἰσονομίην ἐποίεε τῇ Μιλήτῳ)? while his father, Skythes, perhaps, was the understudy of Histiaios <*> Or was it only with the close of the Ionian revolt that Skythes found Kos too hot to hold him? It is easy to speculate: impossible to decide: but at least it is evident that the voluntary abdication in favour of democracy, from a sheer sense of political justice, when the tyranny was firmly established, and there was no circumstance to cause him disquiet or apprehension, is not the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth—is not even plausible fiction.
ἔνθα †παρὰ Σαμίων ἔσχε τε καὶ κατοίκησε πόλιν Ζάγκλην: these Samians can only be the men who had treacherously seized the city of Zankle in the absence of Skythes—father of Kadmos —as related in 6. 23 f. Kadmos had received the island of Kos παρὰ πατρὸς: he has the city of Zankle παρὰ Σαμίων: was he his father's avenger? Or are we in the presence of a greater tragedy? Was Kadmos himself the leader of those very Samians who seized Zankle, in the absence of Skythes? Had the mvitation to Kale Akte been addressed by Skythes to his son in Kos, or in Samos, or wherever his address for the time being was? The reading μετὰ Σαμίων which Stein dismisses contemptuously as a flimsy (leichtfertige) correction in the younger MSS. has exactly the same authority as hosts of readings which he has accepted elsewhere passim. The reputation of Kadmos (already not quite so good as it was) hangs on the reading of the preposition and interpretation of the verb. It we read μετὰ Σαμίων, then the verb ἔσχε must mean ‘seized’ as in 5. 46 ἔσχε Μινώην, and notably of these very Samians, 6. 23 Καλὴν μὲν ἀκτη<*>ν, <*>`π᾽ ἣν ἔπλεον, ἐᾶν χαίρειν, τὴν δὲ Ζάγκλην σχεῖν ἐοῦσαν ἔρημον ἀνδρῶν. πειθομένων δὲ τῶν Σαμίων καὶ σχόντων τὴν Ζάγκλην κτλ., and in that case Kadmos appears as the leader of that very band of ‘Samians’ which seized Zankle in the absence of his father Skythes, the commandant, king, or monarch, of the town. Was this not the act of a parricide? Or was it, perhaps, a very deep-laid plot, to which the father was a consenting party? He had abdicated once before in favour of his son; and it was time for him now to be returning to Susa (where he had a reputation to lose!). He paid in any case for the loss of Zankle by his imprisonment at Inyx: but even this imprisonment has a makebelieve air, and the conduct of Hippokrates, his offended suzerain, is curiously paradoxical. He accepts the situation at Zankle, makes a bargain with the treacherous Samians, and be<*>ays the Zankleans: meanwhile Skythes escapes from Inyx, goes to Himera, and from thence to Asia and the Persian court, where he died in the odour of sanctity. Reading παρὰ τῶν Σαμίων with the ‘elder’ MSS. may work a transformation in the later stages of the story of Kadmos, at least if ἔσχε must still mean ‘seized, captured, forcibly occupied.’ But must it (as Stein assumes)? Soph. Aias 663 “οὔπω τι κεδνὸν ἔσχον Ἀργείων πάρα” shows that in the phrase σχεῖν παρά τινος the verb may mean little more than τυχεῖν, δέξασθαι, or simil. This interpretation would not of necessity alter in any substantial paiticular the hypothetical history just sketched: the action of the Samians is emphasized, but Kadmos might still be of their company, and even their leader. If, however, ἔσχε be taken in the strongest sense, the meaning of the sentence ἔσχε παρὰ Σαμίων is widely different: Kadmos deprives the Samians of the city, or at least of the government, of which they have deprived his father. It is from this point of view that Stein reconstructs this part of the story. According to him Kadmos is employed by Anaxilas of Rhegion, and supplied with the means to attack and recover the town from the Samians, who have come to terms with Hippokrates, and thus broken with Anaxilas. Kadmos carried out his commission (against the Samians—and Hippokrates?) successfully, and settled there (κατοίκησε）— as Stein now thinks (cp. next note). But unfortunately for this interpretation (1) Thucyd. in recording the expulsion of the Samians by Anaxilas (6. 