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

ἐπεὶ . . γε—not a common combination; Iliad IX. 425 ἐπεὶ οὔ σφισιν ἥδε γ᾽ ἑτοίμη, Pind. Ol. IX. 40 ἐπεὶ τό γε λοιδορῆσαι θεοὺς ἐχθρὰ σοφία. The γε merely emphasizes διεξεληλύθασι.

προστιθέντες—‘continually adding to them.’ For

εἴ πως with a perf. preceding see M.T. § 489, esp. Aristoph. Av. 120.

παραβαινομένων—there are two tenable explanations of this: (1) impersonal gen. abs. as in I. 116 ἐσαγγελθέντων M. T. § 848, ‘transgressions being committed’; (2) sc. τῶν μεγίστων ἀδικημάτων, which would be internal accus. to παραβαίνω in the act. form, as in ἀδικῶ ἀδίκημα. The matter is rendered impossible of certain solution by the perplexing καὶ τοῦτο παρα: βαίνεται. We expect, of course, the sense ‘mild penalties being disregarded,’ and presently, ‘the death penalty is disregarded,’ but how this can be got out of the Gk. as it stands is not apparent, unless we take an etymological sense of παραβαίνω, ‘pass by,’ which is found occasionally in the orators, and interpret τοῦτο below as put loosely for ἡ ζημία τοῦ θανάτου. Against this is not so much the fact that Thuc. does not elsewhere use παραβαίνω thus, but much more that παραβαίνω ζημίαν is stranger than any instance in the orators and that the proximity of ἀδικημάτων makes it unnatural.

καὶ τοῦτο ὅμως παραβαίνεται—the conjectures are (1) κἀν τούτῳ (Kruger) ‘and under these circumstances,’ with παραβαίνεται impers. But it should be ἐν τούτοις (cf. Jebb on Soph. Ant. 39); ἐν τούτῳ=‘meanwhile,’ or ‘in this point.’ (2) καὶ ταῦτα, sc. τὰ ἀδικήματα (Hude; cf. 2 above). I should prefer καὶ ταὐτά ‘and the same offences are committed.’