E.C. Marchant, Commentary on Thucydides Book 1

23. 4. τῶν δὲ πρότερον—it is by this time shown that τὰ παλαιά (cc. 2-17) were unimportant as compared with the Pel. War. But there remains the war against Xerxes (τὸ Μηδικόν, see c. 18. 2, the μέγας στόλος); and to that Thuc. now passes.

5. δυοῖν ναυμαχίαιν καὶ πεζομαχίαιν—which battles were these? The Schol says Artemisium and Salamis; Thermopylae and Plataea. But it is difficult to see how Mycale could be left out, and owing to the indecisive character of Artemisium, it is likely that Thuc. did not mean to include it, and reckoned Mycale as a ναυμαχία.

7. τούτου δὲ τοῦ π.—it is not possible to say with certainty whether Thuc. alludes to the Ten Years' War, or the whole of the Pel. War.

μέγα—predicative.

8. ξυνηνέχθη—cf. c. 9. 2. This use also, with an infin., is frequent in Herod.

[2] 11. ὑπὸ βαρβάρων—if the Ten Years' War is meant, the only case mentioned by Thuc. is Colophon (3.34); but if the Twenty-seven Years' War be meant, Mycalessus (29) may be included, though ἠρημωθησαν is somewhat exaggerated.

ὑπὸ σφῶν αὐτῶν—as Plataea (3.68), Mytilene (3.50), Thyrea (4.57).

12. οἰκήτορας μετέβαλον—as Aegina (2.27), Potidaea (2.70), Anactorium (4.49), Scione (5.32), Delos (5.1), Melos (5.116).

13. φυγαί—sc. ἐγένοντο. Instances of exile as the direct consequence of the war are the Plataeans (2.5), driven out by the Thebans, the Lesbians, who fled before the Athenians (4.52); exile as the result of στάσις occurred at Corcyra (3.69), Megara (4.74).

[3] 15. τά τε πρότερον κτλ.—moreover what was formerly repeated on hearsay, but seldom confirmed by fact, now became credible, because men saw it all.

17. σεισμῶν τε πέρι ... ἡλίου τε ἐκλείψεις—the construction changes slightly. We might have had σεισμοί or περὶ ἐκλείψεων.

19. οἱ αὐτοί—moreover, emphasising ἰσχυρότατοι. Cf. the use of idem.

20. πυκνότεραι—of course Thuc. does not record all the strange things that befell μετὰ τοῦδε τοῦ πολέμου: e.g. he records no instances of αὐχμός or λιμός (for λιμοί evidently does not refer to hunger caused by siege). He records two eclipses of the sun, one in 431 B.C. (2.28), the other in 424 B.C. (4.52), but if the Ten Years' War be meant, three eclipses could have been observed in Greece; or it the Twenty-seven Years' War is alluded to, six. Of course it is not certain that all of the eclipses were actually observed; Thuc., as Mr. Forbes says, only gives the popular opinion.

παρὰ τά—as compared with; cf. 4.6 χειμὼν μείζων παρὰ τὴν καθεστηκυῖαν ὥραν.

23. καὶ ἡ ... ἡ νόσος—the art. is similarly repeated to throw emphasis on the second part of the phrase—the disease that ... I mean the pestilence—in c. 126. 4, and in several other instances. With νόσος most edd. supply ἐγένετο: but Steup rightly says οὐκ ἄπιστος κατέστη, for when Thuc. describes the plague in 2.47, he expressly says that ‘it was said that it had broken out in several other places previously’ to 430 B.C.

μέρος τι—object of φθείρασα, sc. τῆς Ἑλλάδος, a great number of the Greeks.

[4] 26. ἤρξαντο δέ—the narrative of the war begins at the opening of Bk. ii., the remainder of this book being occupied with the αἰτίαι καὶ διαφοραί. The main emphasis is on λύσαντες κτλ.; the date of the recovery of Euboea is 445 B.C. (c. 115).

29. τὰς αἰτίας ... καὶ τὰς διαφοράς—these are again denoted by ἡ ἀληθεστάτη πρόφασις and αἱ ... αἰτίαι in 23.6.

[6] 3. τὴν μὲν γὰρ κτλ—apparently τὴν ... λόγῳ is attributive predicate to τοὺς Ἀθηναίους ... ἀναγκάσαι, as Classen explains, lit. As for the truest motive ... I think that the A... . forced etc. The assumption of a ‘confnsion of construction’ (Kiuger) seems unnecessary. Chambry explains τὴν ἀ. πρόφασιν τοὺς Ἀθηναίους ἡγοῦμαι ... καὶ（ἡγοῦμαι) ... ἀναγκάσαι, so that ἡγοῦμαι has two objects differently expressed, but γιγνομένους and παρέχοντας can scarcely be separated.

4. πρόφασιν—of the actual motive, as in 6.6, and now and then in other authors. When so used it seems to denote the motive as it appears to the mind of the writer as distinct from the motive as put forward by the doer.

5. μεγάλους γιγνομένους—in c. 118 Thuc. says that the Athenians during the period between the foundation of the Delian Confederacy and the war (the Pentecontaetia) ἐπὶ μέγα ἐχώρησαν δυνάμεως. We might, therefore, look for μείζους ἀεί in place of μεγάλους, but, as this is the first mention of Atheman power, the pos. is quite natural. This growing greatness of A. is described in cc. 88-118; αι: ... λ. αἰτίαι occupy cc. 24-87.

11. Ἐ. ἐστι πόλις—there is a city named E.