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This chapter is most interesting as showing the familiarity of H. with Delphi.


For the Croesus bowl in its ‘angle’ cf. viii. 122. 1. Stein thinks the reference is to the projecting ‘angle’, formed by one of the two antae, with which the walls of the cella ended in front towards the πρόναος.

γάρ. H. knows its size, because it was filled at the Theophania, a spring festival, which commemorated at Delphi the reappearance of the Sun-god.


For Theodorus cf. Murray, G. S. i. 74 seq., where his works are enumerated and his originality discussed. He and Rhoecus (iii. 60. 4 n.) διέχεαν χαλκὸν πρῶτοι καὶ ἀγάλματα ἐχωνεύσαντο (Paus. viii. 14. 8); cf. also Plin. N. H. xxxiv. 83. For an early instance of bronze casting at Samos cf. iv. 152. 4. Theodorus was the maker of Poly crates' ring (iii. 41. 1 n.), and also of the golden plane-tree (vii. 27. 2, though H. does not give his name in this case); he probably was a contemporary of Alyattes. Overbeck (Schriftq. 274-93) distinguishes an elder and a younger Theodorus.

For ceremonial sprinklings cf. Tylor, P. C. ii. 434; the vessels stood, like modern holy-water stoups, by the entrance.

φαμένων ... λέγοντες: the anacoluthon is very harsh. Kirchhoff argues (1) that the falsification was official, (2) that a motive for such complaisance towards Lacedaemonians is found in 448 B. C. (Thuc. i. 112. 5); therefore H.'s visit must have been about 447. The gaps in this argument are obvious. It is interesting to see H. exercising his critical faculty on the Temple records.


οὐκ ἐπίσημα: L. & S. ‘without an inscription’ (as opposed to ἐπιγέγραπται § 3), not, as Stein, ‘indistinguishable’; this implies that most of the articles bore the name of Croesus as giver.

ἀρτοκόπου. The step-mother of Croesus attempted to poison him, and his life was saved by his ‘baker’ (cf. Plut. Mor. 401 E, de Pyth. Orac. c. 16, and c. 92 for the conspiracy of Croesus' step-brother, Pantaleon).

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  • Commentary references from this page (2):
    • Pausanias, Description of Greece, 8.14.8
    • Thucydides, Histories, 1.112.5
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