Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War 3.17.2

ed. Henry Stuart Jones

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History of the Peloponnesian War. Thucydides. ed. Henry Stuart Jones. Oxford. 1910.

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Ἱστορίαι (Greek) (Thucydides. Historiae, Vol 1-2. Jones, Henry Stuart, editor. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1910. (1942 printing).)

Translations (11)
The History of the Grecian War Perseus (Thucydides. The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury. Hobbes, Thomas. translator. London: John Bohn, 1843.) — 3.17.2 focus
History of the Peloponnesian War Perseus (Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War. Crawley, Richard, translator. London and Toronto: J. M. Dent and Sons Ltd.; New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., 1914.) — 3.17.2 focus
Geschichte des Peloponnesischen Kriegs First1KGreek (Thucydides. Geschichte des Peloponnesischen Kriegs. Wahrmund, Adolf, translator. Stuttgart: Krais and Hoffmann, 1864.) — 3.17 focus
Geschichte des Peloponnesischen Kriegs First1KGreek (Thucydides. Geschichte des Peloponnesischen Kriegs. Braun, Theodor, translator. Leipzig: Insel-Verlag, 1917.) — 3.17 focus
Histoire de la Guerre du Péloponèse First1KGreek (Thucydides. Histoire de la Guerre du Péloponnése, Vol. 1-2. Zévort, Marie Charles, translator. Paris: Charpentier, 1852.) — 3.17 focus
Histoire de la Guerre du Péloponnése First1KGreek (Thucydides. Histoire de la Guerre du Péloponnése. Bétant, Élie-Ami, translator. Paris: Librairie de L. Hachette, 1863.) — 3.17 focus
History of the Peloponnesian War First1KGreek (Thucydides, Vol. 1-4. Smith, Charles Foster, translator. London and Cambridge, MA: Heinemann and Harvard University Press, 1919-1923.) — 3.17.2 focus
History of the Peloponnesian War First1KGreek (Thucydides. The history of the Peloponnesian War, Volume 1-2. Dale, Henry, translator. London: Heinemann and Henry G. Bohn, 1851-1852.) — 3.17.2 focus
Historia Belli Peloponnesiaci First1KGreek (Historia Belli Peloponnesiaci. Haase, Friedrich, translator. Paris: Firmin Didot, 1869.) — 3.17.2 focus
Vier Staatsreden aus Thucydides First1KGreek (Thucydides. Vier Staatsreden aus Thucydides. Gürsching, Heinrich, translator. Augsburg: Wirth, 1856.) — 2.35.2 focus
La storia di Tucidide First1KGreek (Thucydides. Della storia di Tucidide volgarizzata libri otto. Anonymous translator. Florence: Tipografia Galileiana, 1835.) — 3.17 focus

Commentary

Commentary on Thucydides: Book 3 (Thucydides, Book III. Marchant, Edgar C., editor. London: Macmillan and Company, 1909.) focus

κατὰ τὸν χρόνον τοῦτον ὅν —i.e. καθ’ ὄν, according to a common idiom; cf. Soph. OC. 748 ἐς τοσοῦτον αίκίας πεσεῖν | ἔδοξ’, ὅσον πέπτωκεν ἥδε .

ἐν τοῖς πλεῖσται δή —for the fem. cf. c. 82, 1 ( στάσις) ἐν τοῖς πρώτη ἐγένετο. Pre-eminence is not necessarily implied in any of the examples of this idiom, and Herbst is perhaps right in saying that prominence only is meant. The latter must be the point here, because of παραπλήσιαι δὲ καὶ ἔτι πλείους.

δή heightening the superlative is not elsewhere added to this idiom.

αὐτοῖς —with ἐγένοντο.

ἐνεργοὶ †κάλλει makes no sense. ἐνεργός, though not elsewhere applied to ships, is well suited to them, ‘on active service,’ ‘in commission’; and it may be that the note in Hesychius αἱ μὴ ἀργαί alludes to this passage. But κάλλει must be corrupt, for the rendering ‘effective by their fine condition’ is not possible. Herbst's conjecture ς/ καὶ λ/, i.e. 230, is plausible; but in order to make up so great a total, he assumes a fleet of sixty ships for guarding the eoast of Attica. Were this so, we should surely have heard of it at c. 16, 2 among the reasons that caused the Pel. to abandon the invasion; and even though we are left to collect the number of ships at sea in 428 B.C., this large item in the total must have been mentioned somewhere. Still, the interpolator may have reckoned the total at 230 by the same proeess, whatever it was, that led him to 250 for 431 B.C. below. The number, however, does not come in naturally after ἐν τοῖς πλεῖσται. A very good sense would be got by μιᾷ πόλει (Widmann).

τήν τε γὰρ Ἀττικήν —referring to the first year of the war; but there is no mention of such a fleet in the account of that year.

περὶ Πελοπόννησον —this fleet had been sent out by Pericles as a counter-stroke to the invasion of Attica.

χωρὶς δέ —‘besides,’ sc. ἦσαν, which is implied in the context.

τοῦτο —i.e. the sending out of these armaments. In a somewhat similarly vague way

μετὰ Ποτειδαίας is used for μετὰ τῆς Ποτειδαίας πολιορκίας, with which should be compared II. 13 ἐς Ποτείδαιαν ἀπανηλώθη, ‘money was spent on the siege of P.’ It is strange that the expenses of the army at Potidaea, as distinct from the expenses of the fleet there, should be brought in so vaguely.

δίδραχμοι —half a drachma a day was the ordinary pay for a hoplite: here it is one drachma for the hoplite and one for his servant.

ἐλάμβανε —we should expect ἕκαστος ἐλάμβανον or ἐλάμβανεν. It is the omission of a singular subject to which the verb is attracted that is remarkable: edd. note that this omission is frequent in Herod.

ὧν οὐκ ἐλάσσους —when Potidaea revolted in 432 B.C., 3000 Athenian hoplites had been sent to besiege it. It seems that the permanent force was maintained at this number throughout the siege.

οἳ προαπῆλθον —these 1600 had been sent to blockade Potidaea from the south ( I. 64 ) soon after the revolt. They were withdrawn from Chalcidice before the place fell.

τὸν αὐτὸν μισθόν —viz. one drachma per man, or double the ordinary wage ( VI. 31 ).

τοσαῦται δή —referring still to the παραπλησίαι καὶ ἔτι πλείους (§ 1); so that the digression extends to the end of the chapter.