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

αὐθένταις—as having sided with the Persians. Another old-fashioned word.

ἱερά τε . . ἀφαιρήσεσθε—there are three difficulties here:—(1) ἐρημοῦτε, present, among a series of futures. This can hardly be defended by passages in which a single pres, and fut. are combined, such as II. 44 οὐκ ὀλοφύρομαι μᾶλλον ἢ παραμυθήσομαι. StahI reads ἐρημοῦντες after Goller; Steup proposes to leave the word out If sound we must render ‘you are making desolate.’ (2) What is the constr. of τῶν . . κτισάντων? The natural answer is that it depends on ἀφαιρήσεσθε (‘you will take from’), not on θυσίας. The objection, that the Plataeans will ex hypothesi be dead, is hardly serious, for τῶν . . κτισάντων includes the whole Plataean people of whom no small part was safe at Athens. Neither is there any need to render ἀφαιρήσεσθε ‘you will deprive,’ a sense that ἀφαιροῦμαι no where has when the object is inanimate. (3) Is ἱερά or θυσίας the object of τῶν . . κτισάντων? My reason for preferring θυσίας is that θυσίας τὰς πατρίους must refer to commemorative sacrifices to the gods founded after the victory of Plataea: otherwise the Lac. could have no interest in them, and the speaker could not seek to influence them by such an argument. These sacrifices are to the gods, and they were offered on behalf of Greece—ὑπὲρ τῆς Ἑλλάδος (Plut. Arist. 20, 21): hence the last sentence duly accords with ἠλευθερώθησαν οἱ Ἕλληνες and ἐκράτησαν (οὶ Ἐλληνες). (The νόμιμα τῶν Ἑλλήνων are not in question here.)

ἑσσαμένων—this archaic form in place of ἑσαμένων has by far the best MS. authority, and perhaps is meant to accord with ὁμαίχμοις and αὐθένταις.