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

τῆς νυκτός—‘that night.’

τὸν Λευκαδίων ἰσθμόν—the isthmus connected Leucas with the mainland: there is now an artificial channel.

λαβόντες—if genuine, best considered pleonastic (with Stahl), as we say ‘took and brought.’ Some think it a gloss on εἴ τινα λάβοιεν below. To supply τὴν πόλιν (with L. Herbst) is forced, and involves an artificial, and highly improbable, explanation of the meaning. See crit. note.

τοὺς Μεσσηνίους—see c. 75, 1.

περιπλεῦσαι—from the harbour of Alcinous. The oligarchs who had been induced to embark would now be separated from their comrades in the Heraeum and the agora.

ἐπλήρωσαν—c. 80, 1.

ἀπεχρῶντο—very rare in this sense; cf. διαχρῆσθαι in c. 36.

τὰ γιγνόμενα—i.e. from the Heraeum on high ground they saw their comrades being led off to execution.

ὡς ἕκαστοι ἐδύναντο—the sing. might be expected, as in πάντες ἔφυγον ὅπη̣ ἐδύνατο ἕκαστος (Xen.), but the distinction is not always kept up.

παρέμεινε—it seems from this that Nicostratus had left by now. Thuc. has neglected to give his movements after his Messenians had been taken into the city.

σφῶν αὐτῶν—partitive.

ἐφόνευον—rare word outside Herod., tragedy, and late writers.

τὴν μὲν αἰτίαν . . καταλύουσιν—‘bringing the charge on the subverters of the democracy,’ i e. openly it was the oligarchs who were the object of their attack (τήν does not need explanation in the context after δίκην ὑποσχεῖν above. Only oligarchs—and they not in all cases—were put on their trial.)

ἀπέθανον δέ—transition from partic. to finite constr., as often; II. 47 λεγόμενον μὲν . . ἐμνημονεύετο δέ, VII. 13 τῶν ναυτῶν μὲν ἀπολλυμένων, οἱ δὲ θεράποντες . . αὐτομολοῦσι, sc. τὰ χρήματα. Frequent throughout Gk.

ὑπὸ τῶν λαβόντων—‘by their debtors,’ with ἀπέθανον. The Gk. justifies another way (Bohme), viz with ὀφειλομένων, ‘by those who caught them,’ but the point is not so good.

πᾶσἀ τε ἰδἐα κατέστη θανάτου—Virgil's et plurima mortis imago (Aen. II. 369); cf. Tac. H. III. 28 varia pereuntium forma et omni imagine mortium.

καὶ ἔτι περαιτέρω—sc. οὐδενὸς ὅτου οὐ, i.e. παντός, but the gen. is habitually omitted. Demosth. XLV. 73 has δεινόν, ὦ γῆ καὶ θεοί, καὶ πέρα δεινοῦ.