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Τε—sums up the preceding remarks. παίδευσιν— not ‘school,’ but ‘liberal education.’ Pericles represents Athens as the Ἑλλάδος Ἑλλάς. Cf. Plat. Protag. 337 D Athens τῆς σοφίας πρυτανεῖον. Isocr. 15, 295 Athens πάντων τῶν δυναμένων λέγειν ἢ παιδεύειν δοκεῖ γεγενῆσθαι διδάσκαλος. Plat. Laws 641 E all Greeks consider Athens φιλόλογός τε καὶ πολύλογος. καθ᾽ ἕκαστον—Athens as the sum of all the citizens (τὴν πᾶσαν), with a perfect πολιτεία, is contrasted with the individuals, with their perfect τρόποι. See c. 37, 1. δοκεῖν ἄν—this ἄν, like the other two, belongs to παρέχεσθαι. παρ᾽ ἡμῶν—this refers to παίδευσιν, and represents the excellence of the individual as proceeding from the spirit of the whole state. ἐπὶ πλεῖστ᾽ ἂν εἴδη—‘to the most varied circumstances.’ μετὰ χαρίτων μάλιστα εὐτραπέλως—i.e. μάλιστα μετά τε χαρίτων καὶ εὐτραπέλως, ‘with the utmost grace and versatility.’ Probably Pericles had in mind the famous lines of Pindar, Pyth. I. 92 to end, μὴ δολωθῆ̣ς εὐτραπέλοις κέρδεσσ᾽, κ.τ.λ., and wished to show that εὐτραπελία in the Athenian character was a virtue. τὸ σῶμα—=ἑαυτόν.
Ἐν τῷ παρόντι κόμπος—‘passing boast.’ τάδε— see c. 42, 1. δύναμις—see c. 36, 4. σημαίνει—cf. Antiphon, Tetr. Γ. γ, 3 ὡς οὐδὲ τοῖς αὐτοῖς ἠμύνατο αὐτόν, αὐτὸ τὸ ἔργον σημαίνει. See c. 15, 4.
Τῶν νῦν—sc. πόλεων. ἀκοῆς κρείσσων—‘superior to what men have heard of her.’ ἐς πεῖραν ἔρχεται—‘proves herself in the hour of trial.’ τῷ πολεμίῳ—collective. [ ἐπελθόντι]—spurious, for (1) it destroys the balance to τῷ ὑπηκόῳ, (2) the sense requires that enemies in general should be referred to, not merely enemies who attack Athens; nor could Pericles mean that Athens never attacked anyone. ἔχει—=παρέχει. Cf. c. 61, 2. οἵων—i.e. φαύλων. οὐχ ὑπ᾽ ἀξίων—=ὑπ᾽ ἀναξίων, the neg. preceding the prep. as usual. Contrast c. 49, 3.
Σημείων—‘clear proofs,’ viz. in the results of Athenian activity. οὐ δή τοι—δὴ as in c. 40, 3, emphasizing οὐ ‘by no means,’ while τοι ‘assuredly’ also belongs to οὐ. ἀμάρτυρον—‘without witnesses,’ since all contemporaries, and above all her enemies knew her greatness from her acts in every land and sea. The word has its forensic sense, as used of a plea supported only by the speaker's own testimony. τοῖς τε νῦν—agent; this disappears in later Attic, except in the cases already noticed. See c. 7, 2. καὶ—at the beginning of a parenthesis. See c. 2, 4. Ὁμήρου—i.e. not needing a poet to exaggerate our history. Of course Thuc. did not object to Homer as a poet, but only as a historian. ὅστις— i.e. ποιητής. A similar change to a relative clause is not uncommon in Isocrates; e.g. 5, 153 τοὺς μὴ μόνον κεχαρισμένως διειλεγμένους, ἀλλ᾽ οἵτινες ἂν οὕτω ποιήσωσι τὰς σὰς πράξεις θαυμάζειν ὡς οὐδενὸς ἄλλου. (The view that Pericles is intended to reprove Homer for saying so little of the ‘sons of Theseus’ is quite untenable.) ἔπεσι—‘poetry.’ τὸ αὐτίκα—‘for the moment.’ Cf. I. 21 οὔτε ὡς ποιηταὶ ὑμνήκασι πιστεύων, οὔτε ὡς λογογράφοι ξυνέθεσαν ἐπὶ τὸ προσαγωγότερον τῆ̣ ἀκροάσει ἢ ἀληθέστερον. The mythical element in early Greek history was due to the influence of epic. See Intr. C. III. init. τῶν δὲ ἔργων—the influence of the rel. is here lost, on the principle of c. 4, 5, 34, 5. The μὲν aud δὲ are paratactic. The gen. belongs equally to ὑπόνοιαν and ἀλήθεια. ὑπόνοιαν—‘the conception of the facts,’ aroused by poetry. So ὑπονοεῖν ‘to conjecture.’ ἡ ἀλήθεια—i.e. the knowledge gained from investigation of the facts. ἀλλὰ—antithesis to οὐ ... παρασχόμενοι. καλῶν τε κἀγαθῶν —the MSS. κακῶν is explained to mean ‘of the harm and of the good we have done.’ For κακῶν cf. κακοπαθεῖ above. But Pericles is talking of Atheniau prowess, not contrasting the harm done to her enemies with the benefits conferred on her friends: nor is ἀγαθὰ ‘benefits’ here, but ‘acts of valour,’ which of course inflict harm on enemies. Nor is the reference to the Greek estimate of εὐτυχία, as a compound of good and ill, for which see c. 44, 1: for Pericles is here dealing not with τύχη, but with Athenian γνώμη. The substitution of κακῶν for καλῶν in this phrase, even if it made sense, would be a miserable joke. ξυγκατοικίσαντες—i.e. while opening the whole world to our prowess, we have at the same time everywhere established monuments of that prowess, in colonies and states made subject to us, and in the scenes of many brave actions.
Περὶ—c. 39, 2. τοιαύτης—this word sums up the whole of the ἔπαινος A, and prepares the way for ἔπαινος B. δικαιοῦν—an Ionic and old Attic word, used once by Plato, Laws, p. 934 A. Its usual sense is that of ἀξιοῦν, but sometimes it = ‘to punish.’ οἵδε .. μὴ ἀφαιρεθῆναι αὐτὴν—the clue to the construction is οὐκ ἀφαιροῦμαι τούσδε τὴν πόλιν. τῶν λειπομένων—c. 2, 4. εἰκὸς—c. 10, 1. ὑπὲρ αὐτῆς— repeats περὶ ... πόλεως. κάμνειν—an exhortation to persevere in spite of the hardships of the war.
Commentary on Thucydides Book 2. E.C. Marchant. London. MacMillan & Company. 1891.
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