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ἐνίκησαν Referring to the Athenian victory at Cynossema in 411, and perh. also to that at Cyzicus in 410 B.C. τ. τῆς αἰτίας ‘this merit’ or ‘credit’. Cp. Aesch. Theb. 4, εἰ μὲν γὰρ εὖ πράξαιμεν, αἰτία θεοῦ. εἰ γάρ, κ.τ.λ. ‘For if the supplies had not been imported for the army at that time, the prospect before them was not a chance of saving Athens, but a risk of losing their own lives’. κίνδυνος ἦν is equivalent to an apodosis with ἄν and aor. indic. (as εἰκότως οὐκ ἂν ἔσωσαν). Cp. Thuc. III. 74, ἡ πόλις ἐκινδύνευσε πᾶσα διαφθαρῆναι, εἰ ἄνεμος ἐπεγένετο. Cp. Aeschin. Ctes. § 123 (where ἐκινδυνεύσαμεν ἄν is a v. l.). ἢ περὶ τοῦ μηδὲ αὐτοὺς σωθῆναι] κίνδυνος περὶ τοῦ σῶσαι, a risk in which the saving of Athens was the thing at stake: κίνδυνος περὶ τοῦ μηδὲ αὐτοὺς σωθῆναι=κίνδυνος μὴ οὐδ᾽ αὐτοὶ σωθεῖεν, a risk lest not even they themselves should be saved. Hence the μηδέ: the form περὶ τοῦ σωθῆναι being adopted merely for the sake of symmetry with περὶ τοῦ σῶσαι.
Selections from the Attic Orators. Sir Richard C. Jebb. London. Macmillan. 1888.
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