[433] Thucyd. iii, 60. ἐπειδὴ καὶ ἐκείνοις παρὰ γνώμην τὴν αὑτῶν μακρότερος λόγος ἐδόθη τῆς πρὸς τὸ ἐρώτημα ἀποκρίσεως. αὑτῶν here means the Thebans.

[434] See this point emphatically set forth in Orat. xiv, called Λόγος Πλαταϊκὸς, of Isokratês, p. 308, sect. 62.

The whole of that oration is interesting to be read in illustration of the renewed sufferings of the Platæans near fifty years after this capture.

[435] Thucyd. iii, 54-59. Dionysius of Halikarnassus bestows especial commendation on the speech of the Platæan orator (De Thucyd. Hist. Judic. p. 921). Concurring with him as to its merits, I do not concur in the opinion which he expresses that it is less artistically put together than those other harangues which he considers inferior.

Mr. Mitford doubts whether these two orations are to be taken as approximating to anything really delivered on the occasion. But it seems to me that the means possessed by Thucydidês for informing himself of what was actually said at this scene before the captured Platæa must have been considerable and satisfactory: I therefore place full confidence in them, as I do in most of the other harangues in his work, so far as the substance goes.

[436] Thucyd. iii, 65.

[437] Thucyd. iii, 66. τὰ πάντων Βοιωτῶν πάτρια—iii, 62. ἔξω τῶν ἄλλων Βοιωτῶν παραβαίνοντες τὰ πάτρια.

[438] Thucyd. iii, 61-68. It is probable that the slaughter of the Theban prisoners taken in the town of Platæa was committed by the Platæans in breach of a convention concluded with the Thebans: and on this point, therefore, the Thebans had really ground to complain. Respecting this convention, however, there were two conflicting stories, between which Thucydidês does not decide: see Thucyd. ii, 3, 4, and this History, above, chap. xlviii.

[439] Thucyd. iii, 68; ii, 74. To construe the former of these passages (iii, 68) as it now stands, is very difficult, if not impossible; we can only pretend to give what seems to be its substantial meaning.

[440] Diodorus (xii, 56) in his meagre abridgment of the siege and fate of Platæa, somewhat amplifies the brevity and simplicity of the question as given by Thucydidês.

[441] Thucyd. iii, 57. ὑμᾶς δὲ (you Spartans) καὶ ἐκ παντὸς τοῦ Ἑλληνικοῦ πανοικησίᾳ διὰ Θηβαίους (Πλάταιαν) ἐξαλεῖψαι.

[442] Thucyd. iii, 69.

[443] Demosthenês—or the Pseudo-Demosthenês—in the oration against Neæra (p. 1380, c. 25), says that the blockade of Platæa was continued for ten years before it surrendered,—ἐπολιόρκουν αὐτοὺς διπλῷ τείχει περιτειχίσαντες δέκα ἔτη. That the real duration of the blockade was only two years, is most certain: accordingly, several eminent critics—Palmerius, Wasse, Duker, Taylor, Auger, etc., all with one accord confidently enjoin us to correct the text of Demosthenês from δέκα to δύο. “Repone fidenter δύο,” says Duker.

I have before protested against corrections of the text of ancient authors grounded upon the reason which all these critics think so obvious and so convincing; and I must again renew the protest here. It shows how little the principles of historical evidence have been reflected upon, when critics can thus concur in forcing dissentient witnesses into harmony, and in substituting a true statement of their own in place of an erroneous statement which one of these witnesses gives them. And in the present instance, the principle adopted by these critics is the less defensible, because the Pseudo-Demosthenês introduces a great many other errors and inaccuracies respecting Platæa, besides his mistake about the duration of the siege. The ten years’ siege of Troy was constantly present to the imaginations of these literary Greeks.

[444] Thucyd. iii, 59.

[445] Thucyd. iii, 69. σχεδὸν δέ τι καὶ τὸ ξύμπαν περὶ Πλαταιῶν οἱ Λακεδαιμόνιοι οὕτως ἀποτετραμμένοι ἐγένοντο Θηβαίων ἕνεκα, νομίζοντες ἐς τὸν πόλεμον αὐτοὺς ἄρτι τότε καθιστάμενον ὠφελίμους εἶναι.

