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

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ἡμέρη: apparently the day after the battle. Hdt. has spent the night on the Persian side (cc. 97-107). The Greeks had retired into the bay of Salamis again (c. 96 supra), quite ignorant of the magnitude of their success, and expecting to have the struggle renewed (as at Artemision) upon the following day. The illusion was not dissipated at once even with the return of the sun: the Persian army was still visible on the Attic shore, and the sight created a presumption that the fleet was not far off. If so, the presumption was ill-founded; the army might have remained in order to cover the retreat of the ships. It seems unlikely that news of the flight of the king's vessels had not reached the Greeks; but it would have been quite impossible for the Greeks to leave Salainis, while the king's land-forces were in occupation of Attica, even if no visible threat of an assault upon Salamis (cp. c. 97 supra） was in being. Hdt. has hardly envisaged or grasped the strategic situation in this case.

οἱ Ἕλληνες: the Greeks at large, but more particularly the commanders.

κατὰ χώρην μένοντα τ. στ. τ. πεζόν: the same army as was marching, on the night before the battle, to the attack of Peloponnesos, c. 70 supra. It is, of course, possible for us, with two or three columns of Persian infantry and cavalry at our disposal, to harmonize the discrepancy; but it remains a discrepancy on Hdt.'s own showing.

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εἶναι περὶ Φάληρον: whither the survivors had retired on the previous day; c. 93 supra. Ships at Phaleron, or in the bay, would be invisible to the Greeks at Salamis: a matter of conjecture or speculation (ἤλπιζον).

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παραρτέοντο: cp. c. 81 supra.

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ἐπεὶ δὲ ἐπύθοντο: Hdt. fails to specify the exact time, at which, or the means by which, the Greeks were informed of the flight of the king's fleet. If they no sooner learned it than they resolved to pursue (αὐτίκα μετὰ ταῦτα), we might infer that they only learnt the retreat of the fleet after the evacuation of Athens and Attica by the army. But, if the fleet evacuated Phaleron immediately after the battle, it had a long start of the Greeks, who, whatever they might desire or decide to do, could not leave Salamis unprotected, until they were assured that the Persian army too was in full retreat. Was the pursuit of the Persian fleet seriously intended? It would certainly not have been lightly undertaken, or without ardent debate. Hdt. records just below a debate at Andros; but the Hellenes can hardly have rowed to Andros, whatever the object of that movement, without a previous council and discussion. Hdt. has assuredly omitted to report a debate at Salamis, after the victory.

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μέχρι Ἄνδρου. The island of Andros, one of the ‘Kyklades’ (cp. 5. 31), lies between Euboia and Tenos (cp. 4. 33), and is about 80 E. miles voyage from Salamis. It had evidently ‘medized,’ cp. c. 66 supra, and has special reasons for medizing; cp. 7. 115 supra.

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ἐβουλεύοντο: the scene, the speakers, the subject, of this council, or debate, are all open to challenge. For reasons above given the Greek fleet can hardly have quitted Salamis in pursuit of ‘the flying Mede’: if the Greeks put into Andros, which was a Persian outpost or stronghold, it must have been with the intention of ‘liberating’ or gaming the island for the good cause; the attack on Andros, and the medizing islands, will have been resolved upon before the Greeks left Salamis. Hdt. treats this operation as a matter of course, or as the obvious alternative to a pursuit of the ‘barbarian’ fleet (c. 111 infra); but it will have required an express decision, even if covered by the general vow against the medizers (7. 132). Again, Eurybiades here appears as taking part in the debate, and as the opponent of Themistokles; dramatic, and perhaps constitutional proprieties are better observed above in the accounts of the debates before Salamis, where Korinthian opposes Athenian, or in the variant on this very anecdote, which pits Aristeides against Themistokles (cp. Appendix VII. § 2). The Spartan has perhaps come in as the exponent of the characteristically Lakonian policy, not to pursue a flying foe. The plan ascribed to Themistokles is here expressed in almost self-contradictory terms, or as combining incompatible objects: διὰ νήσων τραπέσθαι: <*>πιδιῶξαι τὰς νέας: πλέειν ἰθέως ἐπὶ τ. Ἑλλ. λύσοντας τὰς γεφύρας (i.e. ἐπὶ τ. Ἑλλ. πλεύσαντας λῦσαι τ. γ.). The first phrase may be ambiguous, covering alike operations against the islands (the Kyklades) in succession, and a passage through them without touching; but the ideas of pursuing the Persian fleet and of sailing for the Hellespont to destroy the bridges could only be harmonized on the assumption that the Persian fleet had made for the Hellespont; and even so, the pursuit of the fleet might involve a second engagement, which might prove an obstacle to destroying the bridges. Possibly all three ideas (i. the destruction of the bridges; ii. the pursuit of the flying Phoenicians; iii. the visitation of the medizing islands) were traditionally and rightly associated with Themistokles; but they should not have been given to him in one breath!

