E.C. Marchant, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 3

παρεσκεύαστο—impers., as often.

τηρήσαντες—cf. τηρεῖν ἄνεμον I. 65, τ. πορθμόν (‘passage’) VI. 2.

τάφρον—between the town and the τεῖχος. See Introd. p. xix.

προσέμειξαν—‘reached.’

ἀνά occurs only twice in Thuc., here and IV. 72: with the temporal use here cf. Herod. VIII. 123 ἀνὰ τὸν πόλεμον τοῦτον. “In the local sense espeeially, but also in the temporal, ἀνά frequently occurs in Homer and Herod. The constr. is eommon in Xenophon, but seems to oceur in no other Attic prose writer” (C. F. Smith).

ψόφῳ depends on ἀντιπαταγοῦντος only, κατακουσάντων being absolute, like προϊδόντων. The gen. abs., in spite of the aceus. (φύλακας), is eommon in Gk.

μή belongs to both partic. and verb.

αἴσθησιν παρέχοι—cf. II. 4 αἴσθησις ταχεῖα ἐπεγένετο.

τὸν ἀριστερὸν μόνον πόδα—instead of both feet, as would normally have been the case. The plain statement of Thuc. therefore is that by leaving off the right sandal the men expected to get a firmer footing in the mud. (The schol. says ὑπεδέδεντο τὸν μὲν ἕνα τῶν ποδῶν δι᾽ ἀσφάλειαν, τὸν δὲ ἕτερον γυμνὸν εἶχον διὰ κουφότητα, and many edd. follow this view; but this is eertainly not what Thuc. says, and it is not a question of what we might think to be the effeet of sandals or no sandals. Thuc. took it that the right foot was meant to get the firmer hold.)

προσέμισγον πρὸς τὰς ἐπάλξεις—I should prefer a comma at προσέμισγον, because πρὸς τὰς ἐπάλξεις does not go closely with the verb, but is added to make κατὰ μεταπύργιον clear. (As Steup says, the towers had no battlements, so that πρὸς τὰς ἐπάλξεις does not refer to the wall as a whole. But there is no need to alter the text with him.)

μετὰ δὲ αὐτὸν . . ἀνέβαινον—this still refers to the ψιλοὶ δώδεκα, and merely repeats the previous ἀνέβαινον with the addition of the intention of this party: on reaching the top they were to turn to left and right. The awkward repetition is due to the breaking of the thread of the previous sentence by the words καὶ πρῶτος ἀνέβη.

ἀντιλαμβανόμενος is absolute.

δοῦπον—as the rarer word this may be right, but ψόφον is an early variant.

βοή—‘an alarm.’

ἐπὶ τὸ τεῖχος—the garrison troops came out and made for their posts at the wall. See Introd. p. xviii.

ὅ τι ἦν—contrast v. 54 ῃδει δὲ οὐδεὶς ὅποι στρατεύουσιν. Goodwin, MT. § 674 3

καὶ ἅμα . . προσέβαλον—this gives another reason why they did not know ὄ τι ἦν τὸ δεινόν: hence strictly we should have καὶ ὅτι οἱ κτλ.: cf I. 110 τοῦτον δὲ διὰ μέγεθός τε τοῦ ἕλους οὐκ ἐδύναντο ἑλεῖν, καὶ ἅμα μαχιμώτατοί εἰσι τῶν Αἰγυπτίων οἱ ἕλειοι.

τῶν Πλαταιῶν—partitive gen., which Thuc., differing from other authors, often puts between an art. and partic., as I. 9 οἱ τὰ σαφέστατα Πελοποννησίων δεδεγμένοι, ib. 48 ταῖς ἄριστα τῶν νεῶν πλεούσαις, and below, c. 36, 5.

ἐκ τοὔμπαλιν ἤ—cf. τοὐναντίον ἤ, which generally shows a variant reading ᾖ. In Xen. Anab. III. 5, 13 εἰς τοὔμπαλιν ἢ πρὸς Βαβυλῶνα is probably incorrect, but the text shows the idiom.

ἐθορυβοῦντο μὲν οὖν—‘thus, remaining at their post (on the wall), they were in a state of excitement. yet not one dared to move from his own station, but they were at a loss to make out what was happening.’ ἑαυτῶν goes back to the subject of ἐθορυβοῦντο. ἑαυτῶν here is to be preferred to αὐτῶν: but in c. 91, 2 τοὺς Μηλίους οὐκ ἐθέλοντας ἐς τὸ αὐτῶν ξυμμαχικὸν ἰέναι ἐβούλοντο προσαγαγέσθαι, the pers. pron. may be right, since ipsorum, not suum may be meant.

ἐχώρουν ἔξω τοῦ τείχους—i.e. they descended from the wall on the outer side, supposing that the alarm meant that some force was approaching from Athens. In the darkness and excitement these 300 had not communicated with the men in the towers who had raised the alarm. 44 φρυκτοὶ πολέμιοι—λαμπάδες πολεμίους δηλοῦσαι schol.

ὅπως ἀσαφῆ . . ᾖ καὶ μὴ βοηθοῖεν—the timehonoured example of interchange of subj and opt after a past tense. Cf. VI. 96 ἐξέκριναν ὅπως εἴησαν φύλακες καὶ . . . παραγίγνωνται, where no difference of meaning can be detected. See M.T. § 321. Analogous is the interchange of moods in c. 113, 2.