[446] See above, chap. xlvii.

[447] Thucyd. i, 55.

[448] Thucyd. iii, 70: compare Diodor. xii, 57.

[449] Thucyd. i, 44.

[450] Thucyd. ii, 25.

[451] Thucyd. iii, 70. φάσκων τέμνειν χάρακας ἐκ τοῦ τε Διὸς τεμένους καὶ τοῦ Ἀλκίνου· ζημία δὲ καθ᾽ ἑκάστην χάρακα ἐπέκειτο στατήρ.

The present tense τέμνειν seems to indicate that they were going on habitually making use of the trees in the grove for this purpose. Probably it is this cutting and fixing of stakes to support the vines, which is meant by the word χαρακισμὸς in Pherekratês. Pers. ap. Athenæum, vi, p. 269.

The Oration of Lysias (Or. vii), against Nikomachus, ὑπὲρ τοῦ σηκοῦ ἀπολογία, will illustrate this charge made by Peithias at Korkyra. There were certain ancient olive-trees near Athens, consecrated and protected by law, so that the proprietors of the ground on which they stood were forbidden to grub them up, or to dig so near as to injure the roots. The speaker in that oration defends himself against a charge of having grubbed up one of these and sold the wood. It appears that there were public visitors whose duty it was to watch over these old trees: see the note of Markland on that oration, p. 270.

[452] Thucyd. iii, 71. ὡς δὲ εἶπον, καὶ ἐπικυρῶσαι ἠνάγκασαν τὴν γνώμην.

[453] Thucyd. iii, 71. καὶ τοὺς ἐκεῖ καταπεφευγότας πείσοντας μηδὲν ἀνεπιτήδειον πράσσειν, ὅπως μή τις ἐπιστροφὴ γένηται.

[454] Thucyd. iii, 80.

[455] Thucyd. iii, 74, 75.

[456] Thucyd. iii, 75, 76.

[457] Thucyd. iii, 69-76.

[458] These two triremes had been with Pachês at Lesbos (Thucyd. iii, 33), immediately on returning from thence, they must have been sent round to join Nikostratus at Naupaktus. We see in what constant service they were kept.

[459] Thucyd. iii, 77, 78, 79.

[460] Thucyd. iii, 80.

[461] Thucyd. iii, 80, 81. καὶ ἐκ τῶν νεῶν, ὅσους ἔπεισαν ἐσβῆναι, ἐκβιβάζοντες ἀπεχώρησαν. It is certain that the reading ἀπεχώρησαν here must be wrong: no satisfactory sense can be made out of it. The word substituted by Dr. Arnold is ἀνεχρῶντο; that preferred by Göller is ἀπεχρῶντο; others recommend ἀπεχρήσαντο; Hermann adopts ἀπεχώρισαν, and Dionysius, in his copy, read ἀνεχώρησαν. I follow the meaning of the words proposed by Dr. Arnold and Göller, which appear to be both equivalent to ἐκτεῖνον. This meaning is at least plausible and consistent; though I do not feel certain that we have the true sense of the passage.

[462] Thucyd. iii, 81. οἱ δὲ πολλοὶ τῶν ἱκετῶν, ὅσοι οὐκ ἐπείσθησαν, ὡς ἑώρων τὰ γιγνόμενα, διέφθειραν αὐτοῦ ἐν τῷ ἱερῷ ἀλλήλους, etc. The meagre abridgment of Diodorus (xii, 57) in reference to these events in Korkyra, is hardly worth notice.

[463] Thucyd. iii, 85. Οἱ μὲν οὖν κατὰ τὴν πόλιν Κερκυραῖοι τοιαύταις ὀργαῖς ταῖς πρώταις ἐς ἀλλήλους ἐχρήσαντο, etc.

[464] In reading the account of the conduct of Nikostratus, as well as that of Phormio, in the naval battles of the preceding summer, we contract a personal interest respecting both of them. Thucydidês does not seem to have anticipated that his account would raise such a feeling in the minds of his readers, otherwise he probably would have mentioned something to gratify it. Respecting Phormio, his omission is the more remarkable; since we are left to infer, from the request made by the Akarnanians to have his son sent as commander, that he must have died or become disabled: yet the historian does not distinctly say so (iii, 7).

