E.C. Marchant, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 3

οἰκοδομήσει—Thue. is partial to nouns in -σις: ὀλόφυρσις, ξυμμέτρησις, κατάφευξις etc.

πρός—‘on the side towards,’ an idiomatic use common with localities, πρὸς τοῦ λιμένος, τοῦ ποταμοῦ and so on.

τὸ οὖν μεταξὺ τοῦτο—‘this intervening space was oceupied with buildings assigned as quarters to the sentries.’ So Stahl, who views τὸ μεταξύ as subjeet, and οἰκήματα as internal accus., as in τὸ ἐναντίον ὄνομα μετωνόμασται I. 122. Steup agrees with this rendering, but he is inelined to retain οἱ ἑκκαίδεκα πόδες and he regards οἰκήματα as pred. nom. Another view, which is to be rejected, is that τὸ μεταξὺ τοῦτο is adverbial accus., ‘in this space,’ and οἰκήματα subject of ᾠκοδόμητο: the constr. is then very strained, and the perf. partic. διανενεμημένα unnatural, implying that the quarters were distributed before they were built.

ἦν ξυνεχῆ—I agree with Steup in rendering ‘it was (all) continuous,’ without any definite subject, as in I. 8 πλωιμώτερα ἐγένετο, and cf. II. 3 ἁμάξας . . ἐς τοὺς ὁδοὺς καθίστασαν, ἵν᾽ ἀντὶ τείχους ᾖ, for it was not only the guards' quarters, but the two parallel walls as well that ‘looked like one thick wall.’

διὰ δέκα δὲ ἐπάλξεων—‘at an interval of ten,’ i.e. with the plur., ‘at intervals of ten,’ as in Isoer. IV. 46 αἱ πανηγύρεις διὰ πολλοῦ χρόνου συλλεγεῖσαι.

ἰσοπλατεῖς—cf. ἰσομηκής, ἰσοπαχής, ἰσοπληθής.

καὶ τὸ ἔξω—for καὶ ἐς τὸ ἔξω, cf. c. 44 περἱ τοῦ μέλλοντος μᾶλλον . . ἢ τοῦ παρόντος. The first καί, ‘and,’ is deleted by Herbst, but the predicative οἱ αὐτοί can eome in the second clause.

παρὰ πύργον—Thuc. might have written παρὰ τοὺς πύργους, but the art. is omitted and the sing used collectively as in II. 13 παρ᾽ ἔπαλξιν, for which we might have παρὰ τὰς ἐπάλξεις. (This is better than ‘past a tower,’ because of δι᾽ αὐτῶν.)