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

---

---

Παραποταμίους δέ: this reversion to Parapotamioi, which just above was mentioned between Hyampolis and Abai, replaces it in its proper geographical position, at the lower extremity of the Elateran plain.

---

ἐς Πανοπέας: Panopeus, but twenty stades from Chaironeia, commanding the open frontier passage, according to Pausanias 10. 4. 1, appears in the list of the Phokian League, though the periegete is inclined to challenge its title to be a city at all, so poorly was it provided with all that doth a city make: ἀρχεῖα, γυμνάσιον, θέατρον, ἀγορά, κρήνη. Still the citizens had termini (ὅροι) and they sent representatives to the Phokian sanhedrim. He is curiously blind, apparently, to the evidences of its former greatness and strategic importance; cp. Leake ii. 110, Bursian i. 168, Frazer v. 216 ff. Πανοπεύς appears in the Homeric Catalogue Il. 2. 520 side by side with Daulis; cp. 17. 307; and in Od. 11. 581 as on the road to Delphi; cp. Pausan. l.c. In Thncydides the name is modified into the form Φανοτεύς, 4 89. 2; cp. 4. 76. 3 ἔστι δὲ ἡ Χαιρώνεια ἔσχατον τῆς Βοιωτίας πρὸς τῇ Φανοτίδι τῆς Φωκίδος. So Strabo (following Homer) 423 after Daulis mentions Πανοπεὺς δ̓ ὁ νῦν Φανοτεύς, ὅμορος τοῖς περὶ Λεβάδειαν τόποις (of which the insignificant Chaironeia might be one). The Herodotean form of the name is Πανοπέες (:εῖς).

διακρινομένη ἡ στρατιὴ αὐτῶν ἐσχίζετο. Hdt. thinks that at Panopeus there was a new departure. Hitherto the army has advanced, according to him, in a single column, from Thermopylai, via Doris, and the upper valley of the Kephisos, through the pass at Parapotamioi, to Panopeus. At this point, however, a division of the forces takes effect. One column, the smaller one, is detached for service against Delphi; the other, and larger portion of the army, advances with Xerxes into Boiotia, and so to Attika. It has been already shown that from Thermopylai the Persians must have advanced in at least two, and possibly even in three, columns; cp. cc. 28, 31 supra. Two of these columns would naturally have reunited at Parapotamioi, or at Panopeus, unless indeed the left column in the advanee crossed the mountain direct by the road from Hyampolis and Abai to Orchomenos (ἡ ἐπὶ Ὀποῦντα λεωφόρος ὴ ἐξ Ὀρχομενοῦ of Pausanias 10. 35. 1). As the main baggage-train and cavalry probably came by the coast route from Thermopylai, this alternative seems the less probable. Parapotamioi, then, may be looked upon as the probable rendezvous of the two columns from Thermopylai, that which devastated upper Phokis, and that which visited Hyampolis and Abai (and possibly other places on Mount Knemis). The columns thus reunited may have passed from Parapotamioi to Panopeus. From Panopeus too a column may have been detached to visit Delphi, as here narrated; but the story of the visit to Delphi is in itself open to the gravest suspicion (see further below), and it is even possible that, if the Persians ever visited Delphi at all, Panopeus was not the point of departure, but the point of reunion, for the forces. The start for Delphi might have been made from Trachis, or from Doris, and the route followed might have been by Amphissa to Delphi, and from Delphi down to Panopeus. The specification of Amphissa, c. 32 supra, as the chief refuge for the Phokians, is against this hypothesis, though the exeellence of the route is in its favour. Or, again, the Persian column, operating in the upper Kephisos valley, might have detached a force at Lilaia—so curiously omitted by Hdt.— to go straight across Parnassos to Delphi. “Λίλαια δὲ ἠμἐρας μὲν ὁδὸν καὶ ὥρᾳ χειμῶνος ἀπέχει Δελφῶν κατιοῦσι διὰ τοῦ Παρνασοῦ” Pausan. 10. 33. 3. The Persian force would then have rejoined the main body at Daulis, or Panopeus. One admission the Heiodotean story makes: it shows a vague consciousness that through Central Greece the Persian forces had not moved all along in one single mass, on one single route.

