CHAPTER XV
ἔδοξεν. τὰ τέλη καταβάντας—‘it was determined that the authorities should go down etc.’
τὰ τέλη, being equivalent to
τοὺς έν τέλει, has the masculine plural
καταβάντας: we have also the neuter construction,
i. 58,
τὰ τέλη ὐπέσχετο αὐτοῖς: and a neuter participle in combination with a plural verb, ch. 88, 7,
τὰ τέλη ὀμόσαντα αὐτὸν ἐξέπεμψαν. ἀρχή is similarly used for ‘a proper authority’ (
ἠ ἀρχή =
οἱ or
ὁ ἐν τῇ ἀρχῇ:
αἱ ἀρχαί =
οἱ ἐν ταῖς ἀρχαῖς):
i. 90,
οὐ προσῄει πρὸς τὰς ἀρχάς: so
v. 47,
αἱ ἔνδημοι ἀρχαί, ‘the (several) home authorities’: cf. ch. 53, 10. By a similar usage we say the government, the church, the board, the great powers, etc. from a natural tendency to regard the office more than its incumbent in speaking of things which have an official rather than a personal bearing.
ὡς ἐπί—‘on the strength of, in circumstances of’.
βουλεύειν—‘to deliberate’, so often: in aor. ‘to resolve’. In
iii. 42, however,
τῷ πλεῖστα εὖ βουλεύοντι means ‘to him who advises best’. According to the general use of such words the active would mean to ‘give counsel’, the middle to ‘take counsel’, or deliberate; but Thuc. uses several verbs in the active in senses for which other writers employ the middle.
παραχρῆμα— ‘at once, seeing (the actual state of things)’:
πρὸς τὸ χρῆμα is also read, but on worse authority.
τι παθεῖν—‘that anything should befall them’, i.e. that they should die: cf. ch. 38, 11. Many manuscripts read
ἤ before
κρατηθῆναι, giving the sense ‘that they should run the risk either of death from famine or in battle, or of being taken prisoners’.
τὰ περὶ Πύλον—‘as concerns Pylos’: an adverbial expression, cf. note on
τὰ πρὸς τὸ πέλαγος, ch. 23, 15.
