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τήν: sc. δέσιν. Cf. for the construction v. 72. 4; ix. 37. 1 (where τήν is omitted). For the punishment of the whole family cf. Dan. vi. 24, but Darius here, more merciful than his namesake in the Bible story, spares the women.


ἀδελφεός. The preference for a brother over a husband occurs in Soph. Ant. 905-12 (perhaps an interpolation; cf. Jebb, pp. 259 seq., but it certainly was in Aristotle's text of Sophocles; cf. Rhet. iii. 16.9; some ascribe the addition to the poet's son Iophon). The argument certainly seems more natural in the historian than in the dramatist. (Cf. Introd. p. 7.) There are curious parallels in the Indian Epic, the Ramayana, and in a late Persian story. Nöldeke (Hermes, xxix. 155; cf. also xxviii. 465) thinks the Herodotean version is the original, because in it only two lives are spared, in the Oriental versions all three, husband, brother, and son. He thinks, however, H.'s story and the Indian one are both derived from an older Persian original. The more natural view is that a piece of Greek cleverness has been borrowed in the East.

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