E.C. Marchant, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 2

ἔς τε μάχην—the ancient critics noticed that polysyndeton is common in Thuc. There are three main members here, each introduced by τε, παρασκευάζεσθαί τε ... ἔς τε ... τά τε, and the first two are complicated by an additional member, which however does not affect the main structure, viz. καὶ ... ἐσκομίζεσθαι, ἀλλὰ ἐξαρτύεσθαι. μὴ ἐπεξιέναι—Intr. p. lxix.

τὴν πόλιν ἐσελθόντας φυλάσσειν— cf IV. 70 τὴν πόλιν ἐσελθὼν βεβαιώσασθαι. When a participle and verb which have different constructions take a common object, the object regularly follows the construction required by the participle, as in I. 114, 2 ἐς Ἐλευσῖνα καὶ Θριῶζε ἐσβαλόντες ἐδῄωσαν, IV 18 δοῦναι ἐφ᾽ ἂ άφιγμένοι ὑμᾶς αἰτούμεθα, VII. 3, 4 μέρος τι πέμψας πρὸς τὸ φρούριον αἱρεῖ, ib. 53, 2 προσπεσόντες τοῖς πρώτοις τρέπουσι. But there is here no need to take τὴν πόλιν with ἐσελθόντας at all.

διὰ χειρὸς ἔχειν— the opposite of ἀνιέναι, I 76 ἀρχὴν ἀνιέναι. So Livy XXI. 35, 9 “in manu habere”. χεὶρ means ‘control.’ Eur. Hec. 986. Cf. the legal sense of manus. See also c. 76, 4.

λέγων ... εἶναι—a rare construction—c. 57, 1. ἀπὸ τούτων εἶναι τῶν χρ. τῆς προσόδου—i.e. τὴν ἰσχὺν τῆς προσόδου τῶν χρημάτων ἀπὸ τούτων ( = τῶν ξυμμάχων) εἶναι. Cf. III. 13, 6 ἔστι τῶν χρημάτων άπὸ τῶν ξυμμάχων ἡ πρόσοδος. This sentence must not be pruned, for τῆς προσόδου defines the nature of ἰσχύν, and τῶν χρημάτων is caught up presently by χρημάτων again: the insertion of τῶν χρημάτων is stylistic.

τὰ πολλὰ .. κρατεῖσθαι—‘most successes are won.’

γνώμῃ —‘insight,’ not put in at hap-hazard, but summing up in a word παρασκευάζεσθαι to ἐξαρτύεσθαι. It is on the policy here sketched that Pericles rested his claims to be possessed of γνώμη, or, as Thuc. says in c. 65 πρόνοια. To supply γνώμη was the statesman's part, to supply χρήματα the subjects'.