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.

482/528 (page 354)

$V[ Apro^ep^eco tov ^ep^eco, rpLOiv Tovrecov iire^Tj^ <yeveecov, iyevero TrXeo) KaKa rfj EWaSi €7rl eiKoaL dWa<; yeved^ t«9 'jrpo lo Aapeiov yevop,eva^, rd pLev utto tmv Tiepaewv avrrj yevopieva, rd Bh aTT avTOiV T03V Kopv<f>aL(ov irepl t?}? dp-^^<; iroKepLeovrwv. ovtqj ovBev ueLK6<i /civrj6)]vai ArjXov to irplv eovaav aKLvrjTov. [kuI iv ')^pr]o-pb(p rjv yeypapupcevov irepl avrr]<; wSe* KLvrjaco KaL A7]\oi> dKLvrjTov rrep eovaav.^ 15 hvvaraL Be Kard 'EWaSa yXcocraav ravra rd ovvopiara, Aapelo<i ip^€Lr](;, ^ep^T)^ dprjLO'^, 'ApT0^ep^r]<; pbeya<; dpTquo<i. tovtov<; p,ev B^ Toi><; ^aaiXea^i d>Be dv 6p6S)<; Kurd yXdio-aav t^v cr(p6repr}v ''^XXrjve^ KaXeoLev. 99 01 Se ^dp^apoL w? d'Tr'qetpav 4k tt}^ ArjXov, irpoa’lcr'^ov Trpo? war in Greece 431-425 B.o. But the argument is inconclusive. If it were said : ‘ During the reigns of George, William, and Victoria, England has made greater progress than during the twenty reigns previous ’ ; such a re- mark would not imply that the present Queen’s reign was over (8 ij.^ yivoiro). Artaxerxes I. reigned for upwards of a generation, coming to the throne probably about 464 b.o. (Duncker, viii. 293). Hdt. might have written as he does here many years before the king was gathered to his fathers. The identihcation of reigns and generations should not be pressed in favour of the latest possible date, for it proves too much. Three generations with Hdt. make a hundred years (2. 142), but the three reigns here referred to, even if regarded as complete, fall short of the century (521-425). The identification of reigns and generations only shows how loose the chronological reference is. There is thus no necessity to conclude that this passage was written after 431 B.c. 9. eiKocri &\\as yevcds. Twenty generations = 666^ years. If these be added to the date of the accession of Dareios (521 B.c.) they bring us to 1188 B.c.; if to the date of the birth of Dareios (551 B.c.) they bring us to 1218 B.c., in either case within measurable distance of the Trojan war, the aera of which according to Hdt. is about 1250 B.c. (2. 145). Hdt. may be taken to say that since the days of Agamem- non Hellas had never had such cause of Moe as ‘the last hundred years or so.’ It is strange to find Kyros omitted. to say nothing of the wars with the Mermnadae. The generation as distin- guished from the reign of Dareios would take us back nearly to the accession of Kroisos (Herodotus’ aera in Bk. 1), but the passage before us here is not scientific but rhetorical chronology, and it is labour lost to attempt to harmonise it with Hdt. ’s other data. 11. avTwv Twv Kopv<})aC«v “rrepl rfis dpx'fjs TToXep.edvTwv. These words would apply to the circumstances of Hellas in 431 B.C. and following years, but they would have been justified by the events which followed the first rupture with Sparta (c. 461-451 b.c.), and at any rate must be taken to refer to them. 12. ovS^v -fiv dciKcs. On ideal prin- ciples it would perhaps have been still more proper for this portent to have oc- curred two years or so earlier, before the Ionian revolt, before the affair of Naxos, if not, indeed, on the first appearance of Kyros in Western Asia in 546 b.c. Kul . . eovcrav. These words are omitted in some of the best MSS. ABC ( = a). 15. SvvaTai. These etymological efforts are all unsuccessful, except per- haps that arta is an intensive particle. The modern etymologists, however, only agree in differing from Herodotus : see the valuable List of Proper Names in Rawlinson, Herodotus, vol. iii.^ pp. 539 ff. Van Herwerden follows Wes- seling in regarding the passage as spurious, and removes it from the text. 99. 1. oL p. answers rovro g.iv, c. 98 supra. irpbs Tois VT](ro\^ comes in here$