Volume 1

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

Herodotus

Date:: 1895

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

467/528 (page 339)

$'ireipav tt}? ttoXio^, Trpiv ye Ipolau ')(^p^a7]Tai kuI pLaOrj ei're ol 6 6eo<i TrapaBiBot eire epLiroBayv earTjKe’ KaWiepevfxevM Be ev rep 'Upaip €K Tov (iyd\p,aro<; roiv arrjOewv (j)\6ya 7rvpb<; eK\dp,-\lrat, paOetv Be avrb'^ ovreo r^v drpeKeLTjv, on ovk alpeet rb ''Apyo<;. el lo pev yap e/c rrj<; KecpaXrj'^ rod dyd\paro<; e^eXap-y^e, aipeeuv dv Kar dKprf<i T^v ttoXlv, e/c tmv crrrjOeojv Be Xdp'y\ravTO<i irdv oi ire- 'iroLrjadaL oaov b deb^ e^ovXero yeveaOat. ravra Xeycov Tnard re KoX ohebra eBoKee S'lrapn'^T'pa-L Xeyeiv, koX Bteefivye iroXXbv tou? BicoKovra'^. 15 an attempt on the city, in the events as reported to Herodotus. 13. 6 0€os. 7) debs might have been expected, but cp. c. 27 supra. The iyaX,ua which Ivleomenes saw was per- haps the &yaXfj.a''Spas dpxaiov iirl kIovos which Pausanias afterwards saw (2. 17, 5), and which apparently survived the conflagration of 423 B.c. 14. SU<}>\ry€. From the emphasis which Hdt. lays on the statement it may be inferred that Kleomenes on his return from the Argive campaign was really brought to trial by Demaratos, or others, for failing to capture the city, and that the story of the portent in the Heraion was one of the pleas set up in defence, and helped to pro- cure, or to excuse, his acquittal. It may also be conjectured that the oracles above given (cc. 76, 77) did duty upon this occasion, and may even have been procured by Kleomenes for the very purpose, perhaps through his friends, the avrbfiaikoi Avdpes, perhaps direct from Delphi. Hera had driven Kleomenes out by the flames of fire from her breast, but still he had won a great victory, the fame of which would be on the lips of posterity, for valour, not for guile. In the story of the Argive campaign we have, therefore, a more or less official account of the affair, and an explana- tion, satisfactory to the Spartan govern- ment and folk {Triard re Kal olKbra), of the failure to capture Argos after a victory in the fielcf. Those who cannot share the Spartan view of the veri- similitude of the defence of Kleomenes, should be driven to the hypothesis of dwpodoKia, if there were no other alter- native forthcoming. The Argive tradi- tion supplies one, according to which Kleomenes, as was to be expected, after his victory advanced against the city, but was repulsed by the valour of the Argive women headed by Telesilla. That this account in its turn contains exaggerations, is very likely : . the question however is whether it does not contain some matter of fact, ignored conveniently in the story told at Sparta. Women have taken part in military operations, especially defensive and siege operations, or street-fighting (cp. Thuc. 3. 74), and it was on a similar occasion in Argos that Pyrrhos re- ceived a fatal blow at a woman’s hand, Plutarch, Pyrrh. 34. That Demaratos played a part in the Argive war, entered the town, and was obliged to retire, is also a point in the tradition which cannot be dismissed as im- probable (Plutarch, Virt. Mul. 4). It would have been a fresh ground of enmity between the kings, especially if Demaratos had reason to suspect that Kleomenes had deliberately left him in the lurch. The presence of Demaratos would be difficult to reconcile with the law recorded 5. 75 supra, and there dated c. 508 B.c. if the Argive war is correctly dated to 495/4 b.c. or to any year after the fiasco at Eleusis. But it is more than reasonable to suppose that the law is incorrectly dated, and that it was really passed, if ever formally passed, on this later occasion, which should be inserted in the recital, c. 64 supra, ad fin. Cp. Ajipendix VII. § 10. That the Argive tradition is simply a product of Argive vanity in later times, as Manso suggests {Sparta, i. ii. pp. 292 ff.), moved thereto by the silence of Herodotus, is a con- clusion based on an imperfect apprecia- tion of the sources and methods of our author. Manso, indeed, argued that Telesilla and the women had the will to defend the city, but were not called upon to act, because a bribe did their business. That the action of the women was exaggerated, that it was put afterwards into an artificial relation to the ancient$