The Scholiast on Aristophanês (Pac. 347) has a story that Phormio was asked for by the Akarnanians, but that he could not serve in consequence of being at that moment under sentence for a heavy fine, which he was unable to pay: accordingly, the Athenians contrived a means of evading the fine, in order that he might be enabled to serve. It is difficult to see how this can be reconciled with the story of Thucydidês, who says that the son of Phormio went instead of his father.

Compare Meineke, Histor. Critic. Comicc. Græc. vol. i, p. 144, and Fragment. Eupolid. vol. ii, p. 527. Phormio was introduced as a chief character in the Ταξίαρχοι of Eupolis; as a brave, rough, straightforward soldier something like Lamachus in the Acharneis of Aristophanês.

[465] Thucyd. iii, 85.

[466] Thucyd. iii, 82. γιγνόμενα μὲν καὶ ἀεὶ ἐσόμενα ἕως ἂν ἡ αὐτὴ φύσις ἀνθρώπων ᾖ, μᾶλλον δὲ καὶ ἡσυχαίτερα καὶ τοῖς εἴδεσι διηλλαγμένα, ὡς ἂν ἕκασται αἱ μεταβολαὶ τῶν ξυντυχιῶν ἐφιστῶνται, etc.

The many obscurities and perplexities of construction which pervade these memorable chapters, are familiar to all readers of Thucydidês, ever since Dionysius of Halikarnassus, whose remarks upon them are sufficiently severe (Judic. de Thucyd. p. 883). To discuss difficulties which the best commentators are sometimes unable satisfactorily to explain, is no part of the business of this work: yet there is one sentence which I venture to notice as erroneously construed by most of them, following the Scholiast.

Τὸ δ᾽ ἐμπλήκτως ὀξὺ ἀνδρὸς μοίρᾳ προσετέθη, ἀσφάλεια δὲ (Dr. Arnold and others read ἀσφαλείᾳ in the dative) τὸ ἐπιβουλεύσασθαι, ἀποτροπῆς πρόφασις εὔλογος.

The Scholiast explains the latter half of this as follows: τὸ ἐπιπολὺ βουλεύσασθαι δι᾽ ἀσφάλειαν πρόφασις ἀποτροπῆς ἐνομίζετο,,—and this explanation is partly adopted by Poppo, Göller, and Dr. Arnold, with differences about ἀσφάλεια and ἐπιβουλεύσασθαι, but all agreeing about the word ἀποτροπὴ so that the sentence is made to mean, in the words of Dr. Arnold: “But safely to concert measures against an enemy, was accounted but a decent pretence for declining the contest with him altogether.”

Now the signification here assigned to ἀποτροπὴ is one which does not belong to it. Ἀποτροπὴ, in Thucydidês as well as elsewhere, does not mean “tergiversation, or declining the contest:” it has an active sense, and means, “the deterring, preventing, or dissuading another person from something which he might be disposed to do,—or the warding off of some threatening danger or evil:” the remarkable adjective ἀποτροπαῖος is derived from it, and προτροπὴ, in rhetoric, is its contrary term. In Thucydidês it is used in this active sense (iii, 45): compare also Plato, Legg. ix, c. 1, p. 853; Isokratês, Areopagatic. Or. vii, p. 143, sect. 17; Æschinês cont. Ktesiphon. c. 68, p. 442: Æschyl. Pers. 217; nor do the commentators produce any passage to sustain the passive sense which they assign to it in the sentence here under discussion, whereby they would make it equivalent to ἀναχωρεῖν—ἀναχώρησις—or ἐξαναχωρεῖν (Thucyd. iv, 28; v, 65), “a backing out.”

