CHAPTER CX
Τορώνην—the chief city in Sithonia, the middle Chalcidic peninsula; it was near its southern extremity.
περὶ ὄρθρον—at the first glimmering of dawn: so
iii. 112,
ἅμα ὄρθρῳ followed by
νυκτὸς ἔτι οὔσης: cf.
Plat. Protag. init.
καὶ προσελθόντες—‘and some few of them having indeed gone over to him’, i.e. to arrange terms, etc., a parenthetical statement of what had been done before: cf. ch. 72, 1. There is also good authority for
προελθόντες ‘having advanced to meet him’. If this reading be adopted the comma may be removed after
ὀλίγοι, and the order taken
καὶ...ἐτήρουν...καὶ ἐσκομίζουσι. τινὲς ὀλίγοι—partial apposition.
τοσοῦτοι μόνοι—so
iii. 52,
ἠρώτων τοσοῦτον μόνον. διαδύντες—possibly where the wall had fallen (ch. 112).
λαθοντες—‘without discovery’.
τοὺς...φρουρούς—governed by
διέφθειραν. ἀνώτατα— this is the only passage in which Thucydides has the superlative of
ἄνω, κάτω or
πρόσω. ἀνώτατα etc. are found in Herodotus, though not invariably, and in the tragedians: in later Attic prose
ἀνωτάτω etc. (Krüger). Thucydides has
ἐγγύτατα v. 74,
ἐγγυτάτω iii. 38.
φυλακτηρίου—‘a guard-post’: ch. 31, 7.
πρὸς λόφον—‘against (on the slope of) a hill’.
κατὰ Καναστραῖον—‘over against Canastraeum’, the extreme point of the (western) peninsula of Pallene:
Hdt. vii. 103. Note the difference of tense in
διέφθειραν and
διῄρουν, the assailants cut down the guard and then ‘set to work to force’ the postern.
διαιρῶ, ‘to break through’, is used of forcing an entrance through a
πυλίς in
vi. 51: cf. ch. 48, 12: when used of a wall it means to make a breach, as in
ii. 75 (with partitive gen.).