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οἱ δ᾽ ὑπερβαίνοντες—all who were attempting to escape, whatever they were doing, are regarded as one body; but presently they are divided into οἱ μέν, those already on the wall, and οἱ δέ, those who were still below. The result is a very ugly sentence. 4. ἑκατέρου—see c. 22, 3.

τάς τε διόδους—Steup, following Poppo, renders ‘and,’ making the parenthesis extend from ὠς to ἐπιβοηθεῖν, because, if τε is regarded as correlative to καί, the sense of τάς τε διόδους . . ἐπιβοηθεῖν is absurdly repeated in κάτωθεν (i.e. ἀπὸ τῶν διόδων) εἶργον. It will be noticed that, if ἐφύλασσον μηδένα δι᾽ αὐτῶν ἐπιβοηθεῖν were absent, the sentence would be perfectly iegular in outline: οἱ δ᾽ ὑπερβαίνοντες τάς τε διόδους ἐνστάντες καὶ κλίμακας προσθέντες, οἱ μὲν καὶ κάτωθεν (i.e. ἀπὸ τῶν διόδων) καὶ ἄνωθεν (i.e. ἀπ᾽ ἄκρων τῶν πύργων) εἶργον κτλ. I think that this is a sign, not that the interrupting words are spurious— they are quite in Thuc.'s manner—but that Thuc. wrote them without working out the sentence to its end, as if after πλείους he had intended to continue, not with οἱ μέν, but in the form ἀπὸ τῶν πύργων τοὺς ἐπιβοηθοῦντας ἄνωθεν εἶργον βάλλοντες: on reaching πλείους, he shifted his plan and as the general subject was to be kept up, bifurcated the sentenee with οἱ μὲν . . οἱ δέ, instead of making a separate sentence of the οἰ δέ clause. This view of the matter is confirmed by the ugly repetition of κλίμακας προσθέντες and πλείους in different senses.

δι᾽ αὐτῶν—coming from the other πύργοι through the passages to the μεταπύργιον over which the P. were escaping.

πλείους—as in c. 22, 4 init.

οἱ μέν includes those in the δίοδοι and those on the top of the πύργοι.

κάτωθεν καὶ ἄνωθεν—with εἶργον.

οἱ δ᾽—those who were at the foot of the wall.


αἰεί—as Kruger says, this belongs to the partic, and the verb alike.

τῆς τάφρου—for this outer trench see c. 24, 2.

παρὰ τὸ τεῖχος—‘by the wall,’ on the outside.

κωλυτὴς γίγνοιτο—a favourite periphrasis with Thuc., especially with nouns in -της; examples occur in ec. 2, 40, 58, 59; with διδάσκαλος c. 42; with ἡγεμών c. 105.


πάντες—meaning οἱ πλείους of § 1.

οἱ τελευταῖοι—best taken by itself, between commas, i.e. ‘as they were the last,’ like οἱ δ᾽ . . οἱ πλείους above. But Steup makes οἱ τελευταῖοι partitive apposition to οἱ . . πύργων and joins χαλεπῶς οἱ τελευταῖοι κ. The men on the towers waited till the rest were safely across.


τὰ γυμνά—the unprotected side.

βιαίως—like βιαιότερον ἀναγαγόμενοι II. 33, ‘hard pressed.’


οἷος ἀπηλιώτου—sc. ὄντος, as in Soph. OC. 83 ὡς ἐμοῦ μόνης πέλας, se. οὔσης. It is very rarely that the partic. is omitted in gen. abs where the noun does not itself suggest a partie. as in Soph. OT. 966 ὧν ὑφηγητῶν, sc. ὄντων: but the omission is softened in this case by the analogy of the gen. of time, as in νυκτός.

βορέου—perhaps a marginal note, intended to fill up the sense of μᾶλλον. (It has been suggested (1) that βορέου should be ehanged to εὔρου, or (2) that μᾶλλον should be transposed before .) But possibly two propositions are eompressed into one; and the full sense is ‘as it is when the wind is east: it is, in fact, more watery then than when the wind is north.’ (So Chambry, Rév. de phil. '97.)

ὑπονειφομένη—ef. Herod II. 13 ὕεται χώρη, Xen. Hell. II. 4, 13 νειφόμενοι ἀπῆλθον: for . is properly ‘being thinly besnowed.’

ἐγένετο . . διάφευξις—cf. VII. 41 τὴν κατάφευξιν ἐποιοῦντο ‘were seeking refuge.’ The idea of success is contained in δια-. (I eannot agree with Classen that ἐγένετο here means ‘proved suceessful’: that sense is confined in Attic to old phrases like ἐγένετο τὰ ἱερά, cf. . τὰ διαβατήρια V. 55. In VI. 74 and VIII. 57 γίγνεσθαι=merely ‘take place.’ καὶ διάφευξις=‘the means of suecessful escape too (as well as the difficult crossing)’ was mainly owed to (i.e. more than to any other cause: meaning that it was a narrow thing).

διὰ τοῦ χειμῶνος τὸ μ.—the order as in Herod.; cf. e.g. I. 32 μετὰ τῆς ξυμμαχίας τῆς αἰτήσεως.

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hide References (12 total)
  • Commentary references from this page (12):
    • Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus, 83
    • Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannus, 966
    • Thucydides, Histories, 1.32
    • Thucydides, Histories, 2.13
    • Thucydides, Histories, 2.33
    • Thucydides, Histories, 2.4
    • Thucydides, Histories, 3.105
    • Thucydides, Histories, 3.42
    • Thucydides, Histories, 5.55
    • Thucydides, Histories, 6.74
    • Thucydides, Histories, 7.41
    • Thucydides, Histories, 8.57
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