CHAPTER LXXIV
διαλυθέντων—Classen points out that in all the fourteen instances in which this word is used of the separation of a confederate force the aor. pass. is the tense employed.
κατά is distributive, ‘to their several cities’.
ἵνα περ—cf. ch. 48, 31.
ὄσοι μὲν...οἱ δὲ ἄλλοι—two coordinate divisions of
οἱ ἐν τῇ πόλει Μεγαρῆς: cf.
i. 89,
οἰκἰαι αἱ μὲν πολλαὶ...ὀλἰγαι δέ. πραγμάτων—‘dealings, intrigues’. an unusual sense of the substantive, though common with the verb: cf. ch. 73, 38,
τῶν πρὸς τοὺσ᾽ Αθηναίους πραξάντων: also ch. 76, 6. For
πρὸς τούς we might expect
τῶν πρός, but in such constructions the article is sometimes omitted before a preposition, and
πρός may also be regarded as belonging to the whole clause rather than to
πραγμάτων alone.
ὑπεξῆλθον—cf.
vi. 51, of a defeated party,
οἱ τὰ τῶν Συρακοσίων φρονοῦντες εὐθὺς ὺπεξῆλθον: in
iii. 34 it takes the acc.
ὑπεξελθόντες τούτους: cf. constr. ch. 28, 14. We find 120 of these Megarians serving in the Athenian expedition to Sicily,
vi. 43.
κατάγουσι—the regular word for restoring an exile:
Aesch. Sept. 647,
κατάξω δ᾽ ἄνδρα τόνδε: cf. Ar. Ran. 1165,
φεύγων δ᾽ ανὴρ ἥκει τε καὶ κατέρχεται.
ὁρκώσαντες—in
viii. 75 we have cogn. acc.
ὥρκωσαν πάντας τοὺς στρατιώτας τοὺς μεγίστους ὄρκους, ἦ μὴν ὀμονοήσειν.
ἐξέτασιν ὅπλων—an inspection or review:
vi. 96,
ἐξέτασιν ὅπλων ἐποιοῦντο. This would give an opportunity of selecting and securing the disaffected, especially if, as Arnold supposes, the men had laid down their arms in order to listen to an address from their commanders. Hippias in a similar way seized his enemies, who appeared without their arms,
οἰόμενοί τι ἐρεῖν αὐτόν (
vi. 58).
διαστήσαντες τοὺς λόχους —the several divisions were apparently reviewed in different parts of the town.
ψῆφον διενεγκεῖν—=
διαψηφίσασθαι, διά implying a vote on this or that side:
Eur. Or. 49.
διοίσει ψῆφον Ἀργείων πόλις: in
Hdt. iv. 138,
οἱ διαφέροντες τὴν ψῆφον seems to mean those who differed in their vote.
φανεράν—opp.
κρύφα, ch. 88, 2.
κατεγνώσθησαν—passive, though the active takes a genitive of the person. Lysias, de caede Erat. 94, has the act. with acc.
τοῦτον καταγιγνώσκειν φόνον. Lid. and Scott give Dion H. xi. 22,
καταγνωσθεὶς δειλίαν, ‘found guilty of cowardice’: and
Hdt. vi. 2,
καταγνωσθεὶς πρήσσειν, ‘thought to be doing’. So too Andocides, de Myst. 2, has
παρὰ τῶν κατηγορουμένων, ‘from the accused’. In fact verbs which govern the genitive or dative are not uncommonly personally constructed in the passive, Greek being more elastic than Latin in this point.
πλεῖστον δή—so ch. 55, 15,
μάλιστα δή:
i. 1,
κίνησις γὰρ αὕτη μεγίστη δὴ ἐγένετο. αὕτη...μετάστασις—‘this was a change which’, lit. ‘this, though a change’ or ‘as a change’, not ‘this change’, which would require the article: so in the passage cited above
κίνησις is the predicate.
ὑπ᾽ ἐλαχίστων—‘a few daring men effected the revolution, tacitly countenanced probably by the aristocratic party in general, who thought the worst oligarchy better than the ascendancy of the popular party. What Thucydides notices is the long duration of a government which owed its existence to a violent revolution effected by a very small number of active instruments’ (Arnold).
ἐκ στάσεως μετάστασις—a play on the sound of words: Classen compares
ii. 62,
μὴ φρονήματι μὀνον ἀλλἁ καταφρονηματι:
iii. 39,
ἐπανέστησαν μᾶλλον ἢ ἀπέστησαν. μετάστασις is used of a political revolution in
vi. 20 and
viii. 86. For
ξυνέμεινεν cf.
viii. 73,
ἡ ἀρχὴ ξυνέμεινεν: also
i. 18, of the lasting of an alliance.
