The English Works of Thomas Hobbes (1839) 2 vols. - Vol. 8 (55 page)

Of the Ephori and those that had the sovereignty, that is, before the aristocracy. [See chap. 87, note.]

[This decree of Pericles is said by the Scholiast, to have been proposed by him at the suggestion of Alcibiades; who, when a boy, saw him much disturbed by thinking how he should account for the public money; and being informed of the cause, told him that he should be thinking not how he should account, but how he should not account. Whereupon Pericles proposed this decree, and succeeded in diverting public attention from the subject of his accounts.]

[According to Bekker and Arnold: “makes you less ready to give credit to others, if we complain of aught”. According to Goeller: “makes you less ready to give credit to us, if we have aught to say against the rest”. Valla makes something quite different of the passage: “fides vestra facit, ut nobis alii, si quid in vos dixerimus, fidem non habeant.”]

[And hereby “you do indeed exhibit your moderation”, but you have less, c.]

[The Æginetans. Schol.]

[The Potidæans and Megareans. Schol.]

[πρὸς τὰ ἐπὶ Θράκης ἀποχρῆσθαι: “most commodious, to give you the full benefit of your dominion in the neighbourhood of Thrace.” Arnold. To use away, or out; simili, si non eodem sensu, Latini dicunt
abuti.
Goeller.]

[“The question should no longer be”.]

[“For they (the Athenians) being the active party, come with their plans already arranged, and not having still to do that, upon their adversary who has yet decided upon nothing.” Goeller.]

[“And we know in what manner, and that it is by degrees that the Athenians encroach upon their neighbours.”]

[μελλήσει: “With threatening demonstration.” Arnold. “Expectation of attack meditated.” Goell.]

[“You were indeed said to be cautious and secure: and your report therefore exceeded the reality”. For we, c]

[“As far as” Peloponnesus.]

[“Though you well know”, c.]

[“You neither seem, to us at least, to have any feeling, nor ever to have considered with yourselves.”]

[“And in action to attain not even to what is necessary.”]

[“You distrust even counsels to be surely calculated upon.” Arnold, Goeller.]

[καὶ τὰ ἑτοῖμα: “Even what is under your hand.”]

[μὴ ἐξέλθωσιν: “Unless they go through with”, that is, “attain.”]

[“And if therefore they fail, c., by entering into other hopes they have already repaired the mishap.”]

[“Quietem iis maxime contingere.” Poppo and Goeller. “That they enjoy the longest peace.” Arnold.]

[“Though your neighbouring state were of the same way of thinking”, in regard to justice.]

[“Why in the Athenian customs, through much experience, there has been more innovation than in yours.”]

[νῦν δὲ: And at this moment.]

[ξυγγενεῖς: The Potidæans, a colony of the Corinthians.]

[“And we the rest be driven” through despair, c.]

[ἀνθρώπων τῶν αἰσθανομένων: “homines aliquo sensu præditos”: Stephen, Goeller. An allusion to the insensibility charged against the Lacedæmonians in chap. 70.]

[“About other matters.”]

[περὶ τοῦ παντὸς, scilicet λόγου: “concerning the whole matter in debate”. See the next chap. βουλόμενοι περὶ τοῦ παντὸς λόγου δηλῶσαι.]

[Bekker and the rest, ὑμετέροις: “against your confederates.”]

[“Though it be somewhat irk–some to us to be ever bringing forward this subject.”]

[“These things when we did, we endangered ourselves for the common safety; in achieving which, it cannot be denied that up to a certain point you took your share; but still we ought not to be deprived, if it is of any value, of all right of speaking of them.” Goeller.]

[“But of testimony.”]

[“As if his power were no longer what it had been, went away, c.” Goeller, Arnold.]

[ἐς αὐτὸ: “to it”: that is, the event just related, τοιούτου ξυμβάντος τούτου. “This coming to pass in this manner, we contributed to it,” c.]

Of Salamis.

[“But whilst we were yet safe,” (that is, whilst the time was for aiding us), “you were not at hand”: whereas, c.]

