CHAPTER XI
ἐπικαταβάντες—‘marching down to the sea to face the enemy’:
vii. 23,
πρὸς τὴν θάλασσαν ἐπικαταβάντων.
ἀραντες—‘having set out’: with acc.,
i. 52,
ἄραντες τας ναῦς, ‘having got the fleet under way’: more commonly intransitive, of land or sea forces;
ii. 12,
ἄρας τῷ στρατῷ:
i. 29,
ἄραντες ἑβδομήκοντα ναυσί.
τεσσαράκοντα καὶ τρισί—if the reading is right, the Lacedaemonians did not make the attack with their full force, as the fleet which had come from Corcyra numbered 60 sail, ch. 8, 10. The article with
ναυσί seems to show that they used all their available ships. Some may perhaps have been disabled. Poppo suggests
ὲξήκοντα καὶ τρισί.
ἐπέπλει—‘was on board’; applied to the commander or any persons not belonging to the regular crew: as in
ii. 66 to a force of 1000 heavy-armed men. In ch. 12, 15
ἐπιπλέω means ‘to sail up, sail against’: so
i. 51,
iii. 79 etc.
κατ᾽ ὀλίγας ναῦς—‘in detachments of a few ships’.
κατά, distributive: ch. 10, 19.
διελόμενοι—‘apportioning the work’: sometimes used as in the present passage without a case,
v. 114,
διελόμενοι κατὰ πόλεις: sometimes with an accusative,
ii. 78,
διελόμενοι κατὰ πόλεις τὸ χωρίον, ‘apportioning (the operations against) the place to the several contingent cities’.
οὐκ ἦν πλείοσι προσσχεῖν—‘it was not possible to approach the shore with more’. The place where the Athenians were posted was of no great extent, and triremes rowing to the shore would require 50 feet or so to clear each other.
πλείοσι is the dat. of the force with which the attempt was made.
ἀναπαύοντες ἐν τῷ μἑρει—‘relieving (each other) in turn’: Arnold quotes Xen. Hel.
vi. 2. 29,
κατὰ μέρος τοὺς ναύτας ἀνέπαυεν: so id. Cyr.
vii. 1. 4,
ἀναπαύειν στράτευμα, ‘to halt an army’: cf.
vii. 79,
ἀναπαυομένων αὐτῶν, ‘while they were resting’:
ii. 75,
διῃρημένοι κατ᾽ ἀναπαύλας, ‘in relieving parties’.
εἴ πως ὠσάμενοι—‘if by any means they might force their way etc.’: so ch. 35, 13,
ὤσασθαι ἐπειρῶντο: also with acc.,
vi. 70,
ὠσαμένων τὸ κέρας. εἴ πως—so ch. 37, 5.
πάντων ..Βρασίδας—The first mention of Brasidas by Thucydides is in the year 431, when his promptitude and energy in saving a fortress gained him public thanks at Sparta (
ii. 25). We next find him in 427, as ‘adviser’ (
ξύμβουλος) to Alcidas, whom the Lacedaemonians were about to send with a fleet to Corcyra (
iii. 69). This expedition effected little, not from the fault of Brasidas, who had not an equal voice in its direction;
Βρασίδου παραινοῦντος, ἰσοψήφου δὲ οὐκ ὄντος (
iii. 79).
εἴ πῃ καὶ δοκοίη—‘if at any point it did seem possible to land’; opt. of frequency, as in ch. 4, 9,
εἴ που δέοι.
φυλασσομένους τῶν νεῶν—‘being careful of their ships’: verbs which denote caring for take the genitive, so
φυλάσσομαι ‘to beware, be on one's guard’ here takes the genitive of the thing about which the care is shown. There is however no other instance of the gen. with
φυλάσσεσθαι. Krüger therefore takes
νεῶν as partitive gen.: while R. omits
τῶν...ξυντρίψωσι.
ξύλων φειδομένους—‘sparing planks’; speaking contemptuously. So Mardonius called the defeat at Salamis
ξύλων ἀγών, Hdt.
viii. 100. ‘It is not timber’, he said, ‘which will give us success, but horses and men’.
περιϊδεῖν πεποιημένους—‘to allow the enemy to have made’. The perfect participle points to the fact that the work had been actually constructed, and Brasidas calls on his soldiers to avenge the wrong: so
ii. 18,
περιϊδεῖν τὴν γῆν τμηθεῖσαν, ‘to allow the ravaging of the land to be unavenged’:
ii. 20,
περιόψεσθαι τὰ σφέτερα διαφθαρέντα, (Clyde, § 46).
πεποιημένους— perf. partcp. middle, ‘having made for themselves, or caused to be made’: Dem. Androt. 596,
τὰς τριήρεις οὐ πεποίησαι; of the officials responsible for ship-building.
τὰς σφετέρας ναῦς—see note on
σφίσι, ch. 9, 21. ‘Smash our ships’, cries Brasidas, ‘and force the landing’. The sense is of course ‘force the entrance, even if we destroy our ships’: cf. Shilleto on
i. 20,
δράσαντές τι καὶ κινδυνεῦσαι. καὶ τοὺς ξυμμάχους—sc.
ἐκέλευε.
ἐπιδοῦναι—‘to give freely’, especially used of voluntary offerings for purposes of state or war: so
ἐπίδοσις. This sense is common in Demosthenes. In Thucydides
ἐπιδίδωμι is elsewhere intransitive, meaning ‘to advance, increase’,
ὀκείλαντας —‘running (their ships) aground’: so ch. 26, 29,
ἐπώκελλον τὰ πλοῖα: in
ii. 91 ὀκέλλω is intransitive,
αὶ δὲ (
τῶν νεῶν)
ἐς βράχεα ὤκειλαν, ‘grounded on shoals’.
