Charles F. Smith, Commentary on Thucydides Book 6

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The Syracusan counter-wall is completed, but a little later is stormed by the Athenians, who destroy also the pipes which brought water into the city. The Athenians, pushing forward after the fleeing Syracusans into the outer city-wall enclosing Temenites, are driven back; but they destroy the counter-wall of the Syracusans.

ἀρκούντως ἐδόκει ἔχειν κτἑ.: clearly indicating that the Syracusan counter-wall got across the line of the proposed Athenian circumvallation.

ὅσα τε ἐσταυρώθη καὶ ᾠκοδομήθη τοῦ ὑποτειχίσματος: τε should come after ἐσταυρώθη. There was probably on both sides of the counter-wall a row of palisades for greater security: the protected space behind these palisades is called σταύρωμα, and of the whole extension a definite part might be designated by the words τὸ παρὰ τὴν πυλίδα (16). ὑποτείχισμα (cf. ὑποτειχίζειν 99. 8) designates the whole Syracusan counter-wall. This word, as well as ὑποτείχισις (23), is found only here.

[αὐτούς]: wanting in Vat. and Par. (B, H), and κωλύσοντες is even more forcible without it.

δίχα γιγνομένοις: cf. 1. 64. 6.

τὴν καθ᾽ αὑτοὺς περιτείχισιν: i.e. the part of the circumvallation now building northward. Cf. 99. § 1.—ἐπειγόμενοι: trans., as 3. 2. 14; 4. 5. 9; 8. 9. 2.

φυλήν: of a military division, as with the Athenians 98. 16. Holm (H, 418) makes prob. for Syracuse the Doric division into three φυλαί. From what follows the division left behind must have been pretty large.—φύλακα: pred. after fem. noun, as 8. 61. 10, 73. 29 φύλακες with νῆες.

τοῦ οἰκοδομήματος : as ὑποτείχισμα (2) of the whole counter-wall.

τοὺς ὀχετούς: with modifier ποτοῦ ὕδατος in the rel. clause. See on 4. 12. 8. Of the course of these water-pipes nothing certain is known, except that they ran from Epipolae into the city. See Lupus, Die Stadt Syrakus, pp. 259 ff.

ὑπονομηδόν: Schol. διὰ ὑπονόμων καὶ σωλήνων (pipes; cf. Hdt. 3. 60. 8).

τηρήσαντες...φυλάσσοντας : there are three objects with participial modifiers, but the guard consisted really of only two divisions (τούς τε ἄλλους and τοὺς ἐν τῷ σταυρώματι), the τινας . . . ἀποκεχωρηκότας being only a subdivision of τοὺς ἄλλους. Of the one division the greater part had betaken themselves at midday to the tents for rest; some had even, manifestly because of lack of discipline, gone off to the city (cf. 69. 4).

σφῶν αὐτῶν: i.e. of the Athenian hoplites, whereas the ψιλοὶ ἐκλεκτοί for this attack were equipped with hoplite armor (ὡπλισμένους). ἐκλεκτός only here in Thuc.; ἀπόλεκτος only 68. 8; ἐπίλεκτος not at all.

θεῖν δρόμῳ: see on 3. 111. 8. For the inf. after προύταξαν, see on 50. 14.

εἰ ἐπιβοηθοῖεν: i.e. to oppose any troops that might come to the rescue from the city.

πρὸς τὸ σταύρωμα τὸ παρὰ τὴν πυλίδα: to that part of the palisade by the postern gate, i.e. a part thus designated of the Syracusan counter-wall (ὑποτείχισμα in 14), doubtless a part nearer to the city, as Cl. suggested. Just where this postern gate was is not indicated. Cl. suggests that its purpose might have been to connect the σταύρωμα with the προτείχισμα περὶ τὸν Τεμενίτην (19). This seems clearly right. The 300 picked men with those selected from the ψιλοί make in advance a sudden attack on the Syracusan counter-wall; of the main body half advance toward the city to ward off any rescuing force, half go against the part of the stockade or counter-wall near the postern gate in the προτείχισμα τὸ περὶ τὸν Τεμενίτην—the object of these last being to cut off the fugitives in case the attack of the 300 was successful. See App.

οἱ τριακόσιοι αἱροῦσι τὸ σταύρωμα: here τὸ σταύρωμα = τὸ ὑποτείχισμα (14).

οἱ φύλακες: prob. to be understood of τοὺς ἐν τῷ σταυρώματι ἀμελῶς φυλάσσοντας (11), for of those that were in the tents at the time of the attack (10) many could hardly have taken part in the defense of the σταύρωμα.

τὸ προτείχισμα τὸ περὶ τὸν Τεμενίτην : i.e. the lately erected citywall that took in the Temenites (75. § 1). The word occurs elsewhere only in later writers.

οἱ διώκοντες: not only the 300, but also the part of the Athenian army that had proceeded πρὸς τὸ σταύρωμα τὸ παρὰ τὴν πυλίδα, for among the fallen some Argives are mentioned (21).

τὴν ὑποτείχισιν...καὶ τὸ σταύρωμα : the two parts of the Syracusan fortification comprehended in ὅσα τε ἐσταυρώθη καὶ ᾠκοδομήθη τοῦ ὑποτειχίσματος (2), hence τὸ σταύρωμα (the palisade) is used here in a narrower sense than in 11 and 18. On the different parts of the Syracusan fortifications, see Holm II, 389 ff.

διεφόρησαν: see on 91. 35.

παρ᾽ ἑαυτούς: i.e. to be used for their own circumvallation.