Reginald Walter Macan, Herodotus, The Seventh, Eighth, & Ninth Books with Introduction and Commentary

---

---

ἀπέδοξε μήτ̓: a double negative, the preposition ἀπό in composition having the foree of a negation, displicuit; ep. ἀπηγόρευε μή c. 116 infra. The further pursuit of the ‘barbarian’ ships, and the voyage to the Hellespont are here rightly treated as co-ordinate alternatives, not as identical actions.

---

πόρον here seems = γεφύρας, and not the waterway; cp. 7. 36. The object was not to free the passage, but to destroy the crossing.

τὴν Ἄνδρον περικατέατο: is this a maritime or a terrestrial operation? The Greeks were in complete command of the sea, but the actual investment of the city of Andros by land will be here included.

---

πρῶτοι γάρ κτλ.: the rationale is obviously at fault and malicious. The refusal of the Andrians to pay money to Themistokles would be no reason for their being invested by the confederate fleet or forces, unless, indeed, the money was for confederate purposes, a mulct perhaps inflicted on the Andrians for medism; and such is in faet the implication below, c. 112 (ὡς πολιορκέοιτο διότι ἐμήδισε). On the motives of Andrian policy in the Persian war cp. 7 115. 6 supra.

---

προϊσχομένου is imperfect, or at least historieal, and is followed by a double construction in orat. obliq.: (a) the conjunetion with optative (ὡς ἥκοιεν), and (b) aecusative with infinitive (δοτέα εἶναι). (κάρτα, by the way, would scarcely have occurred in Attic prose.)

---

λόγον τόνδε, ‘a speech, as follows’: another speech from Themistokles, in the nature of an apologue, to which the Andrians reply in the same vein. The personification, the apotheosis, of Peitho and Ananke, Suasion and Necessity, is less piquant or surprising than that of Poverty and Inability (Penia, Amechania), espeeially the latter, as a mere negation. The attitude of the Andrians might come as a fresh case in the experience of Themistokles that ἄνδρας ἐς ἀναγκαίην ἀπειληθέντας ἀναμάχεσθαί τε καὶ ἀναλαμβάνειν τὴν προτέρην κακότητα, c 109 supra.

περὶ ἑωυτούς, ‘about them,’ ‘in their train’; a well-known Atticism, cp. “οἱ περὶ τὸν Πείσανδρον πρέσβεις” Thuc. 8. 63. 3. Themistokles is made to speak as though the Athenians were acting independently and alone, a view refuted by the whole context; but perhaps the Andrian apologue was not really uttered on this oceasion, in 480 B.C., when Athens was in ruins, but belongs to a later crisis; cp. the reply of the Andrians, below. In fact, the fable of Themistokles and the Andrians reads like a current apologue on the ἀργυρολογία of the Athenians among their allies.

---

κατὰ λόγον ἦσαν ἄρα. The reply of the Andrians is in any case ironical, but doubly so if uttered when Athens itself was in ruins, and Xerxes indeed, ex hypothesi, in possession of Attica. But if we may choose between this mordax ironia (Schweigh.) and a simple anachronism, let us discount the irony. κατὰ λ., ‘proportionately’ (to Andros); the imperfect ἦσαν Baehr seems to think refers to the time before the war, and translates fuisse; but it is purely idiomatic, cp. Stallbaum ad Plat. Phaedr. 35 cited by Baehr himself. Sitzler observes that the imperfect with ἄρα indicates that the speaker has just suddenly become aware of the truth of a proposition, previously ignored. A curious instance is afforded by 4. 64 supra: δέρμα δὲ ἀνθρώπου καὶ παχὺ καὶ λαμπρὸν ἦν ἄρα. The imperfect might then have stood in the orat. recta. In any case the ἄρα points the irony.

---

θεῶν χρηστῶν ἥκοιεν εὖ: the sequence ἦσαν ... ἥκοιεν was perhaps eased by the latter's being in a relative sentence (Stein2), unless the optative might express a conditional prediction (cp. 5. 97 ἔλεγε ... ὡς οὔτε ἀσπίδα οὔτε δόρυ νομίζουσι εὐπετέες τε χειρωθῆναι εἴησαν, a fact, and a contingency). Cp. the same combination in the simple orat. obliq. 9. 69. 4. Stein, however, simplifies the situation here by a new emendation; cp. App. Crit. With θεῶν χρηστῶν εὖ ἥκειν cp. 1. 30 τοῦ βίου εὖ ἥκοντι (also simply τῆς πόλιος εὖ ἡκούσης just before), and again, 7. 157 supra δυνάμιός τε γὰρ ἥκεις μεγάλως. ‘Athens, among its many blessings (καί), will be well provided with excellent divinities.’

ἐπεὶ Ἀνδρίους γε κτλ., ‘the Andrians, on the other hand, in their plentiful lack of real property were unrivalled, and had two divinities, of the opposite kind (χρηστῶν ... ἀχρήστους), which never quitted their island but stuck to the spot, Poverty and Inability; with these divinities for their patrons the Andrians must decline to give money; their impotence would always prove too much for the power of the Athenians.’

---

γεωπείνης, ‘poor in land’ (L. & S.), has nothing (surely) to say to landhunger; in 2. 6 γεωπεῖναι are simply contrasted with men of large landed possession, or territory; the word presents a statistical fact, not a personal feeling.

ἐς τὰ μέγιστα ἀνήκοντας: ep. 5. 49 τὰ ἐς τὸν πόλεμον ἐς τὰ μέγιστα ἀνήκετε ἀρετῆς πέρι.

---

πενίην τε καὶ ἀμηχανίην: this pair had already been coupled by Alkaios (Bergk, Poet. L. iii.4 p. 179, Fr. 92 [65]):

ἀργάλεον πενία κάκον ἄσχετον, ἃ μέγα δάμναις

λᾶον ἀμαχανίᾳ σὺν ἀδελφέᾳ.

Euripides recognizes the divinity of Πενία, but denies it a cult, or at least a temple: Fr. 250 (Nauck) οὐκ ἔστι πενίας ἱερὸν ἐχθίστης θεοῦ.

---

ἐπηβόλους: cp. 9. 94 infra.

οὐδέκοτε γὰρ ... κρέσσω: this gnome has already done duty in the mouth of the Thessalians, 7. 172 supra. It was probably not original in either connexion.