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ἐπηρμένοι ἦσαν implying not merely excitement but elation and self-assertion; cf. vi. 11, πρὸς τὰς τῶν ἐναντίων τύχας ἐπαίρεσθαι. The allies of neither side, those of the Laced., and the subjects of Athens all have reason to pluck up activity. μηδετέρων the sense is hypothetical, εἴ τινες μηδετ. ἦσαν. ὡς . . . εἴη From the sense of ἐπηρμένοι is to be supplied e.g. οἰόμενοι, or ἐπηρ. ἦσαν ὥστε οἴεσθαι . . . ἤν τις καὶ μὴ, κ.τ.λ. The καὶ is not ‘trajective’ as P-S would have it, but belongs to μὴ-παρακαλῇ, on which it throws emphasis, ‘if any one did not call them.’ Cf. i. 140, ἢν ἄρα τι καὶ σφαλλώμεθα, ‘supposing we meet with a reverse’; iii. 46, etc. ἕκαστοι ‘each people (of them)’; put in this position in order to stand closely with σφᾶς (cf. ad suum quisque tabernaculum). The usual order would be νομίσαντες ἔκαστοι . . . Trs. ‘each thought the Athenians would have come against them.’ τὰ ἐν τῇ Σικελίᾳ either adverbial with κατώρθωσαν intrans., or the direct accus. with the verb in a trans. sense. οὗ . . . εἶναι Goodwin, M. and T. § 755. ξυμπροθυμηθέντες . . . ἀπαλλάξεσθαι ‘with one mind filled with eagerness to get rid, etc.’ It is almost impossible with P-S to take ἀπαλλάξεσθαι as depending on νομίσαντες in the sense ‘thinking that, if they assisted them with more zeal than before, they would speedily, etc.’ ξυμπροθυμηθέντες answers to νομίσαντες and takes the future infin. by a usage familiar to Thucydides and not unknown in other authors (v. Goodwin, M. and T. § 113). Cf. i. 27, ἐδεήθησαν ξυμπροπέμψειν; vi. 6, ἐφιέμενοι ἄρξειν; vi. 57, ἐβούλοντο προτιμωρήσεσθαι. The MSS. vary in some cases, and some scholars would regularly substitute the aorist; but here (as Shilleto on i. 27 points out) ἀπαλλάξασθαι is inadmissible, as the 1st aor. mid. means ‘to barter.’ A verb of intending and wishing easily passes into the construction of a verb of expecting or hoping.
αὐτῶν after ἀφίστασθαι. ὀργῶντες Vat. has ὀργῶντας, but the attracted nom. is the Greek idiom. Cf ii. 65, ὀρεγόμενοι τοῦ πρῶτος ἔκαστος γίγνεσθαι; Aes. Ag. 1588, μοῖραν ηὕρετ᾽ ἀσφαλῆ τὸ μὴ θανὼν πατρῷον αἱμάξαι πέδον. ὀργᾶν is mostly a poetical or late word. It occurs iv. 108, and in ii. 21 ὤργητο is a variant for ὤρμητο. The meaning is not ὀργιζόμενοι, but ‘judging by their excited feelings’ (Jowett). Cf. the use of ὀργαί inf. c. 83, § 3. μηδ᾽ ὑπολείπειν λόγον αὐτοῖς Cf. Antiph. Tetr. B. β᾽. (661), οὐδεὶς ἡμῖν λόγος ὑπελείπετο μὴ φονέας εἶναι; Isoc. Pan. 146, μηδένα λόγον ὑπολείπειν τοῖς εἰθισμένοις τὴν τῶν Περσῶν ἀνδρίαν ἐπαινεῖν. Commentators (Arn., Cl, P-S, etc.) give to λόγον the sense ‘calculation,’ i.e. ‘left no room in their estimate’; but the word κρίνειν and the expressions ὑπολείπειν πρόφασιν, etc., make rather for the metaphorical turn, ‘they tried them in a prejudiced court and left them not even the plea that . . .’ The plea of the Athenians would be οἷοί τε ἐσόμεθα τό γ᾽ ἐπιὸν θέρος (‘at least for the next campaign’) περιγενέσθαι. The γε is retained when the plea is refused.
πᾶσι τούτοις causal. πολλῇ δυνάμει circumstantial. κατ᾽ ἀνἀγκην . . . προσγεγενημένου ‘the(ir) fleet having now been, through force of circumstances, added to their forces’; i.e. the Syracusans and other anti-Athenian Siceliots had been compelled by the Athenian invasion to construct a fleet, and were now in a position to come and actively assist.
κινδύνων τοιούτων . . . οἷος καὶ ὁ . . ., lit. ‘rid of dangers of such a sort as the danger from the Athenians, for instance, would have surrounded them.’ We should say, ‘rid of such dangers as that into which the Athenians would have brought them,’ omitting the καὶ. Cf. vii. 21, πρὸς ἄνδρας τολμηροὺς, οἵους καὶ Ἀθηναίους. ἀπηλλάχθαι ἂν ‘would be rid of’ once for all. A tense with ἂν in infin. in orat. obliq. represents the same tense with ἂν in or. rect. in the indic. or optat. according to the expressed or implied protasis (Goodwin, M. and T. § 206). The protasis here is καλῶς τελευτήσαντος αὐτοῦ=εἰ καλῶς τελευτήσειε. The apodosis in orat. rect. would be ἀπηλλαγμένοι ἂν εἶμεν, liberi simus. ἐκείνους αὐτοὶ brought together for the antithesis.
Commentary on Thucydides Book 8. T.G. Tucker. London. MacMillan & Company. 1892.
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