Edgar Carew Marchant, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 7, 7.75

[1] παρεσκευάσθαι —impersonal.

καὶ ἡ ἀνάστασις —elsewhere this καὶ always follows ὡς ut, not ἐπειδὴ postquam.

[2] δεινὸν οὖν ἦν κ.τ.λ. —probably this passage, which all edd. admit to be exceedingly obscure, means lit.: ‘not only in respect of one point in their condition was it terrible that they were departing after losing all their ships and, in contrast with their high hopes, having to face danger, both to themselves and their city, but also at the same time, as they left the camp, every man encountered things that were painful both to look upon and to think of.’ (The meaning of καθ’ ἓν τῶν πραγμάτων is not certain, and the words might safely be ‘skipped.’ Classen thinks that they may be, and Stahl is certain that they are corrupt. Sitzler reads ἐκεῖνο for καθ’ ἕν. Only Bohme-Widmann are entirely satisfied, taking καθ’ ἓν τῶν πραγμάτων as subject of δεινὸν ἦν—which I agree with Stahl is impossible—and understanding, with Haase, in unum contracta rerum gestarum summa.)

καθ’ ἓν —means generally (1) in detail, singly; but sometimes (2) in one respect, for one reason, as in II. 89.7 . Thuc. is contrasting ἓν with πολλά, and means the fact that they were leaving with loss and danger was terrible not on one account only, but for many reasons, and the many reasons are expanded into the clause ἀλλὰ καὶ, etc., which again is developed in §§ 3, 4, through which the general idea δεινὸν ἦν οὐ καθ’ ἓν runs—bnt the subject clause, ὅτι . . κινδυνεύοντες, is lost sight of. καθ’ ἓν γίγνεσθαι = in unum cogi.

τῶν πραγμάτων —expresses the sphere of circumstances in which there were many points of horror, and the circum= stances are those of the ἀποχώρησις .

ὅτι τάς τε κ.τ.λ. —Haase and Rauchenstein alone take this as subject of δεινὸν ἦν, but the notes will show that they are prob. right.

ἐν τῇ ἀπολείψει —this being a quasi-temporal word, Thuc. might perhaps have omitted ἐν, as he does with πόλεμος, ἑσβολή.

[3] νεκρῶν —see on c. 74 l. 20.

μετὰ φόβου —partly because they had neglected a duty so sacred as burial, partly because the dead if unburied were likely to haunt the living, partly because they had not gone through the rites of self-purification.

οἱ . . . καταλειπόμενοι — those who were being left behind alive. Cf. οἱ λειπόμενοι=‘the survivors.’

τοῖς ζῶσι —observe that we require here an antithesis to τοῖς καταλειπομένοις—hence the various alterations proposed. But Thuc. may have been guilty of a false antithesis here, as his admirer Lucretius very often is. There is a similar error in Cic. de legibus II. 44 quod constat et ex vexandis vivorum animis et ea fama mortuorum, ut eorum exitium et judicio vivorum et gaudio comprobetur—unless for the second vivorum we should read bonorum, as proposed by P. Thomas.

τῶν ἀπολωλότων ἀθλιώτεροι —the antithesis between the peace of honourable death and the misery of disgraced life became a stock theme of the schools.

[4] καθίστασαν —sc. αὐτούς.

ὅσον — quantum. This seems more expressive than the Vatican ἐς ὅσον , quousque, which is generally adopted.

τῳ —the dat. with προλείπειν is unusual.

ῥώμη — spirit. It suggests high nervous tension—with which Athenians were rarely troubled—as in II. 43.6 .

οὐκ ἄνευ ὀλίγων —Valla wrongly renders non sine multis obtestationibus, and all the edd. have mistaken the meaning. The wounded and weak did not stop until they were so utterly exhausted both in body and mind that they could utter only a few appeals and groans. So far from there being no sense in ὀλίγων, there is a terrible amount of sense in it, both as a description of the scene and as an indication of the temperament of Thuc as a man and as an artist.

ἐπιθεασμῶν —Cobet has shown that this is the true orthography, not ἐπιθειασμῶν. Hesych. ἐπιθεάζει· θεοὺς ἐπικαλεῖται .

ἀπολειπόμενοι — being parted from them ἐν τῇ ἀπολείψει τοῦ στρατοπέδου, Cf. on l. 27. The preference which most edd show for the Vat. ὑπολειπόμενοι is mexplicable.

ὥστε κ.τ.λ. —this gives the consequence of all the ἀλγεινὰ of l. 12, and thus carries us back to δεινὸν ἦν.

