CHAPTER XXIII
διελύοντο—the imperfect refers to the going on of the arrangements for ending the truce, or else the meaning is ‘was to come to an end’, i.e. according to the agreement. Cobet proposes
διελέλυντο ‘was at an end’ that is, was terminated there and then by the arrival of the ship from Athens. This agrees with the words in ch. 16, 22,
ἐλθόντων δὲ τάς τε σπονδὰς λελύσθαι, κ.τ.λ.
ξυνέκειτο—‘had been agreed’: ch. 68, 20,
ξυνέκειτο αὐτοῖς:
iii. 70,
κατὰ τὰ ξυγκείμενα, ‘in accordance with the terms’:
viii. 94,
ἀπὸ ξυγκειμένου λόγου. κεῖμαι is virtually the perfect passive of
τίθημι:
οἱ νόμοι κεῖνται, ‘the laws have been enacted’: cf.
vi. 62,
ἐσέκειτο πάντα, ‘had been put on board’.
ξύγκειμαι therefore = the perf. pass. of
ξυντίθημι. So Thucydides says of his history,
i. 22,
ξύγκειται, ‘it has been composed’. Here
ξυνέκειτο is pass. of
ξυντίθεσθαι, ‘to make a compact, agree to terms’, as in ch. 19, 19:
vi. 65,
ξυνέθεντο ἥξειν, ‘they agreed to come’.
ἐγκλήματα—‘as grounds of complaint’, in apposition with the following accusatives.
ἐπιδρομήν—‘a sudden attack’, probably made with a small body: ch. 56, 8,
ἐφόβησεν ἐπιδρομγ̂ͅ. τῷ τειχίσματι—dat. after verbal subst.
έπιδρομήν: cf. notes on
Plat. Euthyph. 14 C,
ἐπιστήμη δόσεως θεοῖς: so
Rep. 439 D,
πόλει διακονίαν. δοκοῦντα—sc. to the Lacedaemonians, who were therefore indignant.
ἰσχυριζόμενοι—‘insisting, maintaining’:
iii. 44,
τοῦτο ὃ Κλέων ἰσχυρίζεται. δή, a particle giving emphasis to the particular words to which it is attached, gives the reason urged by the Athenians:
iii. 108,
κατὰ χρησμὸν δή τινα, ‘in accordance, as they alleged, with a certain oracle’. Thus used it often conveys the idea that the alleged reason is a mere pretence.
ἀδίκημα ἐπικαλέσαντες—‘expostulating against the (detention) of the ships as an act of injustice’:
v. 59,
εἴ τι ἐπικαλοῦσιν Ἀργείοις, ‘if they have any ground of complaint against the Argives’; the full construction being with dat. of person, while the thing complained of is expressed by the acc. or an inf. clause.
τὰ περὶ Πύλον—nom. to
έπολεμεῖτο:
iii. 6,
τὰ περὶ Μυτιλήνην ἐπολεμεῖτο:
v. 26,
τὰ ἔπειτα ἐπολεμήθη. We must render ‘hostilities went on at Pylos’.
Ἀθηναῖοι μέν—construction in accordance with the sense, as if
ἀμφότεροι ἐπολέμουν had gone before: see note on ch. 2, 15: cf.
v. 70,
ἡ ξύνοδος ἦν, Ἀργεῖοι μὲν...χωροῦντες, Λακεδαιμόνιοι δέ κ.τ.λ., ‘the encounter took place, the Argives etc.’, an exact parallel to the sentence before us.
ἐναντίαιν—‘in opposite directions’, so used of two waggons,
i. 93. If Cobet's rule, given in the note on ch. 4, 11, is universally applicable to adjectives, this should be
ἐναντίοιν, but no editor that I know of reads it.
νεοῖν is absent from the best MSS, but is inserted by modern editors, as there is an awkwardness in understanding it from
περιπλέοντες.
καὶ ἅπασαι—‘all without exception’,
καί emphasizing
ἅπασαι:
v. 71,
τὰ στρατόπεὃα ποιεῖ καὶ ἄπαντα τοῦτο:
vii. 28,
καὶ ξύμπαντες, opposed to
κατὰ διαδοχήν. περιώρμουν, ‘lay at anchor around’.
τὰ πρὸς τὸ πέλαγος—either, ‘on the side of the open sea’, accusative of reference used adverbially: cf.
iii. 96,
τὰ πρὸς Παίονας: ch 108, 7,
τὰ πρὸς Ἠιόνα: or acc. governed by
περιώρμουν. εἴη—opt. of indefinite frequency with
ὸπότε.
σκοποῦμτες καιρόν—a similar construction to ch. 8, 35: ch. 10, 25,=
σκοποῦντες εἴ τις καιρὸς παραπέσοι. παραπίπτω, ‘to occur’, is used with
καιρός by Xenophon and Polybius (Krüg.): cf. ch. 19, 8,
παρατυχούσης.
The account of the operations in Sicily is now resumed from ch. 1; some of the statements there given being recapitulated here.
