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

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Ὀλίγοι πρὸς πολλοὶς—a common antithesis; c. 100, 5; I. 110; III. 112; IV. 26; V. 80; VII. 87. ἔνθεν καὶ ἔνθεν—as the enemy gained on them, the Plataeans built a crescent-shaped wall, concave to the besiegers, starting from the extremities of that part of the wall opposite the χῶμα, so that in case the enemy should take the raised wall by storm, they might find another wall behind.

αὐτοῖ—i.e. τοῦ μεγάλου τείχους) (τοῦ βραχέος = the part which had not been raised.

ἐκ τοῦ ἐντὸς—‘inside,’ like a parte.

μᾶλλον— they had not been exposed to a cross-fire before. Thuc. means that the further in to the crescent the Peloponnesians got in building the χῶμα, the more exposed they would be to a fire from each side: προχωροῦντας ἔσω belongs to γίγνεσθαι also. (There is no need to explain this, as one scholar does, as for ἐν ἀμ. γιγνομένους μᾶλλον πονεῖν,) Cf. Tac. Hist. v. 11, of the siege of Jerusalem, “muri per artem obliqui aut introrsus sinuati, ut latera oppugnantium ad ictus patescerent.”