[70] Thucyd. v, 45. Μηχανᾶται δὲ πρὸς αὐτοὺς τοῖονδέ τι ὁ Ἀλκιβιάδης· τοὺς Λακεδαιμονίους πείθει, πίστιν αὐτοῖς δοὺς, ἢν μὴ ὁμολογήσωσιν ἐν τῷ δήμῳ αὐτοκράτορες ἥκειν, Πύλον τε αὐτοῖς ἀποδώσειν (πείσειν γὰρ αὐτὸς Ἀθηναίους, ὥσπερ καὶ νῦν ἀντιλέγειν) καὶ τἄλλα ξυναλλάξειν. Βουλόμενος δὲ αὐτοὺς Νικίου τε ἀποστῆσαι ταῦτα ἔπραττε, καὶ ὅπως ἐν τῷ δήμῳ διαβαλὼν αὐτοὺς ὡς οὐδὲν ἀληθὲς ἐν νῷ ἔχουσιν, οὐδὲ λέγουσιν οὐδέποτε ταὐτὰ, τοὺς Ἀργείους ξυμμάχους ποιήσῃ.

[71] Plutarch (Alkibiad. c. 14). Ταῦτα δ’ εἰπὼν ὅρκους ἔδωκεν αὐτοῖς, καὶ μετέστησεν ἀπὸ τοῦ Νικίου παντάπασι πιστεύοντας αὐτῷ, καὶ θαυμάζοντας ἅμα τὴν δεινότητα καὶ σύνεσιν, ὡς οὐ τοῦ τυχόντος ἀνδρὸς οὖσαν. Again, Plutarch, Nikias, c. 10.

[72] Plutarch, Alkib. c. 14. Ἐρωτώμενοι δ’ ὑπὸ τοῦ Ἀλκιβιάδου πάνυ φιλανθρώπως, ἐφ’ οἷς ἀφιγμένοι τυγχάνουσιν, οὐκ ἔφασαν ἥκειν αὐτοκράτορες.

[73] Thucyd. v, 45. Οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι οὐκέτι ἠνείχοντο, ἀλλὰ τοῦ Ἀλκιβιάδου πολλῷ μᾶλλον ἢ πρότερον καταβοῶντος τῶν Λακεδαιμονίων, ἐσήκουόν τε καὶ ἑτοῖμοι ἦσαν εὐθὺς παραγαγεῖν τοὺς Ἀργείους, etc.

Compare Plutarch, Alkib. c. 14; and Plutarch, Nikias, c. 10.

[74] Euripid. Andromach. 445-455; Herodot. ix, 54.

[75] Thucyd. v, 46.

[76] Thucyd. v, 46; Plutarch, Nikias, c. 10.

[77] Thucyd. v, 47. ὑπὲρ σφῶν αὐτῶν καὶ τῶν ξυμμάχων ὧν ἄρχουσιν ἑκάτεροι.

[78] Thucyd. v, 48. καὶ τῶν ξυμμάχων ὧν ἂν ἄρχουσιν ἕκαστοι. The tense and phrase here deserve notice, as contrasted with the phrase in the former part of the treaty—τῶν ξυμμάχων ὧν ἄρχουσιν ἑκάτεροι.

The clause imposing actual obligation to hinder the passage of troops, required to be left open for application to the actual time.

[79] Thucyd. v, 47.

[80] Thucyd. v, 48.

[81] Thucyd. v, 48-50.

[82] Καταθέντων δὲ καὶ Ὀλυμπίασι στήλην χαλκῆν κοινῇ Ὀλυμπίοις τοῖς νυνί (Thucyd. v, 47), words of the treaty.

[83] Dorieus of Rhodes was victor in the Pankration, both in Olymp. 88 and 89, (428-424 B.C.). Rhodes was included among the tributary allies of Athens. But the athletes who came to contend were privileged and (as it were) sacred persons, who were never molested or hindered from coming to the festival, if they chose to come, under any state of war. Their inviolability was never disturbed even down to the harsh proceeding of Aratus (Plutarch, Aratus, c. 28).

But this does not prove that Rhodian visitors generally, or a Rhodian theôry, could have come to Olympia between 431-421 in safety.

From the presence of individuals, even as spectators, little can be inferred: because, even at this very Olympic festival of 420 B.C., Lichas the Spartan was present as a spectator, though all Lacedæmonians were formally excluded by proclamation of the Eleians (Thucyd. v, 50).

[84] Of the taste and elegance with which these exhibitions were usually got up in Athens, surpassing generally every other city in Greece, see a remarkable testimony in Xenophon, Memorabil. iii, 3, 12.

