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

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ὁ δὲ Ἑλ. ϝ. στ. ἀπὸ τοῦ Ἀρτεμισίου: the narrative is resumed from c. 21 or 22 supra, or even from the words Θεμιστοκλέης μὲν ταῦτα ἐνέγραψε in c. 23. The present tense κατίσχει anticipates much of the intervening narrative, the arrival of the Hellenic fleet “at Salamis” doubtless preceding the advance of the Persian forces from Thermopylai. The Greek fleet might well have arrived at the Salaminian station within forty-eight hours of quitting Artemision. If it left Artemision on Tuesday night (as it were) it might easily have reached Salamis in the course of Thursday morning. The words ἀπὸ τ. Ἀρτ. might be taken loosely to qualify ὁ ... στρατός, or might be loosely constructed with κατίσχει, or might seem to desiderate a participle, e.g. ἀπαχθείς. For κατίσχει cp. 6. 101, and App. Crit.

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Ἀθηναίων δεηθέντὼν. It is generally assumed that in the conception of Hdt. and his sources the station at Salamis was no part of the general plan of defence, but an after-thought, and an impromptu. To what extent is this assumption binding? What event called for an improvisation? The failure at Thermopylai? Or the non-appearance of the Peloponnesian forces in Boiotia? Had the full levy of the land-forces been, as was expected, already north of Kithairon, or even of the Isthmos, where better could the Greek fleet have halted than in the straits of Salamis? What appears to have taken the Athenians by surprise was that a situation had been allowed to arise in which the complete evacuation of Attica had become at least an open question. It is here that I would insert the story of the consultation of the Delphic oracle told, anachronistically, 7. 140-143 supra.

τῶνδε δὲ εἵνεκα. Hdt.'s motivation in this passage is curious, and perhaps involves a hysteron-proteron. He treats the evacuation of Attica as a foregone conclusion, and the problem of the quid agendum as only starting from that fait accompli. But τὸ ποιητέον ἔσται covers all that and much more (τό, of course, relative). Had the Peloponnesian forces been in Boiotia (as was expected), the evacuation of Attica would not have been in question, but Salamis might still have been the natural halting-place for the fleet, covering, as it would have done, the land-forces in Boiotia from the rear, or flank. But so far from the complete evacuation of Attica being a self-obvious necessity, it was even now not really adopted or fully carried out, cp. c. 51 infra. Moreover, there would be the question, even in the case of the women and children (παῖδάς τε καὶ γυναῖκας, cp. cc. 36 supra, 41, 44, 60 infra), to what place or places they were to be conveyed. These are all matters for separate deliberation by the Athenians alone (it is not possible to refer αυὐτοὶ and αὐτοῖσι to different persons); but they leave the purely strategic plan of occupying the straits of Salamis untouched.

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τοῖσι κατήκουσι πρήγμασι (cp. c. 19 supra) may cover the evacuation of Artemision, but refers primarily to the news that the Peloponnesians, instead of being in full force beyond Kithairon, are busy fortifying the Isthmos. This news required formal deliberation, and the situation was discussed in Athens by the βουλή and ἐκκλησία (βουλεύσωνται, βουλὴν ποιήσασθαι, cp. 9. 5 infra). The term Αθηναῖοι in this passage may be somewhat loosely used to merge the στρατηγοί in the general mass of citizens. One might suspect that Themistokles was less taken by surprise (ἐψευσμένοι γνώμης, n.b. the perfect or pluperfect participle) than the majority of Athenians.

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δοκέοντες ... τὸν βάρβαρον: there must have been good reason for this expectation; in other words, the plan of defence must have comprised a second stand for the protection of Attica, even if Phokis and Boiotia might have to be abandoned. The phraseology here involves more than the supposition that the Peloponnesians might reasonably have been expected to be on the march for Thermopylai: εὑρήσειν, πανδημί, ὑποκατημένους, all go beyond that. The participle here scarcely implies an ambuscade, but it certainly implies a settlement or resting-place; cp. 7. 27. The adverb signifies the levée en masse such as afterwards fought at Plataia; the verb may have an immaterial or purely psychological force (as εὖρον just below), i.e. ‘to find that the Peloponnesians’ etc., or a less figurative and more material meaning (‘to find the Peloponnesians posted in wait for the barbarian north of Kithairon’). In either case the futurity is conditioned by the interval between the date of the δόκησις and its realisation or disappointment, and can hardly be reproduced in English idiom.

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τῶν μὲν ... οἳ δέ: an inaccurate use of the antithetical particles, produced by the emphatic repetition of the subject; cp. 7. 6 supra: the τῶν must be neuter. αὐτοὺς δέ would have been more in order.

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τὰ ἄλλα δὲ ἀπιέναι: sc. βουλομένους, νοεόντας. or some such word, out of περὶ πλείστου ποιευμένους, a kind of zeugma. The position of the δέ is emphatic. and none the less, that μέν has been omitted (τὴν μὲν Π.). Stein takes ἀπιέναι as coordinate with ἔχοντας ἐν φ. (=ταύτην μὲν φυλάσσειν) and cps. 5. 15, where, however, συναλίσθαι καὶ φυλάσσοντας is far less harsh than the phrase here, for at least two reasons: (a) πυθόμενοι can be used regularly with both infinitive and participle; (b) the copula καί there makes the co-ordination easier than the δέ here.