C.E. Graves, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 5

ἰέναι ἐς—=ἐσιέναι, line 23: so iii. 91, 2, ἐς τὸ ξυμμαχικὸν ἰέναι. τὸν ὕστερον ξύλλογον—i.e. the next meeting to be held at Corinth.

ἐποιήσαντο—following the sense of πρεσβεία; some manuscripts have the needless correction ἐποιήσατο. καθάπερ προείρητο—by conference with the twelve Argive commissioners, ch. 28, 5, so infr. line 27.

Λεπρέου—this is the first mention of Lepreum in Thucydides, and it is not named again after ch. 62. It was in Triphylia, between Messenia and Elis, not far from the sea. ἐπι τῇ ἡμισείᾳ—‘on condition of (receiving)’; ch. 5, 12.

καὶ καταλυσάντων—so Classen for the manuscript reading καὶ λυσάντων, λύειν πόλεμον not being a phrase in use. Krüger, with two manuscripts, reads καταλυσάντων without καί, and gives it a hypothetical force, ‘in case they ended the war’, but Classen's reading is more consistent with Thucydidean usage.

Ἠλεῖοι—the subject of the genitive absolute now becomes the subject of the main verb; cf. iii. 13, 7, βοηθησάντων δὲ ὑμῶν προθύμως, πόλιν προσλήψεσθε: so iii. 112, 6: iv. 108, 1, τῆς δὲ γεφύρας μὴ κρατούντων. οὐκ ἂν δύνασθαι προσελθεῖν. A more dubious passage in i. 10, 3, is probably to be taken in the same way, ὅμως δὲ οὔτε ξυνοικισθεἰσης πόλεως. ....φαίνοιτ: ἂν ὑποδεέστερα (sc. ἡ πόλις). Goodwin (§ 850) says that the intention of such irregularity is to make the participial clause more prominent, and to express its relation (time, cause etc.) with greater emphasis. This principle applies to παυσαμένων, line 13.

νεμομένοις αὐτοῖς—‘the sovereignty of half the territory of Lepreum became vested in the Eleans, who, without disturbing the actual occupiers of the soil, imposed upon them a talent as the rent, or vectigal, to be paid to the treasury of Jupiter at Olympia; of which the Eleans had the management. Compare the conduct of the Athenians to the conquered Lesbians (iii. 50, 3); where the vectigal was not paid to the Athenian state, but to the individual Athenians to whom the state had given the ownership or sovereignty of the land. ἀποφέρειν and ἀποφορά are words used peculiarly to express the payment of rent, whether from a tenant to his landlord, or from a subject to his sovereign, or from a conquered people to their conquerors’ (Arnold).

ἔταξαν—i. 19, 1, χρήματα τοῖς πᾶσι τάξαντες φέρειν. The middle is used of those who agree to the payment on their own part, e.g. i. 101, 4, χρήματα ταξάμενοι φέρειν. ἐπηνάγκαζον— only here in Thucydides: Hdt. viii. 130, οὐδὲ ἐπηνάγκαζε οὐδείς. The compound, like the more common προσαναγκάζω, implies compulsion to a course of action.

δίκης ἐπιτραπείσης—cf. vii. 18, 3, ἐς δίκας προκαλου: μέν ων τῶν Λακεδαιμονίων οὐκ ἤθελον ἐπιτρέπειν. ἴσον—‘their just due’; iv. 59 fin. ἴσον ἔχοντι. ἀνέντες—‘throwing up’: παυσάμενοι τοῦ ε:πιτρέπειν τὴν δίκην τοῖς Λακεδαιμονίοις (schol.). ‘It presently appeared that Sparta was more disposed to carry out her general system of favouring the autonomy of the lesser states, than to enforce the positive agreement of the confederacy. Accordingly the Eleians, accusing her of unjust bias, renounced her authority as arbitrator’ (Grote).

δέζασθαι—of receiving disaffected allies, i. 40, 4, τοὺς ἑτέρων ἀφισταμένους δέχεσθαι (other instances in the same chapter): so iv. 75, 1, τοὺς ἐξιόντας ἐδέχοντο, which is sometimes wrongly taken of ‘withstanding assailants’.

