T's Melian Dialogue and Sicilian Expedition

THUCYDIDES’S
M ELI A N
DI A LO GU E
and SIC ILI A N
E X PEDITION
A Student Commentary
M A RT H A C . TAY L OR
THUCY DIDES’S
MELI A N DI A LOGUE
and SICILI A N EXPEDITION
Oklahoma Series in Classical Culture

Oklahoma Series in Classical Culture
series editor
Ellen Greene, University of Oklahoma
advisory board
Ronnie Ancona, Hunter College and CUNY Graduate Center
Carolyn J. Dewald, Bard College
Nancy Felson, University of Georgia
Helene P. Foley, Barnard College
Thomas R. Martin, College of the Holy Cross
John F. Miller, University of Virginia
Richard F. Thomas, Harvard University
THUCYDIDES’S
MELIAN DIALOGUE
and SICILIAN EXPEDITION
A Student Commentary
MARTHA C. TAYLOR
university of oklahoma press : norman

The author gratefully acknowledges subvention grants from the
Dean and Associate Dean of Loyola College of Arts and Sciences and
from the Center for the Humanities of Loyola University Maryland
that made the publication of this commentary possible.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Taylor, Martha C. (Martha Caroline), author.
Title: Thucydides's Melian dialogue and Sicilian expedition : a student commentary /
Martha C. Taylor.
Other titles: Oklahoma series in classical culture ; v. 57.
Description: Norman : University of Oklahoma Press, 2018. | Series: Oklahoma series in
classical culture ; volume 57 | Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018023676 | ISBN 978-0-8061-6194-5 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War.
Classification: LCC DF229.T6 T395 2018 | DDC 938/.05—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018023676
Thucydides’s Melian Dialogue and Sicilian Expedition: A Student Commentary

is Volume 57 in the Oklahoma Series in Classical Culture.
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the
Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library
Resources, Inc. ∞
Copyright © 2019 by the University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Publishing Division of

the University. Manufactured in the U.S.A.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a

retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise—except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of
the United States Copyright Act—without the prior written permission of the University
of Oklahoma Press. To request permission to reproduce selections from this book, write
to Permissions, University of Oklahoma Press, 2800 Venture Drive, Norman, OK 73069,
or email rights.oupress@ou.edu.
For James, Nicholas, and Mike
Contents
List of Maps • xiii

Preface • xv
Abbreviations • xix
Introduction • 3
1 Thucydides and His History • 3
1.1 Thucydides the Man • 3
1.2 Predecessors • 6
1.3 Methodology • 6
1.4 Speeches • 7
1.5 The “Composition Question” • 9
1.6 Thucydides’s Dating System • 10
2 Thucydides’s Language and Style • 11
2.1 Difficulty • 11
2.2 Dialect and Spelling • 12
2.3 Style • 12
3 The Course of the Peloponnesian War
until Winter 416–415 • 18
3.1 The General Background • 18
viii Contents
3.2 Athens and Sicily before the War • 21

3.3 The Archidamian War I • 23
3.4 The Archidamian War II • 25
3.5 The Archidamian War III • 27
3.6 The Peace of Nikias • 28
4 Athenian Democracy and Thucydides’s
Presentation of the Boule • 30
5 Democracy in Syracuse • 31
6 Major Themes in the Sicilian Expedition • 33
6.1 The Near and the Far • 33
6.2 Xyngeneia and Sicilian Unity • 34
6.3 Public/Private • 35
6.4 Reverse Echoes of the Persian Wars • 36
6.5 The Transformation of the Athenians • 37
6.6 The City Theme and the Definition of Athens • 38
after the Sicilian Expedition • 39
7.1 The Initial Response to Sicily • 39
7.2 The Oligarchy of the Four Hundred • 40
7.3 Alkibiades Again • 41
7.4 Arginousai • 41
7.5 Aigospotamoi • 42
Commentary on Thucydides’s Melian Dialogue

and Aftermath (5.84–5.116) • 48
Alkibiades and Argive Hostages (5.84.1a), “Summer” 416 • 48
The Melian Dialogue (5.84.1b–5.114), “Summer” 416 • 49
The Argives Invade Phlious (5.115.1) • 78
An Athenian Raid on Pylos and Results (5.115.2–5.115.3) • 78
The Melians Counterattack (5.115.4) • 78
The Lakedaimonians Plan to Invade Argos (5.116.1),
“Winter” 416–415 • 79
The End of Melos (5.116.2–5.116.4) • 80
Contents ix
Commentary on Thucydides’s Sicilian Expedition,

Book 6 • 81
Athens Turns to Sicily (6.1.1–6.7.1a), “Winter” 416–415 • 81
Lakedaimon Invades Argos (6.7.1b) • 94
Reaction in Athens and Argos (6.7.2) • 94
Athenian Skirmishes in Makedonia (6.7.3–6.7.4) • 95
Athenian Assemblies (6.8–6.26), “Summer” 415 • 96
The Mutilation of the Herms and the
Profanation of the Mysteries, Pt. 1 (6.27–6.29) • 146
The Launching of the Expedition (6.30–6.32.2) • 151
The Debate at Syracuse (6.32.3–6.41) • 161
The Athenian Preparations in Kerkyra (6.42) • 177
The Athenians Sail for Rhegion (6.43–6.44) • 177
Reactions at Syracuse (6.45) • 179
The Egestaian Deception and the Council of
Athenian Generals (6.46–6.50.1a) • 179
Alkibiades at Messana (6.50.1b) • 184
Unproductive Athenian Voyaging
(Naxos, Katane, Syracuse) (6.50.2–6.52) • 184
Profanation of the Mysteries, Pt. 2 (6.53–6.61) • 187
The Athenians Sail to Various Cities (6.62) • 201
Athenian Victory at Syracuse (6.63–6.72.1a),
“Winter” 415–414 • 203
The Aftermath of Battle and Preparations
on Both Sides (6.72.1b–6.73) • 214
The Athenians at Katane, Messana, and Naxos (6.74) • 216
Syracusan Activities, Conference at Kamarina
(6.75–6.88.2a) • 217
Athenian Preparations for War in Spring
(6.88.2b–6.88.6) • 237
The Conference at Sparta (6.88.7–6.93.3) • 238
Athenian Activity in Sicily (6.94), “Summer” 414 • 248
Activity in Argos and Lakedaimon (6.95.1) • 249
x Contents
Activity in Thespiai (6.95.2) • 249

Seige Operations at Syracuse (6.96–6.103) • 250
The Coming of Gylippos (6.104) • 260
Activity in the Peloponnesos (6.105) • 261
Commentary on Thucydides’s Sicilian Expedition,

Book 7 • 263
The Arrival of Gylippos (7.1–7.2), “Summer” 414 • 263
The Response of the Athenians (7.3) • 268
Syracusan Wall-Building (7.4.1–7.4.3) • 269
Nikias Fortifies Plemmyrion (7.4.4–7.4.7) • 270
Gylippos Wins the “Race of Walls” (7.5–7.6) • 272
Syracusan Reinforcements and Practice (7.7) • 275
Nikias Writes a Letter (7.8) • 275
Actions in Thrace (7.9) • 276
Nikias’s Letter and Athenian Reactions (7.10–7.17),
“Winter” 414–413 • 277
Spartan Preparations for Invasion (7.18) • 285
The Fortification of Dekeleia (7.19.1–7.19.3a),
“Summer” 413 • 288
Lakedaimonian and Other Reinforcements to Sicily
(7.19.3b–7.19.5) • 290
The Athenians Send Demosthenes to Sicily (7.20) • 291
The First Naval Battles and the Fall of Plemmyrion
(7.21–7.24) • 292
Aftereffects of Battle; Naval Skirmishing in Sicily (7.25) • 296
Demosthenes on His Way to Sicily (7.26) • 298
Thracians, Dekeleia, Mykalessos, and the
Value of Attica (7.27–7.30) • 300
Demosthenes Continues His Voyage (7.31) • 311
Sikel Ambush of Reinforcements for Syracuse (7.32) • 313
Reinforcements for Syracuse (7.33.1–7.33.2) • 314
Demosthenes Continues His Voyage (7.33.3–7.33.6) • 314
Contents xi
Naval Battle at Naupaktos (7.34) • 315

Demosthenes and Eurymedon in South Italy (7.35) • 319
Syracusan Naval Victory (7.36–7.41) • 320
Arrival of Demosthenes and Night Attack
on Epipolai (7.42–7.45) • 329
Syracusan Actions after Their Victory (7.46) • 340
The Conference of the Generals (7.47–7.49) • 340
Gylippos Arrives with Reinforcements (7.50.1–7.50.2) • 349
The Athenians Delay Retreat and the Syracusans
Win Again at Sea (7.50.3–7.54) • 350
Syracusan and Athenian Morale; Syracusan Plans
to Close the Harbor (7.55–7.56.3) • 356
The Great Catalogue of Allies (7.56.4–7.59.1) • 358
Preparations for the Great Battle (7.59.2–7.71) • 365
The Athenians Retreat and Are Captured (7.72–7.87) • 389
The Response in Athens (8.1) • 416
Appendix: Commentary on the Epitaph of Perikles

(2.65.5–2.65.13) • 421
Sources for Student Work • 433
Bibliography • 443
Index • 453
Maps
Map 1. Greece and the Aegean • 45

Map 2. Sicily and South Italy • 46
Map 3. The Environs of Syracuse • 47
xiii
Preface
Th is volume is designed for beginning readers of Thucydides who need

more help with grammar and syntax than that provided in the scholarly
commentaries of Gomme, Andrewes, and Dover (HCT), Hornblower, or
even in Dover’s school commentaries from 1965. Today’s students start
Greek later than ever and so find themselves reading difficult texts with
less preparation than in the past; consequently, they need more help than
in the past.
My debt to Hornblower and to Gomme, Andrewes, and Dover is apparent
everywhere. I have combined a selection of their insights with my own
remarks and detailed grammatical help to provide a resource for begin-
ning readers that I hope will allow them to appreciate the full grandeur of
Thucydides’s work. In choosing between giving too much or too little help,
I have chosen to err on the side of the former. In addition, because different
classes will read different sections of Thucydides’s narrative of the Sicilian
expedition, I have also repeated myself freely in the commentary. Some
students will want to learn more than I can tell them here about Greek
grammar. It is for them that I add the references to Smyth in the hopes that
some students, at least, will get used to consulting that volume.
In addition to grammatical help, this volume provides commentary on the
historical and literary issues that make reading Thucydides so interesting and
xv
xvi Preface
rewarding. The text covered is that of the Melian Dialogue and its aftermath,
the essential “prelude” to Sicily (Wasserman 1947, 30), which explores many
themes important to Thucydides’s presentation of the Sicilian expedition,
as well as his narrative of the Sicilian expedition itself, which spans books
6 and 7 in their entirety together with the first chapter of book 8, which
details the reaction in Athens to the defeat of the expedition. An appendix
provides commentary on Thucydides’s judgment on the Sicilian expedition
(and the reasons why Athens lost the war) in the earlier “epitaph” of Perikles
(2.65.5–13). Three maps cover the mainland of Greece and the Aegean, Sicily
and South Italy, and the environs of Syracuse.
Although I refer in the commentary to the standard chapter divisions
of Thucydides’s text, for the demarcation of narrative units I have followed
Carolyn Dewald’s (2005) analysis of the text. Her divisions sometimes
break within the traditional chapters and sometimes even within those
chapters’ subdivisions. Occasionally I have subdivided Dewald’s units for
ease of description, not because I disagree with her analysis. Translations
are my own unless otherwise noted.
The commentary is meant to be used with the Oxford Classical Text
(OCT) of Henry Stuart Jones, which is available online at the Perseus
project (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3atex
t%3a1999.01.0199) and in an easily downloadable form at “Ancient Greek
Texts” (https://www.mikrosapoplous.gr/en/texts1en.htm). Links to these
sites can be found on my book’s website at oupress.com. Students who use
the Greek text on Perseus rather than downloading and printing out the
OCT text available at “Ancient Greek Texts” should be aware that in the
Greek text on Perseus, Greek half stops (·) are represented as colons (:).
Students who use Perseus should also take care with the vocabulary links
on the site. If using the links at all, they should always “click” on the actual
dictionary entry for the word in question and not simply accept the first
translation that is presented, since these are often incorrect for the passage
in question. I would recommend eschewing the vocabulary links altogether.
There is much value in flipping through a paper dictionary.
The notes assume little to no knowledge of Greek history, Athenian poli-
tics, or the course of the Peloponnesian War before the Sicilian expedition.
Preface xvii
They frequently direct the reader to the introduction, which includes key
information on Thucydides, his style, the course of the war before and after
the Sicilian expedition, the Athenians’ earlier interventions in Sicily, and
the major themes of Thucydides’s narrative of the Sicilian expedition. The
bibliographical sketch should help students find sources for further work
on the issues raised by Thucydides’s text.
I thank the Research and Sabbatical Committee, the vice president for
academic affairs, and the Center for the Humanities of Loyola University
Maryland, as well as the dean and associate dean of Loyola College of Arts
and Sciences for sabbatical leaves, summer research grants, and subvention
grants that made the writing and publication of this commentary possible. I
owe a great debt to the readers of the manuscript for Oklahoma University
Press who made numerous suggestions that improved the commentary
immeasurably. I also thank Richard Hamilton and Carolyn Dewald for
stimulating classes on Thucydides at Bryn Mawr College and Stanford
University. Katherine Brennan, Christine De Vinne, Virginia De Vinne,
Kathy Forni, Janet Headley, Gayla McGlamery, James Rives, and Joe Walsh
were generous with essential encouragement as I went about the task. The
dedication reflects the debt I owe my husband and sons.
Abbreviations
Unless otherwise specified, references to commentaries are to the entry

