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προεξαγαγόμενοι—putting off before them. καὶ=atque 7 αἱ νῆες—sc. τῶν Ἀθηναίων. τοῖς Συρακοσίοις—does the dat. with ἄρχειν answer the question ‘where,’ or ‘for whom’? Cf. II. 2.1 Πυθοδώρου ἄρχοντος Ἀθηναίοις.
οἱ ἄλλοι—the A. on their part; ἄλλος being exclusive. τῶν τεταγμένων νεῶν πρὸς αὑτῷ—this order of the prep and case is not very uncommon in the best prose. σφίσι—should be αὐτοῖς, as οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι is not the subj. of the principal verb (ἐγίγνετο). οὐ πρὸς τῷ ζεύγματι κ.τ λ.— “the fight, the fiercest fight of the whole war, became general, not in the shape of two great fleets meeting each other in ordered array, but in that of a crowd of separate battles going on everywhere at once, over the whole surface of the Great Harbour.” Freeman .
ἐθεράπευον—ἐπεμελοῦντο. μὴ λείπεσθαι—that these on deck should not fall behind the rest in skill, the combatants being contrasted with the sailors and pilots. With τῆς ἄλλης τέχνης cf. ἑτέρας εὐτυχούσης ῥώμης c. 63 τέ— in fact, summing up the preceding details. “Chacun enfin, à sa poste, brûlait de paraîtie le premier.” Girard .
ἐμβολαὶ . . . προσβολαὶ—the distinction drawn in note on c. 34 l. 25 accords with Poppo. But the explanation of Arnold fits the passage better: ἐμβολὴ, Arn. says, is the attack made by a ship with her beak, in the regular manner. Προσβολὴ is more general. Here it denotes accidental collisions. But elsewhere it means a regular charge. ἀνακρούσεις . . . διέκπλους—see on c. 36.4 ll. 29, 37. ἄλλῃ—sc. νηί.
προσφέροιτο—opt. of indef. frequency again. ἐπιβαίνειν—here with simple dat.; usually with ἐπὶ and accus.; or, meaning to set foot in, with gen. Cf. the use of ἐπὶ with either gen. or dat. in a local sense.
ξυνετύγχανέ τε—and so it happened . . . that. τὰ μὲν ἄλλοις κ.τ.λ.—while on the one side they struck others, on the other they were themselves struck. τοῖς κυβερνήταις κ.τ.λ.—the pilots found themselves forced to guard against one party and make plans against another, and not singly, but at many points on every side, i.e. having to deal with several enemies at the same time.
κατά τε τὴν τέχνην—as their work required it and in the excitement of the moment. ἐπιβοῶντες—anacoluthon after πολλὴ . . . ἐγίγνετο, as in c. 42.2. Badliam and Herwerden bracket it on the ground that Thuc. would have written ἐπιβοώμενοι. But it is quite possible to consider the κελευσταὶ as a separate body from the ὲπιβάται and other combatants, who are indicated by τοῖς Ἀθηναίοις. περὶ τῆς—in defence of, περὶ standing in the sense of ὑπέρ, as often in Demosth. εἴ ποτε καὶ αὖθις—if ever again. ἀντιλαβέσθαι—absolute, as in II. 8.1. 61 ἐπαυξῆσαι—means to add to the importance of a person or thing.
μὴ κατ᾽ ἀνάγκην—unnecessarily. Cf. οὐ δι᾽ ὀλίγου below. How is the difierence of neg. accounted for? φεύγοντας φεύγουσιν—traductio, for the sake of heightening the contrast.
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