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

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αἰεί τε . . . ἐχόμενος as if καὶ τέλος . . . πείσας with finite verb κατῆγε were to follow, i.e. ‘Thrasybulus, who both clung to the same view . . . and also at last induced the soldiery to accept it . . . proceeded to bring back Alcibiades.’ With πείσας the sentence would be correct, except that καὶ before Ψηφισαμένων would be better omitted. But instead of πείσας the finite verb ἔπεισεν is wrongly written, the intervening ἐπειδὴ . . . Ἀλκιβιάδην having diverted the construction. Though the sentence begins with a plural subject, the singular construction proceeds in agreement with Θρασύβουλος alone, as the chief spirit in whom the doings of the rest are summed up. Cf. c. 63, § 1, οἱ ἐν τῇ Μιλήτῳ καὶ ὁ Ἀστύοχος πυθόμενος . . . τὸν Στρομβιχίδην καὶ τὰς ναῦς ἀπεληλυθότα ἐθάρσησε.

τῆς αὐτῆς sc. as that stated in c. 76, § 7. For the phrase cf. i. 140, τῆς μὲν γνώμης αἰεὶ τῆς αὐτῆς ἔχομαι μὴ εἴκειν Πελοποννησίοις.

ἐπειδὴ μετέστησε κ.τ.λ. ‘after he had effected the revolution’ (to democracy).

ὥστε see on δόξαν ὥστε, c. 79, § 1.

ἐπ᾽ ἐκκλησίας a phrase not elsewhere found in the classical period, though it occurs in later Greek. It is analogous to the genitive with ἐπὶ (= coram) in e.g. ἐπὶ μαρτύρων, ἐπὶ πάντων (ἐξελέγχειν) etc., or to that in the sense ‘on the occasion of’; v. Lidd. and Scott, ἐπὶ A. III. 3.

αὐτοῖς instead of σφίσι. Cf. c. 76, § 3, αὐτῶν ἀφέστηκε.

μεταστήσειεν sc. ὁ Ἀλκιβιάδης. The optat. is used rather than μεταστήσει, the notion being ‘thinking their only safety lay in the chance of Alcibiades making Tissaphernes change sides from the Peloponnesians to them.’