for the passage in question.
Classen-Steup J. Classen and J. Steup, eds. Thukydides. Vols. 6 and 7.

Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1905–1908.
Crawley R. Strassler, ed. The Landmark Thucydides. Translated
by R. Crawley. New York: Free Press, 1996.
Denniston GP J. D. Denniston. The Greek Particles. 2nd ed. Revised by
K. J. Dover. London: Duckworth, 1950.
Denniston GPS J. D. Denniston. Greek Prose Style. Oxford: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1952.
Dover K. J. Dover. Thucydides: Book VI. Oxford: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 1965; or Thucydides: Book VII. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1965.
Goodwin W. W. Goodwin. Syntax of the Moods and Tenses of the
Greek Verb. 7th ed. Boston: Ginn and Heath, 1879. Num-
bers refer to entries, not pages.
Graves C. E. Graves. The Fifth Book of Thucydides. London:
Macmillan and Co., 1891.
xix
xx Abbreviations
HCT A. W. Gomme, A. Andrewes, and K. J. Dover, eds. A

Historical Commentary on Thucydides. 5 vols. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1945–1981.
Hornblower S. Hornblower. A Commentary on Thucydides. 3 vols.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991–2008.
IG I D. Lewis, ed. Incriptiones Graecae. 3rd ed. Berlin: De
3
Gruyter, 1991.
Lamberton W. A. Lamberton. The Sixth and Seventh Books of
Thucydides. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1886.
Lattimore Thucydides. The Peloponnesian War. Translated by S.
Lattimore. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1998.
LSJ H. G. Liddell, R. Scott, H. S. Jones, and R. McKenzie,
eds. A Greek English Lexicon. 9th ed., with supplement.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968.
Marchant E. C. Marchant. Thucydides: Book VI. London: Macmillan,
1897; or Thucydides: Book VII. London: Macmillan, 1993.
Nagy B. Nagy. Thucydides Reader. Newburyport, MA: Focus
Publishing, 2005.
OCD S. Hornblower and A. Spawforth, eds. The Oxford Classical
Dictionary. 4th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
OCT H. S. Jones and J. E. Powell, eds. Thucydidis Historiae. 2
vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1942.
Poppo-Stahl E. F. Poppo, ed. Thucydidis de bello peloponnesiaco libri
octo. Vol. 3. Revised by J. M. Stahl. Leipzig: Teubner, 1889.
Sm. Herbert Weir Smyth. Greek Grammar. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1956. Numbers refer to entries,
not pages.
Smith C. F. Smith. Commentary on Thucydides: Book 6. Boston:
Ginn and Co., 1913; or Commentary on Thucydides: Book 7.
Boston: Ginn and Co., 1886.
Spratt A. W. Spratt. Thucydides: Book 6. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1905.
THUCY DIDES’S
MELI A N DI A LOGUE
and SICILI A N EXPEDITION
Introduction
1 Thucydides and His History
1.1 Thucydides the Man

We know very little about “Thucydides the Athenian” (1.1) except for what
he tells us in his text. He was probably born around 460–455 because he
says that he lived through the whole Peloponnesian War “when I was at a
time of life to comprehend and turned my attention towards it, in order to
know with some exactness” (5.26.5). This comment suggests that he was old
enough to make sound judgments even at the beginning of the war, in 431,
and so suggests that he was a young man then (although it might just mean
that he was still young enough to make sound judgments even twenty-seven
years later at the end of the war in 404). Thucydides was probably born by
454 because he served as a general of Athens in 424 (4.104.4), and generals in
Athens probably had to be at least thirty years of age. If he served as general
in the first year in which he was eligible (which, however, we have no reason
to assume), this would make him twenty-four at the outbreak of war.1
1. Although this might not sound particularly young, Thucydides calls Alkibiades “a man at
that time still young in years for any other city” (5.43.2) in 420–19 when he was thirty. For
Alkibiades and Thucydides, see Davies (1971, #600 and #7268.IV, respectively).
3
4 Thucydides's Melian Dialogue and Sicilian Expedition
When Thucydides reports his activities as general in Thrace (which he

does in the third person, referring to himself as “Thucydides”), he tells us
that his father, named Oloros, controlled the gold-mining rights in the part
of Thrace near Thasos and therefore had influence with the leading men
on the mainland there (4.104–5). From this we know that Thucydides was
wealthy and probably linked to Thrace by family ties. Herodotus (6.41.2)
reveals that Oloros was a Thracian royal name. Perhaps Thucydides’s father
was the son of a daughter of a Thracian king named Oloros. It is likely that
Thucydides was chosen for his mission because of his influence in Thrace.2
Marcellinus, the sixth-century a.d. author of the “Life” of Thucydides,
notes that Thucydides was buried in the family plot of Kimon, and Herodotus
reports that Kimon was the grandson of Oloros the king of Thrace—strongly
suggesting a blood tie between Thucydides and Kimon (the tie is “almost
certain” according to Wade-Gery in the OCD). The connection to Kimon
and to Thracian royalty marks Thucydides out as an aristocrat and links
him to one of the greatest families of Athens. Kimon’s father, Miltiades, was
the victor of Marathon (490), and Kimon himself was the victor over the
Persians at the battle of Eurymedon that brought far-flung eastern places
into the Athenian Empire (ca. 466). Kimon was also a proponent of both
moderate democracy in Athens and alliance and friendship with Sparta.
When his mission to Sparta to give aid to the helot revolt there was rudely
rebuffed (probably in 462), Athens turned away from Sparta and moved
toward more radical democracy (1.102). If Thucydides was related to Kimon,
these events might have colored his politics.3
During Thucydides’s generalship in 424, he failed to prevent the capture of
the important Athenian colony of Amphipolis by the Spartan general Brasidas
(4.104–6; see below 3.5). Because of this, he was exiled from Athens. (In all
likelihood, he did not return to Athens after his command and was exiled
in absentia.) He was free to return only twenty years later under the treaty
2. See Sears’s (2013) work for the claim that certain Athenian “Thrace-haunters” built up
expertise in the area (and with the light-armed troop tactics that service there involved)
through repeated commands.
3. Thucydides may also have been related to Thoukydides the son of Melesias, a conserva-
tive opponent of Perikles (see Davies [1971, #7268]), and to the Athenian trainer-athlete
Melesias, whom Pindar mentions in several odes, if that trainer and the father of the
politician are the same man. See Hornblower (2004, 53).
Introduction 5
that ended the war and specified the return of exiles (Xenophon, Hellenika
2.2.20). Although we know from his so-called second preface (5.26.5) that he
lived to see the end of the war, we do not know if he ever returned to Athens.
Thucydides’s exile and consequent separation from public life will have
given him the leisure time to write. Furthermore, his exile status allowed
him to travel and interview people who would have been unavailable to him
had he remained in Athens. As he says, “because I was present at the events
of both sides, and not less at those of the Peloponnesians because of my exile,
and being at leisure, I understood these all the more” (5.26.5). Thucydides
refers to accuracy in this part of his second preface (ἀκριβές τι), and so “I
understood these all the more” may simply mean “more accurately.” It might
also indicate that he came to better understand Peloponnesian attitudes. On
the other hand, although his exile had benefits, Thucydides was no longer
able to be present in Athens and so missed key events there. For example,
he could not have been present in the assembly for the debate over the
Sicilian expedition (6.8–26) and so was forced to write that up based solely
on the accounts of informants. We do not know exactly where Thucydides
spent his exile. Stroud (1994) makes a strong case that Thucydides’s detailed
knowledge of Korinth comes from visits there. He need not, however, have
been long a “resident,” as Stroud (1994, 302) claims.
Although Thucydides reports that he lived through the whole war
“until the Lakedaimonians and their allies put an end to the empire of the
Athenians and captured the long walls and the Peiraieus” (5.26.1), the text
of his history breaks off in the middle of a sentence in the narrative of the
summer of 411. Probably he died before he could finish his massive work;
we have no idea how he died. If the Lichas son of Arkesilas whose death
Thucydides mentions (8.84.5) is the same man attested as archon in Thasos
in 398/97, that would show that Thucydides lived at least until that year, but
“absolute identity is not certain” (Hornblower 3:995).4 Thucydides does not
show knowledge of the revival of Athenian sea power in the fourth century,
and most scholars think he lived only a few years into the new century.
4. Thucydides does not mention an eruption of Mt. Aetna in 396 when discussing eruptions
of that volcano in a seemingly comprehensive way (3.116), and some scholars have taken
this to indicate that he was dead by 396, but it might mean only that Thucydides did not
revise that section of his work before he died.
We do not know how Thucydides’s work came to be published. It is likely