Giving the meaning which they do to ἀποτροπὴ, the commentators are farther unavoidably embarrassed how to construe ἀσφάλεια δὲ τὸ ἐπιβουλεύσασθαι, as may be seen by the notes of Poppo, Göller, and Dr. Arnold. The Scholiast and Göller give to the word ἐπιβουλεύσασθαι the very unusual meaning of “repeated and careful deliberation,” instead of its common meaning of “laying snares for another, concerting secret measures of hostility:” and Poppo and Dr. Arnold alter ἀσφάλεια into the dative case ἀσφαλείᾳ, which, if it were understood to be governed by προσετέθη, might make a fair construction,—but which they construe along with τὸ ἐπιβουλεύσασθαι, though the position of the particle δὲ, upon that supposition, appears to me singularly awkward.

The great difficulty of construing the sentence arises from the erroneous meaning attached to the word ἀποτροπὴ. But when we interpret that word “deterrence, or prevention,” according to the examples which I have cited, the whole meaning of the sentence will become clear and consistent. Of the two modes of hurting a party-enemy—1. violent and open attack; 2. secret manœuvre and conspiracy—Thucydidês remarks first, what was thought of the one; next, what was thought of the other, in the perverted state of morality which he is discussing.

Τὸ δ᾽ ἐμπλήκτως ὀξὺ ἀνδρὸς μοίρᾳ προσετέθη—ἀσφάλεια δὲ τὸ ἐπιβουλεύσασθαι, ἀποτροπῆς πρόφασις εὔλογος.

“Sharp and reckless attack was counted among the necessities of the manly character: secret conspiracy against an enemy was held to be safe precaution,—a specious pretence of preventing him from doing the like.”

According to this construction, τὸ ἐπιβουλεύσασθαι is the subject; ἀσφάλεια belongs to the predicate and the concluding words, ἀποτροπῆς πρόφασις εὔλογος, are an epexegesis, or explanatory comment, upon ἀσφάλεια. Probably we ought to consider some such word as ἐνομίζετο to be understood,—just as the Scholiast understands that word for his view of the sentence.

[467] See the valuable preliminary discourse, prefixed to Welcker’s edition of Theognis, page xxi, sect. 9, seq.

[468] Aristotel. Politic. v. 7, 19. Καὶ τῷ δήμῳ κακόνους ἔσομαι, καὶ βουλεύσω ὅ,τι ἂν ἔχω κακόν.

[469] Thucyd. iii, 51. See the note of Dr. Arnold, and the plan embodied in his work, for the topography of Minôa, which has now ceased to be an island, and is a hill on the mainland near the shore.

[470] Plutarch, Nikias, c. 2, 3.

[471] Καίτοι ἔγωγε καὶ τιμῶμαι ἐκ τοῦ τοιούτου (says Nikias, in the Athenian assembly, Thucyd. vi, 9) καὶ ἧσσον ἑτέρων περὶ τῷ ἐμαυτοῦ σώματι ὀῤῥωδῶ· νομίζων ὁμοίως ἀγαθὸν πολίτην εἶναι, ὃς ἂν καὶ τοῦ σώματός τι καὶ τῆς οὐσίας προνοῆται.

The whole conduct of Nikias before Syracuse, under the most trying circumstances, more than bears out this boast.

[472] Thucyd. vii. 50; Plutarch, Nikias, c. 4, 5, 23. Τῷ μέντοι Νικίᾳ συνηνέχθη τότε μηδὲ μάντιν ἔχειν ἔμπειρον· ὁ γὰρ συνήθης αὐτοῦ καὶ τὸ πολὺ τῆς δεισιδαιμονίας ἀφαιρῶν Στιλβίδης ἐτεθνήκει μικρὸν ἔμπροσθεν. This is suggested by Plutarch as an excuse for mistakes on the part of Nikias.

[473] Xenophon, Memorab. ii, 5, 2; Xenophon, De Vectigalibus, iv, 14.

[474] Thucyd. v, 7; Plutarch, Alkibiadês, c. 21. Ὁ γὰρ Λάμαχος ἦν μὲν πολεμικὸς καὶ ἀνδρώδης, ἀξίωμα δ᾽ οὐ προσῆν οὐδ᾽ ὄγκος αὐτῷ διὰ πενίαν; compare Plutarch, Nikias, c. 15.

