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

ἤν τε καὶ . . ἐᾶν—for εἶεν most edd. accept ἐᾶν= ‘(I shall not bid you) spare them.’ ἔχοντας, se. ἀποφήνω, is a conjecture for ἔχοντες, and unsatisfactory. The correction is uncertain, and it is doubtful if οὐ κελεύσω can be supplied legitimately. It is likely that something is lost before εἶεν: e.g. Bergk suggested οὐ διὰ τοῦτο καὶ ἄξιοι ἂν ξυγγνώμης. (εἶεν as exelamatory which Classen, with some doubt, kept, is impossible. Its use is in assent to what precedes and in passing on to a new point it is not appropriate here.)

τοῦτο ὅ is rendered ‘as for this that.’ (1) There is no authority for this phrase used adverbially in this way: hence the conjecture τούτου, governed by τἀναντία. Otherwise we must assume an anacoluthon. (2) But CG read τοῦτο ᾧ, and quite possibly this is right. τοῦτο ἀντισχυριζόμενος ᾧ Κλέων ἰσχυρίζεται=‘while maintaining this in opposition to what C. maintains’ (cf. τοῖς ἐγκλήμασι ἀντεροῦντες I. 73). περὶ τοῦ . . ἔχοντος is then epexegetic of τοῦτο, just as ἐς τὸ λοιπὸν . . ἔσεσθαι is of ᾦ (=ἐκείνῳ ὅ). Both insist on the future, but one on τὸ ξυμφέρον, the other on τὸ καλόν.

προθεῖσι—depending on ξυμφέρον (ὑμῖν), eonditional.

πρός—‘in view of.’

τῶν δικαίων—‘arguments of justice,’ as in Demosth. de Cor. 6, 9. To

δεῖν and

χρησίμως ἕξουσιν supply ἡμῖν.