E.C. Marchant, Commentary on Thucydides Book 1

37. 3. ὡς καί for καὶ ὡς, unless καί is due to dittography (ὡς and καί are sometimes confused in MSS.). The parallels quoted, like 2.44 ὅ τι ἄξιον καὶ εἰπεῖν, are not close. (Steup thinks that after καί a clause is lost in which one of the two topics summed up in ἀμφοτέρων was expressed.)

5. ἀμφοτέρων—strictly τὸ ἡμᾶς ἀδικεῖν and τὸ αὐτοὺς πολεμοῦσθαι are but one topic differently expressed, and the two aspects of the matter are not clearly distinguished in what follows.

6. οὕτω—like tum demum.

7. ἀξίωσιν—claim.

8. μὴ ἀλογίστως—together as one word.

10. τὸ δέ—but that. τό being demonstrative in sense.

[2] 11. ἀρετῇ—either depending on ἐπί, or perhaps rather causal dat. ἀρετή means τὸ σῶφρον: cf. c. 32. 4.

ξύμμαχόν τε—we have here the only example of τε followed by οὔτε (before παρακαλοῦντες. οὔτε ... τε is common): ‘wishing to have no ally in their nefarious schemes (persecuting their neighbours) or witness (οὐδέ does not mean not even here as Mr. Forbes supposes), and to avoid exposing themselves to shame by asking others to aid them (in such schemes).’ The simplest change proposed is to alter οὐδέ to οὔτε (Weil), so that τε would co-ordinate βουλόμενοι to ἐπὶ κακουργίᾳ καὶ οὐκ ἀρετῇ and οὔτε μ. ἔχειν=‘neither to have any ally as a witness in their schemes nor to ...’

[3] 15. αὐτάρκη θέσιν — internal accus.: the meaning is presently explained in διὰ τὸ κτλ.

16. παρέχει αὐτοὺς κτλ.—makes them judges of the wrongs they inflict more than (they would be) if they were hampered by treaties. With μᾶλλον ἤ κατά, more than accords with, cf. c. 76. 3: 2.50 χαλεπωτέρως ἢ κατὰ τὴν ἀνθρωπείαν φύσιν. (γίγνεσθαι does not belong to the phrase, but to δικαστάς only.)

δικαστάς—the meaning is that a citizen of another state who went to law with a Corcyrean must proceed as a ξένος in the Corcyrean courts: Corcyra does not experience a similar difficulty, whether real or assumed, because her citizens do not need to have dealings with other states to anything like the same extent. Corcyra was, of course, the port of call for all vessels passing to and from the west by the ‘coasting’ route; but the grievance based on this fact is surely exaggerated here.

18. ἐκπλέοντας agrees with ‘the Corcyreans’: others when at sea ἀνάγκῃ καταίρουσι to Corcyra.

[4] 20. καὶ τοῦτο κτλ.—the speaker now alludes to disputes between Corcyra and another state (meaning Corinth). ἐν τούτῳ, this being their conduct (see crit. note), is not right, because the argument shifts here to a new point.

τὸ εὐπρεπὲς ἄσπονδον—cf. e.g. 6.34 τὸ ξυνηθὲς ἥσυχον.

21. προβέβληνται—as a shield or cloak to cover their ἀδικία.

22. καὶ ὅπως—this explains κατὰ μόνας ἀδικῶσι, and means whether they make unrighteous gains by force or by deceit— these two ways are summed up in ἢν ... προσλάβωσιν—they feel no shame, because there is no witness.

[5] 25. καίτοι—the sentence that follows refers to both the grievances just alleged.

26. ἀληπτότεροι ἦσαν—the imperf. by assimilation to the other verbs. έξῆν is, of course, potential according to Goodwin, M.T. 415. ἀληπτότεροι because of their αὐτάρκης θέσις.

1. διδοῦσι καὶ δεχομένοις τὰ δ.—Corcyra had offered δίκας in this case (c. 28. 2); but the Corinthian means that they would not enter into an alliance, a condition of which was regularly the settlement of disputes by arbitration.