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Καὶ—‘further.’ Here Pericles, who has not before openly alluded to Sparta, first avows the contrast. ταῖς μελέταις ... τοῖσδε—the second dat. restricts the first. τῶν ἐναντίων—with διαφέρομεν. κοινὴν—Intr. p. lxx. end. ξενηλασίαις—‘alien acts,’ one of the arcana imperii by which the Ephors tried to keep ont foreign manners. Strangers were not allowed to settle in Sparta. The Athenians felt this as an insult. Cf. I. 144. Aristoph. Av. 1012 ὥσπερ ἐν Λακεδαἰμονι ξενηλατεῖται. ὃ ... ὠφεληθείη—i.e. ὃ εἰ ἴδοι μὴ κρυφθὲν ὠφεληθείη ἄν. Thuc. says that he was unable to obtain information about Spartan military matters owing to the concealment which the government practised. v. 9, 5. Cf. c. 8, 4, and τὸ κρυπτὸν τῆς πολιτεἰας v. 68, 2. τῷ ἀφ᾽ ἡμῶν ... εὐψύχῳ some what similar is c. 87, 1 τὰ ἀπὸ τῆς τύχης. Demosth. 54, 36— ἡ ἀπ᾽ αὐτῶν ἑτοιμότης. ὄση καὶ ὅα πρὸς τὸ ποιεῖν ὁτιοῦν ὑπάρχει. A rare use outside Thuc.: not found in Aristoph., very rare in the orators. ἐς τὰ ἔργα—contrasted with παρασκευαῖς. Contrast c. 11, 5. ταῖς παιδείαις—‘respective methods of education.’ ἐπιπόνῳ ἀσκήσει—of the laborious training to which young Spartans were subjected, being taught to imitate the courage and gravity of men. The life they led was half military, half monastic. At Athens ἐπίπονος was only associated with γῆρας, not with νεότης. Plat. Rep. I. p. 329 D. ἀνειμένως διαιτώμενοι—cf. I. 6, 3 πρῶτοι Ἀθηναῖοι τόν τε σίδηρον κατέθεντο καὶ ἀνειμένῃ τῇ διαίτῃ ἐς τὸ τρυφερώτερον μετέστησαν. It was conflicting ideas that drove Athens and Sparta into war. Doderlein says ‘demonstratur (in this speech) non impotentia tantum et dominandi cupidine ad bellum tam atrox tamque diutinum impulsos esse, sed etiam diversa recti honestique aestimatione et constanti sui utrosque judicii propugnatione.’ τοὺς ἰσοπαλεῖς κ—Editors are not agreed as to the meaning of these words; there are two interpretations: (1) ‘equal dangers,’ i.e. dangers as great as any the Spartans, for all their training, venture to face (so most edd.); (2) ‘struggles in which equal, but not superior, forces oppose us.’ So Kr., Cl., Tillmanns. The general sense favours (1), the Greek favours (2). According to (2), the reservation is implied ‘we do not risk a battle against superior forces, as when the enemy invade Attica.’
Τεκμήριον—see c. 15, 3. καθ᾽ ἑαυτούς—i.e. alone, without the help of their allies. καθ᾽ ἑκάστους is impossible because it would refer to detachments of the Lacedaemonians: had Πελοποννήσιοι stood in place of Λακεδαιμόνιοι, it would have been right. πάντων—sc. τῶν ξυμμάχων. αὐτοὶ—‘by ourselves.’ The words are arranged so that a great emphasis falls on κρατοῦμεν, up to which point, the exact meaning of αὐτοὶ, which is contrasted with μετὰ πάντων, remains in doubt. περὶ— = ὐπὲρ, as often in Isocr. and Demosth. Cf. c. 41, 5. Aristoph. Eq. 767 περὶ σοῦ μάχομαι, 781, 1038. τὰ πλείω— cf. c. 11, 4 τὰ πολλά.
Τε—cf. c. 11, 4. This new fact has an important bearing on τὰ πλείω κρατοῦμεν, enhancing the value of the victories, and excusing the reverses. ἐπὶ πολλὰ—with ἐπίπεμψιν. At the same time that we are busy with our fleet, we have to send out our citizens on many expeditions by land. ἡμῶν αὐτῶν—i.e. having no allies available. ἐπίπεμψιν— (see c. 14, 1) = διὰ τὸ ἡμῶν αὐτῶν (‘partitive’) ἐπιπέμπειν. αὐχοῦσιν—poetical word. Herod. II. 160. αὔχημα, very rare in Attic, occurs in c. 62, 4. ἀπεῶσθαι—middle. ὑφ᾽ ἁ. ἡσσῆσθαι—c. 34, 6.
Καίτοι—resumes the main thought which was in- terrupted at τεκμήριον δέ: ‘and surely.’ ῥαθυμίᾳ—‘with a light heart.’ Cf. ἀνειμένως διαιτώμενοι above. Not in its bad sense. Shil. quotes [Arist.] Eth. VI. 1 οὔτε πλείω οὔτε ἐλάττω πονεῖν οὐδὲ ῥᾳθυμεῖν. πόνων—this word had great significance to the Spartans and Thebans, denoting the ‘training’ which they thought so necessary to success. It is constantly used by Pindar, who holds that πόνος and δαπανή (‘outlay’) together win victory in the games. Observe the παρονομασία in πόνων, νόμων, τρόπων. μετὰ .. ἀνδρείας—the Spartan manliness is the result of military rules, the Athenian of habit formed through our mode of life. ἀνδρείας belongs to both gens., and νόμων ἀνδρείας, τρόπων ἀ. form a chiasmus with ῥαθυμίᾳ, πόνων μ. ἐθέλομεν—‘omnes recentioris aetatis pro ἐθέλοιμεν scripserunt ἐθέλομεν.’ Wichmann. Sta. thinks that Dion. Hal. really wrote the indic., and that this, like other passages he quotes from Thuc., has been altered by Byzantine scribes in his text. The critics ‘corrected’ Dionysius from their MSS. of Thuc. περιγίγνεται—Dion. Hal. says Thuc. ought to have written περιέσται, because ἐθέλω points to the fut., but there is no reference to time at all here, and if there were the pres. γίγνομαι can apply to the fut. Trans. ‘we are the gainers.’ τοῖς μέλλουσιν ἀλγεινοῖς—it is a question whether the dat. is causal, ‘through coming troubles,’ or dat. commodi, ‘for the sake of.’ Probably it is causal. ἐς αὐτὰ—τὰ ἀλ. γεινὰ ‘when face to face with trouble.’ The καὶ is paratactic, ‘while,’ and the verb, περιγίγνεται, is gradually lost sight of, until we reach ἐν ἄλλοις, which belongs rather to what follows. This is a good example of Thuc.'s πολύνους βραχυλογία. ἀτολμοτέρους ... φαίνεσθαι—with φαίνομαι Thuc. more often omits than inserts the partic., where an adj. is used. Contrast c. 51, 3 σῶμα αὔταρκες ὂν ἐφάνη.
Commentary on Thucydides Book 2. E.C. Marchant. London. MacMillan & Company. 1891.
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