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

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συλλεγομένων δὲ ἐς τὠυτό. Hdt. does not specify the place, the exact time, the conveners. Tittmann supposed the Amphiktyonic League to be here in session, but its members ill correspond to the description οἱ τὰ ἀμείνω φρονέοντες (cp. c. 132 supra), and this passage rather suggests the formation of a special league πρὸς τὸν Πέρσην (or ἐπὶ τῷ Μήδῳ, Thuc. 1. 102. 4). Was it in Sparta, in the ‘Hellenion’? cp. Pausan. 3. 12. 6 (5) τὸ δὲ χωρίον ὃ καλοῦσιν Ἑλλήνιον, ἐστὶν εἰρημένον ὡς οἳ τῶν Ἑλλήνων Ξέρξην διαβαίνοντα ές τὴν Εὐρώπην παρεσκευάζοντο ἀμυνούμενοι, κατὰ τοῦτο τὸ χωρίον (συνῆλθον） βουλευσόμενοι τρόπον ὅντινα ἀνθέξουσιν. The words διαβαίνοντα ἐς τὴν Εὐρώπην need not be pressed into yielding a later date (in the spring of 480 B.C.) at a time when the Isthmos appears from Hdt. to be the rendezvous and place of meeting (cp. c. 175 infra). Stein (and others) take the Isthmos to be the place of meeting here also. The πρόβουλοι τῆς Ἑλλάδος appear as meeting at the Isthmos in c. 172 infra (probably in the spring of 480 B.C., cp. notes ad l.); but we have here to do with an earlier meeting, probably in the autumn of 481 B.C., and even if alliance between Sparta and Athens had already heeu formed, or had already subsisted a decade, yet this meeting appears as the constitutive act (διδόντων σφίσι λόγον καὶ πίστιν) and may very well have been held at Sparta in the Hellenion, probably the normal meeting-place for the Lakedaimonian Symmachy. The meeting here deseribed was sómething more than an ordinary meeting of that League, of which Athens was not a member (cp. Appendix III. § 5).

περὶ τὴν Ἑλλάδα. The preposition is to be taken as a locative, if the reading of the text is sound, but cp. App. Crit. In c. 172 infra (τῶν πολίων τῶν τὰ ἀμείνω φρονεουσέων περὶ τὴν Ἑλλάδα) the order of the words leaves no doubt that περί is there used causally, though with the accusative.

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ἐδόκεε ... πρῶτον μέν. The first resolution they came to was one in favour of a general amnesty, or pacification all round (έχθρῶν καταλλαγή): perhaps this first meeting did not get much further; but cp. infra. Plutarch, Themist. 6 credits the great Athenian with moving, and Cheilon of Tegea with seconding, this motion.

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ἐγκεχρημένοι might come regularly from ἐγχράομαι, but what could it mean? (i.) ‘wanting in or of,’ sc. καταλλαγῆς? Or again (ii.) as passive: ‘were (had been) in-used, inured, were of long standing’? (cp. the rare ἐχρήσθησαν, c. 144). (iii.) Hesychios has ἐγκεχρημένοι: σπονδὰς ἔχοντες. It might, then, mean here ‘(suspended) under truce, for the time’—but not permaneutly composed: (iv.) L. & S. seem to think it might come from ἐγχράω=ἐγχραύω (cp. 6. 75) and mean ‘there were (had been) wars undertaken,’ but approve (like Baehr) of Reiske's conjecture έγκεχειρημένοι (έγχειρέειν), which Schweighaeuser thinks unnecessary, taking έγκεχρημένοι to be a syncopated form of that very word. Of the various conjectures (cp. App. Crit.) Reiske's ἐγκεκρημένοι has found more general favour, cp. c. 51 supra συνεκεράσαντο φιλίην, 5. 121 ἐγκερασάμενος πρήγματα μεγάλα.

ὁ δὲ ὧν μέγιστος: δὲ ὦν, cp. 9. 45. Beside the Atheno-Aiginetan, there were long-standing feuds between Sparta and Argos (cp. c. 148), the Phokians and Thessalians (8. 27 ff.), Athens and Thebes, and so forth. Argos and Thessaly were not represented at this meeting; Thebes perhaps was.

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μετὰ δέ: how long after Hdt. unfortunately does not specify. It may have been at the same meeting; it may have been at a subsequent meeting, and even perhaps at a meeting held at a different place. The introduction of the fresh synchronisin (Ξέρξην σὺν τῷ στρατῷ εἶναι ἐν Σάρδισι) might favour an interval, or might simply be explanatory of the next resolution.

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κατασκόπους. The story of their adventure follows immediately, c. 146.

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ἐς Ἄργος: cp. cc. 148-52 infra. ἀγγέλους=πρέσβεις, cp. c. 1 supra.

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ὁμαιχμίη: a poetical or archaic word for συμμαχίη, cp. ἡ αἰχμή (= πόλεμος) c. 152 infra, αἰχμή 5. 94, τὸ μεταίχμιον 6. 77, 112, 8. 140, αἰχμάλωτος 9. 76.

πρός, ‘against,’ cp. c. 152 infra; contr. τὴν πρὸς τοὺς Ἕλληνας συμμαχίην, c. 149 infra.

ἐς Σικελίην ἄλλους: cp. cc. 153 ff., visiting Koikyra en route.

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ἐς Κρήτην ἄλλους, cc. 169 ff. The number of ambassadors is not stated. In the only case where details are given there appear to be one Spartan and one Athenian; cp. c. 161 infra.

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φροντίσαντες: the aorist marks a particular, and the grandest, instance of their general policy and mental attitude (τὰ ἀμείνω φρονεόντων). But cp. App. Crit.

τὸ Ἑλληνικόν: cp. 8. 144.

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συγκύψαντες, ‘put their heads together’; cp. 3. 82 φιλίαι δὲ ἰσχυραί: οἱ γὰρ κακοῦντες τὰ κοινὰ συγκύψαντες ποιεῦσι. The meaning to toil, ‘bend double,’ is later; as in S. Luk. 13. 11, etc. The formula here records the most generous and general effort ever made to unite the whole Hellenic name and nation in one common cause; it was only a partial success, but it served its immediate purpose, and bequeathed a great ideal of pan-Hellenism to subsequent generations; cp. 8. 144 infra.

ὡς δεινῶν ἐπιόντων ὁμοίως πᾶσι Ἕλλησι: the words seem to recognize, consciously or unconsciously, that the Western Greeks were being threatened in like manner, and not merely in the long run. Such, indeed, was the case, though the story of the embassy to Gelon, which Hdt. subsequently prefers (cc. 157-62), ignores the point, and treats the danger to the Sikeliotes as purely constructive or consequential. Cp. Appendix II. § 6.

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οὐδαμῶν Ἑλληνικῶν τῶν οὐ πολλὸν μέζω: a rather curious phrase. οὐδαμῶν Ἑλληνικῶν appears to be attracted into the case of τῶν (as if we had οὐδαμὰ Ἑλληνικὰ ἦν τῶν οὐ πολλὸν μέζω ἐλέγετο εἶναι τὰ Γέλωνος πρήγματα). Or again, οὐδαμῶν τῶν οὐ=πάντων, cp. οὐδὲν ὅτι οὐκ ὑπίσχετο, 5. 97. So that Stein observes here τῶν =ὅτεων, and Cobet actually proposed οὐδαμῶν ... ὅτεων οὐ: cp. App. Crit.