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

οἱ Λέσβιοι—for these see cc. 4, 4, 5, 4.

ἐλπίδα δ᾽ εῖναι—sc. ἀποστῆσαι.

ἀκουσίως—i.e. ‘no one was unwilling to see them come,’ the adverb applying to οὐδενί, not to the subject of ἀφῖχθαι: cf. Soph. Antig. 70 ἐμοῦ γ᾽ ἂν ἡδέως (sc. ἐμοὶ) δρῴης μέτα.

καὶ τὴν πρόσοδον . . ὑφέλωσι—parallel to ἀποστήσωσιν, ‘(that) they might gradually draw away this which was the main source of A. revenue.’ Not ‘one of the chief sources’; and the position of ταύτην renders a second τήν unnecessary. The φόρος from the Carian and Ionian cities is meant; they had been grouped together and treated as one since 436 B.C., and the lists in CIA. vol. i. show that this combined φόρος was the largest item in the Athenian πρόσοδοι. (ἢν before ὑφέλωσι can scarcely be right: the loss of the φόρος would be the necessary outcome of the revolt of Ionia, and could hardly be stated as an independent condition of what follows, however that be understood.)

καὶ ἄμα . . . δαπάνη γίγνηται—‘and at the same time, in case the Athenians should blockade them (in the Ionian port), the Athenians might be put to expense.’ (A majority of MSS. gives ἢν ἐφορμῶσιν αὐτοῖς—or αὐτοὺς—δαπάνη σφίσι γίγνηται, i.e. ‘if the Peloponnesians should blockade the Athenians, they (the Pel.) might have a fund to draw on, viz. the φόρος.’ The objections to this are, as I think, (a) ἢν ἐφορμῶσιν αὐτοῖς is too vague: surely the Lesbians and Ionians cannot be thinking here of a blockade of the Attic coast—c. 15, 1 —and an undertaking of such magnitude—see c. 16, 1— could not possibly be suggested in this casual way—and the alternative explanation, that the proposal is that Alcidas shall ‘maintain a squadron of observation in Ionian waters,’ with a victorious Athenian fleet of equal numbers at Mytilene—cf. especially c. 33, 1—is out of the question. (b) It is true that δαπάνη can mean ‘money for spending,’ where the context makes the drift clear, but it is hardly possible that δαπάνη τινὶ γίγνεται can mean anything but δαπανᾶται ὑπό τινος, according to the idiom; and there is force in Kruger's remark that the previous sentence here decidedly suggests the idea of ‘loss.’）

Πισσούθνην—Ionia and Caria were included in his satrapy. As Persia claimed and did not receive tribute from the Greek cities, it was by no means unlikely that the satrap might be induced to aid the enemies of Athens.