Note 61 — Chapter VIII

The words in brackets, as being at variance with what is said immediately before, that the Persians had helmets on their heads, Wyttenbach, Weiske, and most other critics have condemned as an interpolation of some copyist. Kühner defends them an the ground that they do not interfere with what precedes, but merely express a general custom of the Persians. Jacobs for ἄλλους conjectures παλαιούς, which Lion has received into his text; but παλαιούς does not suit well with the present διακινδυνεύειν. For my own part, I would rather see the words out of the text than in it, if for no other reason than that they break the current of the narrative. Dindorf very judiciously leaves them in brackets.