that he gave oral performances at symposia of sections of the work while
he was writing it, but if he died before it was finished, presumably an editor
published the whole. Xenophon’s Hellenika picks up the narrative of the
war where Thucydides leaves off. Theopompos and Kratippos also wrote
fragmentary continuations.
1.2 Predecessors
Thucydides’s immediate predecessor is Herodotus, who wrote a prose
account of the Persian Wars. At least portions of this work seem to have
been available in some form by 425 if (as it seems) Aristophanes parodies
the beginning sections (1.1–5) in his Acharnians (515–29) of that year. The
last dated events in Herodotus belong to 431 and 430, suggesting he had
finished his text soon after that (cf. Stadter 2012, 42–43).
Thucydides seems to have been very familiar with Herodotus’s whole
work, since many sections of Thucydides’s text make clear allusions to it.
Thucydides also expects his readers to be familiar with Herodotus. As Simon
Hornblower remarks (2:123), there are sections of Thucydides’s work that
“would be barely intelligible, or actually unintelligible, to a reader who did
not know Herodotus very well.” Thucydides’s text is more focused than
Herodotus’s, however, and is less dependent on the geographic tradition of
prose writing in which the land and interesting aspects of its flora, fauna,
architecture, and people are a major focus. Thucydides’s text, therefore, does
not include many marvels, such as Herodotus’s gold-mining “ants” (3.102), or
folksy stories seemingly told for their own sake. Because of this, Thucydides
writes that his work may “seem less pleasurable for hearing” because of “the
absence of τὸ μυθῶδες” (1.22.4). What it will include, however, is “the truth
about the past” (τῶν τε γενομένων τὸ σαφές). Unlike past “prose writers,”
who “composed more to be attractive to the ear than to be true,” Thucydides
offers accuracy based on “the clearest possible evidence” (1.21.1).
1.3 Methodology
In a paragraph on his methodology (1.22), Thucydides divides his subject
matter into “what was said both before and during the war” and “the actions
Introduction 7
of the war.” He reveals that he was present at some of the speeches he reports,
but for others (those in Athens after his exile, for example), he relied on
unnamed informants (1.22.1). He says about the actions of the war that “I
considered it my responsibility to write neither as I learned from the chance
informant nor according to my own opinion, but after examining what I
witnessed myself and what I learned from others, with the utmost possible
accuracy in each case” (1.22.2; trans. Lattimore). Doing this required “great
effort, because eyewitnesses did not report the same specific events in the
same way, but according to individual partisanship or ability to remember”
(1.22.3; trans. Lattimore).
Thucydides, that is, has worked hard to gather and sift evidence, to evalu-
ate it and his informants carefully, and to judge between rival accounts.
He almost never demonstrates this process to his readers, however. He
offers us the results of his hard work but almost never presents competing
accounts or explanations for why he thinks one version more likely than
the other.5 It is hard, therefore, to disagree with Thucydides’s interpretation
of things. He rarely offers his own opinion overtly, in the first person, in a
“narrator intervention.” For this reason, his history can appear supremely
“objective,” a “just the facts” approach. But as Thomas Hobbes (1962, xxii,
who published a translation of Thucydides in 1629) noted long ago, “the
narration itself doth secretly instruct the reader, and more effectually than
can possibly be done by precept.”
1.4 Speeches
Like Herodotus and Homer before him, Thucydides gives to the characters
in his work speeches in direct and indirect discourse. Of these speeches,
Thucydides writes that “it was hard to recall the exact words of what was
said” both for him and for his informants. He therefore composed the
speeches “in the way I thought each would have said what was especially
required in the given situation . . . with the closest possible fidelity on my
5. The long account of the tyrannicides (6.54–59) is an exciting exception where Thucydides
takes issue with the false patriotic story about Harmodios and Aristogeiton and dem-
onstrates by reference to inscriptions and other evidence how someone interested in τὸ
σαφές ought to go about figuring it out (cf. Meyer 2008).
part to the overall sense of what was actually said” (1.22.1; trans. Lattimore
adapted). It is hard to reconcile the two main claims in these lines.
On the one hand, Thucydides is clearly composing the speeches himself
according to rhetorical necessity (see Macleod 1983, 52) and his own idea
of what a particular individual at a particular time in front of a particular
audience must have said. The speeches represent what Jonathan Price (2013,
436) describes as “the psychological make-up and ideological outlook of
each speaker in his particular circumstances (as Thucydides understood
them).” On the other hand, Thucydides claims to know the “overall sense
of what was actually said” for each speech and to have kept as close as pos-
sible to it when composing (ἐγγύτατα τῆς ξυμπάσης γνώμης τῶν ἀληθῶς
λεχθέντων). The second part of the sentence seems to preclude the argu-
ment that Thucydides sometimes simply made speeches up entirely out of
whole cloth.6 The first part of the sentence, however, seems to refute the
argument that Thucydides had written notes of the speeches he presents
(as Munn 2000, 306 has proposed).
His practice was probably somewhere in the middle, and different for dif-
ferent speeches. We should feel more confident about Thucydides’s account
of a speech he heard himself than of one he knows about only at second
or third hand (but he does not tell us which ones are which; we have to
figure that out for ourselves, to the extent that we can). Furthermore, his
presentation is probably more accurate for speeches that would have made
a powerful impression on those who heard them—like Perikles’s Funeral
Oration—and that had a large audience, for the simple reason that these fac-
tors would produce many good sources. One feels less confident, however,
about speeches like the Melian Dialogue (5.85–112, where Thucydides’s only
likely sources were the few unnamed Athenian speakers because most of
the Melians were killed); or the speech of the Plataians upon their surrender
(3.53–59, where the only possible sources were the Theban speakers and
the few Spartan judges because all the Plataians were killed); or the various
6. Contrast Yunis’s study, which calls Thucydides’s speeches “fictitious” and suggests that
“sometimes . . . Thucydides presents a speech that was never delivered in any form” (1996,
62n9 and 63).
Introduction 9
prebattle exhortations in Sicily (where the only possible sources were the
survivors of the battles). Did Thucydides really seek out these people or
those who had spoken to them? If he did, and was able to do so quickly, he
might have gotten a reasonably accurate account, at least for parts of some
speeches. Thucydides never tells us who his sources were, but if we are to
believe what he says in 1.22 about his quest for τὸ σαφές, he would have
sought out the best informants he could find for every speech in his work.
1.5 The “Composition Question”

Passages of Thucydides’s text echo and evoke other passages in his work, so
that it is impossible to proceed through the narrative without being repeat-
edly reminded of earlier passages and thereby invited to confirm or revise
judgments those earlier passages had suggested. As Friedrich Nietzsche
(1998, 77) says, Thucydides “needs to be turned over line by line and his
hidden thoughts read as clearly as his words: there are few poets so rich in
hidden thoughts.” Reading Thucydides requires reading “slowly, deeply,
looking cautiously before and aft,” looking for echoes and resonances,
“dramatic juxtapositions,” internal allusions, and ironic commentary.7 Such
a reading assumes that although he did not finish it, Thucydides had carefully
revised much, if not most, of his work after the war to represent the events
of the whole war and the judgments he had reached at its conclusion, and
that the text is, therefore, a unity.
Through at least the midpoint of the twentieth century, however,
Thucydidean scholars spilled much ink on the “composition question,”
which hoped to discover when different sections of the text were written.
Even the authors of the last volume of the magisterial Historical Commentary
on Thucydides (HCT) from 1981 did not consider the text as an artistic unity
and in multiple places labored to determine whether individual sections or
passages were written early or late in Thucydides’s long period of writing.
The determination of the time of composition of a passage seemed especially
7. Nietzsche makes these comments about reading in the fifth section of the preface to Day-
break (1982). Connor uses the phrase “dramatic juxtaposition” to describe Thucydides’s
placement of the plague narrative immediately after the Funeral Oration (1984, 64). J.
Finley speaks of the “internal allusiveness” of Thucydides’s text (1967, xii).
important for Thucydides’s text because it is unfinished, and so one can

never know that a given passage represents Thucydides’s final thoughts
on a matter that would have survived Thucydides’s final revision. With the
publication of Robert Conner’s book on Thucydides in 1984, however, this
approach to Thucydides fell out of fashion, and scholars today generally
recognize the “tightness of texture” of the work (J. Finley 1967, xii).8 For
example, neither Brill’s 2006 Companion to Thucydides nor the 2017 Oxford
Handbook address the composition question. In any case, Thucydides’s
narrative about the Sicilian expedition in books 6 and 7 has always been
recognized as one of the most highly polished sections of the work. Nev-
ertheless, the composition question does relate to our understanding of
Thucydides’s ultimate judgment on the Sicilian expedition (2.65.10–13;
see appendix).
1.6 Thucydides’s Dating System

Thucydides’s year is divided into two unequal parts—θέρος, or “summer,”
and χειμών, or “winter.” This is probably because Thucydides wanted to
indicate “the military conditions” of given events (i.e., was it stormy, was
there water in the riverbeds, etc.; see Gomme in HCT 2:389). θέρος (which
also includes both our “spring” and “fall”) normally runs from about early
to mid-March until the end of October; χειμών runs from early November
to the following spring. Because there was no common Greek calendar,
Thucydides uses seasons rather than the calendar of any given city to make
his account more generally accessible. Philip Stadter notes that Herodotus
uses the seasons as dating markers for the two years of Xerxes’s expedition
(2012, 44). Thucydides, Stadter (45) goes on, took over Herodotus’s proce-
dure but made the notices “formal and regular, establishing an unmistakably
clear chronological framework.” Thucydides thus marks the beginning
and end of the seasons and formally marks the end of each year of the war.
Because Thucydides’s new year begins with the beginning of his “summer”
and runs until the end of the following “winter,” his year spans portions of
two of our years. For example, we must call his sixteenth year of the war
8. See also the entry “Thucydides” in the 4th edition of the OCD.
Introduction 11
(the year in which the Athenians turned to Sicily) “416/415 b.c.” because it
runs from March 416 to February 415. (See HCT 4:18–23; HCT 3, appendix;
and HCT 5:147–49 for Thucydides’s dating system.)
2 Thucydides’s Language and Style

2.1 Difficulty
Thucydides is hard. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, a literary critic of the
Augustan period, warns that “easily counted are the few who are capable of
understanding the whole of Thucydides, and not even these can understand
some <of the passages> without recourse to a grammatical commentary”
(On Thucydides 51; trans. Pritchett). Marcellinus claims that “his obscurity
is deliberate; he did not wish to be accessible to all or to cheapen himself by
being easily understood by all and sundry” (Russell 1981, 197–98). The most
recent scholarly commentator on Thucydides, Simon Hornblower, argues
that at least some of Thucydides’s obscurity is deliberate ambiguity—or
“polyinterpretability”—especially about controversial and potentially dan-
gerous political questions (see his commentary on 8.97.2 at Hornblower
3:1036; see also commentary on 6.86.2 and 7.86.5 at Hornblower 3:505–6
and 741).
Not all of Thucydides is difficult. There are passages of the narrative in
which he employs a simple paratactic style characterized by a series of short
clauses (without subordinated temporal, relative, or other clauses) linked
together with καί. Even in the narrative, however, he can also employ a
highly complex style characterized by use of the connective particle δέ and
“significantly more participles, more infinitives, and more subordinated
clauses” (Allan 2007, 97). And the speeches present particular difficulties
and obscurities. (Cicero said they contained “so many dark and obscure
sentences as to be scarcely intelligible”; see his Orator 9.30; trans. Hubbell.)
The great British historian Thomas Macauley remarked that the contrast
between passages “give[s] to the whole book something of the grotesque
character of those Chinese pleasure-grounds, in which perpendicular rocks
of granite start up in the midst of a soft green plain” (1828, 339).
It is possible to classify the most common peculiarities of Thucydides.
Some familiarity with them should help you avoid knocking yourselves out
on the rocks in the text and allow you, instead, to appreciate (and not just
curse) the rigor and beauty of Thucydides’s language and thought.
2.2 Dialect and Spelling

Thucydides uses the standard Attic dialect, except for a few differences in
spelling that he shares with Ionic.
He uses ἤν instead of ἐάν.

