T. G. Tucker, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 8

προκαθημένους Cf. Xen. Hell. v. 2, 4, τοῖς ἡμίσεσι τῶν στρατιωτῶν προκαθημένοις τῶν ταφρευόντων; Hdt. viii. 36, etc προ- expresses protection.

αὐτοὺς sc. τοὺς ἐν ταῖς Ἀθήναις. They (the speakers) had kept the Peloponnesians from blockading the port of Athens. καὶ with πρότερον. κρατεῖν is imperfect.

(οἳ) καὶ νῦν . . . καταστήσονται The MS. reading καὶ . . . καταστήσονται, with sudden change to the finite verb (as if ὅτι had preceded), is not tolerable in a passage where every other clause is put consistently in the infinitive. Dobree's καταστήσεσθαι is obvious, but would not have suffered this corruption. Classen's καταστῆναι (which seems meant for καθεστάναι) is open to the same objection. Haase, P-S and others suppose a lacuna, P-S giving καὶ νῦν ἔτι μᾶλλον, ἐπεὶ ἐς κ.τ.λ. Something less drastic is desirable, and correction must start with the considerations that (1) καταστήσονται is likely to be genuine, in which case the clause must be relative and introduced by some relative pronoun or adverb, which was accidentally lost for some not too recondite reason; (2) the genitive βουλομένων (sc. τῶν ἐν τῇ πόλει) makes it most probable that the subject of καταστήσονται is not ‘the party at Athens’ but either ‘those in Samos’ or else ‘the several parties.’ The likelihood that the subject is the speakers is increased by the clause ὥστε αὐτοὶ δυνατώτεροι εἶναι κ.τ.λ. [The scholiast says ἐν τούτῳ δυνάμεως αὐτοὶ καθεστᾶσιν, ὥστε κ.τ.λ., which would seem to imply a reading καθεστάναι, but which certainly shows his view as to the subject of the verb.] The easiest correction satisfying these conditions is to insert οἳ, which fell out accidentally after the -ΟΥ of ἔσπλου, and whose loss was facilitated by the apparent co-ordination of καὶ πρότερον . . . καὶ νῦν. Compare the total loss of οὐ after Χίου c. 101, § 1, and at the same time confusions like that of οἵπερ and οὗπερ inf. § 6. οἳ refers to the emphatic word in the previous clause, viz. ἑαυτούς.

καὶ δυνατώτεροι ‘that they would actually be better able’: i.e. not merely as well off, but even better.