[85] Thucyd. vi, 16. Οἱ γὰρ Ἕλληνες καὶ ὑπὲρ δύναμιν μείζω ἡμῶν τὴν πόλιν ἐνόμισαν τῷ ἐμῷ διαπρεπεῖ τῆς Ὀλυμπίαζε θεωρίας, πρότερον ἐλπίζοντες αὐτὴν καταπεπολεμῆσθαι· διότι ἅρματα μὲν ἑπτὰ καθῆκα, ὅσα οὐδείς πω ἰδιώτης πρότερον, ἐνίκησά τε, καὶ δεύτερος καὶ τέταρτος ἐγενόμην, καὶ τἄλλα ἀξίως τῆς νίκης παρεσκευασάμην.

The full force of this grandiose display cannot be felt unless we bring to our minds the special position both of Athens and the Athenian allies towards Olympia,—and of Alkibiadês himself towards Athens, Argos, and the rest of Greece,—in the first half of the year 420 B.C.

Alkibiadês obtained from Euripidês the honor of an epinikian ode, or song of triumph, to celebrate this event; of which a few lines are preserved by Plutarch (Alkib. c. 11). It is curious that the poet alleges Alkibiadês to have been first, second, and third, in the course; while Alkibiadês himself, more modest and doubtless more exact, pretends only to first, second, and fourth. Euripidês informs us that Alkibiadês was crowned twice and proclaimed twice—δὶς στεφθέντ’ ἐλαίᾳ κάρυκι βοᾷν παραδοῦναι. Reiske, Coray, and Schäfer, have thought it right to alter this word δὶς to τρὶς, without any authority, which completely alters the asserted fact. Sintenis in his edition of Plutarch has properly restored the word δὶς.

How long the recollection of this famous Olympic festival remained in the Athenian public mind, is attested partly by the Oratio de Bigis of Isokratês, composed in defence of the son of Alkibiadês at least twenty-five years afterwards, perhaps more. Isokratês repeats the loose assertion of Euripidês, πρῶτος, δεύτερος, and τρίτος (Or. xvi, p. 353, sect. 40). The spurious Oration called that of Andokidês against Alkibiadês also preserves many of the current tales, some of which I have admitted into the text, because I think them probable in themselves, and because that oration itself may reasonably be believed to be a composition of the middle of the fourth century B.C. That oration puts all the proceedings of Alkibiadês in a very invidious temper and with palpable exaggeration. The story of Alkibiadês having robbed an Athenian named Diomêdês of a fine chariot, appears to be a sort of variation on the story about Tisias, which figures in the oration of Isokratês; see Andokid. cont. Alkib. sect. 26: possibly Alkibiadês may have left one of the teams not paid for. The aid lent to Alkibiadês by the Chians, Ephesians, etc., as described in that oration, is likely to be substantially true, and may easily be explained. Compare Athenæ. i, p. 3.

Our information about the arrangements of the chariot-racing at Olympia is very imperfect. We do not distinctly know how the seven chariots of Alkibiadês ran,—in how many races,—for all the seven could not, in my judgment, have run in one and the same race. There must have been many other chariots to run, belonging to other competitors: and it seems difficult to believe that ever a greater number than ten can have run in the same race, since the course involved going twelve times round the goal (Pindar, Ol. iii, 33; vi, 75). Ten competing chariots run in the race described by Sophoklês (Electr. 708), and if we could venture to construe strictly the expression of the poet,—δέκατον ἐκπληρῶν ὄχον,—it would seem that ten was the extreme number permitted to run. Even so great a number as ten was replete with danger to the persons engaged, as may be seen by reading the description in Sophoklês (compare Demosth. Ἐρωτ. Λογ. p. 1410), who refers indeed to a Pythian and not an Olympic solemnity: but the main circumstances must have been common to both; and we know that the twelve turns (δωδεκάγναμπτον δωδεκάδρομον) were common to both (Pindar, Pyth. v, 31).

Alkibiadês was not the only person who gained a chariot victory at this 90th Olympiad, 420 B.C. Lichas the Lacedæmonian also gained one (Thucyd. v, 50), though the chariot was obliged to be entered in another name, since the Lacedæmonians were interdicted from attendance.

Dr. Thirlwall (Hist. of Greece, vol. iii, ch. xxiv, p. 316) says: “We are not aware that the Olympiad, in which these chariot-victories of Alkibiadês were gained, can be distinctly fixed. But it was probably Olymp. 89, B.C. 424.”

In my judgment, both Olymp. 88 (B.C. 428) and Olymp. 89 (B.C. 424) are excluded from the possible supposition, by the fact that the general war was raging at both periods. To suppose that in the midst of the summer of these two fighting years, there was an Olympic truce for a month, allowing Athens and her allies to send thither their solemn legations, their chariots for competition, and their numerous individual visitors, appears to me contrary to all probability. The Olympic month of B.C. 424, would occur just about the time when Brasidas was at the Isthmus levying troops for his intended expedition to Thrace, and when he rescued Megara from the Athenian attack. This would not be a very quiet time for the peaceable Athenian visitors, with the costly display of gold and silver plate and the ostentatious theôry, to pass by, on its way to Olympia. During the time when the Spartans occupied Dekeleia, the solemn processions of communicants at the Eleusinian mysteries could never march along the Sacred Way from Athens to Eleusis. Xen. Hell. i, 4, 20.

