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

δύο καί can hardly be right, as the number is repeatedly given as 40, e.g. cc. 25 and 29, and the suggestion that the two Lesbian triremes (cc. 4 and 5) are here ineluded is not probable. Rather than suppose that a eommentator wrongly added in the two Peloponnesian ships mentioned in cc. 5, 4 and 25, 1, I prefer to think we have a confusion as the outcome of mistaking μ᾽ (40) for β᾽ (2).

ἄρχοντα . . προστάξαντες is a phrase in Thuc. for appointment to a special command, and even the order is exactly as in VII. 19: so ἄρχοντα for ἔχοντα is a certain correction.

ναύαρχος means that he held the annual office of high admiral.

ἀμφοτέρωθεν—through the dispatch of the ships and the invasion.

ταῖς ναυσὶν . . καταπλεούσαις—the transl. ‘send out a fleet against the ships sailing to M.’ is impossible, because (1) the partic. cannot be attributive unless ναυσίν is placed after Μυτιλήνην, and (2) ἐπιβοηθεῖν+dat.=‘hasten to help.’ Hence either we must alter the text—Steup brackets καταπλεούσαις —or, better, render ‘when they were sailing.’ So Stahl refers ταῖς ν. καταπλεούσαις to the Athenians and renders ‘sail with their ships to M. and come to help,’ as if we had καταπλέοντες.