T. G. Tucker, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 8

τῆς μεγίστης with a qualification, c. 40, § 1, τήν μεγίστην τῶν ἐν Ἰωνίᾳ ξυμμαχίδων πόλεων. In c. 6, § 4, Chios has sixty ships.

τά τε χίλια τάλαντα κ.τ.λ. The accus. depends on the coming sense of κινεῖν underlying the whole passage, rather than actually upon the word κινεῖν after ἐψηφίσαντο. Thus, ἔλυσαν τὰς ζημὶας τω? εἰπόντι κινεῖν τὰ χίλια τάλαντα καὶ ἐψηφὶσαντο κινεῖν αὐτά. Thc words τὰ χ. τάλ. are, however, placed first for emphasis. The Greek says, ‘and the thousand talents, which during all the war they had grudged to touch, they at once under their present dismay removed the penalties laid upon the man who should propose or put to the vote the proposal, and they voted to employ (them).’ This is ungrammatical in both English and Greek, but it is an easier anacoluthon in the synthetic form, and there should be no doubt that Thucydides wrote it. Cf. Soph. El. 709, στάντες δ᾽ ὅθ᾽ αὐτοὺς οἱ τεταγμένοι βραβῆς | κλήρους ἔπηλαν καὶ κατέστησαν δίφρους (=κλήρους πήλαντες κατέστησαν); Ter. Adelph. 917, tu illas abi et traduce. Cl. and Stahl follow Cobet in reading εὐθὺς λίσαντες . . . ἐψηφίσαντο, a correction which savours of the composition-class. The history of this money is given in ii. 24, καὶ χίλια τάλαντα ἀπὸ τῶν ἐν τῇ ἀκροπόλει χρημάτων ἔδοξεν αὐτοῖς ἐξαίρετα ποησαμένοις χωρὶς θέσθαι καὶ μὴ ἀναλοῦν, ἀλλ᾽ ἀπὸ τῶν ἄλλων πολεμεῖν: ἢν δέ τις εἴπῃ ἢ ἐπιψηφίσῃ κινεῖν τὰ χρήματα ταῦτα ἐς ἄλλο τι, ἢν μὴ οἱ πολέμιοι νηίτῃ στρατῷ ἐπιπλέωσι τῇ πόλει καὶ δέῃ ἀμύνασθαι, θάνατον ζημίαν ἐπέθεντο.

ζημίας sc. θάνατον (loc cit.)

εἰπόντι as ῥήτωρ.

ἐπιψηφίσαντι as ἐπιστάτης or one of the πρόεδροι.

οὐκ ὀλίγας coalescing, otherwise μὴ

τῶν τε . . . τε introduces a new point; cf. τάς τε τῶν Χίων, § 2. καὶ ναῦς πληροῦν οὐκ ὀλίγας is part of the clause καὶ ἐψηφίσαντο κινεῖν τὰ χ. τάλ., the object of employing the money being to provide a fleet.

τὰς . . . ὀκτὼ the article does not look forward to αἳ, but is usual where a certain number is picked out and distinguished from the rest, or opposed to some other number. Cf. i. 116, ταῖς μὲν ἑκκαίδεκα τῶν νεῶν οὐκ ἐχρήσαντο, etc. Madvig, Synt. § 11.

Διοτίμου i. 45.

Θρασυκλῆς v 19.