4) says nothing about Kadmos. (2) If Kadmos was a protégé of Anaxilas, how does he come afterwards to be the trusty henchman of Gelon, who was sworn foe to Anaxilas? The first difficulty Stein meets by the supposition that ‘the rôle of Kadmos was a subordinate one’ (what then of Hdt.?); the second by the supposition that Anaxilas afterwards put Kadmos on one side, dropped him in fact: but why? Neither objection holds against the other view: if Kadmos was leader, or companion, or friend of the Samians, he would naturally have been driven out of Zankle by Anaxilas with the Samians, and no less naturally sought the protection of Gelon after that contretemps. κατοίκησε, “incoluit” Valla, “habitavit” Schweighaeuser, so too L. & S. Stein in his earlier annotated editions took it to mean ‘made a colony of,’ ‘supplied with a new population,’ and this well suits his interpretation of παρὰ Σαμίων ἔσχε: but in the fifth edition substitutes the other (and correct) interpretation, which, however, obviously suits the reading μετὰ Σαμίων or the weaker meaning of ἔσχε if παρὰ Σαμίων is read. Ζάγκλην τὴν ἐς Μεσσήνην μεταβαλοῦσαν τὸ οὔνομα. Does the tense here certainly mean that the name of Zankle had been cbanged to Messene before its ‘seizure’ by Kadmos, as Stein asserts? (1) This is to give too inevitably a ‘pluperfect’ meaning to the aorist. The past time of the aorist may be relative to the writer, or relative to the thing (event) narrated: the strict pluperfect should be confined to the latter relation. Why should Hdt., whose pluperfects are sometimes relative rather to the time of writing than to the subject matter of the record, be supposed in using the freer aorist to adopt a strictly plus quam perfectum date? Why should not Hdt. have written μεταβεβληκυῖαν here if that was his meaning? It may be admitted that if it were otherwise demonstrable that the change of name had preceded the advent of Kadmos, the aorist might be interpreted accordingly: that it must be so interpreted is an over-statement. (2) The phrase πόλιν Ζάγκλην τήν κτλ. is curiously clumsy if Messene was already the name of the city when Kadmos arrived: it should have run πόλιν Μεσσήνην τὴν ἐξ Ζάγκλης μεταβαλοῦσαν (or μεταβεβληκυῖαν) τὸ ου<*>´νομα, in which case the aorist would have naturally involved a fait accompli. (3) Stein's interpretation flatly contradicts Thucydides, who expressly affirms that the name was changed by Anaxilas after the expulsion of the Samians: 6. 4. 6 τοὺς δὲ Σαμίους Ἀναξίλας Ῥηγίνων τύραννος οὐ πολλῷ ὔστερον ἐκβαλὼν καὶ τὴν πόλιν αὐτὸς ξυμμείκτων ἀνθρώπων οἰκίσας Μεσσήνην ἀπὸ τῆς ἑαυτοῦ τὸ ἀρχαῖον πατρίδος ἀντωνόμασεν. That might seem to settle the question; but the coinage of ‘Dankle-Messene’ appears to suggest that in reality the name Messene was in use for the town, or at least by the town, before the expulsion of the Samians by Anaxilas. See B. Head, Hist. Num. p. 134, who expresses himself, however, cautiously: “the following coins with Samian types (if they are in reality Samian) would seem to prove that the name of Messene was in use at Zancle while the Samians were still in occupation.” (Only some of the coins are inscribed.) Cp. also A. J. Evans in Numism. Chron. xvi., 1896, p. 104; G. Tropea, Numismatica Messano-Mamertina, 1902. Now, if Thucydides is wrong to this extent, that “the name of Messene was in use at Zankle while the Samians were still in occupation”— possibly in compliment to Anaxilas before he expelled the Samians—yet still that does not prove that it was in use before the appearance of Kadmos on the scene—unless his appearance is identical with the expulsion of the Samians (a view combated above). (4) Freeman, Sicily, ii., Appendix IX. Anaxilas and the Naming of Messana, while interpreting these words rightly to mean that “the city which was called Zankle when Kadmos settled there was called Messene when Herodotus wrote,” traverses the statement of Thucydides from another point of view. (1) The motive given for the change of name is “somewhat singular and sentimental.” (2) Diodoros used the name Zankle for the city down to the death of Anaxilas (476 B.C.), and afterwards down to the expulsion of his sons and the general settlement of Sicily, when he changes the name to Messene. (3) This settlement coincides with the third Messenian war: Messenian exiles may have settled then in Zankle and changed the name. But Freeman has overlooked the coins with Samian type and ‘Messenian’ legend. Moreover, the connexion of Messenians with Rhegion and (probably) Zankle goes back to the first Messenian wars, as he shows i. 586. Yet his idea that the final change of name was not fully or officially recognized till about 460 B.C. is plausible enough.
διὰ δικαιοσύνην. Blakesley acutely remarked that the δικαιοσύνη of Skythes (6. 24) was exhibited in the shape most appreciated in a monarchy, the δικαιοσύνη of Kadmos (c. 164 supra), in a shape highly valued by republican Greece; but here it must be added that Kadmos, as the aervant of Gelon, appears to have reverted to the paternal type, as also to have developed a financial probity worthy of an Aristeides.
ἀπὸ π. τ. χ. ἄ. is, so to speak, the ‘record’ tmesis in Hdt., but cp. App. Crit.
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