C.E. Graves, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 4

CHAPTER XLI

μέχρι οὗ—with subjunctive without ἄν: ch. 16, 19.

ὡς ἐς πατρίδα ταύτην—lit., ‘as into their native country in this’, = ἐς ταύτην ὠς (ἐς) πατρίδα. In prose οὗτος without the article is always predicative in force: ἔχων τοῦτο ἐπίγραμμα ‘having this as an inscription’, not ‘having this inscription’.

ἔστι γὰρ ἡ Πύλος κ.τ.λ.—nearly similar words are used in ch. 3, 15, where we have the reasons for which Demosthenes wished to occupy Pylos.

ἐληίζοντο—Classen reads ἐληίζοντο instead of ἐλήιζόν τε, on the ground that the word, which occurs six times in Thucydides, should always be in the middle voice: so iii. 85, ἐληίζοντο τοὺς ἐν τῇ νήσῳ καὶ πολλὰ ἔβλαπτον.

καὶ φοβούμενοι—‘fearing lest they should have some of the institutions in the land still further revolutionized’; fearing, that is, a new insurrection of the Helots, or some other rising against their aristocratic rule: cf. ch. 55, 8, φοβούμενοι μὴ σφίσι νεώτερόν τι γένηται τῶν περὶ τὴν κατάστασιν, ‘relating to their constitution’.

ἔνδηλοι εἶναι—sc. οὐ ρ̀ᾳδίως φέροντες, ‘to betray their uneasiness’: ii. 64, μὴ ἔνδηλοι ἔστε βαρυνόμενοι, ‘do not shew your distress’.

φοιτώντων—‘though they often came’: for gen. abs. see ch. 3, 8.