The History of the Peloponnesian War, Volume I (67 page)

[“
And
the Acarnanians and
a
few Amphilochians (for the greater part the Ambraciotes forcibly kept back) were already assembled at Argos, and prepared” c.]

[“And the Peloponnesian army being superior in numbers and outflanking him, Demosthenes therefore fearing” c.]

[“Overgrown with brushwood”.]

[“And the rest of the ground was occupied by the Acarnanians, posted each in their own place, and by the Amphilochian darters that were there.”]

[Stood “
towards
the left”.]

[“But panic–struck themselves, caused the flight of the greater part of the army besides”.]

[“The Ambraciotes
and
those in the right wing, chased c.: for they are the most warlike of any in those parts. But on their
return,
seeing the greatest part” c.]

[And “after the great defeat sustained” not finding c.]

[“And buried them in haste, as they best might”.]

[“With their whole power”.]

[“To support them”.]

[“But the Ambraciotes and
the
others, (the mercenaries, ch. 109), that happened
thus
(on pretext of gathering herbs) to be come out together in great numbers, seeing the others go off, were eager” c.]

[“Demosthenes as soon as he had supped, and the rest of the army as soon as it was evening, set out on the march; he with one–half of the army towards the pass, and the other half through the hills of Amphilochia”. ἐσβολὴ seems to mean
a pass through hills;
but what pass is here meant, is not clear. Goeller understands that of Idomene.]

[“Which was not far off”.]

[“If needs must”.]

[“The arms here then
agree not
(with those of 200), but” c. Göll.]

[“The Acarnanians c., granted to those Ambraciotes c., a truce to retire from Œniadæ, whither they had indeed removed from Salynthius”. This is Hermann’s reading, adopted by Goeller, Arnold, c.]

[Vulgo, ὁμόρους. Bekker and the rest, ὁμήρους:
hostages.
]

[“By the Sikeli”. Goeller, Arnold.]

[“From the high country”.]

[They, the Syracusans.]

[“
The
fort”. See ch. 99, note.]

[“And (it is said)
that
” c.]

[The place “afforded an approach to Sicily”. Goeller, Arnold.]

[That is, from their own territory, Locris, and with naval forces from Messana. Goeller.]

[“To oppose the Locrians”.]

[“Were hasting”.]

[ταξιάρχοις. The ten tribes were the groundwork both in levying and arranging the Athenian army: and accordingly, ten
strategi
and ten
taxiarchs,
as well as ten
phylarchs,
were yearly chosen. But the taxiarchs here meant, are the commanders, not of the
tribes,
but of the τάξις: a body consisting of about 100 men, and the principal, if not the only elementary division of the army. The only known officers, are the strategi and the taxiarchs.]

[“He remained quietly at Pylus owing to the bad weather: till at last there came upon the soldiers lying idle, a desire of their own accord,
setting to work on all sides,
to wall in the place”. Arn.
changing their opinion:
Goell. Bekker, c. περιστᾶσιν. Vulgo περ̧ὶ στάσιν.]

[“The Spartans themselves, and the nearest of the
periœci
c.: but the Lacedæmonians came” c. The distinction is here made between
Spartans
and
Lacedæmonians.
The former name belonged only to the
Dorians
of Sparta: the latter was the proper name of the
periœci,
or old Achæan inhabitants of Laconia, as distinguished from the Spartans. With relation however to foreign states, the name
Lacedæmonians
was used to signify the Spartan state: and then embraced both Spartans and periœci.]

[Leucadia, originally a peninsula, seems to have been twice reduced by manual labour to the form of an island. “Leucadiæ, quum antiquitus peninsula esset, a Corinthiis per Cypselum et Gargasum illic missis isthmus perfossus est”. Poppo. We see that in the time of Thucydides it was again become a peninsula; whilst Livy says of it: “Leucadia
nunc insula,
et vadoso freto, quod perfossum manu est, ab Acarnania divisa, tum (A. C. 197) peninsula erat, occidentis regione arctis faucibus cohœrens Acarnaniæ. Quingentos ferme passus longæ fauces erant: latæ haud amplius centum et viginti”. xxxiii. 17. It took its name from the
white
cliff, the celebrated lover’s leap.]

[Demosthenes sent secretly c., “before the Lacedæmonians could get there”.]

[“To bar up c., so that the Athenians might not put into it”.]

[“Were
taken
there”. Bekk. c.]

[“And when he had drawn up under the fort the galleys he had of those left behind, he placed a stockade close to them”. Goeller. Two out of the five ships left behind with him had been sent to Zacynthus: see ch. 8.]

[“And even those osier bucklers they took” c. κέλης (a light horseman) is a small sharp sailing boat. Scholiast.]

[“He placed upon the strongest parts of the fortifications, and upon the strong positions towards the continent”.]

[“And they (the Peloponnesians) expected, that if they could force a landing, the place might be taken”. Goeller, Arnold.]

[“To hinder their landing, if he could”.]

[“Since even from this straight he may escape”. Goeller.]

[“
Both
the difficulty”—“
and
their numbers”. See next note.]

[They will land well enough: “and we shall have a more dangerous enemy to deal with, by reason of his retreat being cut off if we even chance to force him: for in their ships, they are most easy to keep off; but when disembarked, they are then on equal terms with us.
And their numbers
are not much to be feared: for though they be many, they will few of them fight, for want of room to land at: and their army is not on land, superior to us in numbers and on equal terms in other respects: but they have to fight from their ships, where many favourable circumstances belonging to the sea will be required (for their success). So that I think” c. Goeller.]

