Harold North Fowler, Commentary on Thucydides Book 5

παγκράτιον: in later times the name of the victor in the stadium is usually the one given. In iii. 8. 5 the kind of contest is not specified.—τὸ πρῶτον: points to subsequent victories of the same man.

δίκην: fine or punishment imposed by judicial sentence. Cf. vi. 29. 5.

ἐν τῷ νόμῳ: see App.—κατεδικάσαντο: mid. because they gave sentence in their own case.

σφᾶς: see App.—Φύρκον: Phyrcus was a fort near Lepreum not far from the southern border of Triphylia. Paus., iii. 8. 3, gives some details of this attack under King Agis.

αὑτῶν ὁπλίτας: see App.—ἐν ταῖς σπονδαῖς: temporal, as in 16 below; i. 55. 14; ii. 2. 19; iii. 52. 20.— 9. ἦσαν: agrees with the pred. Cf. i. 10. 30, ὅτι μὲν Μυκῆναι μικρὸν ἦν.

καταδεδικάσθαι: mid. with subj. αὐτούς understood, not pass.

μὴ ἐπηγγέλθαι τω: “that the sacred truce had not yet been proclaimed.”

τήν...ἐκεχειρίαν : the truce occasioned by the festival. See App. on c. 1. 1.—παρ᾽ αὐτοῖς: const. with εἶναι (“it had been already in force in their country”; εἶναι as preterite), stands proleptically with the subst.— 14. πρώτοις γὰρ σφίσιν αὐτοῖς: refers to the Eleans, not (as E. Curtius, Hermes 14, p. 131, thinks) to the Lacedaemonians.

λαθεῖν: i.e. before they (the Eleans) knew anything about it.

ὑπελάμβανον: replied (took speech against them) as in ὑπολαβὼν εἶπε, ii. 72. 1; iii. 113. 11.—οὐ χρεὼν εἶναι κτἑ.: they need not have announced (GMT. 49, 2, N. 3 a) the truce in Sparta if they had been of the opinion that the Lacedaemonians had already transgressed it (by beginning hostilities); but they had not done it (i.e. proclaimed the truce) in this belief at all. For τοῦτο δρᾶσαι, see on i. 5. 11; ii. 49. 22; iii. 40. 21; iv. 59. 6).

οὐχ ὡς νομίζοντες: not as if they thought so, but as if they didn't think so. (Naber, Mnem. 14, p. 320, suggests οὐχ οὕτω νομίζοντες.)

καὶ ὅπλα οὐδαμόσε ἔτι αὐτοῖς ἐπενεγκεῖν: they (the Lacedaemonians) had not continued hostilities against them after the truce had been announced at Sparta.

μὴ ἂν πεισθῆναι: ‘the Eleans were still positive that the Lacedaemonians were in the wrong, and said that they would never be persuaded of the contrary’ (Jowett).

τό τε αὑτῶν μέρος: the fine of 2000 minae would, if paid, have been divided between the state of Elis and the temple.—γίγνεται: ὀφείλεται, Schol.