Moreover, we see that the very first article both of the Truce for one year and of the Peace of Nikias, expressly stipulate for liberty to all to attend the common temples and festivals. The first of the two relates to Delphi expressly: the second is general, and embraces Olympia as well as Delphi. If the Athenians had visited Olympia in 428 or 424 B.C. without impediment, these stipulations in the treaties would have no purpose nor meaning. But the fact of their standing in the front of the treaty, proves that they were looked upon as of much interest and importance.

I have placed the Olympic festival wherein Alkibiadês contended with his seven chariots, in 420 B.C., in the peace, but immediately after the war. No other festival appears to me at all suitable.

Dr. Thirlwall farther assumes, as a matter of course, that there was only one chariot-race at this Olympic festival, that all the seven chariots of Alkibiadês ran in this one race, and that in the festival of 420 B.C., Lichas gained the prize: thus implying that Alkibiadês could not have gained the prize at the same festival.

I am not aware that there is any evidence to prove either of these three propositions. To me they all appear improbable and unfounded.

We know from Pausanias (vi, 13, 2) that even in the case of the stadiodromi, or runners who contended in the stadium, all were not brought out in one race. They were distributed into sets, or batches, of what number we know not. Each set ran its own heat, and the victors in each then competed with each other in a fresh heat; so that the victor who gained the grand final prize was sure to have won two heats.

Now if this practice was adopted with the foot-runners, much more would it be likely to be adopted with the chariot-racers in case many chariots were brought to the same festival. The danger would be lessened, the sport would be increased, and the glory of the competitors enhanced. The Olympic festival lasted five days, a long time to provide amusement for so vast a crowd of spectators. Alkibiadês and Lichas may therefore both have gained chariot-victories at the same festival: of course only one of them can have gained the grand final prize, and which of the two that was it is impossible to say.

[86] Thucyd. v, 49, 50.

[87] Thucyd. v, 50. Λακεδαιμόνιοι μὲν εἴργοντο τοῦ ἱεροῦ, θυσίας καὶ ἀγώνων, καὶ οἴκοι ἔθυον· οἱ δὲ ἄλλοι Ἕλληνες ἐθεώρουν, πλὴν Λεπρεατῶν.

[88] Thucyd. v, 28. Κατὰ γὰρ τὸν χρόνον τοῦτον ἥ τε Λακεδαίμων μάλιστα δὴ κακῶς ἤκουσε, καὶ ὑπερώφθη διὰ τὰς ξυμφορὰς, οἵ τε Ἀργεῖοι ἄριστα ἔσχον τοῖς πᾶσι, etc.

[89] See a previous note, p. 56.

[90] Thucyd. v, 50. Λίχας ὁ Ἀρκεσιλάου Λακεδαιμόνιος ἐν τῷ ἀγῶνι ὑπὸ τῶν ῥαβδούχων πληγὰς ἔλαβεν, ὅτι νικῶντος τοῦ ἑαυτοῦ ζεύγους, καὶ ἀνακηρυχθέντος Βοιωτῶν δημοσίου κατὰ τὴν οὐκ ἐξουσίαν τῆς ἀγωνίσεως προελθὼν ἐς τὸν ἀγῶνα ἀνέδησε τὸν ἡνίοχον, βουλόμενος δηλῶσαι ὅτι ἑαυτοῦ ἦν τὸ ἅρμα.

We see by comparison with this incident how much less rough and harsh was the manner of dealing at Athens, and in how much more serious a light blows to the person were considered. At the Athenian festival of the Dionysia, if a person committed disorder or obtruded himself into a place not properly belonging to him in the theatre, the archon or his officials were both empowered and required to repress the disorder by turning the person out, and fining him, if necessary. But they were upon no account to strike him. If they did, they were punishable themselves by the dikastery afterwards (Demosth. cont. Meidiam, c. 49).

[91] It will be seen, however, that the Lacedæmonians remembered and revenged themselves upon the Eleians for this insult twelve years afterwards during the plenitude of their power (Xenoph. Hellen. iii, 2, 21; Diodor. xiv, 17).

[92] Thucyd. v, 51, 52.

[93] Thucyd. v, 48-50.

[94] Plato, Symposion, c. 35, p. 220. δεινοὶ γὰρ αὐτόθι χειμῶνες, πάγου οἵου δεινοτάτου, etc.

