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

CHAPTER LVII

τῶν περὶ τὴν χώραν—cf. ch. 55, 5.

ἐν χερσί—‘in the fight’: ch. 113, 7: cf. ch. 43, 9. αγοντες ἀφίκοντο—we should say ‘took with them’; the usual Greek expression is a verb with the partic. of ἄγω.

καταθέσθαι ἐς τὰς νήσους—so iii. 28, κατατίθεται ἐς Τένεδον: iii. 72, κατέθεντο ἐς Αἴγιναν. The middle voice is always used in this sense of depositing for safety: cf. note on ἔθεντο, ch. 18, 14.

καὶ τοὺς ἄλλους...φέρειν—the grammatical subject is changed in this clause, the original construction being resumed in the next clause. In sense the subject is still the Athenians, the meaning being ‘as for the rest to let them inhabit’, etc.

ἀεί ποτε—‘of old standing’; commonly used by Thuc. with words implying friendship or enmity: i. 47, ἀεί ποτε φίλοι εἰσίν, etc.: so ch. 78, 16: 103, 13: cf. i. 15, ἐς τὸν πάλαι ποτὲ γενόμενον πόλεμον.

παρὰ τοὺς ἄλλους—=παρὰ τοὺς ἄλλους ἀγαγόντες καταδῆσαι παρ᾽ αὐτοῖς, pregnant constr.: so τοὺς ἐν τῇ νήσῳ=those who had been captured in the island.