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

ἀδεὲς καὶ ἀνεπιβούλευτον give the same thing from two sides: you neither fear your neighbour nor cause him to fear you.

ὅ τι ἂν . . ἁμάρτητε ἢ . . ἐνδῶτε—we know too little of the working of the Athenian empire to specify acts of clemency on the part of Athens. From what we do know we should say that Athens was severe enough; but we must remember that the standard of the times was very different from ours: any right that Athens did not take from her allies she regarded as a privilege granted to them.

οἴκτῳ is parallel to λόγῳ πεισθέντες; supply αὐτοῖς to ἐνδῶτε.

ἐπικινδύνως . . ἐς ὑμᾶς—the emphasis is on this: hence the disloeation of the order. Tr. ‘you think that such weakness does not . . bring danger to you.’

οὐκ ἐς τὴν . . χάριν—‘without gaining the gratitude’; they take a concession as a sign of weakness.

τυραννίδα ἔχετε τὴν ἀρχήν—repeating words attributed to Pericles at II. 63.

καὶ πρὸς . . ἀρχομένους—paralleI to τυραννίδα, the constr. with πρός (after ἀρχή) like φιλία or πόλεμος πρός.

οἵ—very weakly supported by MS. evidence. There is a similar case at IV. 10, where the MSS. give τὸ δυσέμβατον ἡμέτερον νομίζω: μενόντων μὲν ἡμῶν ξύμμαχον γίγνεται, but Dionysius quotes the passage with ὃ μενόντων etc. Without the rel., we must assume an epexegesis of ἄκοντας ἀρχομένους with asyndeton.

ἐξ ὧν . . περιγένησθε—for ἐξ ἐκείνων ἄ, internal accus. to π., ‘as a consequence of the superiority you have established over them by strength (hinting at the successive reductions to the status of tributary subjects) and not by their willing obedience.’

εὔνοια as Arist. Eth. IX. 5, 3 says, δι᾽ ἀρετὴν καὶ ἐπιείκειάν τινα γίνεται, ὅταν τῳ φανῇ καλός τις ἢ ἀνδρεῖος.