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ἐν τῇ Σηστῷ κ.τ.λ. In c. 62, § 3 Sestos was made the Athenian station to guard the Hellespont. Strombichides had brought back to Samos all the twenty-four ships with which he had gone to Sestos (c. 79, § 5). The ships named here must therefore be those sent in c. 80, § 4. οἱ φρυκτωροὶ The article assumes that they naturally existed. For the rest cf. iii. 22, ὅπως ἀσαφῆ τὰ σημεῖα τῆς φρυκτωρίας τοῖς πολεμίοις ἦ; iii. 80, ἐφρυκτωρήθησαν αὐτοῖς ἐξήκοντα νῆες προσπλέουσαι. ὑπομείξαντες τῇ Χερσονήσῳ ‘having got close up under the shore of the Chersonese.’ The word is ἅπ. εἰρ. in this sense (ἐγγίσαντες schol.), but cf. προσμεῖξαι, ξυμμεῖξαι. ἐπ᾽ Ἐλαιοῦντος some twenty miles down the coast, at the S. point of the Chersonese. ἐκπλεῦσαι ἐς τὴν εὐρυχωρίαν τὰς τῶν πολεμίων ναῦς A combination of the notions ἐκπλεῦσαι ἐς τὴν εὐρυχωρίαν and ὑπεκφυγεῖν (ii. 90) τὰς τῶν Π. ναῦς. The peculiar construction ἐκπλεῦσαι τὰς ναῦς is made the easier by the intervening words, but in any case the accus. is sufficiently paralleled by the more or less rare accus. with ἐκβαίνειν, ἐξίσταμαι, ἐξέρχομαι, ἐκθρώσκω, ἐκκλίνω, ἐκπορεύομαι. Cf. iii. 34, ὑπεξελθόντες τούτους; ii. 88, μηδένα ὄχλον ὑποχωρεῖν.
τὰς μὲν ἐν Ἀβύδῳ ἑκκαίδεκα. Cf. c. 99 (ad fin.). προειρημένης φυλακῆς κ.τ.λ. The scholiast explains καίτοι προειρημένου τοῖς ἐν τῇ Ἀβύδῳ ὑπὸ τοῦ φιλίου ἐπίπλου, τούτεστιν ὑπὸ τοῦ στόλου τοῦ μετὰ Μινδάρου, ὅπως παραφυλάττωσι τοὺς Ἀθηναίους κ.τ.λ. According to Jowett ‘προειρημένης φυλακῆς really explains not why the Athemans escaped the notice of the sixteen ships, but why it is necessary for the writer to tell us so.’ But why should the ἐπιπλέοντες Πελοποννήσιοι need to send this message, and how should they know of the whereabouts of these ships better than their friends at Abydos? Moreover the scholiast's καίτοι is not to be gathered from Thucydides. All commentators find the dative construction of the agent very harsh here, and it is unexampled in Thucydides with the verb προειρῆσθαι—naturally enough, since the dative would be ambiguous (cf. e.g. cedendum est nobis) with this particular verb. Rather the words mean ‘they escaped the notice of the ships at Abydos, who had given warning to their approaching friends to keep a watch for them in ease of their trying to sail out.’ By this it would be implied that they had shifted the responsibility, and were not troubling so much about the matter themselves. This sense, it is true, is rather awkwardly and incompletely expressed, and P - S therefore supposes a lacuna after ἔλαθον to be filled with e.g. ἀμελέστερον τηρούσας. It does not seem, however, that this brachylogy is more obscure than others in Thucydides, and, in default of MS. discrepancy, it appears best to retain the text with an explanation which satisfies the requirements of the grammar and, apart from a certain characteristic ellipsis of expression, the requirements of the sense. Grote's account of the passage (pt. ii. c. lxiii.) may well be called by P-S ‘contorta,’ and scarcely deserves serious consideration. τῷ φιλίῳ ἐπίπλῳ ‘the friendly armada = τοῖς ἐπιπλέουσι φίλοις. Goeller compares ii. 90, μὴ διαφύγοιεν πλέοντα τὸν ἐπίπλουν σφῶν οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι. * οἱ δὲ μετὰ κ.τ.λ. All MSS. give τὰς δὲ . . . ποιούμενοι, and all but Vat. and another give πᾶσαι. See crit. note. With these readings κατιδόντες and ποιούμενοι would be nominatives pendent, or unpleasantly constructed in apposition with the feminine πᾶσαι. Such a structure seems impossible. Reiske therefore read πάσαις, and is followed by P - S and others. Next τὴν δίωξιν ποιούμενοι referring to the Athenians would have to be rendered as by Valla e vestigio fugae se mandaverunt. But δίωξιν cannot = φυγήν, and δίωξιν ποιούμενοι can only = διώκοντες. To substitute διώκοντες will be to show the absurdity of this rendering. Cf. έν τῇ διώξει, c. 103, § 2. The article too is untenable in such a meaning. Dobree's emendation is ποιουμένου (with Μιϝδάρου), Haacke's ποιουμένων, and Classen's ποιουμένας (which is easiest in point of construction, but quite unlikely to have been corrupted into the text). By keeping ποιούμενοι, reading πάσας from Vat., and assuming that οἱ δὲ became τὰς δὲ through the antithesis of τὰς μὲν and the idea that κατιδόντες referred to the Athenians, we obtain the sense ‘but Mindarus and his party, catching sight of them at daybreak and immediately giving chase, fail to get before them all,’ but only succeed in cutting off four. κατιδόντες is perhaps rather better used of the enemy who catch sight of what was intended to be unseen, than of the Athenians who are seeking to hide. τὴν δίωξιν, implying that the pursuit was a matter of course. ποιούμενοι in the present tense because the whole = διώκοντες. Ἴμβρου The nearest point of this island is about fifteen miles from Elaius; the town itself was about twenty-three. Lemnos is forty miles distant. These islands were the surest of the Athenian dependencies. παρὰ τὸν Ἐλαιοῦντα. παρὰ need not be suspected. There are four ships at distances apart sailing along by Elaius, and the capturing includes motion in pursuit. Cf. Xen. Hell. i. 2, 9, πρὸς τοὺς παρὰ τὸ ἔλος ἐτράποντο. In vi. 57 all MSS. but one (inferior) give περιέτυχον τῷ Ἱππάρχῳ παρὰ τὸ Λεωκόριον καλούμενον. If περί, which the one MS. gives there, is right, it need not therefore be substituted here with Dobree. This use of παρὰ with acc. is common in Herodotus.
τὸ ἱερὸν τοῦ Πρωτεσιλάου. Cf. Hdt. vii. 33; ix. 116, 120; Paus. i. 34 § 2; Strabo xiii. 1. 31. It was of some splendour.
Commentary on Thucydides Book 8. T.G. Tucker. London. MacMillan & Company. 1892.
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