He uses -ρσ- instead of -ρρ- (e.g. θάρσος instead of θάρρος, Sm. 79)
and -σσ- instead of -ττ- (e.g. θάλασσα instead of θάλαττα, Sm. 78).
He uses ξύν instead of σύν, both as a preposition and as a prefix in
compound verbs.
He uses ἐς instead of εἰς and αἰεί instead of ἀεί.
2.3 Style
2.3.1 Abstract nouns
Thucydides is very fond of abstract nouns, especially ones ending in -σις
and -μα. For example, he writes the following about the aftermath of a naval
battle: διά τε τὴν τοῦ ἀνέμου ἄπωσιν αὐτῶν ἐς τὸ πέλαγος καὶ διὰ τὴν τῶν
Κορινθίων οὐκέτι ἐπαναγωγήν . . . δίωξις οὐδεμία ἐγένετο (literally, “on
account of the wind’s blowing of them into the open sea and the Korinthi-
ans’ lack of subsequent attack . . . there was no pursuit,” 7.34.6). English
(and other Greek writers) would tend to express this idea with subordinate
clauses and personal finite verbs (“because the wind blew them,” “because
the Korinthians did not attack again,” “they did not pursue”). Thucydides
prefers abstract nouns. He seems to have invented a number of such words.
“Word-coining” was “much in the air” at this time (Denniston GPS, 19), and
June Allison (1997a, 503n11) counts 140 new -σις nouns in Thucydides. This
is not just a verbal tick. According to Eric Handley (1953, 142), such words
were part of the “poetic colour of poetry, or the learned colour of intellectual
discourse,” and Thucydides can use them (and create them) with great art.
At 7.70.3, for example, he employs the phrase ἀντιτέχνησις τῶν κυβερνητῶν
καὶ ἀγωνισμός—“counter-inventiveness by, and competition between, the
steersmen”—to describe the desperate resourcefulness of the participants
in the climactic battle in the harbor at Syracuse. Both nouns appear to
Introduction 13
have been coined by Thucydides in order to underscore the sense of the

passage. He is being clever in his craft to underscore the cleverness of the
combatants (cf. Hornblower 3:696). Long notes that “-sis nouns can express
a highly specialized process or action in quite general terms, unrelated to a
particular time, event or place” (1968, 18). This would be attractive to a writer
attempting to create a work that expressed universal truths for the ages.
2.3.2 Neuter adjectives and participles

Often instead of using an abstract noun, Thucydides will use a neuter adjec-
tive or participle that he turns into a substantive by the addition of the
article. For example, τὸ λυπηρόν for ἡ λύπη, or τὸ θυμούμενον instead of ὁ
θυμός (Sm. 1153b N2). Thucydides will then often add a dependent genitive
or a possessive adjective to a neuter substantive. For example, at 6.16.2, τῷ
ἐμῷ διαπρεπεῖ τῆς Ὀλυμπίαζε θεωρίας, Thucydides takes the adjective
διαπρεπής/ές (“magnificent,” “distinguished”), adds the neuter article to
turn it into a noun (“the magnificence,” “the conspicuous nature”), and
then adds a possessive adjective and genitive phrase to create “because of
the magnificence of my public display at Olympia.”
2.3.3 Qualification of nouns by adverbs and phrases

Thucydides tends to qualify nouns with adverbs or lengthy attributive
phrases. In his account of the conference at Kamarina, for example,
Thucydides’s Hermokrates tells the Kamarinaians that they must choose
between standing up to the Athenians together with Syracuse or “immedi-
ate servitude without danger” (τὴν αὐτίκα ἀκινδύνως δουλείαν), where
instead of using a prepositional phrase, as in the English translation, he
simply adds an adverb to the noun (6.80.5). See also this phrase in that same
speech, περὶ δὲ οἱ μὲν σφίσιν ἀλλὰ μὴ ἐκείνῳ καταδουλώσεως (6.76.4),
which describes Hermokrates’s claim about why the Athenians resisted
the Medes. The core of the phrase is “concerning the enslavement” (περὶ
καταδουλώσεως), but Thucydides adds to that idea “regarding them” (οἱ
μέν), “to themselves” (σφίσιν), and “but not to that one (i.e., Xerxes)” (ἀλλὰ
μὴ ἐκείνῳ). We can translate this as “with regard to the Athenians, for the
sake of the enslavement of the Greeks to them and not to him.”
2.3.4 Adjectives in –τός, –τή, –τόν

and neuter plurals for singular
Thucydides is fond of verbal adjectives ending in –τός, –τή, –τόν (which
can convey the idea of ability; Sm. 472) or -τέος, -τέα, -τέον (which express
necessity; Sm. 473) and has a tendency to use these verbal adjectives imper-
sonally in the plural; for example, βουλευτέα ἐδόκει, “it seemed necessary
to hold a council” (7.60.1; Sm. 1003a, 1052).
2.3.5 Articular infinitives

In the same vein, Thucydides is extremely fond of using elaborate articular
infinitive phrases to which he adds prepositional or subordinate construc-
tions in order to express complex ideas that other authors would convey
with full clauses. (The second sentence of 7.28.3 is a single twelve-line-long
articular infinitive.) For example, in his version of the speech of the Syracusan
generals before the climactic battle in the harbor, Thucydides employs this
articular infinitive: τὸ δὲ πραξάντων ἐκ τοῦ εἰκότος ἃ βουλόμεθα τούσδε τε
κολασθῆναι (7.68.3). The core of the phrase is τὸ . . . τούσδε τε κολασθῆναι,
literally, “the them being punished.” To this Thucydides adds a prepositional
clause, “as is likely” (ἐκ τοῦ εἰκότος); a conditional genitive absolute, “if
they do” (πραξάντων); and a relative clause, “the things which we think”
(ἃ βουλόμεθα). We can translate this as “their being punished as is likely if
both sides do what we think.” There are many such examples from the text.
2.3.6 Antithesis and variatio

The sophist Gorgias, who visited Athens in 427, stressed the importance of
balance and antithesis in rhetoric. Thucydides is also fond of antitheses, but
in Thucydides, the “antitheses are so cut up by constant syntactical variation
that he never allows us the relaxation of seeing a construction move quietly
to a foreseeable end” (Lesky 1966, 480). Thucydides will “balance off one
thing against another” and then “introduce an imbalance by phrasing the
two corresponding parts differently” (Parry 1970, 7).
For example, Thucydides will often balance two compound words, where
one part of the compound stays the same and the other is sharply contrasted.
For example, in his letter home, Nikias makes the following recommenda-
Introduction 15
tion: ἢ τούτους μεταπέμπειν δέον ἢ ἄλλην στρατιὰν μὴ ἐλάσσω ἐπιπέμπειν

καὶ πεζὴν καὶ ναυτικήν—“it is necessary either to recall this army here or
to send another fleet and army no smaller” (7.15). Thucydides seems to have
coined ἐπιπέμπειν specifically to balance μεταπέμπειν. Thucydides uses
many such prepositional compound verbs and seems to have coined a num-
ber of them for the (anti)balancing effects they offer (e.g., παρακελυστούς
and ἀντιπαρακελεύομαι, 6.13.1).
He will avoid repeating the same preposition, and to do so he will use
different prepositions with the same sense (e.g., ἔκ τε τῆς Κερκύρας καὶ
ἀπὸ τῆς ἠπείρου—“from Kerkyra and the mainland,” 7.33.3).
He avoids parallel constructions throughout his work, and you must be
nimble and aware. In describing the deed of the “tyrannicides” Harmodios
and Aristogeiton, for example, Thucydides writes that they fell on Hip-
parchos “in anger, for the one, of an injured lover, for the other, of a man
insulted.” The Greek runs δι’ ὀργῆς ὁ μὲν ἐρωτικῆς, ὁ δὲ ὑβρισμένος,
6.57.3. Here Thucydides sets up an expectation of balance and then refuses
to deliver. We begin with a genitive adjective modifying ὀργῆς referring to
one man (ὁ μὲν ἐροτικῆς) and expect another adjective for the other man
(ὁ δὲ—ῆς). Instead Thucydides gives us a nominative participle modifying
Aristogeiton, the second man. Often, as here, μέν/δέ will link elements of
different grammatical type or shape.
2.3.7 Hyperbaton
Word order in Thucydides is often displaced and surprising. This is not mere
perversity but can be used to great effect. For example, at 6.6.2 Thucydides
writes, ὥστε τὴν γενομένην ἐπὶ Λάχητος καὶ τοῦ προτέρου πολέμου
Λεοντίνων οἱ Ἐγεσταῖοι ξυμμαχίαν ἀναμιμνῄσκοντες τοὺς Ἀθηναίους
ἐδέοντο σφίσι ναῦς πέμψαντας ἐπαμῦναι. We can translate this as “the
Egestaians reminded the Athenians of the alliance (τὴν γενομένην . . .
ξυμμαχίαν) that the Athenians had made with the Leontinoi (Λεοντίνων)
in the time of Laches and the earlier war (ἐπὶ Λάχητος καὶ τοῦ προτέρου
πολέμου), and asked them to send ships to help them.” That is, the genitive
Λεοντίνων modifies ξυμμαχίαν, which follows it by several words, not, as
one would expect, the immediately preceding phrase τοῦ προτέρου πολέμου
(which would mean the earlier war against, or waged by, Leontinoi). The
displaced word order allows Thucydides immediately to juxtapose “the
Leontinoi” and “the Egestaians” and so to underscore how strange it is that
the Egestaians appeal to an Athenian alliance with someone else (cf. HCT).
2.3.8 Sentence complexity

Thucydides’s sentences are often very complex. This is evident first in their
length. In his narrative passages (that is, excluding the often devilishly con-
voluted speeches), the average length of a sentence is 25 words. In contrast,
the average length of a sentence in the late fifth-century orator Antiphon
is 19 words. Thucydides’s longest sentence is 160 words (5.16.1), and his
second longest is 141 words (8.99). Antiphon’s longest and next-longest
sentences are 97 and 91 words (both from On the Choreutes). Thirty-three
percent of Thucydides’s sentences are more than 31 words long. Only 12
percent of Antiphon’s are (all statistics from Yaginuma 1995, 133). Thucydides
seems to follow a “one sentence for one action principle” (Yaginuma 1995,
136), and so for complex ideas he uses multiple subordinate clauses and
phrases within very long sentences where other writers would use several
independent sentences. He often employs two types of complex sentences
designated by Rusten as “trees” or “funnels” (2017, 227). “Tree” sentences
are those in which, although the sentence is “grammatically complete in
the first few words,” Thucydides adds motivations and further explanations
in participles and further clauses. “Funnel” sentences, on the other hand,
are those in which motivations and explanations begin the sentence, which
then gradually narrows to a single action conveyed with a decisive verb.
2.3.9 Tense and narrative mode