δάκρυσι —the dat. with πίμπλημι, instead of gen., is poetical.

ἀπορίᾳ —causal dat.

ἐκ πολεμίας —sc. ἀφορμωμένους. ἀφορμᾶσθαι shows that this sentence recalls ἐν τῇ ἀπολείψει τοῦ ς. It is interesting to notice that the whole passage from § 2 to § 4, though it contains statements of fact, happens to be arranged in the form of a rhetorical cnthymeme, and is therefore very characteristic of Thuc.

ἢ κατὰ δάκρυα — Herod. III. 14 μέζω κακὰ ἢ ὥστε ἀνακλαίειν. In giavissimo maerore ne lacrimis quidem locus. Haacke.

τῶν ἐν ἀφανεῖ —in such passages we have the best indication of the historian's own religious views as purely negative. In this matter he was in accord with Protagoras, and, as in other matters, with Euripides, at least until the poet's recantation in his old age. Cf. on c. 86.5 .

[5] κατήφειά — exprime un sentiment de honte qui fait baisser les yeux. Didot. Cf. Eur. Med. 956 τί δὴ κατηφεῖς ὄμμα, καἰ δακρυρροεῖς; Having completed the description of the ἀλγεινὰ in the form of an cnthymeme, Thuc. now goes back to the grammatical subject of δεινον οῦν ἦν § 2, viz., ὅτι τάς τε ναῦς ἀπολωλεκότες πάσας ἀπεχώρουν καὶ ἀντὶ μεγάλης ἐλπίδος . . . κινδυνεύοντες. These two aspects of the αποχώρησις —viz., the loss and the change which the loss involved to all —are dealt with in §§ 5, 6, 7, so as to exhibit their effect on the appearance of the army and on the minds of the men, and they are considered together from two points of view, the κατήφεια which they involved and besides ( καὶ μὴν, § 6) the ἰσομοιρία which they involved. Thus the whole chap. from § 2 forms a chiasmus, as regards the matter, and it is a perfect example of composition. Macaulay said of ‘the Retreat’ that there was no prose composition in the world that he placed so high.

ὑποφευγούσῃ —the comparison has lost its force for us; but the phenomenon referred to was not a rare one in those times.

ὑπὸ τοῖς ὅπλοις — ἐπὶ in addition to, in place of ὑπό , has been generally accepted, but Widmann rightly says that the change is unnecessary. It is not easy to say how else hoplites could have carried food but in the left hand, and so of necessity beneath the shield.

ἀκολούθων —i.e. θεραπόντων.

παραχρῆμα —sc. ἀπηυτομόλουν.

[6] καὶ μὴν —introducing a new point in the description. Thuc uses καὶ μὴν only in speeches and the more highly wrought parts of the narrative.

ἥ τ’ἄλλη αἰκία κ τ.λ. —lit. the degradation generally and especially the universality of the suffering, though it had some alleviation in the fact that it was shared by many, was nevertheless at that moment thought intolerable. ἡ ἰσομοιρία is the special part of the αἰκία singled out for comment: in this case the universality of the suffering is designated αἰκία because hoplites and knights were suffering the same hardship as the meanest slave. (Junghahn has rightly explained this passage; but the addition of τ’ is necessary in order to get the sense required.)

τὸ μετὰ πολλῶν —Cic. ad At. X I. 6.1 meus dolor non modo non minuitur, cum socium sibi adjungit dolorem tuum, sed etiam augetur. ‘General evils,’ Machiavelli says, ‘are endured more easily than private ones.’

ἀπὸ οἵας —an exclamation, the donble οἷος being used as so often in tragedy to express a marked contrast Trans. ‘especially considering that they’ etc.

ἀφίκατο —the plur. suits αὔχημα much better than the sing. ἀφῖκτο, even if it could be used impersonally.

[7] τὸ διάφορον — reverse.

οἷς = ὅτι αὐτοῖς.

ἀντὶ μὲν τοῦ . . ἥκειν —Herod. has this idiom twice without the article.

δουλωσομένους —for the change from dat. to accus. cf. c. 40.4 ; 57.9 .

τοῦτο —object of πάθωσι.

ναυβατῶν —found in Herod., Thuc., and tragedy only.

ὁπλιτικῷ προσέχοντας μᾶλλον ἢ ναυτικῷ — trusting, not to a fleet, but to hoplites. This was a bad omen for the queen of the sea.

Edgar Carew Marchant Commentary on Thucydides: Book 7 7.75

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