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

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τὰ ... τῶν γεφυρέων might have included the προεξέδρη λίθου λευκοῦ described in c. 44 infra as especially constructed by the Abydenes ἐντειλαμένου πρότερον βασιλἐος. κατεσκεύαστο is here a full pluperfect, temporally.

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οἱ ... χυτοὶ περὶ τὰ στόματα τῆς διώρυχος. These χυτοί are here mentioned for the first time, a remarkable addendum to the description of the Canal (τὰ περὶ τὸν Ἄθων), confirming the conjecture in note c. 23 supra. It might further be conjectured that the Canal was at first, like the bridges, a failure, and that the ‘moles’ or ‘dams’ were additions made during the winter 481-80 B.C. χυτός, properly an adjective (χέω), here=χώματα. Cp. the Samian χῶμα 3. 60.

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ῥηχίη: opposed to ἄμπωτις c. 198 infra, coupled with πλημμυρἰς 8. 129.

ἵνα μὴ πίμπληται τὰ στόματα . . Stein suggests that ψάμμου is wanting. Abicht interprets ‘that the canal might not be flooded,’ or overflow (taking στόματα=χείλεα). The object of these moles or dams was evidently to protect the entrance to the canal from being choked, or even storm-lashed. Cp. note on c. 23 supra.

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ἐνθαῦτα as it stands can hardly be other than temporal; but it comes in rather awkwardly, and strengthens the suspicion that the description of the bridges (cc. 33-36) was not in the first draft of the work. ὁρμημένῳ δέ οἱ here might have followed ἐλῶν ἐς Ἄβυδον c. 33.

χειμερίσας: the winter 481-80 B.C.

ἅμα τῷ ἔαρι suggests an early start: Duncker (G. d. Alterthums vii.5 (1882) 201) delays it until mid-April (mainly on the ground that Xerxes was only seven months absent from Sardes: Nepos (=Ephoros) Themist. 5.), and places the storm which destroyed the bridges in the eaily spring. The eclipse which follows, and ought to throw a flood of light upon the chronology, unfortunately fails us.

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ὁ ἥλιος ἐκλιπὼν τὴν ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ἕδρην ... ἀντὶ ἡμέρης τε νὺξ ἐγένετο. ‘night substituted for day,’ suggests a total eclipse (cp. 1. 74, 103). ‘The disappearance of the sun from his seat in heaven’ is apparently conceived in terms of motion. Hdt. is of course aware of the (apparent) motions of the sun, diurnal and annual (cp 2 24-25); it is not to be supposed that the motion here posited is in a visible direction analogous to either of those: it is apparently a direct retreat, or evanishment, from a cloudless and clear sky. There was no eclipse of the sun visible in Sardes in the spring of 480 B.C., and this reported eclipse not only conflicts with the general chronology of the war, but with the verifiable eclipse, Oct. 2, 480 B.C., 9. 10 infra. It is therefore a fiction, not merely generslly discreditable to the traditions of the war, but specifically ominous to the anecdote of Pythios, his fright, and its consequences. There was, indeed, a total eclipse of the sun on April 18, 481 visible in the Indian Ocean, but not apparently on the mainland, or we might (with Rawlinson) associate with an eclipse the departure of Xerxes from Susa (which would not help us out here). An annular eclipse on Feb. 16, 478 was visible in Sardes, and might be associated with the king's presence there, but only after his return from Greece: this eclipse has perhaps been transposed by tradition to do duty at a point where it is most effective. (That there had been any development of such feeling since the celebrated eclipse of Thales and its notorious results. 1. 74 (Stein), is surely more than we need suppose.)

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αἰθρίη is probably a substantive: cp. c. 188 infra. φάσμα: cp. 8. 37, and c. 38 infra. ὁ θεός: cp. 2. 24.

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ἤλιον εἶναι Ἑλλήνων προδέκτορα, σελήνην δὲ σφέων has much more the ring of a Greek than of a Persian or Magian interpretation; the Persians were nothing if not sun-worshippers, cp. c. 54 infra, 1. 131. Blakesley has a suggestive note on this passage, but should not have treated it so seriously as indicating “a great change in the religion of the Persian court as compared with the time of Cambyses.” (If there had been any change under Dareios it was, as we now know, in the direction of a purer Masdeism.) As the eclipse is a fiction the interpretation can hardly be quoted for a fact.

According to c. 57 infra another τέρας occurred at Sardes, the birth of a bisexual mule. The fstal accident to Pharnouches, the Hipparch, might also be added, c. 88 infra. Hdt. is probably following various sources without combining them, or he would have massed the portents. προδέκτωρ (προδείκτωρ), apparently an Hapaxleqomenon.