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

πάλιν—‘back,’ see ἐπανεχώρει, ‘turned back,’ above.

κατῴκηντο—cf. I. 120 ἐν πόρῳ κατῳκημένους. Thuc. uses the mid. forms only in the perf. and pluperf.; so Herod. Notium was the port of Colophon. Aristotle tells us that Colophon and Notium were not well suited to form a single state: hence στάσις. It was an exaggerated case, he says, of Athens and the Piraeus; and the Piraeus is more democratic than the city. Now Colophon had been under an oligarchy of the rich; and at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, this oligarchy, it appears, wanted to get the city out of the hands of Athens, and invited in the ‘barbarians,’ favouring, apparently, reunion with Persia. The majority migrated to Notium, but a fresh στάσις broke out, and one party got help from the satrap Pissuthnes and was joined by the oligarchs from Colophon. The expelled democrats now sought aid from Paches. (We do not know who Itamanes was.) κατὰ στάσιν ἰδίαν—ἰδίαν cannot mean ‘intestine,’ and ἰδίᾳ, ‘by one of the parties,’ is very probable; cf. c. 2 It is possible, however, that ἰδίαν means ‘confined to Colophon,’ not extending to Notium

μάλιστα—‘about.’ The date is 430 B.C.

οἱ μὲν . . οἱ δέ—partitive apposition.

ἐπικούρους Ἀρκάδων—i.e. Arcadian μισθοφόροι. They served as mercenaries already in the Persian wars, and are familiar as such in the expedition of the Ten Thousand. The mercenaries must have been in the service of Pissuthnes.

ἐν διατειχίσματι—a place divided by a wall from the rest of the town. διατειχίζειν is ‘to separate by a wall.’ With the force from Pissuthnes came also the pro-Persian party from Colophon, which was now part of the citizen body cf Notium.

ὑπεξελθόντες τούτους—for the accus. Kiuger quotes Eurip. frag. Alcmene ὅμως ἀγῶνα τόνδε δεῖ μ᾽ ὑπεκδραμεῖν.

ὁ μέν after προκαλεσάμενος involves an anacoluthon, like that of Il. VI. 509 ὁ δ᾽ ἀγλαίηφι πεποιθὼς | ῥίμφα ἐ γοῦνα φέρει; but it is not usual in Homer. Here we have a sing. nom. followed by two contrasted subjects. For the opposite form, a plur. nom. followed by only one subject, cf. Il. III. 211 ἄμφω δ᾽ ἑζομένω γεραρώτερος ἦεν Ὀδυσσεύς.

προσδεχομένων—the subst. to be supplied, as in I. 3 ἐπαγομένων αὐτούς, II. 52 ἐναποθνῃσκόντων (sc. ἀνθρώπων). Cf. c. 55, 1.

οἰκιστάς—the ‘oecists’ or ‘founders’ settled the government and started the new colony, as was usual. Cf. VI. 5 οἰκιστὴς γενόμενος κατῴκισε Καμάριναν.