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

οἷος ἀπηλιώτου—sc. ὄντος, as in Soph. OC. 83 ὡς ἐμοῦ μόνης πέλας, se. οὔσης. It is very rarely that the partic. is omitted in gen. abs where the noun does not itself suggest a partie. as in Soph. OT. 966 ὧν ὑφηγητῶν, sc. ὄντων: but the omission is softened in this case by the analogy of the gen. of time, as in νυκτός.

ἢ βορέου—perhaps a marginal note, intended to fill up the sense of μᾶλλον. (It has been suggested (1) that βορέου should be ehanged to εὔρου, or (2) that μᾶλλον should be transposed before ἤ.) But possibly two propositions are eompressed into one; and the full sense is ‘as it is when the wind is east: it is, in fact, more watery then than when the wind is north.’ (So Chambry, Rév. de phil. '97.)

ὑπονειφομένη—ef. Herod II. 13 ὕεται ἡ χώρη, Xen. Hell. II. 4, 13 νειφόμενοι ἀπῆλθον: for ὑ. is properly ‘being thinly besnowed.’

ἐγένετο . . ἡ διάφευξις—cf. VII. 41 τὴν κατάφευξιν ἐποιοῦντο ‘were seeking refuge.’ The idea of success is contained in δια-. (I eannot agree with Classen that ἐγένετο here means ‘proved suceessful’: that sense is confined in Attic to old phrases like ἐγένετο τὰ ἱερά, cf. ἐ. τὰ διαβατήρια V. 55. In VI. 74 and VIII. 57 γίγνεσθαι=merely ‘take place.’ καὶ ἡ διάφευξις=‘the means of suecessful escape too (as well as the difficult crossing)’ was mainly owed to (i.e. more than to any other cause: meaning that it was a narrow thing).

διὰ τοῦ χειμῶνος τὸ μ.—the order as in Herod.; cf. e.g. I. 32 μετὰ τῆς ξυμμαχίας τῆς αἰτήσεως.