Reginald Walter Macan, Herodotus, The Seventh, Eighth, & Ninth Books with Introduction and Commentary

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παρεσκευάζετο ... ὅπλα, ‘he caused ropes to be prepared . .’ The bridges (τὰς γεφύρας) would presumably include the one over the Strymon, men tioned just above, though there were to be two bridges over the Hellespont. But probably the other larger rivers in Thrace were bridged too (Hebros and Nestos, and probably the Axios in Macedonia), so that at least half a dozen large bridges are here in question; and they may all have been ‘pontoons’ rather than such bridges as Caesar threw across the Rhine (cp. B.G. 4. 17). As to the materials of which the ropes were composed, it would be natural to assign the papyros (βύβλινα) to the Egyptian and the hemp (λευκόλινον) to the Phoenician, as is in fact done c. 34 infra; but G. Wilkinson (ap. Rawlinson ad l.) asserts the Egyptians to have used both materials for cables. Perhaps that depends upon the exact material denoted by λευκόλινον, which Stein (following Hehn, Kulturpflanzen,2 p. 144) takes to be identical with the λευκέα of Spain, employed by Hiero H. for the ropes of his ship of state (Athenaeus, 206), and that again with the Esparto-grass, stipa tenacissima, long known to the Phoenicians of Xerxes' days. And was not palm-fibre invariably used in Egypt for ropes? Cp. F. Ll. Griffith, ‘The Egypt of Herodotus’ in Nat. Home-Reading Union Mag. xv. (1904) 257.

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ἵνα, ‘where,’ as c. 23 supra, though just before used with its telic force. εἴη is optative, not because of the conjunction but because of the indirect oration, or dependence of the phrase.

ὁλκάδες would be used at sea; πορθμήια in rivers, or sheltered places.

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σῖτον must in any case be supplied for the MS. reading πλεῖστον, but the distinction drawn, by Stein, between σῖτος here and σιτία above (grain: provisions) is perhaps overdone; cp. 5. 34 σῖτα καὶ ποτά. Cobet would read σῖτον above also; cp. App. Crit.

The list of the depôts, or magazines, comprises or implies five chief depôts on the European side, but may not be quite complete. 1. Λευκὴ ἀκτή, situated, as appears from Skylax, 67, on the Propontis, just beyond the limit of the Chersonese: μετὰ δὲ τὴν Χερρόνησόν ἐστι Θρᾴκια τείχη τάδε: πρῶτον Λευκὴ Ἀκτή, Τειρίστασις κτλ. Forbiger (Alte Geographie, iii. 1081) would identify it with point ‘St. George.’ Stein identifies it (for reasons not given) with Alkibiades' castle in this district. 2. Τυρόδιζα, placed by Stephanos B. near Serrhion (cp. c. 59 infra), i.e. near the mouth of the Hebros (cp. Forbiger, Alte Geogr. iii. 1074), a position which (a) comes too near Doriskos, the next depôt mentioned, and (b) lies too far from Perinthos for the qualification τὴν Περινθίων. A Τυρόδιζα appears in the Hellespontine region, among the tributaries of Athens, on the Quota-Lists (five times), paying from 1000 to 500 Dr. The order of names within the region not being geographical, we cannot fix precisely the site of Tyrodiza from these lists, but it cannot have been within the ‘Thracian’ region. Kiepert's map places it close to Perinthos, perhaps on the strength of this passage. Stein proposes to identify it with Τειρίστασις (leg. Τυρόστασις), which brings it close to Leuke Akte, and connects the name with ‘Tyre’ (Phoenician) and Thracian dizo=στάσις. (The Phoenician reference is rather far-fetched.) Perhaps the depôt at Leuke Akte was the same under another name (cp. the confusion in the text here, App. Crit.). In any case these depôts on the Propontis, especially if there was one as far east as Perinthos, suggest the Pontos as the source of the corn supply (cp. the absurd anecdote c. 147 infra). 3. Δορίσκος, fully identified and located, c. 59 infra. 4. Ἠιόνα τὴν ἐπὶ Στρυμόνι: cp. 8. 118, Thuc. 1. 98. 1, in distinction from “Ἠιόνα τὴν ἐπὶ Θρᾴκης Μενδαίων ὰποικίαν” Thuc. 4. 7. 1, and several other places of the same name, the Strymonian Eion here mentioned being the only one, perhaps, the position of which can be exactly fixed (cp. Arnold's note to Thuc. 4. 7). 5. ἐς Μακεδονἰην is curiously vague; the subsequent narrative suggests Therme (c. 127 infra) as the precise spot. Leuke Akte, or Tyrodiza, Doriskos, Eion and Therme do in fact mark four important stations on the subsequent advance of the Persians; but it is possible that the list here given is by no means exhaustive even for the European side (e.g. were no stores accumulated at Sestos?), though the chapter is important as confirming the scale upon which the king's operations were undertaken; cp. further, Appendix II. § 4.