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

τάδε what follows. μέγιστα ἐπικομπῶν. μέγιστα is predicative: ‘boastfully exaggerating them to the utmost.’ Otherwise ‘making very great boasts about the matter,’ the two words standing more by themselves.

ἐξαργυρῶσαι Cf. Hdt. vi. 86, ἔδοξέ μοι τὰ ἡμίσεα πάσης τῆς οὐσίης ἐξαργυρώσαντα θέσθαι παρὰ σέ; Dem. De Pac. 59, τὴν οὐσίαν ἐξαργυρίσας. For the notion cf. Xen. Hell. i. 5, 3, ἐὰν δὲ καὶ ταῦτα (ἐκλίπῃ) καὶ τὸν θρόνον κατακόψειν ἐφ᾽ οὗ ἐκάθητο, ὄντα ἀργυροῦν καὶ χρυσοῦν. Our expression ‘to sell his shirt off his back’ is paralleled in Xen. Anab. vii. 5, 5.

ἐν Ἀσπένδῳ on the Eurymedon in Pamphylia. The town itself was about seven miles from the mouth of the river.

καὶ οὐ Πελοποννησίοις. οὐ though following ἦ μὴν, is the proper negative, being joined to one word in emphatic antithesis to a preceding positive (κομιεῖν τε᾽ Ἀθηναίοις).

εἰ σῶς αὐτὸς κατελθὼν αὐτῷ ἀναδέξαιτο ‘if he himself (Alc.), being safely restored, were to become surety to him (Tissaphernes).’ This reading best reconciles the discrepancies of MSS., and makes an entirely satisfactory sense. σῶς is a word of Thucydides (iii. 34).

ἀναδέξασθαι is a legal term of ‘going bail,’ Theophr. Char. xxvi. (quoted by P-S). The dat. commodi αὐτῷ is obviously natural, and is paralleled by Polyb. xi. 25, 9. αὐτοῖς of several good MSS. could only be unsatisfactorily taken as ethic dat. with κατελθὼν. If αὐτοῖς as a variant on αὐτῷ has any significance, it may point to αὐτοὺς, ἀναδέξασθαί τινα being Greek for ‘to go bail for’ a person. Cf. Polyb. v. 16, 8. Probably, however, it is merely a mistaken emendation.