In his narrative sections, Thucydides uses the historical present, the imperfect,
and the aorist in a manner that is not always clear and does not always conform
to handbooks on tense usage. This is partly because Thucydides employs dif-
ferent “narrative modes” at different times. The “immediate” mode attempts to
convey a “you are there” experience. The narrator does not look back on events
but describes them as if they are happening now. In the “displaced” mode, in
contrast, the narrator looks back with hindsight and organizes the material
Introduction 17
with his controlling hand. While the immediate mode tends to be paratactic
(this happened, and then this happened, and then this), the displaced mode
uses a more complex style because the narrator, with his wider-angle view,
explains the relations between actions with subordinate clauses (while they
were . . . , the Athenians . . . , but . . . ). The immediate mode often uses the
historical present, but Thucydides also often employs the imperfect tense in
such situations, not to express the continuous nature of an action in the past
but rather to express the actions from the point of view of past time (in the
“mimetic” mode, according to E. J. Bakker 1997). Thus, “the imperfect often
has a dramatic or panoramic force: it enables the reader to follow the course
of events as they occurred, as if he were a spectator of the scene depicted”
(Sm. 1898 N). The aorist seems to be reserved for narration where the narrator
looks back on events from outside them (see Allan 2007 and 2013, and E. J.
Bakker 1997 and 2006 on tense and narrative modes). Thucydides’s use of the
“immediate” or “mimetic” mode contributes to the “vividness” or ἐνάργεια
for which he was famous. According to Plutarch, Thucydides aims to make
a spectator of his reader (Plutarch, On the Glory of the Athenians 347a).
2.3.10 Compression
Thucydides is known for concision. Dionysius of Halicarnassus said of him
that “the most obvious of his characteristics is the effort to express as much
as possible in the fewest possible words” (Second Letter to Ammaeus 2;
trans. Usher). Thucydides’s fondness for -σις nouns (see above) contributes
to this quality because -σις nouns (as Shigetake Yaginuma puts it) express
“what otherwise we need clauses to say.” Thucydides uses this type of -σις
construction much more than other writers, and this “shows his attempt to
render his sentence as compact as possible” (Yaginuma 1995, 137–38). As an
example, at 6.97.2 Thucydides explains that the Athenians were able to make
it up to the heights of Epipolai before the Syracusans could arrive “from
the meadow in which they were conducting a review of arms.” Eschewing
a relative clause and verb, Thucydides writes, concisely, ἐκ τοῦ λειμῶνος
καὶ τῆς ἐξετάσεως—“from the meadow and the review.”
None of this is mere wordplay. According to Adam Parry, for Thucydides,
“the central problem of history is, How and when can man impose his gnome
on things outside himself?” Parry argues that Thucydides “dramatised this

problem” with his style. The style of Gorgias was “bland assurance”; that of
Thucydides, “struggle.” Thucydides “distills the world into abstractions”
like Gorgias, but Thucydides’s abstractions “are never quite commensurate.
They resist the intellect which wants to put them into order.” For Parry,
“the broken symmetry, the variation and the difficulty of Thucydides’ style”
represent “his final message: that the most splendid vision of civilization ever
recorded—Athens of the Funeral Speech—can be reduced to the survivors
of the Sicilian expedition in a rock-pit in Syracuse, with half a pint of water,
and a pint of meal, each day” (1970, 20).
So, if you struggle with Thucydides’s Greek, know at least that it is part
of his message for you to do so.

until Winter 416–415
3.1 The General Background
The war between the Athenians and the Peloponnesians9 began in 431.
Arrayed on one side were the Athenians and their naval empire of subject
tribute-paying states.10 On the other was the Peloponnesian league of states,
which followed Sparta.
Thucydides lists a number of “complaints and disputes” that urged the
Peloponnesians to war, two of which involved Korinth, a wealthy and
important Peloponnesian city. First, when Kerkyra (modern-day Corfu),
a colony of Korinth, was involved in a dispute with Kerkyra’s own colony
Epidamnos, Korinth and Athens intervened on opposite sides (1.24–55; see
map 1). In the course of the dispute, the Athenians made an alliance with
Kerkyra over the objections of Korinth and so gained an ally with one of
the largest navies in Greece (1.45). Second, when Poteidaia, a Korinthian
colony on the southernmost prong of the Chalkidike Peninsula (see map 1),
9. This is Thucydides’s name for it (1.1). He does not call it, as we do from our Atheno-centric
perspective, the “Peloponnesian War.”
10. By the time the war began, only the island-states of Chios and Lesbos contributed ships
to the Athenians. All other states paid Athens yearly tribute, which the Athenians used to
build and man ships in its own navy.
Introduction 19
revolted from the Athenian Empire soon after the naval battle off Kerkyra,
the Athenians besieged the city to try to force it back into submission, again
over the objections of the Korinthians (1.56–66).
Finally, the Megarians complained at their exclusion from Athenian
ports in punishment for their earlier revolt from Athens (1.67.4).11 Despite
mentioning these disputes, however, Thucydides says that the “truest cause”
of the war, though least spoken of at the time, was the Spartans’ fear of the
growth of Athenian power (1.23.6).
Thucydides details that growth in his “Pentekontaetia” of 1.89–117, a
section that covers the roughly “fifty years” from the end of the Persian Wars
in 479 to the beginning of his war. The Athenians had built a great navy in
483, and that navy was instrumental in the victory at Salamis in 480 (as the
Spartans’ hoplite force was instrumental to the victory at Plataia in 479). In
the Pentekontaetia, Thucydides shows how the Greeks initially followed up
their victories by continuing the war against Persia, under the leadership of
the Spartan Pausanias, in order to free the Greeks of the eastern Aegean and
the Ionian coast of Asia Minor from Persian rule. Soon, however, Pausanias
began acting like a tyrant, and the Ionians asked the Athenians to take over
the leadership of the (then-named) Delian League (1.95–96). Although
the league was initially voluntary, member states soon learned that they
could not leave (1.98–101), and the “league” became Athens’s empire. By
the time of the Peloponnesian War, that empire included virtually all the
islands of the Aegean and many of the cities on the coast of Asia Minor. In
their speech to the Spartan assembly right before the war, the Athenians
defined the transformative moment when they “became nautical” as their
decision to abandon their land and their houses before the Persians and
fight from their ships at Salamis (1.74.2–4).
The expansion of Athens’s power had led to war before. This earlier war,
called by scholars the first Peloponnesian War, ended when the Spartans,
under the command of King Pleistoanax, invaded Attica, the territory of
Athens, at the same time that Megara and the island of Euboia revolted
from Athens. Although Pleistoanax was later suspected of taking a bribe to
11. Although other ancient sources suggest that it was important to Peloponnesian thinking,
Thucydides barely mentions the so-called Megarian decree.
withdraw, the Athenians actually stopped the invasion by agreeing to the

terms of the “Thirty Years Peace,” concluded in 446 (1.114–115).
“The” Peloponnesian War is, to a large extent, just a continuation of that
earlier war, and it began only fifteen years after it ended. The Korinthians,
angered at the Athenians because of Kerkyra and Poteidaia, urged the
Spartans to war in two speeches at Sparta in the winter of 432/31. Although
the terms of the Thirty Years Peace required that disputes be submitted
to arbitration, and the Athenians offered to arbitrate their differences,
the Peloponnesians refused this offer and instead sent an ultimatum to
Athens saying that war could be avoided “if you Athenians leave the Hellenes
autonomous” (1.139.3). This demand ties into Sparta’s propaganda claim
during the war that they were fighting to “free Hellas,” as Brasidas said at
Akanthos (4.85.5). The ultimatum was a demand that the Athenians give
up their naval empire of tribute-paying states. Because the revenue from
the empire helped pay for the democracy in Athens by financing broad
participation in government, the Spartans’ demand seemed an existential
one. Athens could not really be Athens without the empire. Counseled
by their leader Perikles, who was confident of victory, Athens refused the
demand (1.145).
Perikles planned a defensive war, urging the Athenians to leave the land
of Attica and their rural villages to the enemy and in their place “safeguard
the sea and the city” (1.143.5). The walled city of Athens was connected to
its port of Peiraieus with two “Long Walls.” That corridor and port gave
access to the sea, and Athens’s navy controlled the sea. Because of this, it
did not matter if the Spartans invaded Attica because, according to Perikles,
the real Athens could never be taken. “Consider this. If we were islanders,
who would be harder to catch?” Perikles said (1.143.5), and he urged the
Athenians to think as much like that as possible and focus on the island city
of Athens, Peiraieus, and the empire. Perikles expected that after some time,
the Spartans would recognize the impossibility of a land power defeating
Athens and just give up.
Thucydides’s presentation of Perikles seems admiring, and many astute
interpreters have read it that way. However, the text gives reason for second
thoughts. First, the last speech Thucydides provides for Perikles (2.60–64)
Introduction 21
offers a vision of Athens that is almost limitlessly acquisitive and can plau-
sibly be argued to inspire the reckless, grasping Athenian spirit embodied
in Alkibiades. Second, the events of the war, including those covered in
books 6 and 7, demonstrate that many of Perikles’s confident predictions
turn out to be incorrect. For example, the Lakedaimonians do manage to
fortify a position in Attica, and this has dire consequences (7.18–19, 7.27–30),
despite Perikles’s pooh-poohing of the idea (1.142.3–4). And the Athenians’
enemies—both Spartan and Syracusan—eventually do learn naval fighting,
although Perikles boasted that it was the sole prerogative of Athenians
(1.142.6–7). Finally, the later text, including the narrative on the Sicilian
expedition, gives reason to think that Perikles’s redefinition of the city and
the denigration of Attica that it entailed did lasting damage. It turned the
Athenians’ gaze away from their home territory, encouraged imperialistic
projects like the Sicilian expedition, and fomented faction-fighting within
the citizen body.
3.2 Athens and Sicily before the War

Thucydides signals the importance of Sicily in subtle but powerful ways
early in his text. In his brief account of Greek history (the “Archaeology”
of 1.1–20), he notes that the Peloponnesians colonized most of Italy and
Sicily (1.12.4) and also points out that shortly before the Persian Wars, the
Sicilian tyrants and Kerkyra acquired large numbers of triremes (1.14.2).
The Kerkyraian navy was the prize of the conflict between Korinth and
Kerkyra over Kerkyra’s colony Epidamnos (1.24–55). Indeed, Thucydides
tells us that the Athenians made their alliance with Kerkyra because with
war coming they could not afford to see Kerkyra’s navy fall to Korinth
(1.44.2). Given the earlier linkage between the Sicilian and Kerkyraian
navies, the perceptive reader worries, “Well, what about the Sicilian fleets?”
Thucydides indicates that the Athenians were worried about this as well
when he notes that the Athenians also made the alliance with Kerkyra
because it was on the sea route to Italy and Sicily (1.44.2).
Thucydides does not indicate exactly why Kerkyra’s proximity to Italy
and Sicily mattered, but two other notices give us some idea. In 431, right
at the beginning of the war, Thucydides reports that the Spartans ordered
the states in Sicily that backed them to build five hundred ships (2.7.2).
Thus, readers learn that by 431 some cities in Sicily had already lined up
behind Sparta. Thucydides later tells us that the cities in question were all
the Dorian states of Sicily except Kamarina (3.86.2; see map 2). Thucydides
here indicates the importance of the ethnic dimension in Sicily (see below
6.2). The Spartans and Korinthians, like the Syracusans, were Dorians,
speaking a Dorian dialect of Greek and sharing certain religious customs.
The Athenians, by contrast, were Ionians.
Surely Athens could anticipate Sparta’s call to Sicily in 433 when it
made the alliance with Kerkyra, and it presumably looked on Kerkyra as
a convenient base both for offensive expeditions against states in Sicily
and for defensive operations trying to prevent aid from Sicily coming to
the Peloponnesos. That aid might take the form of ships or grain. When
the Athenians sent an expedition to Sicily in 427 (see section 3.4 below),
Thucydides tells us it was in part to prevent the export of grain from Sicily
to the Peloponnesos (3.86.4).
We know that Athens took other steps with regard to Sicily on the eve of
the war. At the time of the Athenian intervention in Sicily in 427, Thucydides
tells us that Athens had some time earlier allied with Leontinoi, an Ionian city
in Sicily with long-standing hostility to Syracuse (3.86.3). Thucydides does
not tell us the date of this alliance, but we have an inscription that shows that
Athens renewed an alliance with Leontinoi in 433/32. At the same time Athens
also renewed an alliance with Ionian Rhegion at the tip of Italy (Meiggs and
Lewis 1988, #63, 64; IG I3 53 and 54; these and other Attic inscriptions can
be found translated online at Attic Inscriptions Online; see map 2).
Making an alliance with Leontinoi was a deliberate counter to the expan-
sionism of Dorian Syracuse. Under its tyrants Gelon and Hieron in the
first third of the fifth century, Syracuse controlled the entire southeastern
corner of Sicily from the territory of Gela to that of Naxos (see map 2). In
476, Hieron forced the Ionian populations of Naxos and Katane to move
to Leontinoi. Naxos remained deserted, but Katane was resettled by ten
thousand Dorian colonists and was reborn as the new city of Aitna. The
result was that all the Greek coastal cities of Sicily became Dorian, with
inland Leontinoi serving as what David Asheri calls “an internment camp
Introduction 23
for all the surviving Ionians” (1992, 151).