[475] Thucyd. v, 16. Νικίας πλεῖστα τῶν τότε εὖ φερόμενος ἐν στρατηγίαις,—Νικίας μὲν βουλόμενος, ἐν ᾧ ἀπαθὴς ἦν καὶ ἠξιοῦτο, διασώσασθαι τὴν εὐτυχίαν, etc.—vi, 17. ἕως ἐγώ τε (Alkibiadês) ἔτι ἀκμάζω μετ᾽ αὐτῆς καὶ ὁ Νικίας εὐτυχὴς δοκεῖ εἶναι, etc.

[476] Thucyd. viii, 54. Καὶ ὁ μὲν Πείσανδρος τάς τε ξυνωμοσίας, αἵπερ ἐτύγχανον πρότερον ἐν τῇ πόλει οὖσαι ἐπὶ δίκαις καὶ ἀρχαῖς, ἁπάσας ἐπελθὼν, καὶ παρακελευσάμενος ὅπως ξυστραφέντες καὶ κοινῇ βουλευσάμενοι καταλύσουσι τὸν δῆμον, καὶ τἆλλα παρασκευάσας, etc.

After having thus organized the hetæries, and brought them into coöperation for his revolutionary objects against the democracy, Peisander departed from Athens to Samos: on his return, he finds that these hetæries have been very actively employed, and had made great progress towards the subversion of the democracy: they had assassinated the demagogue Androklês and various other political enemies,—οἱ δὲ ἀμφὶ τὸν Πείσανδρον—ἦλθον ἐς τὰς Ἀθήνας,—καὶ καταλαμβάνουσι τὰ πλεῖστα τοῖς ἑταίροις προειργασμένα, etc. (viii, 65.)

The political ἑταίρεια to which Alkibiadês belonged is mentioned in Isokratês, De Bigis, Or. xvi, p. 348, sect. 6. λέγοντες ὡς ὁ πατὴρ συνάγοι τὴν ἑταίρειαν ἐπὶ νεωτέροις πράγμασι. Allusions to these ἑταιρεῖαι and to their well-known political and judicial purposes (unfortunately they are only allusions), are found in Plato, Theætet. c. 79, p. 173, σπουδαὶ δὲ ἑταιρειῶν ἐπ᾽ ἀρχὰς, etc.: also Plato, Legg. ix, c. 3, p. 856; Plato, Republic, ii, c. 8, p. 365, where they are mentioned in conjunction with συνωμοσίαι—ἐπὶ γὰρ τὸ λανθάνειν ξυνωμοσίας τε καὶ ἑταιρείας συνάξομεν—also in Pseudo-Andokidês cont. Alkibiad. c. 2, p. 112. Compare the general remarks of Thucydidês, iii, 82, and Demosthenês cont. Stephan. ii, p. 1157.

Two Dissertations, by Messrs. Vischer and Büttner, collect the scanty indications respecting these hetæries, together with some attempts to enlarge and speculate upon them, which are more ingenious than trustworthy (Die Oligarchische Partei und die Hetairien in Athen, von W. Vischer, Basel, 1836; Geschichte der politischen Hetairien zu Athen, von Hermann Büttner, Leipsic, 1840).

[477] About the political workings of the Syssitia and Gymnasia, see Plato Legg. i, p. 636; Polybius, xx, 6.

[478] Thucyd. iii, 87, 89, 90.

[479] Respecting this abundance of wood, as well as the site of Herakleia generally, consult Livy, xxxvi, 22.

[480] Diodor. xii, 59. Not merely was Hêraklês the mythical progenitor of the Spartan kings, but the whole region near Œta and Trachis was adorned by legends and heroic incidents connected with him: see the drama of the Trachiniæ by Sophoklês.

[481] Thucyd. iii, 92, 93; Diodor xi, 49; xii, 59.

[482] Horat. Sat. ii, 6, 8:—

[483] Thucyd. iii, 91.

[484] Thucyd. iii, 95. Δημοσθένης δ᾽ ἀναπείθεται κατὰ τὸν χρόνον τοῦτον ὑπὸ Μεσσηνίων ὡς καλὸν αὐτῷ στρατιᾶς τοσαύτης ξυνειλεγμένης, etc.

