Charles D. Morris, Commentary on Thucydides Book 1

καὶ ὅτι μὲν κτἑ.: before proceeding to discuss the Trojan war, Thuc. warns his readers not to be misled by the present appearance of places of former fame. And the fact that Mycenae was a small place, or if any one of the former towns appears now to be insignificant, one must not take this as sure evidence and so rejuse to believe that the expedition against Troy was as great as the poets have asserted and the legend represents. The two clauses ὅτι . . . ἦν and εἴ τι . . . εἶναι must be conceived as repeated together in an understood τούτῳ to which ἀκριβεῖ σημείῳ is a pred. (Cl. gets out of εἴ τι . . . εἶναι a second subj. to μικρὸν ἦν.) The particle μέν has no exact correlative, but the opposed statement occurs in a different form in 16. With μικρόν neut. pred. to Μυκῆναι, cf. c. 138. 26; iv.76.15. G. 138, N. 2 c; H. 617. The impf. ἦν is used because Mycenae was destroyed by the Argives, B.C. 468 (Diod. xi.65.5). Strabo, viii.6.10, with exaggeration says of the site: ὥστε νῦν μηδ᾽ ἴχνος εὑρίσκεσθαι τῆς Μυκηναίων πόλεως, whereas the ruins of Mycenae have always in modern times been regarded of archaeological importance (Curtius, Pelop. II. p. 400 ff.), and have recently awakened fresh interest from the researches of Schliemann.

μὴ γενέσθαι: μή with inf. after a verb of denial. GMT. 95, 2, N. 1; H. 1029.

κατέχει: obtains, prevails; abs., as in c. 11. 19; with acc. c. 6. 13.

Λακεδαιμονίων γὰρ κτἑ.: an instance to prove the fallaciousness of such reasoning. The two opt. verbs are placed together for contrast.

τῆς κατασκευῆς τὰ ἐδάφη: the groundwork of the buildings. As applied to a city κατασκευή (see on c. 2. 12) means the public and private edifices with their internal arrangements.

πολλὴν ἂν...αὐτῶν εἶναι : after the lapse of a long time great incredulity, methinks, would reign among posterity as to their power, considering their fame.

τῶν πέντε τὰς δύο μοίρας: two fifths. See Cobet, Mnemosyne, 8, p. 68. In the expression of fractions, when the denominator exceeds the numerator by 1, the gen. is omitted; τὰ τρία μέρη = 3/4. Cf. c. 104. 9. Otherwise the denominator stands first in the gen. as here. Hom. K 252, παρῴχωκεν δὲ πλέων νὺξ | τῶν δύο μοιράων, τριτάτη δ᾽ ἔτι μοῖρα λέλειπται. H. 293; Kühn. 135, 6. Cl., v. H., and B., after the Schol., think the πέντε μοῖραι the traditional five divisions of Peloponnesus, Elis with either Arcadia or Achaea being reckoned as one. Then τὰς δύο μοίρας will be Laconia and Messenia.

τῆς τε ξυμπάσης κτἑ.: a general expression for the political importance of Sparta at the time of the writer; not, however, to be pressed, since Argolis and a large part of Arcadia were not under the hegemony of Sparta. πολλῶν is pred., = πολλῶν ὔντων.

πόλεως : pred., since it has never been brought together into a compact city, as Athens has been. Cf. ii.15.14.

ὑποδεεστέρα: (not with Kr. ὑποδεέστερα) with the subj. ἡ δύναμις understood from τῆς δυνάμεως in 7. So St., B., v. H., and Herbst, Philol. 16, p. 306. But Cl. supplies Λακεδαιμονίων ἡ πόλις, though the same subj. has just been supplied in gen. with the abs. partics. This adj. means weaker, not ‘smaller.’ Cf. c. 11. 18; ii.89.22; iii.11.15; 45. 26. The parenthesis beginning at καίτοι, 9, should be closed after ὑποδεεστέρα (with Bekk., St., v. H., B., Sh.), not after πολλῶν, that εἰκάζεσθαι, 15, may depend on οἶμαι.

παθόντων : = εἰ πάθοιεν. GMT. 52, 1 and 110, 1; H. 902.— 16. ἢ ἔστιν: as it really is, not ‘as it now is.’ The writer has in view the general importance of Athens at his time, not its condition at the end of the whole war, or of the first ten years, as Ullrich assumes, Beitr. p. 124.

στρατείαν: see App.—τῶν πρὸ αὐτῆς: see on c. 1. 4.

