CHAPTER XII
καὶ ὁ μέν—to this corresponds
οἱ δὲ ἄλλοι, line 10.
τοιαῦτα ἐπέσπερχε—‘thus urged on’; cognate accusative, carrying on the idea of the verb, like
τραυματισθεὶς πολλά, line 5, ‘with many wounds’.
ἐπισπέρχω is a poetical word, used in
Aesch. Sept. 689 and in Homer.
τὴν ἀποβάθραν—‘the gangway’ for landing from the ship. The Greeks when preparing to attack the Persian fleet drawn up on the shore at Mycale provided
ἀποβάθρας καὶ τὰ ἄλλα ὄσων ἔδεε (
Hdt. ix. 98).
τὴν παρεξειρεσίαν—the part ‘clear of the rowing’, at the bows or stern. The word occurs
vii. 34 and 40, in both of which passages it means the bows, which are described as shattered by the beaks of the enemy's triremes.
περιερρύη— ‘slipped off his arm’; see Arnold's note. Xenophon, when his troops were in a difficulty, dreamed that he was in fetters, but that ‘they slipped off him of themselves’,
αὐτόμαται περιρρυῆναι (Anab.
iv. 3). So ch. 51, 1 and 133, 1,
τεῖχος περιεῖλον: cf.
Plat. Rep. 519 A,
περιεκόπη with acc. ‘was clipped of its surroundings’.
ὃ ἔστησαν...ταύτης—‘which they set up for (their success in repelling) this attack’: so
ii. 92,
ἔστησαν τροπαῖον τῆς τροπῆς. For
τροπαῖον see Liddell and Scott. Sometimes when both sides claimed a victory both set up a trophy (ch. 134, 7). Thucydides however only records a single instance (
viii. 24) in which a trophy was removed by the enemy as being erected on insufficient grounds.
περιέστη—‘changed, came round’:
i. 78,
ἐς τύχας περιίστασθαι, ‘to change in respect of fortune’:
i. 120,
ἐς τοὐναντίον περιέστη, ‘changed to the opposite’.
καὶ ταύτης Λακωνικῆς—‘and that too Laconian land’: ch. 55, 17,
καὶ τούτῳ: like
καὶ ταῦτα ‘and that too’, a very common phrase, usually with a participle.
ἐπὶ πολὺ...προέχειν—‘it formed at this time a great part of the glory of the Lacedaemonians that they were chiefly mainlandsmen and most excellent in military matters, and of the Athenians that they were seamen and most eminent with their ships’.
ἐπὶ πολύ—‘(to) a great extent’ (see note on ch. 3, 13), is the object of
ἐποίει, the subject of which is formed by the following infinitive clauses.
ἐν τῷ τότε—i.e. at the time of which Thuc. is writing: so ch. 35, 18,
ἐν τῷ πρίν:
i. 32,
ἐν τῷ πρὸ τοῦ, ‘in former time’.
θαλασσίοις—sc.
εἶναι. The word implies seafaring habits and skill. In
i. 7 we read of pirates assailing
ὅσοι ὄντες οὐ θαλάσσιοι κατω ᾤκουν, ‘all who, though not seamen, had their dwelling on the coast’: so Aristotle Eth. Nic.
iii. 6 (9), 11, says, on the subject of bravery,
ἐν θαλάττῃ ἀδεὴς ὁ ἀνδρεῖος, οὐχ οὔτω δὲ ὡς οἰ θαλάττιοι, i.e. he has not the confidence which sailors have from experience.
