E.C. Marchant, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 7

ὑπονοήσας—ὑπονοεῖν, like ὑποπτεύειν, sometimes= to view with suspicion, sometimes to conjecture.

ἀποχωρῆσαι . . . περιιδεῖν—the infin. with περιορᾶν occurs only in Herod. and Thuc.

λέγων ταῦτα ἂ καὶ αὐτῷ ἐδόκει—probably this means saying what he personally thought they ought to do This interpretation is strongly supported by οἱ δὲ ξυνεγίγνωσκον μὲν καὶ αὐτοὶ and ἐδόκει ποιητέα εἶναι below, with which καὶ αὐτῷ brings our clause into connexion. (The recent edd. who retain these words offer several suggestions, but all except Classen give alternatives and say that the meaning cannot be determined. Classen says ‘saying that which seemed to him from his own conjecture probable,’ thus agreeing with Haacke, Goller, and Arnold. But Bloomfield rightly says that the Syr. knew that the A. would retreat even before the battle—c. 67 Stall and Herwerden reject the words. I think that the edd. have all mistaken the meaning of ἐδόκει, which refers not to the knowledge of Hermocrates, but to his advice. Valla translates ‘Commemorans haec et alia quae ipsi videbantur,’ which, whatever he read, is certainly not what Thuc. meant.)

ἀποικοδομῆσαι—sc. χρεών.

τὰ στενόπορα—those among the hills west of Syr.

προφθάσαντας—Classen, Bohme, and Widmann prefer διαλαβόντας of B, and it is perhaps right. That διαλαμβάνω does not occur elsewhere in Thuc. does not count, as this part of the narrative contains several rare words and ἀγωνισμός, ἀντιτέχνησις, δυσανασχετῶ, and ἐπιφήμισμα, which are not found again in Thuc. προλαμβάνοντες is explained by the schol. φθάνοντες, ὥστε μὴ καταλαμβάνεσθαι at IV. 33. Possibly Thuc. wrote προδιαλαβόντας.