τὴν ξυνθήκην—this covenant is not mentioned elsewhere; but it would seem to be a bond entered into at the beginning of the war by the several states of the Peloponnesian confederacy. Grote (ch. 55) has an interesting note. He takes the view that subordinate states had been exempt while the war lasted from tribute to the imperial cities, in virtue of their military service for the general cause. ‘But the confederacy at the same time gave its guarantee that the imperial state should re-enter upon these suspended rights, so soon as the war should be at an end’. This view may be right, but it can scarcely be drawn from the present passage, which seems rather to mean that Lepreum made the war an excuse for evading a legitimate payment, and the Eleans claimed their rights as soon as their hands were free. But at the same time προφασις can undoubtedly be used of a real ground or occasion, e. g. vi. 6, 1, τῇ ἀληθεστάτῃ προφάσει.

τινες—i.e. all persons concerned; i. 40, 5, τοὺς ξυμμάχους αὐτόν τινα κολάζειν.

τὸ αὐτὸ λέγοντες—‘holding the same language’, i.e. acting in concert; iv. 20, fin. ἡμῶν καὶ ὑμῶν ταὐτὰ λεγόντων: ‘their aristocratical forms of government, and their common hatred of Athens, as well as their neighbourhood to each other, tending to draw them together’ (Arnold): cf. ch. 38, 7, τὸ γὰρ αὐτὸ ἐποίουν, of the same states. Classen and others take the words to mean ‘(though) holding the same views’ as the Corinthians and other actual seceders, but this rendering seems not to agree with the sense of the passage and would require ὅμως or the like.

περιορώμενοι—probably ‘looking about them’, i.e. waiting the event and not committing themselves to either side. In all other passages where περιορᾶσθαι occurs in Thucydides it is in the middle voice. It is used (1) standing alone, vi. 93, 1, μέλλοντες ἔτι καὶ περιορώμενοι vi. 103, 2, πρότερον περιεωρῶντο: vii. 33, 2, πρότερον περιορώμενοι: (2) with a dependent clause, iv. 73, 1, περιορωμένους ὁποτέρων ἡ νίκη ἔσται: (3) with a case, ii. 43, 4, μὴ περιορᾶσθε τοὺς πολεμικοὺς κινδύνους, where the meaning is open to question, but is probably ‘regard anxiously’, ‘weigh too nicely’ (Jowett): iv. 124, 4, Μένδης περιορώμενος, ‘anxious about’. These are all the instances of the word, to which may be added a rare use of the active aorist, iv. 71, 1, τὸ μέλλον περιιδεῖν, the aorist middle not being in use. In the present passage a difficulty is caused by the following words, ὑπὸ τῶν Λακεδαιμονίων, which are found in all MSS. If they be genuine, and περιορώμενοι is to retain its usual meaning, they must be taken with ἡσύχαζον περιορώμενοι in the sense ‘by reason of Lacedaemonian influence’. Such a construction though harsh is not impossible. Otherwise, περιορώμενοι must be regarded as a passive. If this view be admissible, ‘jealously watched’ (Jowett), ‘treated with honour and consideration’, gives the best sense, and corresponds to the use of the middle in iv. 124, 4. Grote's rendering ‘being left to themselves’, i.e. not appealed to, as the Corinthians were (ch. 30), does not correspond to the use of the word in the active, which in the sense of overlooking requires a participle or the like expressed or implied. And the once accepted rendering ‘despised’, or ‘feeling themselves slighted’, is equally inconsistent with classical usage, besides which it is doubtful as a statement of fact and necessitates giving a harsh, though possible, adversative meaning to καί= ‘and yet thinking’. Classen follows Dobree in omitting the words ὑπὸ τῶν Λακεδαιμονίων, as an explanatory gloss of the supposed passive construction; while Haase's conjecture is very tempting, τὰ ἀπὸ τῶν, ‘waiting to see what course the Lacedaemonians took’.