[95] Thucyd. v, 52. Isokratês (De Bigis, sect. 17, p. 349) speaks of this expedition of Alkibiadês in his usual loose and exaggerated language: but he has a right to call attention to it as something very memorable at the time.

[96] Thucyd. v, 52.

[97] Thucyd. v, 53, with Dr. Arnold’s note.

[98] Thucyd. v, 54. ᾔδει δὲ οὐδεὶς ὅποι στρατεύουσιν οὐδὲ αἱ πόλεις ἐξ ὧν ἐπέμφθησαν.

This incident shows that Sparta employed the military force of her allies without any regard to their feelings, quite as decidedly as Athens; though there were some among them too powerful to be thus treated.

[99] Thucyd. v, 54. Ἀργεῖοι δ’ ἀναχωρησάντων αὐτῶν (the Lacedæmonians), τοῦ πρὸ τοῦ Καρνείου μηνὸς ἐξελθόντες τετράδι φθίνοντος, καὶ ἄγοντες τὴν ἡμέραν ταύτην πάντα τὸν χρόνον, ἐσέβαλον ἐς τὴν Ἐπιδαυρίαν καὶ ἐδῄουν· Ἐπιδαύριοι δὲ τοὺς ξυμμάχους ἐπεκαλοῦντο· ὧν οἱ μὲν τὸν μῆνα προυφασίσαντο, οἱ δὲ καὶ ἐς μεθορίαν τῆς Ἐπιδαυρίας ἐλθόντες ἡσύχαζον.

In explaining this passage, I venture to depart from the views of all the commentators; with the less scruple, as it seems to me that even the best of them are here embarrassed and unsatisfactory.

The meaning which I give to the words is the most strict and literal possible: “The Argeians, having set out on the 26th of the month before Karneius, and keeping that day during the whole time, invaded the Epidaurian territory, and went on ravaging it.” By “during the whole time” is meant, during the whole time that this expedition lasted. That is, in my judgment, they kept the twenty-sixth day of the antecedent month for a whole fortnight or so; they called each successive day by the same name; they stopped the computed march of time; the twenty-seventh was never admitted to have arrived. Dr. Thirlwall translates it (Hist. Gr. vol. iii, ch. xxiv, p. 331): “They began their march on a day which they had always been used to keep holy.” But surely the words πάντα τὸν χρόνον must denote some definite interval of time, and can hardly be construed as equivalent to ἀεί. Moreover the words, as Dr. Thirlwall construes them, introduce a new fact which has no visible bearing on the main affirmation of the sentence.

The meaning which I give may perhaps be called in question on the ground that such tampering with the calendar is too absurd and childish to have been really committed. Yet it is not more absurd than the two votes of the Athenian assembly (in 290 B.C.), who being in the month of Munychion, first passed a vote that that month should be the month Anthestêrion; next, that it should be the month Boêdromion; in order that Demetrius Poliorkêtês might be initiated both in the lesser and greater mysteries of Dêmêtêr, both at once and at the same time. Demetrius arrived at Athens in the month Munychion, and went through both ceremonies with little or no delay; the religious scruple, and the dignity of the Two Goddesses being saved by altering the name of the month twice (Plutarch, Demetrius, c. 26).

Besides, if we look to the conduct of the Argeians themselves at a subsequent period (B.C. 389, Xenophon, Hellen. iv, 7, 2, 5; v, 1, 29), we shall see them playing an analogous trick with the calendar in order to get the benefit of the sacred truce. When the Lacedæmonians invaded Argos, the Argeians despatched heralds with wreaths and the appropriate insignia, to warn them off on the ground of its being the period of the holy truce,—though it really was not so,—οὐχ ὅποτε κάθηκοι ὁ χρόνος, ἀλλ’ ὅποτε ἐμβάλλειν μέλλοιεν Λακεδαιμόνιοι, τότε ὑπέφερον τοὺς μῆνας—Οἱ δ’ Ἀργεῖοι ἐπεὶ ἔγνωσαν οὐ δυνησόμενοι κωλύειν, ἔπεμψαν, ὥσπερ εἰώθεσαν, ἐστεφανωμένους δύο κήρυκας ὑποφέροντας σπονδάς. On more than one occasion, this stratagem was successful: the Lacedæmonians did not dare to act in defiance of the summons of the heralds, who affirmed that it was the time of the truce, though in reality it was not so. At last, the Spartan king Agesipolis actually went both to Olympia and Delphi, to put the express question to those oracles, whether he was bound to accept the truce at any moment, right or wrong, when it might suit the convenience of the Argeians to bring it forward as a sham plea (ὑποφέρειν). The oracles both told him that he was under no obligation to submit to such a pretence; accordingly, he sent back the heralds, refusing to attend to their summons, and invaded the Argeian territory.