[He got upon the landingsteps, but was
beaten
back c.]

[παρεξειρεσίαν: the extremity of the galley, both at the head and stern, where the benches for the rowers cease.]

[“For it was at that time the great glory of the former, (the Lacedæmonians), that they were chiefly landsmen and strongest in the army; of the latter (the Athenians) that they excelled most in ships and naval matters”.]

[“Fifty”: Goeller, Arnold. See ch. 23, where a reinforcement of 20 ships is said to raise the whole to 70.]

[“And chasing them, disabled a great many for the short distance of the pursuit; and took five c.: and the rest that had taken refuge ashore, they struck amidships”.]

[“They tied c. and towed away, the men having taken to flight”.]

[“The
empty
galleys”.]

[“Had passed at Pylus”.]

[“To send the Ephori to the camp, to see and determine
forthwith
what should be done”. Bekk. Arn. Goeller agrees with Hobbes.]

[“For every man, two Attic chœnixes of barley bread”. A chœnix was the forty–eighth part of a medimnus, and a cotyle the fourth part of a chœnix: a medimnus of corn was about a bushel and a half, English measure; and is valued by Boeckh at two drachme. The monthly contribution of every Spartan to the public table, was a medimnus of barley–meal (the common food in Greece), and eight chœnixes of wine: so that the daily allowance for each man, was about a chœnix and a half of meal; the chœnix being equal to about two English pints.]

[That they might guard it “in any way short of landing in it”.]

[καὶ ὁτιοῦν: “in any part, be it what it may”. See the handle made of this by the Athenians, ch. 23.]

[“We are about to lengthen our speech, not indeed against our wont, but that it is our natural practice, where few words suffice, there indeed not to use many: but to use more, when occasion may be for explaining by words something important in order to effect our object”. Goell. See the story related by Herodotus, iii. 46. Arnold.]

[“Always aspire”.]

[“Come to you, hitherto thinking ourselves too high to grant what we now come to request”.]

[“But deceived in our opinion, (taken) from our ordinary resources”. Goeller, Arnold.]

[“From the present strength of your state, and its late accessions, that fortune” c.]

[“To leave a reputation beyond the reach of danger”.]

[“
And
thinking it better”.]

[That is, should be not only blockaded, but actually taken.]

[“But when, having it in his power, and by his virtue prevailed on, to compound on equal terms, he should contrary to what an enemy expects be reconciled”. Goeller.]

[“And men more readily do this towards their great enemies, than towards those with whom they have only some ordinary difference. And naturally” c.]

[“Besides the hatred of the state, that also of individuals”: that is, for the loss each family would suffer. The Spartan aristocracy would feel it a personal wound to lose so many of the members of their principal families. Arn. Göll.]

[“And
let
us not only ourselves prefer” c.]

τὰ μέγιϛα τιμήσει: “will give us highest honour”. Conveying to the understanding of the wiser sort of the hearers, the consideration of tyrannizing the rest of Greece. For by the highest honour, he means tyranny; but avoiding the envy of the word. Because if he had said it plainly, the confederates would see, that they which termed themselves
the Deliverers of Greece,
would now, out of private interest, be content to join with the Athenians to tyrannize it. [Goeller and Arnold have adopted the idea contained in this note. See v. 50, note.]

[“When the Athenians
came to terms
being” c. See i. 115. Athens is said by Thirlwall (iii. 43), to have had some hold on Achaia enabling her to levy troops there. In any other sense it would be difficult to say how Achaia ever belonged to Athens to restore to Sparta (see i. 115). Trœzen is supposed before its restoration by Athens to have been captured by Tolmides in his expedition against Peloponnesus (i. 108). In it, as in Epidaurus, appear distinct traces of the ancient Ionian population: its fabulous genealogies and religious rites attesting a close connexion between its earlier inhabitants and the Athenians: so much so, that it shared with the Ionic cities in the worship of the Apaturian Minerva (see iii. 55, note).]

[“Lay encamped on the continent, and made assaults” c.]

[“The Athenians would be unable, both to cruize against them, and to be masters of the strait”.—
Rhegium
is supposed to be derived from ρήγνυμι,
to break:
as if it were the point at which Sicily had been severed from Italy.—“Charybdis appears to be an agitated water of from seventy to ninety fathoms in depth, circling in quick eddies. It is owing probably to the meeting of the harbour and lateral currents with the main one, the latter being forced over in this direction by the opposite point of Pezzo. This agrees in some measure with the relation of Thucydides, who is the only writer of remote antiquity I remember to have read, who has assigned to this danger its true situation, and not exaggerated its effects”. Smyth’s Mem. on Sicily.]

[“Each”: that is, the Syracusans and Locrians.]

[“At Peloris in Messene”.]

[αὐτοὶ: Goell. Arn.: “they
on their part
lost a galley”. Vulgo et Bekk., αὐτοῖς: “the Athenians
destroyed
for them (the Syracusans) a galley”. But there being no men to swim out of any Syracusan galley, it could not belong to them.]

[“Getting themselves out to sea by a lateral movement”. Goell. Arn.]

[ἐσέβαλλον is supposed to be corrupt: and never means, in Thucydides,
adoriri urbem,
but
irruptionem facere in terram;
and is never joined with πρός. Poppo.]

[“Putting into Messana”.]

[“Against the city”.]

[That is, on the beach.]

[“Some to take their victual on shore, and others to lie at anchor.
And
it was very great discouragement, the time” c.]