When the Syracusan tyranny fell in 466, Naxos and Katane were recon-
stituted, and Leontinoi won its independence from Syracuse. Athens had
an interest in preventing Dorian Syracuse from regaining control over these
cities because if it did so, it would become a more powerful foe for Athens
and a more powerful ally for Sparta. The more trouble Syracuse had in
Sicily, the less energy and resources it would have for Sparta.
We do not know when Athens first made the alliances with Leontinoi
and Rhegion that it renewed in 433/32 (Thucydides has the Leontinoi call
it “ancient” at 3.86.3). Based on the letterforms of the original part of the
inscription (the prescript was recut at the time of the renewal), the 440s is
the most likely context. We know from another inscription that Athens also
made an alliance with Egesta, an Elymian city in the northwest of Sicily,
probably in 418/17 (Meiggs and Lewis 1988, #37; IG I3 11, translated online
at Attic Inscriptions Online).
Athens made other forays west in the 440s. Thourioi, a largely Athenian
colony, was founded at the instep of the boot of Italy in 443. And at some
point before 415, possibly in the 440s (or in 427), Athens made a proxeny
grant to Artas, the chief of the Messapians on the Iapygian Peninsula, the
heel of the boot of Italy (7.33.4; Walbank 1978, #70), and made an alliance
with Metapontion on the instep of the boot (7.33.5).
It makes perfect sense that Rhegion and Leontinoi would want to renew
their alliances with Athens in 433/32. The Athenian intervention in Kerkyra
in 433 indicated that war between Athens and the Peloponnesians was
coming. The Ionian cities of Sicily “might well fear that Syracuse would
take advantage of Athens’ preoccupation to try to swallow them” (Meiggs
and Lewis 1988, 173). That Athens renewed these alliances indicates that it
had every intention of trying to prevent Syracuse from doing just that and
of building up a western power base in support of Sparta.
3.3 The Archidamian War I

The so-called Archidamian War, named after the Spartan king Archidamos,
was the first part of the Peloponnesian War and lasted from 431 to 421. It
began in early spring with a Theban attack on Athens’s ally Plataia just over
Athens’s border with Boiotia (2.2; see map 1). That this is the site of the last
battle of the Persian Wars, when Athens and Sparta fought on the same
side, gives a special poignancy to the beginning of Thucydides’s war. That
the event includes a sneaky nighttime invasion, women fighting from the
rooftops, lies, attacks on suppliants, and ignominious death by fire in the
confusion signals that Thucydides’s war will not be particularly glorious
(cf. Rood 1999, 150–51). The Thebans did not succeed in taking Plataia in
431, but the Spartans put it to siege two years later.
Later that same summer of 431, the Peloponnesians invaded Attica under
King Archidamos. The invasion accomplished nothing. Although some
Athenians were agitated, Perikles would not lead them out against the
Peloponnesians, which would have been a suicidal departure from his war
plan. And so, there were a few cavalry skirmishes, but nothing more. The
Athenian dead from those skirmishes are the men over whom Perikles gave
his famous “Funeral Oration” in the winter of the first year of war (2.35–46).
In the summer after the Funeral Oration, a plague struck Athens that
killed huge numbers of people both in Athens and in the Athenian army
besieging Poteidaia. The sickness and death caused despair and lawlessness
in Athens, and the plague so lowered morale that the Athenians sued for
peace with Sparta (2.59.2). That the Peloponnesians refused their offer
depressed the Athenians even more. A further blow was that Perikles him-
self died from a second outbreak of the plague in the fall of 429 (2.65.6).
According to Thucydides, the leaders that followed Perikles were not his
equals either in intelligence or in control of the people. Furthermore, he
says they were more concerned with fighting each other to get ahead than
with pursuing good policies (2.65.7; see appendix).
Despite the Peloponnesians’ refusal of the Athenians’ peace overture,
they were no closer to achieving a victory, and in fact the Athenians were
able to complete the siege of Poteidaia toward the end of the second year
of the war (2.70). Each year, the Peloponnesians invaded Attica, burned
some crops, and pillaged some farms, but the overall balance of power
remained unchanged. In the summer of 429, instead of invading Attica, the
Peloponnesians besieged Plataia. Although they held out for two years, the
Plataians eventually surrendered in 427. The loss, however, was militarily
Introduction 25
meaningless. Thucydides gives the event attention for thematic reasons

(see section 6.4 below).
As the war dragged on, both sides tried novel approaches to break the
stalemate. The Peloponnesians tentatively backed the allies of Athens, prom-
ising the Mytilenaians of Lesbos that they would help them in their revolt
from Athens. But when it came to it, the promised help never appeared, and
after their revolt failed in 427, the Mytilenaians were forced to surrender
once again to the Athenians (3.49).
3.4
The Archidamian War II:
Athenian Interventions in Sicily (427–422)
In 427 Syracuse attempted an expansion toward the northwest and besieged
Athens’s ally Leontinoi (see section 3.2 above for Leontinoi and Athens’s
alliance with it). War soon engulfed the whole Greek portion of the island,
with the Dorian cities (except for Kamarina) allied with Syracuse, together
with Italian Lokroi, and the Ionian cities of Sicily together with Italian
Rhegion allied with Leontinoi. Leontinoi sent envoys to Athens to request
aid under the terms of their alliance. Athens sent twenty ships under the
generals Laches and Charoiades (3.86.1–3). Thucydides says that the Athe-
nians sent the ships “with the expressed reason of their common descent,”
and so points to the Dorian/Ionian divide, but he goes on to say that the
Athenians really sent the ships because they wanted to prevent grain from
coming to the Peloponnesos from there and also to test whether they could
bring Sicily under their control (3.86.4). This motive, if true, would indicate
that the Athenians had decided that the best way to prevent Syracuse from
mobilizing Sicily behind Sparta was not simply to prop up Syracuse’s Ionian
enemies but to exert direct control in Sicily themselves.
Over the course of 427 and 426, although their general Charoiades was
killed, the Athenians made some progress and were able to capture Messana,
giving them control over the key strait between Italy and Sicily (3.88, 3.90).
These successes led the Ionians of Sicily to send to Athens for reinforcements
in hope of further gains. The general Pythodoros was sent out with a few
ships in winter 426/25. Sophokles and Eurymedon were to follow later with
the bulk of the forty ships voted (3.115.4).
Given the successes achieved with only twenty ships, the Athenians
presumably expected much more from the forty additional ships (cf. Kagan
1974, 193). Indeed, Thucydides notes that the Athenians thought that with
them “the war in Sicily would be finished sooner” (3.115.4). However, even
before the ships left Athens the Athenians had already lost Messana (4.1–2).
The reinforcements, furthermore, were diverted to Pylos and Kerkyra and
did not sail for Sicily until the end of summer 425 (4.48.5; see section 3.5
below for Pylos). All the while the situation in Sicily deteriorated. By the
time the ships arrived, war weariness had grown among the Sicilians, and
the very size of the new force seems to have aroused suspicions of Athenian
ambitions (Lewis 1992, 422). Gela and Kamarina made a truce with each
other, and soon after all the Greek cities of Sicily gathered at a peace confer-
ence at Gela in summer 424 (4.58). The only speech Thucydides gives is that
of the Syracusan statesman Hermokrates (4.59–64). In it, Hermokrates
argued that the whole of Sicily was endangered by Athenian ambition,
warned that the Athenians were using the rivalries among Sicilian cities
for their own ends (4.60.1–2), and explained that the Athenians’ attack was
not against Dorians alone but against all of Sicily.
Hermokrates persuaded his fellow Sicilians to unite to end the war,
and at the conclusion of the conference, the Athenians’ allies joined in a
common peace to which the Athenian generals agreed. At that point, the
Athenian fleet sailed home (4.65.1–2). When they got there, the Athenians
exiled Pythodoros and Sophokles and fined Eurymedon because “although
it had been possible for them to subdue Sicily, they were suborned by bribes
and withdrew” (4.65.3).
The Athenians returned to Sicily a few years later. Soon after the general
peace of 424, Leontinoi was destroyed by civil war. The demos enrolled
new citizens and proposed a redistribution of the land, but the upper
classes called in Syracuse and drove the people out. The upper classes
then destroyed Leontinoi itself and moved to Syracuse, where they became
citizens. Some of them later abandoned Syracuse, however, and together
with the old demos of Leontinoi they fortified a place in the territory of
Leontinoi and carried on a fight against Syracuse from it (5.4.1–4).
Introduction 27
The Athenians saw this as another opportunity to convince the Sicilians

of Syracusan ambitions and get them to join Athens against it. And so, in the
summer of 422 they sent the general Phaiax to try again to unite Greek Sicily
against Syracuse (5.4.5). Phaiax too, however, was unsuccessful and soon
abandoned his mission and returned home (5.4.6). Six years after Phaiax’s
expedition, the Egestan envoys who urged the Athenians to launch the
Sicilian expedition used the destruction of Leontinoi and Athens’s obliga-
tions to it under their old alliance as one of their main arguments (6.6.2).
3.5 The Archidamian War III

The forty ships sent as reinforcements to Sicily in the spring of 425 stopped
on the way at a headland north of the island of Sphakteria in the bay of Pylos
in the western Peloponnesos and fortified it (4.3–5; see map 1). Helots, the
noncitizen serfs who farmed the land that supported the Spartan economy,
deserted to the Athenians’ beachhead, causing the Peloponnesians to try
to expel the Athenians from their position. In the course of the campaign,
420 Lakedaimonian hoplites became marooned on Sphakteria Island,
cut off from their fellows because of Athenian naval control of the bay.
Eventually the Athenians landed on the island and fought a battle, at the end
of which 292 men, including about 120 full Spartan citizens, surrendered
to the Athenians. This seemed a stunning reversal of the Spartan ethos
displayed at Thermopylai during the Persian Wars, where death was much
preferred to dishonor (4.40; Herodotus 7.219–28). Lest the reader miss
the connection, Thucydides himself compares the two battles by name
(4.36.3). As a result of this blow, the Peloponnesians sued for peace. The
Athenians, however, planning to hold the Spartan hostages as surety against
further invasion, refused. They “were intent on larger gains,” according to
Thucydides (4.41.4).
Thucydides charges that the victory at Pylos bred an irrational overcon-
fidence in the Athenians. So, for example, as we have seen, the Athenians
exiled or fined the generals sent to Sicily who returned unsuccessful to
Athens after the Conference of Gela because “although it had been possible
for them to subdue Sicily, they were suborned by bribes and withdrew”
(4.65.3). The Athenians did this, according to Thucydides, because “so

powerfully did they feel their present good fortune that they expected
that nothing would withstand them, that they would achieve both the
practicable and the impracticable just the same, whether with a great force
or an inferior one. The reason was their shocking success in most things,
which lent strength to their hope” (4.65.4). Thucydides’s recurrent theme
of “the near and the far” (see section 6.1 below) underlies this passage,
which charges that the Athenians’ desire to control Sicily was overreaching.
In their most daring move, the Spartans sent the general Brasidas to the
Chalkidike in the summer of 424 to try to induce Athens’s allies there to revolt.
According to Thucydides, Brasidas said many “enticing but untrue” things to
the Chalkidians to get them to revolt (4.108.5). Brasidas succeeded at Akanthos
and Torone, among other places, and, most importantly, at the Athenians’
great colony of Amphipolis. It was for failing to prevent Brasidas’s capture of
Amphipolis that Thucydides was exiled from Athens (see section 1.1 above).
The Athenians’ failure to save Amphipolis led more Chalkidians to revolt
from Athens, and the reverses Athens suffered at the hands of Brasidas
made the Athenians willing to agree to a one-year armistice in the spring
of 423. The following year, after the armistice expired, the Athenians sent
the general Kleon north to try to recapture some of the cities taken by
Brasidas. In the course of the fighting, both Brasidas and Kleon died. They
were the men on each side most insistent on war (5.16), and their deaths
prompted peace negotiations.
3.6 The Peace of Nikias