λειπομένην: remaining behind, falling below, with gen. of separation. G. 174; H. 749.—αὖ: refers to c. 9. 24.

ἥν: i.e. στρατείαν (not referring to ποιήσει, though nearer; cf. c. 68. 15; 140. 28; 144. 25), which it is natural to suppose that he as a poet embellished to excess, but which even with this exaggeration evidently falls short. But Cobet reads ὅν, i.e. Ὅμηρον, referring to c. 21. 3. The subj. of φαίνεται would naturally be ἥ; but in Greek, when the rel. would appear in successive clauses in different cases, it is usually omitted in the second, often being represented by a dem. or pers. pron. Cf. c. 36. 2; ii.41.15. G. 156; H. 1005; Kühn. 561, 1.

πεποίηκε κτἑ.: for tense, see on c. 3. 17. The exact number is 1186. νεῶν is part. gen.; ἀνδρῶν is gen. of material (G. 167. 4; H. 729) or of quality, which in Greek is nearly confined to designations of quantity or age with a numeral. Cf. Kr. Spr. 47, 8, 3, 4. For the facts, see Hom. B 510, 719.

τάς: cf. c. 6. 1. Since the two adjs. cannot be referred to the same subj., there is no risk of confusion. Sh. compares Aesch. Ag. 314, νικᾷ δ̓ ὁ πρῶτος καὶ τελευταῖος δραμών.

γοῦν : see on c. 2. 18; at any rate, i.e. whether this inference is correct or not.—πέρι: with μνησθῆναι, for the simple gen. Cf. c. 37. 4; v.41.9; viii.47.11.

αὐτερέται: fighting men who served also at the oar. Cf. iii.18.16; vi.91.15; here defined further by μάχιμοι.

ἐν ταῖς Φιλοκτήτου : when he mentions the ships of Philoctetes. See on c. 9. 25. Cf. Hom. B 719.

προσκώπους: Schol. τοὺς πρὸς ταῖς κώπαις ναύτας.

περίνεως : Schol. τοὺς περιττοὺς ἐν τῇ νηῒ ἐπιβάτας, the supernumeraries who were not needed to work the ships. Boeckh, Urkunden über das Seewesen, p. 121. The word seems not to occur again before Dio Cass. (xlix.1.5).

τῶν μάλιστα ἐν τέλει: so ii.10.10, those highest in rank. Elsewhere simply οἱ ἐν τέλει, c. 90. 29; iii.36.20; iv. 65. 6; v.27.6, etc.: and in the same sense τὰ τέλη, c. 58. 8; iv.15.2; 86. 3; 88. 6. Xen. Hell. vi.5.3 has τὰ μέγιστα τέλη.

μέλλοντας : this and ἔχοντας, 32, though formally agreeing with περίνεως, refer really to the crews in general. The anacoluthon is rendered less striking by ἄλλως τε καί, which often introduces partics. abs. or approximately so. Cf. c. 70. 2; 85. 8; ii.8.14; 16. 6; 85. 5; iii.20.18; 40. 27; 43. 14; iv.104.5; 106. 3; vii.1.10; viii.1.18.—πέλαγος: the open sea. Cf. iii.33.5; iv.24.19; vi.13.12; 34. 27; vii.49.13.

αὖ: again, i.e. to use another argument bearing on this point.—κατάφρακτα: decked, opp. to ἄφρακτα.

λῃστικώτερον : rather in a piratical fashion, than in that of ships of war; the comp. expressing the existence of one quality rather than that of another. Cf. c. 49. 4; ii.83.11; vi.104.22. Kühn. 542, note 7.

πρός: cf. 8; c. 6. 15.—δ᾽ οὖν: the correction of Bekk. for γοῦν of most Mss., adopted by St., B., Sh., v. H., serves after a digression to resume a previous statement; here that of 21. See on c. 3. 19, and cf. c. 63. 4; ii.5.28; 34. 21; vi.56.1.

τὸ μέσον: the mean or average; viz. 85.—σκοποῦντι: a dat. partic. often thus used to indicate the person who from his position, attention, or other circumstance, is likely to form a correct opinion. ‘Dat. of the observer.’ Cf. c. 21. 12; 24. 1; ii.49.17; 51. 1. G. 184, 5; H. 771 a; Kühn. 423, 25 e.— ὡς...πεμπόμενοι : considering that they were sent; partic. impf. The impf. tenses of πέμπειν regularly combine the notion of ‘continued action’ with that of ‘outset.’ “πέμπειν has not the same notion of ‘detachment’ as our ‘send.’” Gildersleeve, Pind. Ol. 11. 23.