Edgar Carew Marchant, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 7, 7.2

[1] Λευκάδος —Gylippus and Pythen had left the Cor. here with filteen ships, and had sailed out with four, hoping to prevent Italy from joining Athens, but despairing of Sicily.

ὡς εἶχον τάχους —cf. c. 57 ως ἑκαστοι τῆς ξυντυχίας ἔσχον . VI. 97 ὡς ἕκαστος τάχους εἶχε . Tac. Ann. 15.53

ut quisque audentiae habuisset accurrerunt

is a conscions imitation of this. Xen. Hel. 4.5.15 ὡς τάχους ἕ. εἶχε. Herod. VI. 116 ὡς ποδῶν εἶχον.

ἀφικνεῖται —having entered by the Little Harbour (called Laccrus), eluding the A. fleet which commanded the Great Harbour.

μέλλοντας ἐκκλησιάσειν —there is no evidence to prove that ‘it was the very day,’ as Freeman says, ‘which had been fixed for the discussion.’ Thuc. only says that they intended to discuss the question of peace.

Λακ. ἀποστειλάντων —Krüger notes that the gen. abs. is often thus placed qualifying a verb. Cf. V. 4 τρίτος αὐτὸς Ἀθηναίων πεμπόντων ἐξέπλευσε.

[2] ᾐσθάνοντο —by message from him.

[3] Ἰετὰς —Steph. Byz. says Philistus referred to it as φρούριον Σικελίας; but it is quite unknown.

τότε —Classen refers this to ἐν τῇ παρόδῳ, but as Thuc. never uses τότε with reference to the period implied in a temporal expression, Poppo rightly refers it to οἱ Συρακόσιοι ἐξῆλθον.

τεῖχος . . . τῶν Σικελῶν —the perversion of the natural order adds emphasis to τῶν Σικελῶν. Cf. II. 5.5 ἐν σπονδαῖς σφῶν πειραθέντες καταλαβεῖν τὴν πόλιν, where σφῶν belongs to τὴν πόλιν. Cf. on c. 17.3 , 4, and 18, 1.

ἐν τῇ παρόδῳ —So I. 126 ; cf. ἐν ὁδῷ εἶναι, to be on the road.

ἑλών, καὶ ξυν —when two partic. are joined by καί, the action of the one generally precedes that of the other in time, or gives the cause of it. The former may be the case here. (Hw. and Sta. bracket καί.)

Εὐρὐηλον —it is strange enough that the Syr. should not have established an outpost on the point of the ‘Broad Nail’ in the winter of 415 when the fortifications were extended; but still stranger that G. should have found Euryelus now undefended by the Athenians.

μετὰ τῶν Σ. they had joined him by marching through the open space north of the A. lines.

[4] l 21.

ἔτυχε . . . ἐλθὼν —with the aor. of τυγχάνω, φθάνω, λανθάνω the aor. partic. expresses time not antecedent to, but coincident with the time of the verb. To express time antecedent to the time of these verbs, either (1) the pres. or imperf. of these verbs must be used, or (2) if the aor. is used, the perf. partic is necessary. Cf. on c. 4.3 .

κατὰ τοῦτο τοῦ καιροῦ —cf. c. 69 ἐν τῷ τοιούτῳ τοῦ καιροῦ; c. 33 ἐν τούτῳ τύχης. Cf. also the idiom εἰς τοῦτο ( τοσοῦτο) ἐλθεῖν ( ἀφικέσθαι, ἥκειν) with gen.; id temporis; eo ( furoris) venire (Phrynichus says that the noun of time requires the art., but no such rule was known to Attic authors, the art. being employed or omitted according to the whim of the writer or as the meaning required. Rutherford.)

ἑπτὰ . . . ἢ ὀκτὼ —it would be about seven to the fort on the κρημνός, about eight to the κύκλος, as far as the building was then completed. (Those who think that the κύκλος was further north, and that the wall between it and the κρημνὸς was double —Classen, Holm, Lupus, Muller—are foreed to bracket ἑπτὰ . . σταδίων, as the length of the double wall must then be considerably greater. See Intr. p. xii.)

