E.C. Marchant, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 3

οἱ δ᾽ ὑπερβαίνοντες—all who were attempting to escape, whatever they were doing, are regarded as one body; but presently they are divided into οἱ μέν, those already on the wall, and οἱ δέ, those who were still below. The result is a very ugly sentence. 4. ἑκατέρου—see c. 22, 3.

τάς τε διόδους—Steup, following Poppo, renders ‘and,’ making the parenthesis extend from ὠς to ἐπιβοηθεῖν, because, if τε is regarded as correlative to καί, the sense of τάς τε διόδους . . ἐπιβοηθεῖν is absurdly repeated in κάτωθεν (i.e. ἀπὸ τῶν διόδων) εἶργον. It will be noticed that, if ἐφύλασσον μηδένα δι᾽ αὐτῶν ἐπιβοηθεῖν were absent, the sentence would be perfectly iegular in outline: οἱ δ᾽ ὑπερβαίνοντες τάς τε διόδους ἐνστάντες καὶ κλίμακας προσθέντες, οἱ μὲν καὶ κάτωθεν (i.e. ἀπὸ τῶν διόδων) καὶ ἄνωθεν (i.e. ἀπ᾽ ἄκρων τῶν πύργων) εἶργον κτλ. I think that this is a sign, not that the interrupting words are spurious— they are quite in Thuc.'s manner—but that Thuc. wrote them without working out the sentence to its end, as if after πλείους he had intended to continue, not with οἱ μέν, but in the form ἀπὸ τῶν πύργων τοὺς ἐπιβοηθοῦντας ἄνωθεν εἶργον βάλλοντες: on reaching πλείους, he shifted his plan and as the general subject was to be kept up, bifurcated the sentenee with οἱ μὲν . . οἱ δέ, instead of making a separate sentence of the οἰ δέ clause. This view of the matter is confirmed by the ugly repetition of κλίμακας προσθέντες and πλείους in different senses.

δι᾽ αὐτῶν—coming from the other πύργοι through the passages to the μεταπύργιον over which the P. were escaping.

πλείους—as in c. 22, 4 init.

οἱ μέν includes those in the δίοδοι and those on the top of the πύργοι.

κάτωθεν καὶ ἄνωθεν—with εἶργον.

οἱ δ᾽—those who were at the foot of the wall.