The Athenians at the coming in of the Persian, when they put themselves into their galleys, left their city to the army of the Persians by land, and sent their wives and children into Ægina, Salamis, and Trœzene.

[ὑπὲρ τῆς ἐν βρ̧αχείᾳ ἐλπίδι οὔσης. τῆς οὔσης are by Didot referred, not to Athens, but to the fleet, the only city the Athenians then had remaining; which at that time was εν βραχείᾳ ἐλπίδι, of slender hopes.]

[τὸ μέρος: “we bore our share in delivering you and ourselves”. Arnold. “quantum in nobis erat”: Goeller.]

[Had quietly succeeded.]

[Ἆρ’ ἄξιοί ἐσμεν, κ. τ. λ.; “Do we deserve then not to be so greatly envied, c.?” ἆρ̧α est
ecquid;
qui interrogandi modus graviter affirmat. Baver. Hobbes has followed the common reading, ἀρχῆς τε. Bekker and the rest read ἀρχῆς γε.]

[“To run the risk of laying down our power.”]

[It is no fault, c. to order to the best. You “therefore at any rate” order, c.: “and had you at that time staid it out, and made yourselves hated for your command like us, we well know that you would have been not less heavy, c. So neither have we done any thing wonderful, if overcome by three the greatest things, c.”]

That is, when Pausanias, king of Lacedæmon, pursuing the relics of the Persian war, through his pride and insolent command procured the hatred of the confederates so far as, the Lacedæmonian state calling him home, they put themselves under the leading of the Athenians.

[Goeller agrees with Hobbes in rendering ὥστε ἄρχειν,
desiring
to rule: “prægnanti sensu accipiendum, vt sit
imperare velle
”. Vulgo, γένωνται. Bekker and the rest, γεγένηνται:
have been
juster than, c.]

[ἀδοξὶα: an ill name.]

[“For conceding somewhat of our strict right in making conventions with our allies for trying their causes, and giving them the right of decision by the same laws with ourselves, we have then”, c. Δίκαι ξυμβολαίαι, “conventional causes” are thus explained by Goeller: “Inter quas civitates frequens commercium esset, eæ pacta quædam inire solebant de ratione actionum inter privatos cives suos instituendarum, de foro, utrum litigantes sequerenter, et rebus similibus. Hæc, ut alia pacta civitatum cum civitatibus, σύμβολα appellabantur. Causas privatorum, quæ ex talibus pactis componebantur, Thucydides dixit ξυμβολαίας δίκας. Latine cum Livio, xli. 24, hoc institutum dicas “commercium jus præbendi et repetendi.”]

διότι:
wherefore.
“None of them considering how it comes about that others, c., are never upbraided with
this
(a love of contention).” The reason is, they use force. “For they that may compel, have no need farther, to go to law”.]

[ὁι δὲ: “
But
these men, c., if they are worsted in any thing, be it ever so trifling, contrary to their opinion that it ought not to be, either by sentence, c., are not in the majority of cases thankful for what they do not lose; but take their disappointment in worse part than if”, c. Goeller.]

[“But in that case”, that is, if we took by force, c. Goeller.]

[“If your system be such as that of which you showed symptoms before.” Ὑπεδείξατε for ἀπεδείξατε has been rightly restored by Bekker, Poppo, Goeller. The Lacedæmonians had not “fully manifested” (ἀπέδειξαν), their tyrannical spirit during the command of Pausanias; but had “shown symptoms of it”, which is exactly ὐπέδειξαν. Arnold.]

[ἄμικτα: unmixed, not modified to suit those of other states. Spartanos, antiquis rebus constanter adhærentes, consentaneum est postremo in tanta cæterorum Græcorum mobilitate ab his ita recessisse, ut peculiaris neque aut cum Græcis aut cum barbaris consociabilis populus viderentur. Muell. By saying that those who go abroad, use neither the customs of Sparta nor of the rest of Greece, must be meant that they use their own arbitrary will only.]

