This text is part of:
[2]
2. δηλοῦσι—i.e. show the truth of the preceding statements: there is even in the present day evidence for what I have said.
τῶν ἠπειρωτῶν τινες—i.e. those dwelling in the coast towns of the mainland.
3. καλῶς—cleverly, as often in καλῶς λέγειν.
τοῦτο δρᾶν—a regular expression for referring to a previous verb.
4. οἱ παλαιοί—sc. δηλοῦσι.
τὰς πύστεις ... ἐρωτῶντες—lit. everywhere agreeing in putting the stock question to strangers who come by sea, ‘are you pirates?’ thus showing that the persons addressed were not accustomed to disown the occupation, and that those who made it their bussiness to know did not censure it. Of ‘the old poets’ Homer is one (Od. 3.71 and 9.252); and there is the Hymn to Apollo l. 452; but of course Thucydides knew other passages. The wording of the sentence has been questioned; but Thuc. seems to have had in mind ἡ πύστις τῶν καταπλεόντων ἐστὶν εἰ λῃσταί εἰσιν. The poets are said to ask the question: for the characters are the mouthpiece of the poet.
6. οὔτε ... τε frequently correspond, as in Lat. neque ... et
πυνθάνονται ... ἐπιμελὲς εἴη—the forms of the recta and obliqua are combined, as frequently in Xen. = ὧν πυνθανόμεθα ... οἷς ἂν ἐπιμελὲς ᾖ. It expresses the thought of the poets. (Others seem to consider πυνθάνονται as hist. pres. and εἴη as pure iterative opt.)
Commentary on Thucydides Book 1. E. C. Marchant. 1905. London. MacMillan and Company, Ltd.
The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.