E.C. Marchant, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 7

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ὁ δὲ Γ.—put first for emphasis though the subj. changes below at αἱ τριήρεις. This is fairly common in Gk. and Lat.: cf. Cic. Att. 3.9 Quintus frater quum ex Asia decessisset, ... valde fuit ei properandum.

αὐτὸς μὲν—while he, paratactic.

αἱ δὲ τριήρεις—the subj. is presently subdivided into thirty-five and forty-five.

αἱ δὲ πέντε—the other forty-five of them, the art. being often thus added with the items of a sum total.

τὸ νεώριον—the docks in the Great Harbour were probably built by Gelon (485-476). ‘It is less clear whether he had any hand in the other haven of the warships, in the Little Harbour. . . . It was only by Dionysius that it was brought to perfection,’ after 405. Freeman.

περιέπλεον—i.e round the south point of Ortygia.

βουλόμενοι—after τριήρεις, applying to the men in the ships as usual.

ἐντὸς—sc. τοῦ μεγάλου λιμένος.

ἀμφοτέρωθεν—better, as Classen, = ‘by sea and land’; but Freeman says: ‘the plan was that the one division should sail across the Great Harbour, while the other sailed round the Island, so as to attack the A. fleet unexpectedly on both sides at once.’