ἥσθη τε. The advice of Artemisia was a positive pleasure to Xerxes; cp. c. 101 ad init.; it squared so exactly with his own ideas! λέγουσα γὰρ ἐπετύγχανε: cp. c. 101 ad fin. The τε here has no καί following: the parenthetic expression of Hdt.'s own opinion (δοκέειν ἐμοί), that all the men and women in creation could not have persuaded Xerxes to remain, a little deranges the grammar of his narrative (which should have run on καὶ ἐπαινέσας).
οὕτω καταρρωδήκεε, ‘so utterly was he overcome with terror’ — the pl.p. is rather intensive than temporal in character, οὕτω: cp. c. 98.
ἐς Ἔφεσον: the terminal port of the Royal Road; cp. 5. 54. Artemisia doubtless went by sea; perhaps on the very night after the battle.
οἱ: sc. Ξέρξῃ, as the αὐτοῦ παῖδας just before makes clear. ἑωυτοῦ might have been expeeted there; Hdt. treats the king (Stem remarks) as the remoter of two subjects, and so prefers the demonstrative to the possessive pronoun; cp. c. 87 supra, where, however, ἡ δὲ αὐτῆς is in a parenthesis.
The only queen - wife of Xerxes was (so far as we know) Amestris; cp. 7. 61, 114 supra, 9. 109 infra, by whom he had four sons (including Artaxerxes his successor; cp. 7. 106, 151 supra) and two daughters; cp. Rawlinson, iv. 255. Dareios is the only other son named by Hdt.; cp. 9. 108. None of these sons of Xerxes will have been old enough to serve on this expedition. The fact that the νόθοι were sent home with Artemisia would suggest, what the probable age of Xerxes would confirm, that the παῖδες in question were quite young. The commission was no doubt a mark of royal favour, and reeorded as such; yet is there no ‘malice’ in Hdt.'s notice of this exit of Artemisia?
