T. G. Tucker, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 8

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Commentary on Thucydides, Histories. book 8, chapter 1:section 1.

I.

de answering to men in the last sentence of bk. vii. The subject of êngelthê is ta genomena (ibid.) Thucydides did not divide the books. The order es de . . . epeidê . . . instead of epeidê de es . . . brings out the opposition between the disaster peri Sikelian and its effect on the Athenians at home.

êpistoui Plut. Nic. 30 has it that a stranger landed at Peiraeus and mentioned the matter in a barber's shop as a thing which he supposed to be known. The barber ran to the Archons, but met with no credit, being regarded as a logopoios. According to Athenaeus (ix. 72) the Athenians were in the theatre when they received the news, but sat the performance out, concealing their grief from the foreigners present.

kai tois panu . . . diapepheugosi is usually rendered ‘even the most respectable of the soldiers . . . though they had escaped.’ With this use of panu are compared Xen. Mem. iii. 5, tôi tou panu Perikleous huiôi; Luc. Philops. 5, para Eukratous hêkô soi tou panu; inf. c. 89, § 2, echontes hêgemonas tôn panu stratêgôn tôn en têi oligarchiai (q.v.) An indefinite adjective varying with the context is to be supplied (e.g. pistois here). But Jowett, with good reason, objects that the present use is not sufficiently parallel with those quoted. He joins panu diapepheugosi, ‘the very soldiers who had escaped.’ With this we may cf. iii. 44, ên gar apophênô panu adikountas autous. The sense with the participle is ‘no matter how much they had escaped.’ We require not ‘the élite,’ but those who had ‘actually’ been engaged. Had tôn stratiôtôn followed diapepheugosi this rendering would have been certain. Classen, accepting the usual rendering of hoi panu, prefers the [p. 136] rather strained construction ‘diapepheugosi, attributive; angellousi, predicative; and kai before saphôs, epitatic.’

mê redundant after êpistoun. Cf. i. 10, apistoiê an mê genesthai.

houtô ge agan ‘so utterly.’ Cf. i. 75, mê houtôs agan epiphthonôs.

xumprothumêtheisi, i.e. who had encouraged the zeal of the people in the same direction. For the accus. cf. inf. c. 90, § 1, tên homologian prouthumounto; v. 17, prouthumêthê tên xumbasin. The neuter pron. accus. v. 39, prothumoumenôn ta es Boiôtous, and Xen. Cyr. vi. 1, 19, tauta sumprothumeisthai, is easier. The present use partakes, on the one hand, of the accus. with verbs of emotion or feeling, e.g. tharrein, and, on the other, of the accus. with verbs of desiring or contriving, e.g. spoudazô.

chrêsmologois te kai mantesi The manteis were the publicly recognised seers (Cl.) ‘mantis is the more general term, including divination of all kinds’ (Jowett). Cf. Paus. i. 34, 3, manteôn g' oudeis chrêsmologos ên, agathoi de oneirata exêgêsasthai kai diagnônai ptêseis ornithôn kai splanchna hiereiôn, i.e. chrêsmologoi collect and repeat oracles, manteis may include chr. but are also diviners by dreams, auspices, etc. Haruspices, augures, harioli,vates, coniectores, are all stated by Cicero (N.D. i. 20, 55) to be concerned with mantikê. Cf. ii. 8, polla men logia elegonto, polla de chrêsmologoi êidon; and ii. 21, chrêsmologoi êidon chrêsmous pantoious. See the passage Ar. Eq. 961 sqq.

autous . . . epêlpisan. epi- gives a causative sense to certain neuter verbs, e.g. epalêtheuô, ‘verify,’ inf. 52, ton tou Alkibiadou logon . . . epêlêtheusen ho Lichas; iv. 85, tên aitian epalêtheuousa. So epilêthô=‘make to forget.’ See Rutherford, New Phryn. p. 216. Arnold cft. Appian, Mithr. 68, peri tês Asias auton epelpizontes.

This text is based on the following book(s):
Commentary on Thucydides Book 8 . T.G. Tucker. London. MacMillan & Company. 1892.