Note 506 — Chapter XLIV · FROM THE BATTLES OF PLATÆA AND MYKALE DOWN TO THE DEATHS OF THEMISTOKLES AND ARISTEIDES.

Thucyd. i. 93. ἔπεισε δὲ καὶ τοῦ Πειραιέως τὰ λοιπὰ ὁ Θεμιστοκλῆς οἰκοδομεῖν (ὑπῆρκτο δ’ αὐτοῦ πρότερον ἐπὶ τῆς ἐκείνου ἀρχῆς, ἧς κατ’ ἐνιαυτὸν Ἀθηναίοις ἦρξε).

Upon which words the Scholiast observes (Κατ’ ἐνιαυτὸν)—κατά τινα ἐνιαυτὸν ἡγεμὼν ἐγένετο· πρὸ δὲ τῶν Μηδικῶν ἦρξε Θεμιστοκλῆς ἐνιαυτὸν ἕνα.

It seems hardly possible, having no fuller evidence to proceed upon, to determine to which of the preceding years Thucydidês means to refer this ἀρχὴ of Themistoklês. Mr. Fynes Clinton, after discussing the opinions of Dodwell and Corsini (see Fasti Hellenici, ad ann. 481 B. C. and Preface, p. xv), inserts Themistoklês as archon eponymus in 481 B. C., the year before the invasion of Xerxes, and supposes the Peiræus to have been commenced in that year. This is not in itself improbable: but he cites the Scholiast as having asserted the same thing before him (πρὸ τῶν Μηδικῶν ἦρξε Θεμιστοκλῆς ἐνιαυτὸν ἕνα), in which I apprehend that he is not borne out by the analogy of the language: ἐνιαυτὸν ἕνα, in the accusative case, denotes only the duration of the ἀρχὴ, not the position of the year (compare Thucyd. iii, 68).

I do not feel certain that Thucydidês meant to designate Themistoklês as having been archon eponymus, or as having been one of the nine archons. He may have meant, “during the year when Themistoklês was stratêgus (or general),” and the explanation of the Scholiast, who employs the word ἡγεμὼν, rather implies that he so understood it. The stratêgi were annual as well as the archons. Now we know that Themistoklês was one of the generals in 480 B. C., and that he commanded in Thessaly, at Artemisium, and at Salamis. The Peiræus may have been begun in the early part of 480 B. C., when Xerxes was already on his march, or at least at Sardis.