[485] Thucyd. iii, 95. τὸ ἄλλο ἠπειρωτικὸν τὸ ταύτῃ. None of the tribes properly called Epirots, would be comprised in this expression: the name ἠπειρῶται is here a general name, not a proper name, as Poppo and Dr. Arnold remark. Demosthenês would calculate on getting under his orders the Akarnanians and Ætolians, and some other tribes besides; but what other tribes, it is not easy to specify: perhaps the Agræi, east of Amphilochia, among them.

[486] Thucyd. iii, 98. The epibatæ, or soldiers serving on shipboard (marines), were more usually taken from the thetes, or the poorest class of citizens, furnished by the state with a panoply for the occasion,—not from the regular hoplites on the muster-roll. Maritime soldiery is, therefore, usually spoken of as something inferior: the present triremes of Demosthenês are noticed in the light of an exception (ναυτικῆς καὶ φαύλου στρατιᾶς, Thucyd. vi, 21).

So among the Romans, service in the legions was accounted higher and more honorable than that of the classiarii milites (Tacit. Histor. i, 87).

The Athenian epibatæ, though not forming a corps permanently distinct, correspond in function to the English marines, who seem to have been first distinguished permanently from other foot-soldiers about the year 1684. “It having been found necessary on many occasions to embark a number of soldiers on board our ships of war, and mere landsmen being at first extremely unhealthy,—and at first, until they had been accustomed to the sea, in a great measure unserviceable,—it was at length judged expedient to appoint certain regiments for that service, who were trained to the different modes of sea-fighting, and also made useful in some of those manœuvres of a ship where a great many hands were required. These, from the nature of their duty, were distinguished by the appellation of maritime soldiers, or marines.”—Grose’s Military Antiquities of the English Army, vol. i, p. 186. (London, 1786.)

[487] Thucyd. iii, 100. Προπέμψαντες πρότερον ἔς τε Κόρινθον καὶ ἐς Λακεδαίμονα πρέσβεις—πείθουσιν ὥστε σφίσι πέμψαι στρατιὰν ἐπὶ Ναύπακτον διὰ τὴν τῶν Ἀθηναίων ἐπαγωγήν.

It is not here meant, I think—as Göller and Dr. Arnold suppose—that the Ætolians sent envoys to Lacedæmon before there was any talk or thought of the invasion of Ætolia, simply in prosecution of the standing antipathy which they bore to Naupaktus: but that they had sent envoys immediately when they heard of the preparations for invading Ætolia,—yet before the invasion actually took place. The words διὰ τὴν τῶν Ἀθηναίων ἐπαγωγήν show that this is the meaning.

The word ἐπαγωγὴ is rightly construed by Haack, against the Scholiast: “Because the Naupaktians were bringing in the Athenians to invade Ætolia.”

[488] Thucyd. iii, 98.

[489] Thucyd. iii, 101, 102.

[490] Thucyd. iii, 102-105.

[491] Thucyd. iii, 105, 106, 107.

[492] Thucyd. iii, 107, 108: compare Polyænus, iii, 1.

[493] Thucyd. iii, 111.

[494] Thucyd. iii, 112.

[495] Thucyd. iii, 113.

[496] Thucyd. iii, 113. πάθος γὰρ τοῦτο μιᾷ πόλει Ἑλληνίδι μέγιστον δὴ τῶν κατὰ τὸν πόλεμον τόνδε ἐγένετο. Καὶ ἀριθμὸν οὐκ ἔγραψα τῶν ἀποθανόντων, διότι ἄπιστον τὸ πλῆθος λέγεται ἀπολέσθαι, ὡς πρὸς τὸ μέγεθος τῆς πόλεως. Ἀμπρακίαν μέντοι οἶδα ὅτι, εἰ ἐβουλήθησαν Ἀκαρνᾶνες καὶ Ἀμφίλοχοι, Ἀθηναίοις καὶ Δημοσθένει πειθόμενοι, ἐξελεῖν, αὐτοβοεὶ ἂν εἷλον· νῦν δὲ ἔδεισαν, μὴ οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι ἔχοντες αὐτὴν χαλεπώτεροι σφίσι πάροικοι ὦσι.

