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.

    462/528 (page 334)
    VI '^pacTLvov, 09 Xeyerai peetv e/c r?;9 ^TVpL^aXiBo<i XipLvrj<;‘ r^v yap XLp.vrjV ravTTjv €9 ')(aap.a a^ave<i eKBcBovcrav ava<^aivea9ai ev 5 ''Apyei, to evOevrev Be to vBcop 7]Bt) tovto vtt 'Apyeloiv '^paalvov KaXeeaOaL' arrLKop,evo<i Bi’ on> 6 KXeo/i-ei'779 eirl tov TroTapAv TOVTOV €O'(payLd^€T0 avT(p’ Kal ov yap eKoXXtepee ovBapuO)^ Bia^aiveiv piv, dyacrdat p,ev ecf)r] tov ^^paaLvov ov irpoBuBovTO^ Tov<i TToXi'^Ta^, ’ApyeLOV<i puevTot ovB' W9 ')(jaLp'qaeLv. p,€Ta Be TavTa e^ava'^copr)aa<i t^v aTpaTL^v icaT'pyaye 69 Svperjv, a^ayta- adftevo<i Be tj} OaXdaarj Tavpov 'rrXoLOicri o-(j3ea<i ^yaye 69 t6 t^v TLpvvOlrjv j((jop7]v KOI ^avTrXl'r]V. ^Apyeloi Be e^orjOeov irvvda- vopLevoL TavTa eirl OdXaacrav' o)9 Be dr^yov p.ev eylvovTO Trj<^ much better with what is recorded of the words and deeds of the Argives in 481 B.o. (7. 148, 149), where they excuse their neutrality on the ground of their recent loss in the war with Kleomenes. (5) Sikyon and Aigina appear as allies of Sparta. Aigina joined 516 B.c,, Sikyon in 506 B.c. (Duncker, 1. c. infra as against Pausanias). Cp. Grote, iv. p. 10 n. ; Duncker, vii.® p. 72 ; Busolt, ii. 48. Cp. Clinton, ii.^ 517 note x, who does not date the war “about 510 B.c.” as erroneously said (Smith, Diet. Biogr. i. 793), \>VLtt}xefloruit of Telesilla, (cp. Clinton, ad ann.). SirapriTiTas. The Spartan tradi- tion completely ignores assistance or allies; but c. 92 infra shows that Aigina and Sikyon at least took part in it, even if the ffvfi/JLaxo^v arparia, in Pausan. 3. 4, 1 is an error (Busolt, ii. 49 n.®). Anyway, it is hardly to be supposed that this war was undertaken on the sole initiative of the king, or kings (c. 56 supra). The Delphic direction would weigh more with the Spartans generally (cp. 5. 63) than with Kleomenes, who knew how to procure such things. The strategy may have been of Kleomenes, the policy was Sparta’s. 3. Xiyerai, cp. c. 74 supra. Hdt. does not write as though he had been in Argos : his doubt, however, might be on the connexion of the river with the lake. The Stymphalis Limne is in N.E. Arkadia, under Mt. Kyllene, and empties through a katavothra or sub- terranean channel: the drainage there is to the Gulf of Corinth. The river Erasinos issues from Mt. Chaon and flows into the Gulf of Argos, S.W. of the city. The distance between the two points may he some 25 or 30 miles E. as the crow flies, but not as the water flows. Diodorus 15. 49 gives it as 200 stades (= c. 23 miles), and Rawlinson note ad 1. says this is 25 miles short. It seems diflicult to believe that the waters of the Erasinos really flow out of the lake of Stym- phalos, and it is noticeable that Hdt. by no means commits himself to that theory, generally prevalent in ancient and modern times. The Arkadian water with almost this single excep- tion finds its way westwards. Cp. Bursian, Geogr. v. Gr. ii. 186. 7. avTw, the river god. His daughters, Anton. Lib. 40 (“ sonst unbekannt,” Schultz apud Roscher, Lexikon, sub v.), would be water- nymphs, like the Danaids. The sacri- fice was, perhaps, something less than a bull. Cp. c. 56 supra. CKaWUpee. The diapar'^pia were un- favourable— as w'hen Pausanias did not choose to cross Asopos, 9. 36. That there were other reasons for the strategic action in each case is more than probable. If when Kleomenes reached the Erasinos there were from six to eight thousand Argive hoplites on the opposite bank, the ‘ citizens ’ who were ‘ saved by the Erasinos ’ were not all Argives. But cp. note infra. 8. Kleomenes had a Laconic tongue. Cp. 5. 72, c. 50 supra, Plutarch, Apophth. Lac. {Moralia, 223 f.) and Appendix VII. § 7. It may be permissible to add that I well remember the late Rector of Lincoln College (Mark Pattison), in a conversa- tion on “ Greek wdt,” citing this jest as one of the best mots in the literature. 11. 'Tg 6aXd(rcr|], presumably Poseidon.