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.

    504/528 (page 376)
    VI iravaiXTjvov, €-)(pvT€f; anovB^v iroW^v KaraXa/Setv, ovrco Mare TpiTOLOL €K ^7rdpT7)(; ijcvovTO iv rfj 'KTTLKfj. varepoL Be dm- Kop^evoL rrj^ avp^dXr]^; ipeipovro opo3<i OerjaaaOaL tow? M»^Sol»9* 5 iX66vre<i Be €9 Tov Mapa(9com ederjaavro. perd Be aiveovre^ A.6r)vaL0v<i KoX to epyov avrSiv d'rrdXXdtjaovro oTTLaco. 121 @copa Be pot Kal ovk evBeKopai rbv Xoyov ’KXKpewviBa<i dv Kore dvaBe^ai Yiepayau eK awdriparo^ dairiBa, ^ovXopevov^ vnro iSapf^dpoLCTL re elvau ^AOrjvaLOV^ Kal viro ^lirTTLy' oXrive^ pdXXov rj opoL(0<i K.aXXLr) tS ^aiviTTirov, 'linTOViKOv Be 'rrarpi, (^aivovrau geitnion this would be, according to our calendar, Sep. 11, 490 B.o. But it is not credible that a force of 2000 heavy-armed men accomplished the march in three days (and two nights). Isokrates allows them three days and three nights for the 1200 stades {Panegyr. 97), which would bring them to Athens reTapTOLoi —a sufficiently wonderful performance. They might of course be ‘ in Attica ’ without feng ‘in Athens.’ The battle then might have been on Boedr. 17 = Sep. 12. But we cannot be quite sure on what day the Athenians returned to the city, nor consequently on what day the battle was fought. Cp. Appendix X. § 27. On the distance see c. 106 supra. 3. Uo-Tcpoi 8^ d. T. (T. That the Spartans were prepared to leave Athens to be destroyed, only feigning an excuse (c. 106), and then sent an anny at a forced march, is unlikely. As the march, the arrival, and the visit to Marathon seem well attested, it follow^s that the re- ligious excuse on this occasion was genuine. Who commanded the Lake- daimonians, and whether there were Pelo- ponnesian supports to follow, we are left to conjecture. Cp. Appendix VII. § 11. 5. €0€fj(ravTo. They were therefore still unburied. The Medes (Persians) were said to have been buried, but Pausanias (1. 32, 5) could not find any tomb or monument. The true Persians by the way would not have thanked the Athenians for burial; a point upon which Hdt. was not quite accurately informed (1. 140), cp. c. 30 supra. alv€ovT€S: ea est enim profecto ju- cunda laus, quae ah iis proficiscitur, qui ipsi in laude vixerunt, Cicero ad Fam. 15. 6, 1. The Athenians were not likely to forget this alvos, and the tribute to an achievement, all their own (t6 ^pyov airdv). 121. 1. 0wu.a, c. 117 supra, 1. 93, etc. OVK lv8eKO|jiaL rhv \6yov, c. 115 supra, cp. Introduction, § 22. On the Alkmaionidae and their family history cp. note to c. 125 infra. The logic of the historian is at fault in this passage. To prove that the Alkmaionidae were fiLfforipoLwot he relates the connexion of the family with Kroisos, the first bar- barian who reduced Hellenes to slavery, 1. 6, and with Kleisthenes tyrant of Sikyon, and conveniently forgets the connexion and alliance with Peisistratos himself, 1. 60. This excursus on the Alkmaionidae has been suspected. Most editors regard c. 122 as spurious. Blakesley goes so far as to reject cc. 121-124. This is too much or too little, for how explain the introduction of the sequel 125 tf. ? How explain the special peculiarities of c. 122 ? The passage may well be an addition (by Hdt. him- self), and in any case can have been no integral part of the Athenian tradition about the battle of Marathon. Cp. Appendix X. § 8. ’AX.K[i.«wvt8as. In 490 B.c. the head of the family was a Megakles, who in that year won a Pythian victory, celebrated in the shortest of Pindar’s Epinikia, Pyth. vii. If the ode was composed immediately after the Pythian festival the absence of all reference to Marathon is intel- ligible. The (p66vos to which the house was exposed is indeed indicated, but that feeling might he the cause not the effect of this suspicion. If the ode were composed in 489 B.c. (as Stein says), its silence would confirm the evil report. Cp. Appendix X. § 12. 4. KaX.\Cxj ktX. The men here mentioned were members of the great house of the Kerykes. The pedigree and history may be found in Petersen, Ristoria Gentium Attic, pp. 34 if. (1880). Cp. Boeckh, Staatshaushdltung, i.* pp.