We may remark that the expression κατὰ τὸν πόλεμον τόνδε, when it occurs in the first, second, third, or first half of the fourth Book of Thucydidês, seems to allude to the first ten years of the Peloponnesian war, which ended with the peace of Nikias.

In a careful dissertation, by Franz Wolfgang Ullrich, analyzing the structure of the history of Thucydidês, it is made to appear that the first, second, and third Books, with the first half of the fourth, were composed during the interval between the peace of Nikias and the beginning of the last nine years of the war, called the Dekeleian war; allowing for two passages in these early books which must have been subsequently introduced.

The later books seem to have been taken up by Thucydidês as a separate work, continuing the former, and a sort of separate preface is given for them (v, 26), γέγραφε δὲ καὶ ταῦτα ὁ αὐτὸς Θουκυδίδης Ἀθηναῖος ἑξῆς, etc. It is in this later portion that he first takes up the view peculiar to him, of reckoning the whole twenty-seven years as one continued war only nominally interrupted (Ullrich, Beiträge zur Erklärung des Thukydidês, pp. 85, 125, 138, etc. Hamburgh, 1846).

Compare ἐν τῷ πολέμῳ τῷδε (iii, 98), which in like manner means the war prior to the peace of Nikias.

[497] Thucyd. iii, 114. Diodorus (xii, 60) abridges the narrative of Thucydidês.

[498] Thucyd. iii, 114. Ἀκαρνᾶνες δὲ καὶ Ἀμφίλοχοι, ἀπελθόντων Ἀθηναίων καὶ Δημοσθένους, τοῖς ὡς Σαλύνθιον καὶ Ἀγραίους καταφυγοῦσιν Ἀμπρακιώταις καὶ Πελοποννησίοις ἀναχώρησιν ἐσπείσαντο ἐξ Οἰνιαδῶν, οἵπερ καὶ μετανέστησαν παρὰ Σαλυνθίον.

This is a very difficult passage. Hermann has conjectured, and Poppo, Göller, and Dr. Arnold all approve, the reading παρὰ Σαλυνθίου instead of the two last words of this sentence. The passage might certainly be construed with this emendation, though there would still be an awkwardness in the position of the relative οἵπερ with regard to its antecedent, and in the position of the particle καὶ, which ought then properly to come after μετανέστησαν, and not before it. The sentence would then mean, that “the Ambrakiots and Peloponnesians, who had originally taken refuge with Salynthius, had moved away from his territory to Œniadæ,” from which place they were now to enjoy safe departure.

I think, however, that the sentence would construe equally well, or at least with no greater awkwardness, without any conjectural alteration of the text, if we suppose Οἰνιαδῶν to be not merely the name of the place, but the name of the inhabitants: and the word seems to be used in this double sense (Thucyd. ii, 100). As the word is already in the patronymic form, it would be difficult to deduce from it a new nomen gentile. Several of the Attic demes, which are in the patronymic form, present this same double meaning. If this supposition be admitted, the sentence will mean, that “safe retreat was granted to Ambrakiots and Peloponnesians from the Œniade, who also—καὶ, that is, they as well as the Ambrakiots and Peloponnesians—went up to the territory of Salynthius.” These Œniadæ were enemies of the general body of Akarnanians (ii, 100), and they may well have gone thither to help in extricating the fugitive Ambrakiots and Peloponnesians.

[499] Thucyd. iii, 114.

[500] Thucyd. iii, 114. Τὰ δὲ νῦν ἀνακείμενα ἐν τοῖς Ἀττικοῖς ἱεροῖς Δημοσθένει ἐξῃρέθησαν, τριακόσιαι πανοπλίαι, καὶ ἄγων αὐτὰς κατέπλευσε. Καὶ ἐγένετο ἅμα αὐτῷ μετὰ τὴν ἐκ τῆς Αἰτωλίας ξυμφορὰν ἀπὸ ταύτης τῆς πράξεως ἀδεεστέρα ἡ κάθοδος.

[501] Thucyd. iii, 104; Plutarch, Nikias, c. 3, 4; Diodor. xii, 58.

[502] Thucyd. iv, 2, 3.

[503] Thucyd. i, 140; ii, 11.

[504] Thucyd. iv, 26.

