Volume 1

Herodotus : the fourth, fifth, and sixth books / With introduction, notes, appendices, indices, maps by Reginald Walter Macan.

  • Herodotus
Date:
1895
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Herodotus : the fourth, fifth, and sixth books / With introduction, notes, appendices, indices, maps by Reginald Walter Macan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    448/528 (page 320)
    VI av\r)T')']^ T6 avXrjreco <yLverai Kal /xdyeipo^ payeipov koX Krjpv^ 5 KppvKO^' ov Kara Xap,7rpo(f)covL'r}v eTrLTiOepievoL dXkou a(f)€a<; TvapaicXrjlovaL, dXXa Kara rd Trarpia iTrtreXeovcrL. 1 Tavra puev Bp ovrco jiveraL. Tore Be tov KXeop,evea iovra iv rfj AljLvp Kal kolvo, rp 'EXXaSt dyadd Trpoepya^opuevov 6 App,dppTOf; BiefiaXe, ovk AlyLvprecov ovtco KpB6pi€VO<} &)9 <j)d6vo) Kal dyrj '^pewpbevo^. YSXeopievp<i Be vocrrpcra<; dir' Alyivp^ 5 i^ovXeve tov Appudpprov Travaai rp^i ^aaiXplp^, Bid wppypia TOLOvBe eirL^aaiv e? avrov 7roievpievo<;. ^Aplarcovi jBaaiXevovTL iv XirdpTp Kal yppiavri yvvaiKa<; Bvo iraiBe'? ovk iyivovro. Kal ov ydp (Tvveyivcoo-KeTO avro'i rovrcov elvai airio^, yapieei rpirpv yvvaiKa' o)Be Be yapbeei. pv ol cf)iXo<; tmv ^Trapriprecov dvpp, be more important personages than ordinary domestics. Perhaps they accompanied the armies in the field, cp. 9. 82. Whether they were free or servile does not clearly appear from these passages: Helotry too was heredi- tary. The passage may read to us almost like a jest or a parody (as if one said: ‘ Kingship and cookery are hereditary arts ’), but it is probably authentic and serious. In every society to a certain extent, in non-progressive societies and in societies obviously based on conquest and slave labour to a greater extent, crafts are and remain hereditary. The difference between Athens and Sparta, Sparta and Egypt, Egypt and India in these respects was one of degree not of kind. Some have asserted that there were ‘ castes ’ in early Greece (see Rawlinson, Herodotus, iii.2 265, n. to 5. 66), others have denied that there were castes in Egypt (Wiedemann, Herodots Zweites Buck, p. 573). There has probably nowhere been a system of Castes to compare with the Indian, so fully sanctioned by religion, and so firmly established by secular custom ; but ancient civilisa- tions, based on war, slavery, blood, and religion, tended to stereotype classes, to give fixity to status, to limit contract, to eliminate individualism and competition. Of such societies in Greece Sparta was chief. 5. KaxoL \a|iTrpo(j>wviTiv only applies to the K-fipvKes, and as a result in part of this inconsequence Hdt. involves himself in a grammatical obscurity, by an alterna- tion of subjects. Cp. c. 57 supra. The obscurity is not abolished by bracketing ’ the words as a gloss with van H. 61. 1. T6rt, c. 50 supra = (summer) 491 B.c. 3. BitpaXt. dii^aWe, c. 51 supra. (|>66va>. (pOdvos is primarily human, Hellenic, and civil, 7. 237. 4. dyr) ^ is an emendation of Valck- enaer, and justified by P. dyafiai and dy-r] of bad feeling seems to be used especially of divinities (cp. L. & S, sub w.). 6. Troi£V|j.€vos, middle. Leotychides was his tool, c. 65 infra. ’Ap^(^T(^>vl. Ariston, a contempor- ary of Anaxandrides and Kroisos, and presumably distinguished in the war with Tegea, 1. 67. Cp. c. 63 infra ad fin. 7. Svo. Only, however, one at a time (c. 63 infra), and in this respect his conduct differed from the conduct of his colleague Anaxandrides, 5. 40, and was less offensive to Spartan feeling. 9. t58€. The story which follows reads like a variation on the true and authentic history of Beauty and the Beast (Eros and Psyche). The facts are redistributed to some extent, but the situations and motives are similar : (1) the transfiguration is accomplished in the person of Beauty herself. (2) The fiTixcLP-n by which Beauty is won is practised upon the husband not upon the father, c. 62. (3) Ariston (Astra- bakos) visits Beauty in disguise, c. 69 infra. (4) The hostile elements are represented by the Ephors (cc. 63, 65), Leotychides and Kleomenes : but by a finely dramatic touch Ariston’s own words occasion the discomfiture of Beauty (c. 63). (5) Aphrodite is not the enemy but the friend of ‘Beauty.’ On the group of myths cp. Cox,