This text is part of:
ἔπεμπε . . ἀγγέλλων—so 2.81 ἔπεμπον κελεύοντες. The partic. is generally in the nom. with πέμπω in Thuc. The imperf. here is probably intended to represent the details of an elaborate act (as often with πέμπω): thus it will suit both πολλάκις μὲν and μάλιστα δὲ. See c. 3.1 on λέγοντα. καθ᾽ ἕκαστα—a prepositional phrase replacing the object (of ἀγγέλλων), as often with ἐπὶ πολύ. δεινοῖς—regular word for the difficulties of war. εἰ μὴ . . μεταπέμψουσιν—the construction, εἰ with fut., expresses merely the logical dependence of the apodosis on the protasis, whereas ἢν with subj. shows that the speaker hopes or fears the fulfilment of the condition. Thus Thuc. here puts the matter in a scientific form. εἶναι—not ἔσεσθαι. Cf. Lys. 21.25 ἡγουμένους αἰσχρὸν εἶναι εἰ ἀναγκασθησόμεθα. (The logical expression is sacrificed to effective rhetoric)
Professional Data Entry.
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.