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ἀνήγοντο: middle, and so without τὰς νέας: cp. c. 96 ad init.
τὸ τῶν Ποτνιέων ἱρόν. The term πότνια is found applied to many a goddess together with the name proper, cp. 8. 77 supra, but as here, absolutely, to Demeter and Kore only, Sophokl. O. K. 1050. (The πότνιαι δεινῶπες ib. 84 are plainly the Eumenides; but πότνιαι there is not absolute.) Perhaps then, the temple here mentioned was dedicated to the Mother and Child; though it cannot be identical with the Δήμητρος Ἐλευσινίης ἱρόν, presently to be mentioned. There was an old Boiotian town named Ποτνιαί, Pausan. 9. 8. 1, between the Asopos and Thebes, where the Mother and the Maid were worshipped (with remarkable rites). The passage in Pausanias is unfortunately corrupt, but the town-name may naturally be connected with this title of the goddesses in question. There would be nothing curious in finding a Boiotian title (i.e. a prae-Boiotian or old Ionian title from Boiotia) reproduced on Mykale; Mykale was the centre of the worship of Helikonian ‘Potidan’ (cp. 1. 148). Γαίσωνά τε <ποταμὸν> καὶ Σκολοπόεντα. The Gaison was the stream on which Priene was situate, Ephoros Fr. 91 (= Athenaeus 311 E), apparently forming, or emptying into a lake, ἡ Γαισωνὶς λίμνη, between Priene and Miletos (Athen. l.c., Pliny 5. 31. 3 Gessus amnis). Rawlinson, remarking that Hdt. “never introduces the name of a river without either calling it a river or prefixing the article,” wants to make Gaison a town. Σκολοπόεις does not occur elsewhere. Many commentators (Schweighaeuser, Larcher, et al.) have taken it (as well as Gaison) for a river-name. Stein points out that the name was derived from the σκόλοπες mentioned below; it is no doubt a place-name, marking the position of the Persian fortification. If so, the name must be later than 479 B.C., thongh Hdt. gives no hint thereof, and seems to imply that the name was as old as the foundation of Miletos.
Δήμητρος Ἐλευσινίης ἱρόν: an indirect omen, had the Greeks but known it, of the coming victory; cp. c. 101 infra. τὸ Φίλιστος ὁ Πασικλέος ἱδρύσατο. Pasikles recurs at Athens (and elsewhere) as a personal name, in the fourth century B.C. and after. The father of Philistos is not otherwise celebrated. The name Φίλιστος recurs before the end of the fifth century B.C. as that of the Syracusan historian, who wituessed the siege of Syracuse (414-13 B.C.), Plutarch, Nik. 19.
Νείλεῳ τῷ Κόδρου: 5. 65 and 1. 147 incidentally confirm this founder, without actually mentioning his name; Νήλευς is, however, the form of the name apparently implied in 5. 65 (for the father of Nestor; it is not likely that the son of Kodros should have spelt his name differently). Marm. Par. 27 has Νε[ιλ]εὺς ᾤκισ[ε Μίλητον καὶ τὴν] ἄλ[λ]η[ν] ἅ[πα]σ[αν Ἰωνί]αν (anno 1087 B.C.). (F. Jacoby, ed. 1904, reads Νη[λ]εὺς.) Both forms obtain indifferently in MSS. The grave of Neleus was to be seen on the road to Didymi, Pausan. 7. 2. 6. Kodros was the son of Melanthos (1. 147), of Pylian and ‘Neleid’ extraction (5. 65), king of Athens (5. 76), in which capacity he resisted the Dorian invasion successfully; the legend of Kodros and his ‘devotion’ is fully developed in Lykurgos, c. Leocrat. 84-87, and was probably, although Hdt. does not expressly mention it, at least as old as the age of Peisistratos, who claimed kinship with the Neleids and Melanthids; cp. 5. 65. ἐπὶ Μιλήτου κτιστύν. This notice of the foundation of Miletos, and of the temple of Eleusinian Demeter, the former by Neileus, or Neleus, son of Kodros, the latter by his companion Philistos, son of Pasikles, is presumably taken from the work of some logograph on κτίσεις, κτίσιες, or κτιστύες. Such a work was ascribed afterwards to one Kadmos of Miletos: ὃς πρῶτος κατά τινας συγγραφὴν ἔγραψε καταλογάδην, μικρῷ νεώτερος Ὀρφέως. συνέταξε δὲ κτίσιν Μιλήτου καὶ τῆς ὅλης Ἰωνίας ἐν βιβλίοις δ́ (Suidas sub v.). To Charon of Lampsakos was also ascribed a work κτίσεις πόλεων ἐν βιβλίοις β́. (The reference to ‘Books’ shows that these works had been at least ‘edited’ much later than the dates of their ostensible authors: but then so were the ΛΟΓΟΙ of Hdt.) A sample of this kind of work, or of work founded thereon, may be seen in the accounts of the Ionian settlements, that of Neleus, or Neileus, at Miletos included, in Strabo 632-33 (citing ‘Pherekydes’) and Pausanias 7. 2. The form κτιστύς belongs to a class of nouns common in Ionic prose, but confined in Attic to poetry; cp. Weir Smyth, Gk. Dialects (Ionic) § 497. 1, viz. nouns terminating in -τύς. The list given by Smyth may be supplemented from Baehr's note in l. (after Valckenaer). Hdt. 5. 6 has ληιστύς, 4. 75 καταπλαστύς.
ἕρκος καὶ λίθων καὶ ξύλων: some emphasis is lent to λίθων by the form of conjunction καὶ—καί. The τεῖχος of Mardonios on the Asopos (c. 15 supra） had probably no stones; here they would be easily procurable from Mykale and the seashore. ἕρκος, as in 6. 134, or c. 99 infra; differently 7. 85 supra. δένδρεα ἐκκόψαντες ἥμερα: this was distinctly ‘an unfriendly act’ (cp. c. 15 supra), the rather in this case as Mykale was well-wooded (ὄρος εὔθηρον καὶ εύδενδρον Strabo 636).
σκόλοπας, ‘stakes,’ ‘pales’; very common for this purpose in Homer, Il. 8. 343, 15. 1 (διά τε σκόλοπας καὶ τάφρον ἔβησαν), Od. 7. 44 “τείχεα μακρὰ ὺψηλά, σκολόπεσσιν ἀρηρότα”. Cp. l. 3 supra. παρεσκευάδατο: the temporal force can hardly be insisted on in this pluperfect. The passage is, however, corrupt, and Stein's later emendation would eliminate this word and leave παρεσκευάζοντο (less forcible). Cp. App. Crit. I prefer to regard ἐπ᾽ ἀμφότερα . . παρεσκευάζοντο as the gloss: the Persians were not prepared for an alternative (ἐπ᾽ ἀμφότερα), nor is a true alternative presented; they wish to stand a siege, and to issue therefrom victorious. The glossator has misunderstood the situation. The resolution of the Persian admirals to stand a siege can hardly be explained except by their distrust of the (Ionian) forces under their command, and also by the absence of the corps d'armée, and their expectation that it would come to their relief. They had, of course, under their command, the Medo-Persian Epibatai, 8. 130 supra.
ἐπιλεγόμενοι, if it stands, may be interpreted by ἐπιλεξάμενος, not in 8. 136 but in 5. 30.
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