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

βοιωτάρχαις—see iv. 91, 1. ἠρέσκοντο—ch. 4, 13. ἐς τὰ ὁμοῖα σπεύδειν—Classen quotes Xen. Cyr. i. 3, 4, εἰς τὸ αὐτὸ ἡμ<*>ν σπεύδετε: elsewhere Thucydides uses σπεύδειν without a preposition, as in ch. 16, 9. τὰ εἰρημένα προκαλούμενοι—‘with the stipulated proposals’; ii. 74, 2, προκαλεσάμενοι πολλά.

ἐδόκει—not ἕδοξε, for they did not carry their resolution. τοῖς ἀπὸ Θρᾴκης—the Chalcidians, ch. 31, 29. ἐν τῷ παρατυχόντι—iii. 82, 7: i. 122, 1, πρὸς τὸ παρατυγχάνον. τῷ δεομένῳ—used generically, like the well-known phrase ὁ βουλόμενος (ch. 28, 6). We find other instances of the generic singular, e. g. iv. 92, 5, τὸν μὲν ἠσυχάζοντα...ἐπιστρατεύειν.

γνώμης—‘resolution’ or ‘decision’. οὕτως=after this; iii. 96, 2, τἆλλα καταστρεψάμενος οὕτως .στρατεῦσαι: for ἤδη see ch. 37, 11. τὸ αὐτὸ ἐποιοῦν—ch. 31, 30, τὸ αὐτὸ λέγοντες.

ταῖς τέσσαρσι βουλαῖς—not mentioned elsewhere; nothing seems known about them. ἐπ̓ ὠφελίᾳ—mutui au<*>il<*> gratia (Poppo); see i. 3, 2, ἐπαγομένων αὐτοὺς ἐπ̓ ὠφελείᾳ. The manuscripts always vary between ὼφελια and ὡφέλεια. The latter, according to Liddell and Scott, is the usual prose form; but Bekker reads ὠφελία throughout Thucydides.

ἐκείνων—note the use of this pronoun to denote the Lacedaemonians, though they have just been mentioned. See note on iv. 37, 2: also Shilleto on i. 132, 3.

μετὰ τῶν Λακεδαιμονίων—Classen follows Stahl in reading μετ᾽ αὐτῶν for μετὰ τῶν, understanding ξυμμάχους with γίγνεσθαι. This agrees exactly with ch. 36, 14. Otherwise either (1) μετὰ τῶν γ<*>γνεσθαι means ‘to join Sparta’, as in iv. 125, 1, οἱ Ἰλλυριοὶ μετ᾽ Ἀρριβαίου γεγένηνται (Krüger): or (2), supplying ξυμμάχους, the sense is ‘afterwards to become their allies in company with the Lacedaemonians, i. e. afterwards to form an alliance with the Lacedaemonians as well, in which the Argives and Corinthians would be included’ (Jowett).

σφίσι—the natural construction is to take this as dependent on παραινοῦσιν. The sense then necessitates referring it to the membeis of the four councils, the subject of ψηφιεῖσθαι, while προδιαγνόντες refers to the Boeotarchs, the mam subject of the sentence. There is considerable awkwardness in this; and the difficulty is not removed by comparing such passages as e.g. i. 20, 1, οἱ γὰρ ἄνθρωποι τὰς ἀκοὰς τῶν προγεγενημένων, καὶ ἢν ἐπιχώρια σφίσιν ᾖ,...δέχονται: iv. 113, 3, κατέφυγον ἐς αὐτοὑς ὄσοι ἧσαν σφίσι ἐπιτήδειοι. For in such passages, though σφίσιν does not refer to the grammatical subject of the relative clause, it does refer to the general subject of the sentence, which is not the case here. It is just possible to take σφ<*>σι with προδιαγνόντες, ‘for themselves’ or ‘for their own nation’=‘for us’. Goller's conjecture ἐν σφίσι is however very tempting, and better than Bekker's σφεῖς.

ἀντέστη τὸ πρᾶγμα—so ch. 4, 26. εἰ ταῦτα ἔπεισαν— the aorist indicative, as Classen points out, implies ‘an unfulfilled condition’. They had been intending to promote the alliance with Argos, (and they would have made the attempt) if they had not failed to persuade the councils.