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γνώμην ἐτίθετο: a variant upon the more common γν. ἀπεδείκνυτο (cp. just above), perhaps used here out of regard to the commanding position of Eurybiades; or perhaps simply from the analogy of voting, as in c. 123 infra ἐτίθετο τὴν ψῆφον. The opinion ascribed to Eurybiades that the destruction of the bridges would be a national calamity for Greece is doubly refuted, (i.) by the apprehension previously ascribed to Xerxes (in a different anecdote) c. 97 supra; (ii.) by the logic of facts, the bridges having been destroyed without injury to Greece; cp c 117 infra.

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τοῦτ᾽ ἂν ... ἐργάσαιτο: as ἐργάσαιτο can scarcely be passive, the construction is with a double acc. after the verb (c. 79 supra), of which τοῦτο is subject, σφι being, of course, ethical dative. Cp. App. Crit.

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ἡσυχίην μὴ ἄγειν: a curious equivalent for ἐπιχειρέειν, or ἔργου ἔχεσθαι (phrases used below), perhaps suggested by the speaker's desire that the Persian should ὴσυχίην ἄγειν (Stein). The argument which follows (ὡς ἄγοντι μἑν οἱ κτλ) seems far-fetched: the destruction of the bridges is to compel the Persian to the conquest of Europe; the victory at Salamis and the consequent superiority of the Greeks at sea are ignored. The whole passage reads like an estimate of the necessity for active and offensive measures on the invader's part before the invasion, or at least before his defeat, a necessity which was not conditioned simply by the existence or non-existence of the bridges; cp. Appendix IV. § 1.

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τῶν πρηγμάτων, ‘his plans.’ προχωρέειν, ‘to succeed’: προσχωρῆσαι just below comes in rather inelegantly.

κομιδὴ τὰ ὀπίσω: cp. ἡ κομιδὴ ἡμῖν ἔσται τὸ ὀπίσω 4. 134, and ἡ ὀπίσω κομιδή c. 120 infra. κ. in a different sense 9. 73 infra.

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οἷά τε ἔσται προσχωρῆσαι. The subject appears to be πάντα τὰ κ. τ. Εὐρώπην, ‘all the parts of Europe,’ i.e. all Europe; but the speaker is perhaps to be taken only to refer to the Hellenized portions, though ἔθνεα may cover nonHellenic tribes (cp. 7. 1, 110 supra), and ‘Europe’ is again and again suggested as the ultimate Persian objective. The harvests of Hellas would hardly suffice for the universal conquest of all Europe.

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ἢ πρὸ τούτου ὁμολογεόντων: grammatically the less likely looks politically the more likely alternative; viz. that they should come to an agreement before being taken, or reduced by force. The (masculine) gen. abs. is noticeable. With the phraseology of this passage cp. 7. 139 supra.

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τὸν ἐπέτειον αἰεὶ τὸν τ. Ἑλ. καρπόν. The article as in τὸν ναυτικὸν τὸν Ξέρξεω στρατόν l. 5 supra. Unless αἰεί might have practically a locative sense the phrase seems to imply a series of annual campaigns, though ἐπέτειος might not perhaps in itself necessitate a succession of harvests, cp. 2. 25 δοκέει δέ μοι οὐδὲ πᾶν τὸ ὕδωρ τὸ ἐπέτειον ἑκάστοτε ἀποπέμπεσθαι τοῦ Νείλου ὁ ἥλιος κτλ., 2. 92 τὴν δὲ βύβλον τὴν επέτειον γινομένην ἐπεὰν ἀνασπάσωσι κτλ.

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ἀλλὰ δοκέειν γὰρ νικηθέντα κτλ. Eurybiades the Spartan is represented as saying—and so say all of the Peloponnesian commanders—that the Persians would not remain in Europe after the defeat at Salamis. This prognostication is abundantly nullified, not merely by the commission of Mardonios, but even after Plataia by the remnant in Thrace, cp. 7. 106, 107 supra. It is, however, possible that the formula represents accurately enough the Spartan and ‘Peloponnesian’ point of view, or hope: the more plausible, if the Greeks had already witnessed the evacuation of Attica by the land-forces of the barbarian. Even when later the Spartans must have been convinced that the Persian had not abandoned Europe, or even Hellas, in spite of his defeat at Salamis, they were still hoping to avoid any necessity for another land engagement; cp. Appendix VII. § 1.

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περὶ τῆς ἐκείνου ποιέεσθαι ἤδη τὸν ἀγῶνα: remarkable is the idea of an aggressive movement upon the king's possessions thus formulated on the lips of Eurybiades. Is it an anachronism, borrowed from the πρόσχημα of the Delian League in 477 B.C. (cp. Thuc. 1. 96)? Or is it but an anticipation of the naval programme of Mykale and Sestos, in the next year (479 B.C.)? Or is it not rather a testimony to the first and fundamental principles of Themistoklean strategy, which had already, and even before Salamis, advocated an offensive movement as the best means of relieving the tension in Greece? After all, ‘the march to Sardis’ was an old idea, nay, a fait accompli, in Athenian quarters; cp. 5. 97 ff.; but that a Spartan in 480 B.C. contemplates a struggle for the possession of the king's own territory (περὶ τῆς ἐκείνου, causal not locative) is a little surprising.

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εἴχοντο with the gen., ‘laid hold of,’ ‘adhered to’; cp. (with γνώμης） Thuc. 1. 140. 1, and 6. 94 supra ταύτης ἐχόμενος τῆς προφάσιος.