Now here is a case exactly in point, with this difference; that the Argeians, when they are invaders of Epidaurus, falsify the calendar in order to blot out the holy truce where it really ought to have come: whereas when they are the party invaded, they commit similar falsification in order to introduce the truce where it does not legitimately belong. I conceive, therefore, that such an analogous incident completely justifies the interpretation which I have given of the passage now before us in Thucydidês.

But even if I were unable to produce a case so exactly parallel, I should still defend the interpretation. Looking to the state of the ancient Grecian calendars, the proceeding imputed to the Argeians ought not to be looked on as too preposterous and absurd for adoption, with the same eyes as we should regard it now.

With the exception of Athens, we do not know completely the calendar of a single other Grecian city: but we know that the months of all were lunar months, and that the practice followed in regard to intercalation, for the prevention of inconvenient divergence between lunar and solar time, was different in each different city. Accordingly, the lunar month of one city did not, except by accident, either begin or end at the same time as the lunar month of another. M. Boeckh observes (ad Corp. Inscr. t. i, p. 734): “Variorum populorum menses, qui sibi secundum legitimos annorum cardines respondent, non quovis conveniunt anno, nisi cyclus intercalationum utrique populi idem sit: sed ubi differunt cycli, altero populo prius intercalante mensem dum non intercalat alter, eorum qui non intercalarunt mensis certus cedit jam in eum mensem alterorum qui præcedit illum cui vulgo respondet certus iste mensis: quod tamen negligere solent chronologi.” Compare also the valuable Dissertation of K. F. Hermann, Ueber die Griechische Monatskunde, Götting. 1844, pp. 21-27, where all that is known about the Grecian names and arrangement of months is well brought together.

The names of the Argeian months we hardly know at all (see K. F. Hermann, pp. 84-124): indeed, the only single name resting on positive proof, is that of a month Hermæus. How far the months of Argos agreed with those of Epidaurus or Sparta we do not know, nor have we any right to presume that they did agree. Nor is it by any means clear that every city in Greece had what may properly be called a system of intercalation, so correct as to keep the calendar right without frequent arbitrary interferences. Even at Athens, it is not yet satisfactorily proved that the Metonic calendar was ever actually received into civil use. Cicero, in describing the practice of the Sicilian Greeks about reckoning of time, characterizes their interferences for the purpose of correcting the calendar as occasional rather than systematic. Verres took occasion from these interferences to make a still more violent change, by declaring the Ides of January to be the calends of March (Cicero, Verr. ii, 52, 129).

Now where a people are accustomed to get wrong in their calendar, and to see occasional interferences introduced by authority to set them right, the step which I here suppose the Argeians to have taken about the invasion of Epidaurus will not appear absurd and preposterous. The Argeians would pretend that the real time for celebrating the festival of Karneia had not yet arrived. On that point, they were not bound to follow the views of other Dorian states, since there does not seem to have been any recognized authority for proclaiming the commencement of the Karneian truce, as the Eleians proclaimed the Olympic and the Corinthians the Isthmiac truce. In saying, therefore, that the twenty-sixth of the month preceding Karneius should be repeated, and that the twenty-seventh should not be recognized as arriving for a fortnight or three weeks, the Argeian government would only be employing an expedient the like of which had been before resorted to; though, in the case before us, it was employed for a fraudulent purpose.

The Spartan month Hekatombeus appears to have corresponded with the Attic month Hekatombæon; the Spartan month following it, Karneius, with the Attic month Metageitnion (Hermann, p. 112), our months July and August; such correspondence being by no means exact or constant. Both Dr. Arnold and Göller speak of Hekatombeus as if it were the Argeian month preceding Karneius: but we only know it as a Spartan month. Its name does not appear among the months of the Dorian cities in Sicily, among whom nevertheless Karneius seems universal. See Franz, Comm. ad Corp. Inscript. Græc. No. 5475, 5491, 5640. Part xxxii, p. 640.

The tricks played with the calendar at Rome, by political authorities for party purposes, are well known to every one. And even in some states of Greece, the course of the calendar was so uncertain as to serve as a proverbial expression for inextricable confusion. See Hesychius—Ἐν Κέῳ τις ἡμέρα; Ἐπὶ τῶν οὐκ εὐγνώστον· οὐδεὶς γὰρ οἶδεν ἐν Κέῳ τις ἡ ἡμέρα, ὅτι οὐκ ἑστᾶσιν αἱ ἡμέραι, ἀλλ’ ὡς ἕκαστοι θέλουσιν ἄγουσι. See also Aristoph. Nubes, 605.

