Did Alkmeonides lead the exiles from the Battle of Pallene (546 B.C.)?

Abstract

Two hundred and fifty years ago in A.D. 1763, the learned and brilliant German philologist Petrus Wesseling published in Amsterdam his magisterial edition of the Greek text of Herodotos. His text became very influential and was the basis of nearly all later editions, with his emendations and readings adopted without question over the coming decades and eventually centuries. Many of these were the product of his deep knowledge of Greek history. But at 1.64.3, Wesseling emended the reading of all the best manuscripts from ΆλΚμϵωνιδέω to ΆλΚμϵωνιδέων. This emendation means that those who fled Attica after the Battle of Pallene in 546 B. C. went into exile with the Alkmeonidai, rather than with a specific individual, Alkmeonides. Yet this removal of Alkmeonides from Herodotos' narrative at this point is neither necessary nor justifiable.