Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War 2.64

Καί τινα —the principal sentence.

Πλειστοάνακτα —when Euboea and Megara revolted from Athens 445 B.C., and Pericles had crossed to Euboea, Pleistoanax invaded Attica, but retreated after ravaging the Thriasian plain, as Pericles returned.

μεμνημένοι. .ὅτε...ἀνεχώρησε —‘remembering the time when.’ Cf. c. 54, 4 μνήμη ἐγένετο . ὅτε ( ὁ θεὸς ) ἀνεῖλε. Eur. Hec. 112 οἶσθ’ ὅτε χρυσέοις ἐφάνη ξὺν ὅπλοις. Only ὅτε is used in prose to mark a date. See c. 98, 1. So ‘audivi eum eum diceret.’

ἐσβαλὼν ... οὐκέτι προελθὼν — both temporal; cf. c. 68, 3 , 71, 2 , where also the time of the first precedes that of the second.

ἐς Ἐ. καὶ Θριῶζε — i.e. ἐς Ἐ. καὶ τὸ Θριάσιον πεδίον. ἐς τὸ π. οὐκέτι—‘without advancing further.’ Cf. I. 114 τὸ πλἐον οὐκέτι προελθόντες. With the eomparative the ‐έτι is superfluous, but idiomatic.

ἡ φυγὴ —Thuc. writes as though he had mentioned this before, but nothing is said about it in I. 114, and it is again referred to incidentally V. 16. It must have been a very famous event.

Ὡς εἰκὸς —with ἐφαίνετο. ἐν τῷ ἐμφανεῖ —)( ἐν τῷ ἀφανεῖ I. 136. ἐν in an adverbial phrase is eommon.

πλὴν —here an adverb. Cf. c. 34. So ad = ὡς, Livy XXI. 22, 3 ad mille oetingenti, though that use is limited to cases in whieh mille or millia intervenes.

τὰ Μηδικὰ —‘at the time of the Persian war.’ Cf. I. 3, 4 τὰ πρὸ Ἕλληνος. Adverbial aceusative, as in τὸ πρῶτον. μὴ περιορᾶν—distinguish ( a) οὐκ ἐδόκει περιορᾶν, ‘it did not seem good to overlook it,’ ( b) ἐδόκει οὐ περιορᾶν, ‘it seemed that they were not overlooking it,’ ( c) ἐδόκει μὴ περιορᾶν, ‘it seemed better not to,’ i.e. ‘they determined not to,’ implying ‘preferenee or deprecation.’ Rutherford. Syntax, p. 132.

Κατὰ ξ. γ. —so γίγνομαι is often used with participial expressions. Cf. c. 3 ἐκ τοῦ ἴσου γίγνεσθαι. The style here beeomes more animated, the conflicting passions being described, as usual, in short eo-ordinate sentences.

οἱ μὲν — apposition to the universal subject. Cf. c. 16, 1.

παντοίους, ὡς ἀκροᾶσθαι — i.e. every man, to whatever side he belonged, eould quote his own oraele-monger.

ὥρμητο —with infin., as in c. 59. παρὰ —c. 72, 2.

παντί τε —this τε sums up the preeeding three.

στρατηγὸς ὢν —Pericles being στρατηγὸς αὐτοκράτωρ (speeially given unlimited powers) could prevent any of his colleagues from leading them out.

ὑπεξαγάγοι — cause assigned by the people. Hence optative.

Γιγνώσκειν περὶ τοῦ μὴ —cf. c. 55. For the reason of his action, see Intr. p. lxix.

ἐκκλησίαν τε ... τήν τε —the double τε implies two coneurrent acts having the same object in view.

ἐποίει —‘summon.’ ἐκκλησία means the regular meeting ( κυρία ἐκκλησία) which only a στρατηγὸς αὐτοκράτωρ could prevent. It was ordinarily held in each Prytany. ξύλλογος means a special meeting ( συγκλητὸς ἐκκλησία). Cf. c. 59 and IV. 114, 120. These were summoned by the Prytanes at the request of the Strategi. (Gilbert, Beitr. zur innern Geschichte, p. 14, explains this passage differently.) As so many eountry people were now in Athens, all opposed to the war, it would have been very dangerous to eall a meeting.

οὐδένα —but he could not prevent the ξυστάσεις: club intrigues and sueh strained eombinations of opposed interests as oecur in times of excitement took the plaee of ordinary politics. In this hazy atmosphere the figure of Cleon looms indistinctly. (We cannot penetrate into the workings of the ἑταιρεῖαι to which Thuc. refers; but Grote is quite mistaken in saying that Cleon rose now ‘as an opposition speaker.’ He was preparing for the great attaek on Pericles that was made in 430 B.C. Intr. p. lxxvi.)

δῑ ἡσυχίας —c. 13, 2.

Τοῦ μὴ —purpose, a rare construction outside Thuc.

ἐσπίπτοντας ἐς κακουργεῖν —the eommon object is accommodated to the participle. See c. 13, 2.

ἀγροὺς —the Attic plain.

Φρυγίοις —somewhere between Athens and Acharnae in the plain.

τροπὴ ἐγένετο —pass. of τ. ἐποιήσαντο, c. 19.

Τὸ παλαιὸν ξ —made 461 B.C., the Thessalians being enemies of the Dorians and Boeotians from early times. The allianee was made when Sparta sent away the foree which Athens sent to help to subdue the helots.

Πολυμήδης καὶ Ἀριστόνους —these suggestive names are one outeome of the visit of Gorgias to Larissa, which had previously prided itself on ἱππικὴ rather than σοφία. Plat. Meno, 70 B, Isoer. 15, 155 .

ἀπὸ τῆς στάσεως —the Sehol. says ἡ Λάρισσα ἐστασίασε πρὸς ἑαυτήν· διὸ ἑκατέρα μερὶς ἄρχοντα εἶχε. λέγει δὲ ὅτι ἑκατέρα στάσις δύναμιν Ἀθηναίοις ἀπέστειλεν. οἱ μὲν γὰρ δημοκρατίαν ἤγαγον, οἱ δὲ ὀλιγαρχίαν. These explanations are based only on the passage. It is more probable that Thue. means that the troops of Larissa were in two divisions, each having its own general Cf. c. 36, 1; VI. 62. The meanings of μέρος and στάσις are much alike, and as μέρος sometimes has a political, so στάσις perhaps has a military sense. Cf. centuria. A. Philippi, Rhein. Mus. 36, p. 245, proposes ἀρχηγὸς τῆς στάσεως for ἀπὸ τ. ς. Larissa was the most important state in Thessaly. Its prinees elaimed to be descended from Heracles, Pind. Pyth. 10 . (Herodian settles the orthography. It must be admitted that the analogy of Thebes, and of Sparta to some extent, favours the explanation of the Sehol.)

κατὰ πόλεις —though the cities of Thessaly had separate prinees, they seem to have been connected by allianee.