[100] Thucyd. v, 55. καὶ Ἀθηναίων αὐτοῖς χίλιοι ἐβοήθησαν ὁπλῖται καὶ Ἀλκιβιάδης στρατηγὸς: πυθόμενοι τοὺς Λακεδαιμονίους ἐξεστρατεῦσθαι· καὶ ὡς οὐδὲν ἔτι αὐτῶν ἔδει, ἀπῆλθον. This is the reading which Portus, Bloomfield, Didot, and Göller, either adopt or recommend; leaving out the particle δὲ which stands in the common text after πυθόμενοι.

If we do not adopt this reading, we must construe ἐξεστρατεῦσθαι, as Dr. Arnold and Poppo construe it, in the sense of “had already completed their expedition and returned home.” But no authority is produced for putting such a meaning upon the verb ἐκστρατεύω: and the view of Dr. Arnold, who conceives that this meaning exclusively belongs to the preterite or pluperfect tense, is powerfully contradicted by the use of the word ἐξεστρατευμένων (ii, 7), the same verb and the same tense, yet in a meaning contrary to that which he assigns.

It appears to me the least objectionable proceeding of the two, to dispense with the particle δέ.

[101] Thucyd. v, 56.

[102] Thucyd. v, 37.

[103] Thucyd. v, 58. Οἱ δὲ Ἀργεῖοι γνόντες ἐβοήθουν ἡμέρας ἤδη ἐκ τῆς Νεμέας, etc.

[104] Thucyd. v, 60. Οἱ δὲ Λακεδαιμόνιοι καὶ οἱ ξύμμαχοι εἵποντο μὲν ὡς ἡγεῖτο διὰ τὸν νόμον, ἐν αἰτίᾳ δὲ εἶχον κατ’ ἀλλήλους πολλῇ τὸν Ἆγιν, etc.

[105] Thucyd. v, 60. Ἀργεῖοι δὲ καὶ αὐτοὶ ἔτι ἐν πολλῷ πλέονι αἰτίᾳ εἶχον τοὺς σπεισαμένους ἄνευ τοῦ πλήθους, etc.

[106] Thucyd. v, 60.

[107] Thucyd. v, 62.

[108] Thucyd. v, 64. ὅσον οὐκ ἀφέστηκεν, etc.

[109] Thucyd. v, 63.

[110] Thucyd. v, 64. ἐνταῦθα δὴ βοήθεια τῶν Λακεδαιμονίων γίγνεται αὐτῶν τε καὶ τῶν Εἱλώτων πανδημεὶ ὀξεῖα καὶ οἵα οὔπω πρότερον. The out-march of the Spartans just before the battle of Platæa (described in Herodot. vii, 10) seems, however, to have been quite as rapid and instantaneous.

[111] Thucyd. v, 64. ξυνέκλῃε γὰρ διὰ μέσου.

[112] The Lacedæmonian kings appear to have felt a sense of protection in encamping near a temple of Hêraklês, their heroic progenitor (see Xenophon, Hellen. vii, 1, 31).

[113] Thucyd. v, 65. See an exclamation by an old Spartan mentioned as productive of important consequences, at the moment when a battle was going to commence, in Xenophon, Hellen. vii, 4, 25.

[114] Thucyd. v, 66. μάλιστα δὴ Λακεδαιμόνιοι ἐς ὃ ἐμέμνηντο, ἐν τούτῳ τῷ καιρῷ ἐξεπλάγησαν· διὰ βραχείας γὰρ μελλήσεως ἡ παρασκευὴ αὐτοῖς ἐγίγνετο, etc.

[115] Thucyd. v, 66. Σχεδὸν γάρ τι πᾶν, πλὴν ὀλίγου, τὸ στρατόπεδον τῶν Λακεδαιμονίων ἄρχοντες ἀρχόντων εἰσὶ, καὶ τὸ ἐπιμελὲς τοῦ δρωμένου πολλοῖς προσήκει.

Xenophon, De Republ. Laced. xi, 5. Αἱ παραγωγαὶ ὥσπερ ὑπὸ κήρυκος ὑπὸ τοῦ ἐνωμοτάρχου λόγῳ δηλοῦνται: compare xi, 8, τῷ ἐνωμοτάρχῃ παρεγγυᾶται εἰς μέτωπον παρ’ ἄσπιδα καθίστασθαι, etc.

[116] Thucyd. v, 66. εὐθὺς ὑπὸ σπουδῆς καθίσταντο ἐς κόσμον τὸν ἑαυτῶν, Ἄγιδος τοῦ βασιλέως ἕκαστα ἐξηγουμένου κατὰ τὸν νόμον, etc.

[117] Xenophon, Cyrop. iv, 2. 1: see Diodor. xv, c. 32; Xenophon, Rep. Laced. xiii, 6.

[118] Thucyd. v, 67.