[505] Topography of Sphakteria and Pylus. The description given by Thucydidês, of the memorable incidents in or near Pylus and Sphakteria, is perfectly clear, intelligible, and consistent with itself, as to topography. But when we consult the topography of the scene as it stands now, we find various circumstances which cannot possibly be reconciled with Thucydidês. Both Colonel Leake (Travels in the Morea, vol. i, pp. 402-415) and Dr. Arnold (Appendix to the second and third volume of his Thucydidês, p. 444) have given plans of the coast, accompanied with valuable remarks.

The main discrepancy, between the statement of Thucydidês and the present state of the coast, is to be found in the breadth of the two channels between Sphakteria and the mainland. The southern entrance into the bay of Navarino is now between thirteen hundred and fourteen hundred yards, with a depth of water varying from five, seven, twenty-eight, thirty-three fathoms; whereas Thucydidês states it as being only a breadth adequate to admit eight or nine triremes abreast. The northern entrance is about one hundred and fifty yards in width, with a shoal or bar of sand lying across it on which there are not more than eighteen inches of water: Thucydidês tells us that it afforded room for no more than two triremes, and his narrative implies a much greater depth of water, so as to make the entrance for triremes perfectly unobstructed.

Colonel Leake supposes that Thucydidês was misinformed as to the breadth of the southern passage; but Dr. Arnold has on this point given a satisfactory reply,—that the narrowness of the breadth is not merely affirmed in the numbers of Thucydidês, but is indirectly implied in his narrative, where he tells us that the Lacedæmonians intended to choke up both of them by triremes closely packed. Obviously, this expedient could not be dreamt of, except for a very narrow mouth. The same reply suffices against the doubts which Bloomfield and Poppo (Comment. p. 10) raise about the genuineness of the numerals ὀκτὼ or ἐννέα in Thucydidês; a doubt which merely transfers the supposed error from Thucydidês to the writer of the MS.

Dr. Arnold has himself raised a still graver doubt; whether the island now called Sphagia be really the same as Sphakteria, and whether the bay of Navarino be the real harbor of Pylus. He suspects that the Pale-Navarino which has been generally understood to be Pylus, was in reality the ancient Sphakteria, separated from the mainland in ancient times by a channel at the north as well as by another at the southeast,—though now it is not an island at all. He farther suspects that the lake or lagoon called Lake of Osmyn Aga, north of the harbor of Navarino, and immediately under that which he supposes to have been Sphakteria, was the ancient harbor of Pylus, in which the sea-fight between the Athenians and Lacedæmonians took place. He does not, indeed, assert this as a positive opinion, but leans to it as the most probable, admitting that there are difficulties either way.

Dr. Arnold has stated some of the difficulties which beset this hypothesis (p. 447), but there was one which he has not stated, which appears to me the most formidable of all, and quite fatal to the admissibility of his opinion. If the Paleokastro of Navarino was the real ancient Sphakteria, it must have been a second island situated to the northward of Sphagia. There must therefore have been two islands close together off the coast and near the scene. Now if the reader will follow the account of Thucydidês, he will see that there certainly was no more than one island,—Sphakteria, without any other near or adjoining to it; see especially c. 13: the Athenian fleet under Eurymedon, on first arriving, was obliged to go back some distance to the island of Prôtê, because the island of Sphakteria was full of Lacedæmonian hoplites: if Dr. Arnold’s hypothesis were admitted, there would have been nothing to hinder them from landing on Sphagia itself,—the same inference may be deduced from c. 8. The statement of Pliny (H. N. iv, 12) that there were tres Sphagiæ off Pylus, unless we suppose with Hardouin that two of them were mere rocks, appears to me inconsistent with the account of Thucydidês.

I think that there is no alternative except to suppose that a great alteration has taken place in the two passages which separate Sphagia from the mainland, during the interval of two thousand four hundred years which separates us from Thucydidês. The mainland to the south of Navarino must have been much nearer than it is now to the southern portion of Sphagia, while the northern passage also must have been then both narrower and clearer. To suppose a change in the configuration of the coast to this extent, seems noway extravagant: any other hypothesis which may be started will be found involved in much greater difficulty.