In the early spring of 421, the Peloponnesians and Athenians agreed to
a peace that formally ended the war and imposed various duties on the
parties. Modern historians call it the Peace of Nikias because the Athenian
general Nikias, one of the generals of the Sicilian expedition, was the most
prominent man urging Athens to make it. He did so, Thucydides tells us,
because he wanted to free himself and his city from toil and because he
wanted to preserve his present good fortune and reputation for success,
which he thought was most likely if he kept out of danger (5.16.1). Thus
Thucydides underscores Nikias’s cautious nature.
Introduction 29
Under the terms of the peace, the Athenians were to give back the men
captured at Pylos, as well as some minor places they had taken in and around
the Peloponnesos. The Spartans and their allies, for their part, were to give
back Amphipolis and other cities captured in the war (5.18–19).
Thucydides judges that this peace was no real peace but instead an
uneasy period of truce within one twenty-seven-year-long war lasting
from 431 to 404 (5.26.1). His reasoning is that neither side fully performed
their obligations under its terms. For example, the Peloponnesians did not
restore Amphipolis to Athens, and although the Athenians returned the men
from Pylos to Sparta, they did not hand over their fortified position there.
Furthermore, the Korinthians voted against ending the war (5.17.2) and
almost immediately tried to unsettle the peace. In addition, the Boiotians
also did not sign the peace but instead observed ten-day armistices, as did
the Athenians’ so-called allies in the Chalkidike (5.26.2).
The failure of Sparta to ensure the return of Amphipolis to Athens
encouraged opposition to the peace in Athens, and in 420 Alkibiades, one
of the other generals of the Sicilian expedition, persuaded the Athenians
over the objections of Nikias to make an alliance with Argos, a traditional
enemy of Sparta (5.44–47). In 418, again at the urging of Alkibiades, the
Athenians joined the Argives and Mantineians against Sparta at the battle
of Mantineia. The battle was a victory for the Spartans and restored their
morale and reputation after the defeat at Pylos. In addition, after the battle,
Argos allied with Sparta, and the two states sent ambassadors to renew
oaths with cities in the Chalkidike, thereby threatening Athens’s already
tenuous control over that area. Nevertheless, the enmity between Athens
and Sparta did not yet break out again into outright war (5.74).
Soon after this, in the summer of 416, the Athenians attacked the neutral
island of Melos with the aim of adding it to their empire. In the “Melian
Dialogue” (5.85–113), the Athenians tried to convince the Melians to submit
voluntarily, but they refused. The Athenians therefore besieged the island
and captured it after ten months. This event stands, for Thucydides, as
the “prelude” to the Sicilian expedition (Wasserman 1947, 30), and many
themes important for his presentation of the Sicilian campaign appear in
the Melian Dialogue.
It was in the same winter as the conquest of Melos (winter 416/5) that
the Athenians turned their eyes to Sicily.
4 Athenian Democracy and

Thucydides’s Presentation of the Boule
In Athens, the demos gathered in assembly was sovereign. Meetings included

some six thousand citizens and lasted a few hours. Regular speakers, the
rhetors, rose to persuade the people to a particular course of action, and the
elected generals would also have had their say, but all citizens were free to
speak, move proposals, and persuade their fellow citizens to their will if they
could. Furthermore, the mass of citizens, even if not speaking individually,
would nevertheless have been active participants in an assembly because of
their vocal responses to the speeches they heard. We should imagine hisses,
cheers, and jeers from the crowd. The assembly decided on domestic and
foreign policy, elected generals, initiated legislation and political trials, and
passed laws on any number of matters.
The agenda for the assembly was prepared by the boule, the council of five
hundred made up of fifty men chosen by lot from each of the ten Kleisthenic
tribes. The fifty councilmen of each of the tribes served as prytaneis for
one-tenth of the year, with one-third of them on call for one-third of that
period. Each day, one of these prytaneis was chosen as the leader (ἐπιστάτης)
who chaired any meeting of the boule or ekklesia on his day. Thus, ordi-
nary Athenians could find themselves serving important functions in the
government. While the assembly met probably only four times a month,
the prytaneis met every day to manage the day-to-day business of the state.
Over one thousand annual magistrates (including the five hundred mem-
bers of the boule) handled the business of government. In addition, each year
some six thousand citizens served on various juries. In order to give all men
an equal chance of serving, most magistrates were chosen by lot rather than
election, and many offices were paid positions in order to allow even the
poor to participate. Finally, officers served only a single year-long term in
order to spread experience in government widely throughout the citizenry.
The most important position in the state at this time was that of general.
Perikles at the time of his greatest power was simply a general of Athens.
Introduction 31
Each year, a board of ten generals was elected—not selected by lot—and

generals could serve more than one term. In the later fifth century, it was
among the generals that one would find the most influential—and most
ambitious—men in the state. But to get their way they still had to persuade
the demos in the assembly.
Given the importance of the Athenian boule, it is surprising that
Thucydides hardly mentions it. Despite recording or referring to many
assemblies, Thucydides mentions the boule in reference to only two events
(5.43–45 and 8.66.1, 69.4) and so elides many other occasions on which
the boule must have given input. With regard to the Sicilian expedition,
for example, the boule must have been involved in the decision to send
the expedition in the first place and in the generals’ deliberations over the
proper outfitting of the fleet. But Thucydides does not mention this. Second,
Thucydides reports that Nikias sent a letter to Athens in the summer of 414
and also gave verbal instructions to his envoys (7.8). When the envoys got
to Athens, Thucydides says that they gave their message “and answered any
questions they were asked.” This interrogation must have occurred in the
boule, but once again Thucydides does not mention this body; he moves
on immediately to the reading of the letter to “the Athenians,” meaning in
the assembly (7.10.1).
Thucydides focuses on the assembly while eliding the boule; he focuses
on the masses rather than the annual magistrates who handled the business
of the state in a more careful and deliberate manner than the assembly. In
Thucydides, both the decision to invade Sicily and the decision not to recall
the expedition in response to Nikias’s letter seem to be made with more
haste and less thought than they must have been. The absence of the boule
thus negatively biases Thucydides’s presentation of Athenian democracy
(cf. Hornblower 3:23–31).
5 Democracy in Syracuse
Was Syracuse a democracy? The evidence is somewhat unclear, and the
answer largely turns on how one defines democracy.
Aristotle muddies the waters because he (1) calls the regime in Syracuse
before 406 an oligarchy (Politics 1305b39–06a2) but also (2) says that a
mid-fifth-century tyranny at Syracuse turned into a democracy (Politics

1316a32–33). He also (3) twice calls the later fifth-century regime a politeia
(Politics 1304a27–29; 1312b6–9)—a type of regime that for Aristotle seems to
include a combination of democratic and oligarchic features (Rutter 2000, 143).
According to Diodoros Sikulos, after the end of the tyranny in Syracuse
in the mid-fifth century, strife arose between the “old” citizens who had
been disenfranchised by the tyranny and the “new” citizens. The old citizens
held an assembly and voted to institute a democracy, but they also voted to
restrict all offices to the old citizens. The old citizens won the civil war that
ensued under some kind of compromise (Diodoros 11.72–73). According to
Asheri, it was then that the institutions of what he calls “republican” Syracuse
arose, including an assembly, council, and a board of generals (1992, 166).
Next, Diodoros goes on, the Syracusans introduced petalismos, a system
similar to Athenian ostracism in which the community voted on a five-year
exile for an unpopular individual. In response, the elite boycotted public
life until the demos was forced to abandon the practice. Shlomo Berger
takes this event to show “the pervasive power of the aristocracy” (1992,
39). Democratic institutions may have existed, but they were “overrun by
aristocratic influence.” Hornblower concurs, arguing that “democracy” in
Syracuse “meant the rule of a prosperous agricultural class” (2011a, 53). He
continues, “Athenian-style democracy” was absent.
Peter Brunt, in contrast, insists that Syracuse had a full-fledged democ-
racy (1957, 244). He cites the power of the πλῆθος, the ability of the assembly
to pass laws, to seek alliances, to discuss peace terms and the military
situation, and to appoint and depose generals. He also cites the Sicilian
politician Athenagoras’s defense of democracy and its ability to govern
(6.39). However, at the end of Athenagoras’s speech, a general steps in to
end the debate and assert that the generals will decide what to do (6.41).
That a general can stop the discussion in this way marks a strong contrast
to Athenian democracy.
Syracuse had a democracy. But of what type exactly, we do not have
enough information to say. The assembly seems to be sovereign (with the
caveat of that general), but we do not know how widely citizenship was
shared and so do not know who was empowered to attend the assembly. Nor
Introduction 33
do we know how often it met, or whether there was a council that prepared
(and controlled?) business for the assembly. Nor do we know how citizens
filled offices or whether there were property or other qualifications for office.
As Asheri notes, there is no evidence for elements of radical Athenian-style
democracy (1992, 166). Democracy in Syracuse, then, does seem to have
been of a relatively moderate sort.
But it was still democracy according to Thucydides. He calls the Greek
cities of Sicily democracies and says that their form of government stymied
the Athenians because they could not divide the citizenry and induce the
demos to come over to them by holding out the possibility of regime change
(7.55.2). Whatever the form of democracy in Syracuse, it was democratic
enough to cause the Athenians trouble.
6 Major Themes in the Sicilian Expedition
6.1 The Near and the Far

The theme of “the near and the far” was first discussed by David Young
in relation to Pindar’s third Pythian ode. In that poem, Pindar tells the
story of Koronis, the mother of Asklepios, who, “like many another . . .
hungered for things remote.” Pindar describes such foolish folk thus: “there
are some, utterly shiftless, who always look ahead, scorning the present,
hunting the wind of doomed hopes.” Koronis’s particular version of this
failing was to sleep with someone else when she had already slept with
Apollo (Pindar, Pythian 3.21–23, 27; trans. Nisetich). As Young describes
it, the theme “assumes a variety of forms: indigenous/foreign, one’s own
property/others’ property, inside the house/outside, present time/future
time, etc.” (1968, 49n1). The topos contrasts those who “indulge in a fatal
passion for what [they] do not have” (as Kitto 1966, 327 describes it), with
those, more wise, who “refrain from wishes for distant, impossible things
while using to the full what is possible and accessible” (Young 1968, 49).
This theme is a variant of the logos/ergon antithesis elucidated by Parry,
where word stands against deed, truth stands against fiction, that which is
here and now (ὑπάρχοντα/πάροντα) stands against that which may be in the
future (μέλλοντα), and “blind hope in an uncertain future” stands against
present reality (1981, 186). The theme is a particular favorite of Thucydides.
In the earlier part of his work, Thucydides or his characters deploy the
theme against the enemies of Athens. For example, Thucydides says that
when Brasidas went north, the Chalkidians, who believed his “enticing but
untrue” words (4.108.5), thought that they could revolt from Athens with
impunity. They were mistaken, he writes, because they were “judging more
on uncertain wishes than on secure foresight, as men are accustomed to
entrust what they desire to unexamined hope and to deny with peremptory
logic whatever they do not want” (4.108.5). So too, his Athenians, in exas-
peration that the Melians have decided to resist their invasion—an action
the Athenians (rightly) insist will result in their destruction—remark, “You
alone, as you seem to us from these debates at least, judge things to come
to be more clear than what you can see, and in your wishful thinking gaze
at things unseen as if they have already occurred” (5.113). Thucydides can
also deploy the theme against the Athenians, however, as he does when
he describes their psychology soon after the unexpected victory over the
Spartans at Pylos in 425 (see section 3.5 above).
Thucydides uses the theme of the near and the far throughout his account
of the Sicilian expedition in ways that suggest the campaign is an utterly
mad venture. In his first speech, for example, Nikias urges the Athenians “to
save what they have and not risk what is ready to hand for what is invisible
and off in the future” (6.9.3). He begs the older men in his audience not to
become “mad lovers of the far away” (6.13.1), and Thucydides in his own voice
calls the campaign “the greatest voyage from home ever attempted, with
the greatest hope for the future in contrast to the present circumstances”
(6.31.6). Finding all the other examples should enliven your reading.
6.2 Xyngeneia and Sicilian Unity

