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Συρακούσιοι δ᾽ In 427 B.C. the chief Ionic cities of Sicily — viz. Leontini, Naxos and Catana — in alliance with the Dorian Camarina, sent an embassy to Athens, with Gorgias at its head, asking aid against Syracuse. This was the occasion of the first Athenian expedition to Sicily in 427 B.C.: a second was sent in 425, and a third in 422. The application of Egesta for help against Selinus led to the great expedition of 415 B.C. Andoc. seems to be thinking of the embassies sent by the Ionic Siceliots, and to imagine that a rival embassy had been sent by Syracuse — which was not the case. ἡμεῖς τοίνυν εἱλόμ ‘Well, we chose then also’: τοίνυν ‘so’, ‘accordingly’, i.e. with our usual perversity. ἀντὶ τοῦ μένοντες...ἔχειν The rule that the subject of the infin. stands in the nominative, if it is identical with the subject of the principal verb, holds good even when the infin. takes the article: Plat. Rep. 526 B, εἴς γε τὸ ὀξύτεροι αὐτοὶ αὑτῶν γίγνεσθαι πάντες ἐπιδιδόασιν: Ib. 598 D, ἐξηπατήθη διὰ τὸ αὐτὸς μὴ οἷός τ᾽ εἶναι επιστήμην...ἐξετάσαι. ἀριστίνδην lit. ‘merit-wise’: αἱρεῖσθαι ἀριστίνδην (Arist. Pol. II. 11. 3) to choose (magistrates) by merit: so πλουτίνδην. Here the idea is that the best men were chosen out (by destiny) for destruction. ‘Having lost the very flower of our citizens and allies’. Cp. Her. VI. 21, “Μιλήσιοι πάντες ἡβηδὸν ῾φρομ τηε ψουτη υπωαρδς — αλλ τηε αδυλτς᾿ ἀπεκείραντο τὰς κεφαλάς”. αἰσχ. δ. οἱ σωθέντες αὐτ.] Not a formal anacolouthon: but we can see that the speaker's thought has changed its direction. He began the sentence as if it were to end in some such way as ὀλίγους εἴδομεν σωθέντας. Thuc. VII. 87, ὀλίγοι ἀπὸ πολλῶν ἐπ᾽ οἴκου ἀπενόστησαν.
Selections from the Attic Orators. Sir Richard C. Jebb. London. Macmillan. 1888.
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