CHAPTER IV
ὕστερον καὶ τοῖς ταξιάρχοις κοινώσας—‘when he had afterwards communicated his plan to the taxiarchs also’,
καί, i.e. as well as to the
στρατηγοί. This is in close connexion with
οὔτε τοὺς στρατιώτας, and explanatory. Demosthenes, finding that he could not convince Eurymedon and Sophocles, afterwards appealed to the army at large by the agency of the
ταξίαρχοι (regimental officers, see Arnold), to whom he imparted his views.
κοινώσας—‘having communicated (the matter)’, without an accusative expressed: so
v. 60: cf.
viii. 48,
τῷ πλήθει ἐκοίνωσαν.
ἡσύχαζεν—‘he was detained in inactivity by stress of weather’. The plural has been suggested as giving a better sense than the usual reading, which would apply to Demosthenes alone. Some editors, reading
ἡσύχαζεν, place a comma after it and connect
ὑπὸ ἀπλοίας with
σχολάζουσι in the following clause; but this is an awkward arrangement of the words.
ἐσέπεσε—this reading has the best manuscript authority, but has been commonly altered into
ἐπέπεσε, on the ground that
ἐσπίπτω is not used by Thucydides with the dative or to denote emotions of the mind.
ἐπιπίπτω also is open to the objection that it is used by Thucydides not of mental emotions or ideas but of the attacks of disease or calamity. If an alteration be necessary,
ἐνέπεσε would seem preferable: cf. ch. 34, 15,
ἔκπληξις ἐνέπεσεν ἀνθρώποις:
vii. 80,
αὐτοῖς ἐμπίπτει ταραχή: cf. ch. 28, 25,
ἐνέπεσέ τι καὶ γέλωτος.
περιστᾶσι—‘taking their stand round’, stationing themselves at different points round the works:
Hdt. i. 43,
περιστάντες τὸ θηρίον, of hunters surrounding a wild boar.
ἐκτειχίσαι τὸ χωρίον—‘to complete the defences of the place’: ch 45, 13,
ἐξετείχισαν τὸ χωρίον.
λογάδην—‘picking out’, again used with
λίθοι, ch. 31, 15;
vi. 66,
ἔρυμα λίθοις λογάδην ὤρθωσαν. It is an adverb derived from
λέγω in the sense of picking out and setting in order;
Hom. Od. xviii. 359,
αὶμασιὰς λέγων, ‘picking (stones for) walls’: so also
λογάδες (in Thuc. etc. of picked men) is used by Pausanias of picked (unhewn) stones: hence
λιθολόγος (
vi. 44 etc.) means a mason generally.
καὶ ξυνετίθεσαν—‘and they put them together as each piece happened to fit in’:
τι gives indefiniteness to
ἔκαστον, ‘each bit as it came, whatever it was’; the neuter seems to shew that other materials were used with the picked stones to fill in the interstices. Thucydides says of the walls of the Piraeus,
i. 93,
ἐντὸς οὔτε χάλιξ οὔτε πηλὸς ἦν, ‘inside was neither clay (or mortar) nor rubble’, but all was built of squared stones.
ξυμβαίνοι is the optative of indefinite frequency (Farrar, § 177.6; Madvig, § 133), ‘as each (from time to time) fitted in’.
εἴ που δέοι, in the next sentence, comes under the same rule,
εἴ που being equivalent to wherever; and
μέλλοι in line 11 is to be similarly explained, ‘as (in each different case) it was likely to stay best on their backs’. Thucydides seems to have derived these minute details from an eye-witness, possibly from Demosthenes himself.
τὼ χεῖρε—so
τὼ πόλεε is found twice,
v. 23. According to Cobet there is in the dual only one form for all genders of the article, pronouns, adjectives, and participles, viz.
τὼ, τοῖν, τούτω, ἀλλήλοιν, λέγοντε, etc.;
τὰ, ταύταιν, παθούσα, and the like, being the ill-advised corrections of grammarians and copyists (Var. lect. p. 69; Nov. lect. p. 695). Dual nouns are often found with plural predicates and verbs.
παντί τε τρόπῳ—‘and so in every way they were eager to anticipate the Lacedaemonians by having completed the most assailable parts before they could attack the place’.
τε sums up what has gone before and continues the account. ‘
βοηθέω and its compounds’, as Arnold points out, ‘never lose their proper notion of defensive movement, even when the particular operation is offensive. Thus the Lacedaemonian attack on Pylos was in order to recover possession of their own country’.
ἐπίμαχος, ‘open to attack’, occurs ch. 31, 14.
αὐτὸ καρτερὸν ὑπῆρχε—‘was strong of itself to begin with’. Verbs thus compounded with
ὑπὸ denote the ground or foundation on which is based what follows: e.g.
ὑποτίθημι (more frequent in mid.), ‘to lay down as a premiss or basis of argument’:
Eur. El. 1036,
τοῦδ ὑπόντος, ‘with this condition to start with’; Ar. Vesp. 55,
ὀλίγα ὑπειπών, ‘after some prefatory words’;
Dem. Pantaen. 973,
ὑπογράψας ἐπιβουλεῖσαί με αὐτῷ, ‘after starting with the statement that I plotted against him’.
οὐδὲν ἔδει τείχους—‘there was no need of a wall’: the impersonal
δεῖ, ‘there is need of’, must be distinguished from the personal
δέομαι, ‘I am in need of’.
