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

ἐς Σικελίαν—this is the first intervention of Athens in Sicily. Under Pericles (who had died in the autumn of 429 B.C.), Athens had concluded alliances with Leontini and Rhegium in 433 B.C, perhaps also—though we have no direct evidence—with Naxos and Catana. But the idea of conquest in Sicily (§ 4) was entirely outside the policy of Pericles. See Introd. p. xxiii.

Λάχητα—the first mention of this well-known man. See c. 115. He was a supporter of Nicias in arranging the peace of 421. Plato's Laches is named after him. He is the dog Labes in Aristoph. Wasps. He was attacked by Cleon. He was killed at the battle of Mantinea, 418 B.C.

καθέστασαν—when the war had broken out is not known.

πλὴν Καμαριναίων—Camarina, founded circa 600 B.C. from Syracuse, was dependent on the mother-city, revolted in 553 B.C. and was destroyed. In 492 B.C. it was restored by Hippocrates, tyrant of Gela, but shortly afterwards was again involved in war with Syracuse, and was again destroyed. Its third building occurred circa 460 B.C.

τὸ πρῶτον emphasizes ἀρχομένου.

Χαλκιδικαί—Naxos, Catana, Himera. They are so called because their origin was Chalcis in Euboea.

Ἰταλίας in the confined sense that it bears in Greek authors, the modern Calabria, the peninsula reaching to the Laus on W. and to Metapontum on E.: ἀπὸ ἄκρας Ἰαπυγίας μέχμ πορθμοῦ Σικελικοῦ is the definition of Dionysius.

κατὰ τὸ ξυγγενές—Rhegium, too, was Chalcidian.

πέμψαντες—this is the famous embassy that was headed by Gorgias of Leontini. The reticence of Thuc. on the matter is characteristic.

παλαιὰν ξυμμαχίαν—the only alliance we know of is that of 433 B.C., but six years seems too short a time to be denoted by παλαιός. Hence it is assumed that an earlier alliance existed. But some have thought that Thuc. wished to obscure the fact that Pericles was responsible for the alliance with Leontini, in order to make it appear that Pericles was in no sense responsible for the intervention in Sicily.

βουλόμενοι δὲ μήτε . . πρόπειράν τε ποιούμενοι— to make the sentence quite symmetrical, ποιεῖσθαι should have been written in place of ποιούμενοι.

δυνατὰ εἴη—personal constr.

καταστάντες—i.e. they chose Rhegium as their base.