[119] Very little can be made out respecting the structure of the Lacedæmonian army. We know that the enômoty was the elementary division, the military unit: that the pentekosty was composed of a definite (not always the same) number of enômoties: that the lochus also was composed of a definite (not always the same) number of pentekosties. The mora appears to have been a still larger division, consisting of so many lochi (according to Xenophon, of four lochi): but Thucydidês speaks as if he knew no division larger than the lochus.

Beyond this very slender information, there seems no other fact certainly established about the Lacedæmonian military distribution. Nor ought we reasonably to expect to find that these words enômoty, pentekosty, lochus, etc., indicate any fixed number of men: our own names regiment, company, troop, brigade, division, etc., are all more or less indefinite as to positive numbers and proportion to each other.

That which was peculiar to the Lacedæmonian drill, was, the teaching a small number of men like an enômoty (twenty-five, thirty-two, thirty-six men, as we sometimes find it), to perform its evolutions under the command of its enômotarch. When this was once secured, it is probable that the combination of these elementary divisions was left to be determined in every case by circumstances.

Thucydidês states two distinct facts. 1. Each enômoty had four men in front. 2. Each enômoty varied in depth, according as every lochagus chose. Now Dobree asks, with much reason, how these two assertions are to be reconciled? Given the number of men in front, the depth of the enômoty is of course determined, without any reference to the discretion of any one. These two assertions appear distinctly contradictory; unless we suppose (what seems very difficult to believe) that the lochage might make one or two of the four files of the same enômoty deeper than the rest. Dobree proposes, as a means of removing this difficulty, to expunge some words from the text. One cannot have confidence, however, in the conjecture.

[120] Thucyd. v, 69. Λακεδαιμόνιοι δὲ καθ’ ἑκάστους τε καὶ μετὰ τῶν πολεμικῶν νόμων ἐν σφίσιν αὐτοῖς ὧν ἠπίσταντο τὴν παρακέλευσιν τῆς μνήμης ἀγαθοῖς οὖσιν ἐποιοῦντο, εἰδότες ἔργων ἐκ πολλοῦ μελέτην πλείω σώζουσαν ἢ λόγων δι’ ὀλίγου καλῶς ῥηθέντων παραίνεσιν.

[121] Thucyd. v, 70. Ἀργεῖοι μὲν καὶ οἱ ξύμμαχοι, ἐντόνως καὶ ὀργῇ χωροῦντες, Λακεδαιμόνιοι δὲ, βραδέως καὶ ὑπὸ αὐλητῶν πολλῶν νόμῳ ἐγκαθεστώτων, οὐ τοῦ θείου χάριν, ἀλλ’ ἵνα ὁμαλῶς μετὰ ῥυθμοῦ βαίνοντες προσέλθοιεν καὶ μὴ διασπασθείη αὐτῶν ἡ τάξις, ὅπερ φιλεῖ τὰ μεγάλα στρατόπεδα ἐν ταῖς προσόδοις ποιεῖν.

[122] Thucyd. v, 67. Τότε δὲ κέρας μὲν εὐώνυμον Σκιρῖται αὐτοῖς καθίσταντο, ἀεὶ ταύτην τὴν τάξιν μόνοι Λακεδαιμονίων ἐπὶ σφῶν αὐτῶν ἔχοντες, etc.

The strong and precise language, which Thucydidês here uses, shows that this was a privilege pointedly noted and much esteemed: among the Lacedæmonians, especially, ancient routine was more valued than elsewhere. And it is essential to take notice of the circumstance, in order to appreciate the generalship of Agis, which has been rather hardly criticized.

[123] Thucyd. v, 72. (Οἱ Λακεδαιμόνιοι τοὺς Ἀργείους) Ἔτρεψαν οὐδὲ ἐς χεῖρας τοὺς πολλοὺς ὑπομείναντας, ἀλλ’ ὡς ἐπῇσαν οἱ Λακεδαιμόνιοι εὐθὺς ἐνδόντας, καὶ ἐστὶν οὓς καὶ καταπατηθέντας, τοῦ μὴ φθῆναι τὴν ἐγκατάληψιν.

The last words of this sentence present a difficulty which has perplexed all the commentators, and which none of them have yet satisfactorily cleared up.

They all admit that the expressions, τοῦ, τοῦ μὴ, preceding the infinitive mood as here, signify design or purpose; ἕνεκα being understood. But none of them can construe the sentence satisfactorily with this meaning: accordingly they here ascribe to the words a different and exceptional meaning. See the notes of Poppo, Göller, and Dr. Arnold, in which notes the views of other critics are cited and discussed.

