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

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ἄρα, ‘well,’ not without surprise; cp. Index. Abicht regards the particle here as marking an advance in the action (or inaction!).

ἀναβάλλεσθαι, differre, 6. 86 etc.

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τοῦτο καὶ ἐπὶ δέκα ἡμέρας ἐποίεον: i.e. for a whole (Greek) week; cp. c. 40 infra. There is an Asyndeton. The next words, ἐξ ... ἀναβαλλόμενοι, are not otiose (pace Stein), for, without them, the sentence might mean (in spite of the imperf. ἐποιεον) that they postponed the answer ‘for a week’ (i.e. twelve days in all). Meanwhile they were working away at the wall across the Isthmos; cp. c. 7 supra (bis), which is even yet not quite finished! If πάντες Πελοποννήσιοι (i.e. Π. πανδημί） were at the Isthmos, building or no building, they surely had arms with them. The building operations at this point may be put down to Hdt. They are not required to keep the Peloponnesians at home, but he seems to think the action of the Peloponnesians to have been determined simply by the state of the building.

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οὐδ᾽ ἔχω εἰπεῖν τὸ αἴτιον διότι κτλ., ‘I cannot state the reason why . .’ αἴτιον: cp. 7. 125.

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ὤρη here is plainly = σπουδή (cp. 1. 4, 3. 155), a poetic word; cp. ὀλίγωρος, ὀλιγωρία.

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ἐτετείχιστο: a strictly temporal pluperfect, reinforoed in ἀπετετείχιστο.

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δέεσθαι οὐδέν, ‘to have no nee<*> of . .’ (μηδέν was possible here, b<*> not obligatory, as the governing v<*>b is not itself in a form or construction which requires μή for its negation, Madvig § 205.)

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μεγάλως καταρρωδηκότες: the abjectaud utter terror of the Peloponnesians is expressed in fourfold fashion: (a) by the strong word ὀρρωδέω (ἀρρ-); (b) by the preposition in comp.; (c) by the ‘perfect’ tense; (d) by the adverb. Probably Hdt. found all this in the Attic Sources.