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.

    493/528 (page 365)
    3G5 TOiv fjL€v ovK ecovTcov (7vjx^a\eLV (^6\Lyov<i y^p etvat^ aTpaTifj tt} jVIr/Bwt' [crvyLt^aWefi'], tmv Be Kal MtATiaSew Ke\ev6vTU)v. o)? Be Bi')(CL re eyivovTO /cal eviKa 'q '^elpcov tmv yvcopueojv, evOavra, yap evBeKaro^ ‘\frT]^LBo(f)6po(; 6 tS Kvdp.w \ay^o)v 'KOrjvaiwv iroXe- 5 pbap^eecv (to 'jra\aLov yap A.6r)vaiot, opLO-yjrrjcjiov tov iroXepLap'^ov enroiei/vro rolcn arpaTTjyocat), rjv Se rore iroXepLap'^of; KaWt/za^o? is whetlier to risk a battle or to act on the defensive. The previous question, whether to go out or to remain in the city, must have been raised before the march to Marathon, c. 103 supra; but of this point Hdt. takes virtually no account. Cp. case of Eretria, c. 101 supra, and see Appendix X. § 26. 3. Twv KttC. Perhaps Aristeides and the gallant Stesilaos son of Thrasy- laos (cp. c. 105 supra), possibly even Themistokles, w’ere among the foiir who supported the better judgment of Mil- tiades. <ru|ipdXX€iv del. Stein. 5. 6 Tw Kvdfjiw Xax«v iroXeftapxeeiv. This incidental phrase cannot prove that the lot had been introduced by Kleisthenes for the Archontate : at most it proves that the Polemarch was appointed by sortition, perhaps out of the college of nine Archons, after their election But the general assumption that Hdt. thought of the Archons as appointed in 490 B.c. as they were certainly appointed in 430 B.c. K\rip(f] or Kvdfjup need not be gain- said. It is far more likely, however, that Hdt. should have been guilty of an anachronism in the constitutional history of Athens, than that the lot was introduced so early as is here im- plied. Is Hdt. such a high authority on political and constitutional perspec- tives ? Are anachronisms so rare in his f)ages ? Moreover, this matter of the ot is not what he is here mainly concerned about: at the time he is writing the Polemarch and the other Archons obtain office by sortition, but the Polemarch has ceased to be 6/16- ^t)<pos Totcn arpartlyoiffi: it is this fact, that in the days of Marathon the Polemarch was still a member of the college of commanders, not the circum- stance that he was already an officer Kvafievrds, which affects the story. What the exact position of the Pole- march was in 490 B.c. Hdt. does not clearly indicate, but he does not say that the Polemarch had merely a cast- ing vote in case of an equidecision among ten Strategi. The Polemarch was 6fi6\p7]^os T. (XT. He voted there- fore on all occasions. He must have been consulted before the army left Athens (c. 103), before the mission of Philippides (c. 105) ; and not merely at the eleventh hour. The Polemarch also fights on the right wing—nay commands it (c. Ill infra). There is indeed only one supposition which fairly makes sense of the story of Marathon. In 490 B.c. the Polemarch was still commander-in-chief, and the Strategi formed his council of war. As commander-in-chief he led the right wing, the post of honour and danger in a Greek army. Miltiades probably was the intellectual author of the Athenian tactics at Marathon, but he was not (XTparriybs alrroKpdrtjp, which is virtually the position assigned to him in the traditions of the Periklean age. It was Kallimachos not Miltiades who com- manded at Marathon. This theory, if correct, makes it more absurd than ever to suppose that the Polemarch was Kvapevrbs. On the question of the introduction of the lot see further : On the significance of the Lot and the date of its introduction at Athens in the Transactions of the Oxford Philological Society 1886/7. [Also J. W. Headlam, Election hy Lot at Athens, Cambr. 1891.] This note so far has been left intact, as written years before the discovery of the treatise on the Athenian Polity, ascribed to Aristotle, which has the express statement for the date of Marathon : rovs (TTparriyovs ypovvro /caret <f)v\ds, iKd(XTT}S (pvXrjs ^va, rys 8b airdcxTis (XTparids riyeixCov 6 iroXbfmpxos c. 22. This statement was probably intended to clear up the obscurity in regard to the part played by the Pole- march in Hdt.’s account of the Mara- thonian affair, which may have per- plexed Athenian students in the fourth century b.c. as it has perplexed all modern students who have given any attention to it. It does not, however.