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

ἡμεῖς δέ—to supply εἰδῶμεν is grammatically necessary; ‘that we may know after your condemnation that we have yet more rightly taken vengeance on them.’ To ἔτι ὁσιώτερον we must surely supply ὐμῶν: you will act justly: we shall have acted yet more equitably We are the parties chiefly aggrieved. But it is said (already by Bloomfield) that for εἰδῶμεν we need ‘feel’ or ‘appear,’ since the Theb. do not discover anything from their own speech: hence 1. φανῆτε for εἰδῆτε Rauchenstein; or 2. take εἰδῆτε as a zeugma; or 3. read ἠμᾶς . . τετιμωρημένους Kr. But notice (1) the speech would lead to condemnation by the judges; (2) the condemnation would show the Theb. that their action had been justified. The only alternative, I think, is to supply ὦμεν, and to assume an assimilation of finite verb to the previous partic. clause, as Hude, who compares Xen. Mem. II. 3, 17.

ἀκούοντες—‘by the account of.’ ἀκούων, like κλύων, is often used where we expect an aor. partic.

διπλασίας ζημίας—the influence of the rel. does not extend to this clause.

οὐκ ἐκ προσηκόντων—i.e. contrary to what was to be expected of them.

ὧν—see on c. 2, 1 l. 3.

οἱ δὲ . . λελειμμένοι—‘others left behind in old age and their homes desolate.’ The emendation κατ: οἰκίας or καὶ αἱ οἰκίαι, is necessary. The latter is better, because οἰκίαι ἐρῆμοι should certainly be co-ordinate with οὶ δέ, so as to correspond with τὴν σφετἐραν ἐρημίαν.

τὰ ἐναντία—adverbial.

ἐπίχαρτοι—sc. ἄξιοί είσι.

δίκη κρίναντες together correspond to υίσει.

οὐκ ἀνταποδόντες—i.e. they will not have done so, because the penalty will be ἔννομα: whereas our suffering was ἄνομα (§ 6; cf. παρενόμησαν); the aor. partic. alluding to fut. perf. time as if the main verb were fut., cf. ἐκστρατευσἀμενοι c. 102. (Various changes have been proposed: (1) to alter ἀνταποδόντες to fut., pres., or ἂν άνταποδόντες, or to read ἀνταποδόντες ἐς νῦν: (2) or, keeping ἀνταποδόντες, to start a new sentence at καὶ οὐκ, placing ἔννομα γἀρ in parenthesis. It does not seem possible to separate the latter from πείσονται. It is best to suppose a slight break after κρίναντες, as though the rest were an afterthought.)

καὶ ἡμῖν—instead of a second obj. corresponding to καὶ τῷ νόμῳ, a new verb follows: cf. c. 71, 1.

ὧν πρόθυμοι γ.—see § 3.

τοῖς λόγοις—dat. of cause.

ὧν . . ὄντων depends on ἀπαγγελία.

ἔπεσι—‘fine phrases,’ =ῥήμασι.

κεφαλαιώσαντες—for the point see c. 52, 4.

πρὸς τοὺς ξύμπαντας—‘with referenee to all,’ i.e. (as Classen) ‘as a warning to all.’ A summary question followed by a decision will serve to check rhetorical defences. (Weil conjectures πρὸς τὸ ξύμπαν.)

ποιήσησθε—attraction to ὺμεῖς, as in I. 82 ὅσοι ὥσπερ καὶ ἡμεῖς ἐπιβουλευόμεθα.