[“Out of the assembly”. The speech of the Athenians was addressed ἐς τὸ πλῆθος, see chap. 72.]

[That is, of the same age.]

[παρόμοιος: “of the same description”: military rather than naval. Arnold.]

[If we will exercise ourselves.]

[Still much more deficient.]

[“
For
as for the hope,” c.]

[And in the meantime to make our provision, “both by getting allies, c., and by contributing our own fortunes at the same time”. Göll.]

[We then attack them, if we will, “better prepared”.]

[“Already making”.]

[“See that we do not make the affair more dishonourable”, c.]

[As well
of
cities as, c.]

[πολλοὶς: “that we being many.” Valla has “multas urbes”.]

[“Above all things.”]

[ἂν παύσαισθε: you may be the longer, c.]

[“Is the main ingredient in.”]

[“Good counsellors in this: that we are brought up more simply than, c.; and not like men exceedingly wise in things needless, to find fault eloquently, c.; but to think that the thoughts of our neighbours are like the accidents of fortune, not to be discovered by speeches”, c. Goeller.]

[“That has been taught what is most needful”.]

[μελέτας. Lacedæmoniorum instituta in educandis liberis. Goeller. “
These
institutions, which our ancestors have handed down to us.”]

[We are alike, “both then and now”. The deliverers of Greece.]

[Nor to be “judged with judgments and words”.]

ψήϕος: properly lapillus, calculus; a little stone or ball, which he that gave his voice put into a box, either on the affirmative or negative part, as he pleased. The Athenians used beans, white and black. The Venetians now use balls; and the distinction is made by the box, inscribed with yea and no. [κρίνουσι γὰρ βοῆ: “for they vote by shouting.” This was the mode of voting in the Spartan ἐκκλησία: a body consisting of such of the Spartans of the class called ὅμοιοι or peers, that is, those whose means enabled them to devote their time to the Spartan education and to support the expenses of the ϕιδίτια or public table, as were of the age of thirty years. No Spartan that had not gone through the discipline considered essential for forming a useful citizen, was admitted by Lycurgus to the exercise of any political right: and hence the Spartans of inferior means formed a class which, in distinction to the ὅμοιοι, came to be designated the ὑπομείονες or inferiors. The γερούσια or senate, said to be an institution of Lycurgus, consisted, including the two kings who presided in it, of thirty members: their qualification was, the being of the ὅμοιοι and sixty years of age: they were chosen for life, and nominally by the pares: see Plut. Lycurg. The assembly, here called τὸ πλῆθος, had the right of simply affirming or rejecting the measures proposed to them by the kings and senate: they could neither modify nor even discuss those measures, nor originate any of their own. The five Ephori, said to be instituted about a hundred and thirty years after the time of Lycurgus by Theopompus, were chosen out of the whole Spartan race without distinction; and were therefore naturally the organ of the democracy: whilst the ὅμοιοι were in possession of the senate and the assembly.]

[“But wishing to excite them more to the war, openly declaring their opinion”: that is to say, the war being popular, by obliging them to vote openly.]

[This joint vote is taken afterwards. Chap. 119, 125.]

A promontory in Asia the less, where the remnant of Xerxes’ fleet was defeated, the same day that this land forces were also defeated by Pausanius at Platea with the slaughter of Mardonius their general, and almost their whole army of three hundred thousand men. [When the Medes were departed
from Europe,
c.]

[See Herodot. ix. 114, et seq.]

το κοῖνον: the state. That is, they made Athens again the seat of their government, whereas before it was in the fleet and camp, still removing.

[ἀνοικοδομξιν: “went about to rebuild the city and the walls: for of the circuit of the walls little remained standing, and of the houses the most had fallen down; though a few were standing, in which lodged the principal of the Persians.”]

[ὡσπερ νῦν: as he had just now made of Thebes.]

[Till the walls were raised to the lowest possible height they could defend themselves from.]

[πρὸς τὰς ἀρχὰς: to the Ephori. Goeller.]