μὲν —answered by τῷ δὲ ἄλλῳ. The double wall, as nearly completed, is contrasted with the northern wall, very incomplete. (Fr. Muller and Oeltze de particularum μέν et δέ usu Halle '87 place μὲν between ἐς and τὸν helow.)

σταδίων —gen. of measure; cf. II. 13 τὰ μακρἁ τείχη τεσσαράκοντα σταδίων. The position of the gen. is due to the antithesis, which often causes a disturbance of the natural order. See on c. 17.3 .

ἀπετετέλεστο —on the question whether Thuc. here neglects to take account of the wall between the κύκλος and the κρημνος, see Intr. p. xiii.

ἐς τον . . . λιμένα —it crossed three levels, (1) a short portion of Epipolae, (2) τὸ ὁμαλόν, the level just below the κρημνός, (3) τὸ ἕλος, the marshy ground about Lysimeleia.

διπλοῦν — contra exteriorem etiam hostem, Jastus Lipsis. Cf. Lucian Ver. hist. I. 19 . Endymion the king of the moon made war on Phaethon k. of the sun, because the latter had prevented Endymion from colonising Hesperus. The Nephelocentaurs in Phaethon's service build a wall ὥστε μηκέτι τὰς αὐγὰς ἀπὸ τοῦ ἡλἰου πρὸς τὴν σελήνην διήκειν. τὸ δὲ τεῖχος ἦν διπλοῦν, ὥστε σαφὴς ἔκλειψις τῆς σελήνης ἐγεγόνει. This produced peace.

τὸ πρὸς τὴν θ. —epexegetic of τι. Cf. VIII. 21 ἐς διακοσίους τινὰς τοὺς πάντας.

τῷ δὲ ἄλλῳ (ἄνὠ τοῦ κ. — the remainder of the wall north of the fort; the same as τὸ πρὸς βορέαν τοῦ κύκλου τεῖχος in VI. 99 . Cf. Herod. I. 72 of the course of the Halys ῥέων ἄνω πρὸς βορέην. (So in VI. 99 κάτωθεν τοῦ κύκλου = south of the κ., as Sitzler explains. Without ἄνω there are two ways of taking the text: (1) τῷ ἄλλῳ= ἑτέρωθι on the other side of, of which meaning there is no example; or (2) making πρὸς τὸν Τρώγιλον govern τοῦ κύκλου for the rest of the wall on the Trogilus side of the κ., but, from the analogy of other prepositional phrases, it is clear that even so τοῦ κύκλου must be ‘partitive’; cf. IV. 108.1 τὰ ( τοῦ ποταμοῦ) πρὸς Ἠιόνα; IV. 5 τοῦ χωρίου τὸ πρὸς ἤπειρον. This would necessitate taking κύκλος here to mean the whole circumference of the walls, as in II. 13 ; but κ. must mean a central point between the two pieces of wall spoken of, as it clearly does in all the other passages— VI. 98 , 99 , 101 , 102 .)

ἔστιν ἃ . . . τὰ δὲ —for τὰ μὲν . . τὰ δὲ . .

καὶ ἡμίεργα . . . καὶ ἐξειργασμένα —the first καὶ marks the antithesis between τῷ πλἐονι and ἔστιν ἄ, the second that between ἔστιν ἃ and τὰ δέ.

παρὰ τοσοῦτον —cf. VIII. 33 παρὰ τοσοῦτον ἐγένετ’ αὐτῷ μὴ περιπεσεῖν τοῖς Ἀθηναίοις, and παρὰ ἓν πάλαισμα ἔδραμε νικᾶν Herod. 9.33 .

μὲν —in transition, as often, like μὲν δή, II. 4 οἱ μὲν δὴ οὕτως ἐπεπράγεσαν. οἱ δὲ ἄλλοι ; III. 24 .

Edgar Carew Marchant Commentary on Thucydides: Book 7 7.2

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