CHAPTER LV
ἀθρόᾳ...τῇ δυνάμει—a prominent position of the predicate, not uncommon where emphasis is desired: cf.
iii. 63,
οὐκ ίσην αὐτοῖς τὴν χάριν ἀνταπέδοτε.
φοβούμενοι...κατάστασιν—cf. ch. 41, 11.
κατάστασιν— the established order of things or ‘constitution’. What the Lacedaemonians chiefly dreaded was revolt on the part of the Helots. The slavery in which they held these was the ‘peculiar institution’ of which they were jealous and apprehensive.
ἐχομένης—‘was in the enemy's hands’: ch. 108, 1,
ἐχομἐνης δὲ τῆς Ἀμφιπόλεως. ταχέος καὶ ἀπροφυλάκτου—because it was impossible to guard against the sudden descents of the Athenians on their coasts.
ἐς τὰ πολεμικά—‘for warlike operations’.
εἴπερ ποτέ— so ch. 20, 1; here made more emphatic by the superlative
μάλιστα δή, ‘in the highest degree’.
ὀκνηρότεροι—‘more backward than ever’.
ξυνεστῶτες—‘being engaged’: so ch. 96, 11,
ξυνεστήκει, of an army in actual battle.
παρὰ τὴν ὑπάρχουσαν ἰδέαν— the ‘existing form’ of their force consisting almost entirely of heavy-armed infantry.
οἷς τὸ μὴ ἐπιχειρούμενον—‘with whom whatever they were not actually attempting was so much subtracted from their expectation of success’: cf.
i. 70, where the Corinthian envoys at Sparta enlarge on the ambition and activity of the Athenians,
ἃ μὲν ἂν έπινοήσαντες μὴ έξέλθωσιν, οἰκεῖα στέρεσθαι ἡγοῦνται κ.τ.λ.
τὰ τῆς τύχης—so
τὸ τῆς τύχης, ch. 18, 12.
πᾶν ἁμαρτήσεσθαι—they expected to fail in any active movement they made: for opt. cf.
ᾖ χωρήσειαν, ch. 32, 22. The neuter adj. is a cognate accusative following the verb: so
iii. 47,
ὅσον ἂν καὶ τοῦτο ἁμαρτάνοιτε.
ἀνεχέλλυον—lit. ‘affording no guarantee (of success)’. Their
γνώμη, or ‘mental conviction’, had lost its confidence, and they were, as we say, demoralized. Till the capture of Pylos the evils of the war had in no sense been brought home to the Spartans.