---

ἐς Βοιωτούς, ἐς γῆν τὴν Ὀρχομενίων: the designation of the whole, followed by the designation of the part (ep. c. 23 supra). From Panopeus one road led west to Daulis (cp. next c.) and so to (or from) Delphi; another east to Chaironeia, little more than a couple of miles (twenty stades) distant. The actual frontier between Phokis and Boiotia must be sought in this interval; Bursian (op. cit. i. 167) finds it in the bed of the Μόλος or Μώριος, a small torrent descending from the north-western portion of Helikon aud emptying into the Kephisos at the foot of Mount Hadyleion (Plutarch, Sulla, 17, 19). Hdt. does not mention Chaironeia, which was not at this time politically an important place, nor even an independent member of the Boiotian Confederacy (cp. Thuc. 4. 76. 3), but stood, probably, to Orchomenos in much the same relation as that between Kleonai and Hyampolis in Phokis (cp. c. 33 supra). Orchomenos was still no doubt the chief city in the western (or northwestern) plain of Boiotia, though fallen from its high estate in ‘Minyan’ times, and now inferior in politieal importance to Thebes; ep. further 9. 16, notes.

---

Βοιωτῶν δὲ πᾶν τὸ πλῆθος ἐμήδιζε: the political significance of this statement is ambiguous; is πᾶν τὸ πλῆθος, plebs universa, in distinetion to the aristocracy? Or is it merely universa multitudo, the vast majority, independent of social rank, or political privilege? Again, what is the force and value of the contrast between τὸ πλῆθος and τὰς πόλις? Is the πλῆθος wholly outside the πόλεις? Is it merely the plebs or multitudo rustica? Or is there any emphasis on the distinction? Or are the πόλεις specifically the citadels?

Baehr understands πλῆθος here as plebs, and takes the point to be that the rustic population, which was ‘plebeian,’ joined the Persians, while the cities, inhabited or held by the upper classes, were anti-Persian, but were saved from Persian vengeance by the good offices of the Makedonians. But this use of τὸ πλῆθος is hardly Herodotean (even 3. 80, 81 πλῆθος ἄρχον, ἐς τὸ πλῆθος φέρειν τὸ κράτος not quite justifying the supposed political and social connotation of the word, as used in this passage). And again, that interpretation would not square with the points in the PlataioTheban argument in Thuc. 3. 53-67 (ex hypothesi 427 B.C.), where the Plataians represent themselves, and that to the oligarchic Spartans, as the only Boiotians who had not medized; while the Theban reply is not that only the democratic multitude medized, but that the medism of Thebes was due to the inner ring of oligarchy (δυναστεία ὀλίγων ἀνδρῶν 3. 62. 3).

Βοιωτῶν πᾶν τὸ πλῆθος here is, therefore, to be understood ‘the Boiotians without (or with hardly) an exception.’ But Thespiai and Plataia were, of course, exceptions: perhaps, however, they were not truly ‘Boiotians.’

---

τὰς δὲ πόλις αὐτῶν ... ἔσῳζον: Makedonian garrisons were introduced into the various Boiotian cities, and preserved them from the Persians, and the fate of the Phokian townships. Hdt. does not enumerate or specify the Boiotian cities thus preserved, but he records, c. 50 infra, the destruction of Thespiai and of Plataiai, and other Boiotian cities he names incidentally: Orehomenos (as here), Lebadeia c. 134 infra, Thebes c. 134 infra, et passim, Tanagra 9. 15 et al., Akraiphia e. 135 infra, and perhaps inferentially Kopai ibid. Phokis was made more memorable by its misfortnnes than Boiotia by its immunities.

διατεταγμένοι: distributed, by order, throughout the cities severally. ‘The men of Makedon’ were apparently not single agents, but bodies of soldiers, garrisons.

---

ὑπὸ Ἀλεξάνδρου ἀποπεμφθέντες: the absence of the patronymic is to be observed. Alexander is treated as a known quantity; the article is equally absent, for he has not been named recently; but this passage could not be his first introduction: cp. 7. 173, 175. These Makedonian garrisons appear to have been sent on ahead.

τῇδε, ‘for this purpose.’ Hdt. ascribes to the men (βουλόμενοι) what must have been the wish and policy of their master. This good understanding between Alexander and the Boiotians, i.e. primarily the Thebans, throws considerable doubt upon the loyalty of Thebes and Boiotia to the national cause in the first instance. But the precautions taken to save them from pillage, if necessary, would show, either that the Persian forces were getting out of hand, or that the Boiotians had really made a stand at Thermopylai, and provoked the enemy.

It is, however, quite possible that here, as elsewhere, while the act is historical, the motive is fictitious. Makedonian garrisons may have been introduced into the Boiotian cities, not for the purpose of saving them from the Persians, but for the purpose of saving the medizing factions from the loyal or ‘hellenizing’ party. The curious turn of phrase, ὅτι τὰ Μήδων Βοιωτοὶ φρονέοιεν, ‘that there were Boiotians of the Medes' way of thinking,’ may support that view. With φρονέειν cp. 7. 145; with τὰ M. cp. τὰ Ἑλλήνων c. 30 supra.