Some say that τοῦ μὴ in this place means the same as ὥστε μή: others affirm, that it is identical with διὰ τὸ μὴ or with τῷ μή. “Formula τοῦ, τοῦ μὴ (say Bauer and Göller), plerumque consilium significat: interdum effectum (i. e. ὥστε μή); hic causam indicat (i. e. διὰ τὸ μὴ, or τῷ μή).” But I agree with Dr. Arnold in thinking that the last of these three alleged meanings is wholly unauthorized; while the second, which is adopted by Dr. Arnold himself, is sustained only by feeble and dubious evidence; for the passage of Thucydidês (ii, 4. τοῦ μὴ ἐκφεύγειν) may be as well construed, as Poppo’s note thereupon suggests, without any such supposed exceptional sense of the words.

Now it seems to me quite possible to construe the words τοῦ μὴ φθῆναι here in their regular and legitimate sense of ἕνεκα τοῦ, or consilium. But first an error must be cleared up which pervades the view of most of the commentators. They suppose that those Argeians, who are here affirmed to have been “trodden under foot,” were so trodden down by the Lacedæmonians in their advance. But this is in every way improbable. The Lacedæmonians were particularly slow in their motions, regular in their ranks, and backward as to pursuit, qualities which are dwelt upon by Thucydidês in regard to this very battle. They were not at all likely to overtake such terrified men as were only anxious to run away: moreover, if they did overtake them, they would spear them, not trample them under foot.

To be trampled under foot, though possible enough from the numerous Persian cavalry (Herodot. vii, 173; Xenoph. Hellen. iii, 4, 12), is not the treatment which defeated soldiers meet with from victorious hostile infantry in the field, especially Lacedæmonian infantry. But it is precisely the treatment which they meet with, if they be in one of the hinder ranks, from their own panic-stricken comrades in the front rank, who find the enemy closing upon them, and rush back madly to get away from him. Of course it was the Argeians in the front rank who were seized with the most violent panic, and who thus fell back upon their own comrades in the rear ranks, overthrowing and treading them down to secure their own escape. It seems quite plain that it was the Argeians in front—not the Lacedæmonians—who trod down their comrades in the rear (there were probably six or eight men in every file), in order to escape themselves before the Lacedæmonians should be upon them: compare Xen. Hellenic. iv, 4, 11; Œconomic. viii, 5.

There are therefore in the whole scene which Thucydidês describes, three distinct subjects: 1. The Lacedæmonians 2. The Argeians soldiers, who were trodden down. 3. Other Argeian soldiers, who trod them down in order to get away themselves. Out of these three he only specifies the first two; but the third is present to his mind, and is implied in his narrative, just as much as if he had written καταπατηθέντας ὑπ’ ἄλλων, or ὑπ’ ἀλλήλων, as in Xenoph. Hellen. iv. 4, 11.

Now it is to this third subject, implied in the narrative, but not formally specified (i. e. those Argeians who trod down their comrades in order to get away themselves), or rather to the second and third conjointly and confusedly, that the design or purpose (consilium) in the words τοῦ μὴ φθῆναι refers.

Farther, the commentators all construe τοῦ μὴ φθῆναι τὴν ἐγκατάληψιν, as if the last word were an accusative case coming after φθῆναι and governed by it. But there is also another construction, equally good Greek, and much better for the sense. In my judgment, τὴν ἐγκατάληψιν is here the accusative case coming before φθῆναι and forming the subject of it. The words will thus read (ἕνεκα) τοῦ τὴν ἐγκατάληψιν μὴ φθῆναι (ἐπελθοῦσαν αὐτοῖς): “in order that the actual grasp of the Lacedæmonians might not be beforehand in coming upon them;” “might not come upon them too soon,” i. e. “sooner than they could get away.” And since the word ἐγκατάληψις is an abstract active substantive, so, in order to get at the real meaning here, we may substitute the concrete words with which it correlates, i. e. τοὺς Λακεδαιμονίους ἐγκαταλαβόντας, subject as well as attribute, for the active participle is here essentially involved.

The sentence would then read, supposing the ellipsis filled up and the meaning expressed in full and concrete words—ἔστιν οὓς καὶ καταπατηθέντας ὑπ’ ἀλλήλων φευγόντων (or βιαζομένων), ἕνεκα τοῦ τοὺς Λακεδαιμονίους μὴ φθῆναι ἐγκαταλαβόντας αὐτοὺς (τοὺς φεύγοντας): “As soon as the Lacedæmonians approached near, the Argeians gave way at once, without staying for hand-combat: and some were even trodden down by each other, or by their own comrades running away in order that the Lacedæmonians might not be beforehand in catching them sooner than they could escape.”

Construing in this way the sentence as it now stands, we have τοῦ μὴ φθῆναι used in its regular and legitimate sense of purpose, or consilium. We have moreover a plain and natural state of facts, in full keeping with the general narrative. Nor is there any violence put upon the words. Nothing more is done than to expand a very elliptical sentence, and to fill up that entire sentence which was present to the writer’s own mind. To do this properly is the chief duty, as well as the chief difficulty, of an expositor of Thucydidês.