Two of the original flashpoints for the Peloponnesian War—Epidamnos and
Poteidaia—involve the colonial and ethnic ties (xyngeneia) between Korinth
and those cities. In addition, ethnic identity is at the heart of the Ionians’
initial appeal to the Athenians to lead the Delian League, which developed
into the Athenian Empire (1.95.1). Furthermore, the Sicilian expedition
sailed (at least in name) because of an Athenian commitment to help their
allies and kinsmen the Chalkidian Leontinoi against Dorian Syracuse. The
Introduction 35
conflict mattered to Athens, Egesta warned, because if Syracuse conquered

Sicily, there was the danger that eventually they would come “as Dorians
to the aid of Dorians because of xyngeneia” and “as colonists to the aid of
the Peloponnesians who had sent them forth” (6.6.2). Ethnic and colonial
ties, it seems, govern international relations.
The Melian Dialogue, however, suggests otherwise. The Melians were
colonists from Sparta and Dorians, and thus they were ethnically related
to the Spartans. In the dialogue, the Melians argue that the Spartans will
help them because of xyngeneia. “We will be more trustworthy than others
because of xyngeneia of spirit,” they say (5.108). The Athenians respond
by remarking that the Lakedaimonians will look not to the “good will” of
the Melians but to their own strength “from a practical standpoint.” The
Athenians correctly predict that “it is not likely that they will cross over
to an island when we are naukratores [men strong in ships]” (5.109). The
Athenians claim that expediency and practicality will trump any ties of
xyngeneia between Sparta and Melos. And in the end, of course, Sparta
never comes to help Melos.
The Sicilian leader Hermokrates also undercuts the force of xyngeneia when
he successfully rallies Sicily against the Athenian campaign there in 424. He
argues that no one should think that “the Chalkidian element is safe because
of Ionian kinship with Athens” (4.61.2), meaning that the ethnic Chalkidians
in Sicily should not think that Athens would refrain from attacking them
just because they were Ionians like Athens. “It is not against races that the
Athenians attack,” he says, “but aiming at the good things of Sicily” (4.61.3).
Hermokrates argues that Sicilians should not listen to ethnic arguments or
think that ethnicity rules the Athenians’ decisions. One of the questions that
Thucydides’s account of the Sicilian expedition explores is whether ties of
xyngeneia still have force, and whether the Athenians will be able to exploit
ethnic differences in order to prevent Sicily from uniting against them.
6.3 Public/Private
In the Funeral Oration, Perikles urges the Athenians to become “lovers”
of Athens, using the word ἐραστής, which means “lover” in the sense of
erotic passion (2.43.1). Perikles thus tries to redirect the most individual and
private of emotions onto a communal and public beloved. This is the most
famous blurring of the public/private divide in the work, but according to
Thucydides the Athenians’ inability to properly separate public and private
grew even greater after Perikles and ultimately led to Athens’s downfall.
According to Thucydides, the personal wrangling of the successors of
Perikles to be the top man causes the Athenians for the first time to “fall
into a state of disorder with regard to the administration of the city” (2.65.11).
The public/private theme is prevalent in the narrative about the Sicilian
expedition from the beginning. The general Nikias claims that Alkibiades
wrongly urged on the Sicilian expedition “thinking only of himself” and
because he would “benefit from the command” (6.12.2; see appendix). That
is, Nikias charges that Alkibiades has no thought for the common good. In
contrast, Nikias claims that in his opposition to the expedition, public and
private interests merged (6.9.2).
Alkibiades certainly embodies the blurring of public and private. He
seems to imagine himself as equivalent to a city (and so not really an indi-
vidual at all; see his speech at Sparta, 6.89–92), and the Athenian demos
fear him for it (6.15.4). But as the narrative proceeds, we see that Nikias,
too, blurs public and private, marking him out, perhaps, as no different
than all the other successors of Perikles.
6.4 Reverse Echoes of the Persian Wars

In many ways Thucydides maps his account of the Sicilian expedition onto
the template of the Persian Wars. The debate in Athens over the campaign
(6.9–23) has numerous echoes of the debate in Herodotus between Xerxes’s
advisors Mardonios and Artabanos (Herodotus 7.8–11). Nikias, for example,
plays a version of Artabanos’s role of the “tragic warner” (cf. Lattimore 1939).
In this replay of the Persian Wars, however, the Athenians switch roles,
and instead of being the great liberators, they play the part of invading
despot. The Thebans had already suggested as much during the debate at
Plataia in 427. The Plataians emphasized the virtue they showed during
the Persian Wars because, unlike the rest of the Boiotians, they had not
medized—that is, had not joined with “the Medes” (a common alternate
name for the Persians). The Thebans counter that what mattered now was
Introduction 37
not what the Plataians had done in the past, but that in the present, “when
the Athenians came against the Hellenes, they alone of the Boiotians
atticized” (3.62.2). With this coinage the Thebans imply that the imperial
aggression of the Athenians has, in a way, made them no longer Greeks. This
striking neologism makes Athens “equivalent, as the enslaver of Greece, to
Persia in 480 b.c.” (Macleod 1983, 116).
What is more, in Sicily, Athens’s opponents use Athens’s victory in the
Persian Wars as a paradigm for their own victory over the Athenians in this
version of the contest, arguing that by defeating the Athenians, they can
win the kind of glory Athens won by defeating Persia. Thucydides’s entire
account of the Sicilian expedition must be read with an ear to echoes of
Herodotus’s Persian Wars. As Cornford notes, Thucydides “turned against
Athens the tremendous moral which his countrymen delighted to read in
the Persians of Aeschylus and the History of Herodotus” (1907, 201).
6.5 The Transformation of the Athenians

The Athenians are symbolically assimilated to the Persians within
Thucydides’s echo of the Persian Wars. Over the course of the campaign,
the Athenians become less like their former selves in other ways as well. In
their speech at the Spartan congress before the war, the Korinthians gave a
detailed description of Athenian character. The Korinthians singled out the
Athenians’ daring and innovative qualities of mind. Athenians, according
to the Korinthians, are “revolutionaries, quick both to contrive things and
to put them into effect” (1.70.2). The Athenians take risks. “They are bold
beyond their power, take risks beyond good judgment, and are confident
even in the midst of dangers” (1.70.3). The Spartans, in contrast, are slow,
plodding homebodies. As for the naval skill required for the campaign,
Perikles argues before the war that Athens’s enemies “will not easily gain
expert status on the sea. Not even you who have been practicing ever since
the Persian Wars have completely accomplished that” (1.142.6–7). Indeed,
the Athenian speakers on Melos and Alkibiades both call the Athenians
naukratores or “rulers by ship” (5.97, 5.109, 6.18.5).
In Sicily, however, the Athenians lose many of their defining charac-
teristics. The quick Athenians are unaccountably slow. Furthermore, the
formerly bold Athenians grow timid and superstitious in Sicily. Nor are they
any longer unique, for the Syracusans eventually show themselves to be
more expert on the sea than the Athenians. The quick and fearless Athenian
naukratores are no more; if anything, the Syracusans now represent them.
Or as Leo Strauss puts it, “Athens’ defeat is her triumph: her enemies have
to become in a manner Athenians in order to defeat her” (1964, 226).
6.6 The City Theme and the Definition of Athens

To fight the Peloponnesian War, Perikles redefined the city of Athens.
Building on the abandonment of the city and Attica during the Persian
Wars, Perikles urged the Athenians to “think as nearly as possible” like
islanders and to “abandon our land and our houses and safeguard the sea
and the city” (1.143.5). He planned to protect the walled Athens-Peiraieus
corridor and the naval empire while ceding the countryside of Attica to the
Spartans. “If they invade our country by land,” he said, “we will sail against
theirs, and it will not be a similar thing for some portion of the Peloponnesos
to be cut off and the whole of Attica. For they will not be able to lay hold
of other territory without fighting for it, but we have plenty of land both in
the islands and on the mainland” (1.143.4). Attica can be replaced, that is. It
seems that Perikles recognizes no difference between Attica and any other
Athenian possessions. As Edith Foster remarks, “if Attica is just houses and
land, any other land is just as useful” (2002, 152; see also Foster 2010, 174–82).
Thucydides’s account of the Sicilian expedition suggests that Perikles’s
redefinition of the city may have unmoored Athens, for Thucydides plays
with a new Athenian abandonment of Attica throughout his account of it
and repeatedly presents the campaign as a massive new city.12 Speakers like
Nikias and Athenagoras imagine the expedition as a city, and Thucydides
himself makes the comparison, most famously when he compares the
retreating Athenians to the remnants of a besieged and defeated city (7.75.5).
Furthermore, the text strongly suggests this new city is in conflict with
the traditional city in Attica. He thus foreshadows the real schism to come
12. Avery’s (1973) study charts the colonization theme and suggests that for some Athenians,
an unofficial plan or unstated goal of the expedition was the founding of an actual Athe-
nian colony in Sicily. He does not connect the colonization theme to Perikles’s redefini-
tion of Athens.
Introduction 39
during the oligarchy of the Four Hundred (see section 7.2 below).
Because of the symbolic equation of expedition and city throughout
books 6 and 7, “the destruction of the expedition is thus emotionally the
destruction of Athens itself, and the virtual end of the war” (Connor 1984,
210). The end of book 7, then, is a triumphant conclusion to the sustained
artistry of Thucydides’s portrait of the Sicilian expedition. The conclusion
provides a false closure, however, since the war continued for eight years
after the defeat in Sicily. Most readers find what follows in Thucydides
anticlimactic at best, not least because book 8 is unfinished. We can only
assume, with John Finley, that “had Thucydides lived to complete his work,
he would no doubt have risen to a final climax” (1963, 246–7).

after the Sicilian Expedition
7.1 The Initial Response to Sicily

After the disaster in Sicily, the Spartans focused on building ships, inducing
the Athenians’ allies to revolt, and finding new sources of funding from
Persia. King Archidamos had suggested each of these tactics in his speech
before the war (1.81–82.1), but the Spartans waited until the summer of 413
to begin to put them into effect with any vigor. In the summer of 412, with
the help of Alkibiades, the Spartans got Chios to revolt (8.14). In a sign of
their resilience, the Athenians responded to the revolt by deciding to use the
one-thousand-talent reserve fund laid up at the beginning of the war (2.24.1)
to build ships to counter the Spartans’ moves (8.15; see commentary to 8.1
in chapter 4). The use of this fund, however, points up the precariousness
of Athenian finances throughout this “Ionian” or “Dekeleian” phase of the
war. The Spartans were funded by the Persians in return for conceding to
them the tribute from the Greek states of Asia Minor (Thucydides cites
three treaties between them, at 8.18, 8.37, and 8.58). The Athenians, in
contrast, once this reserve fund was used up, were forced to blunt their
military actions by repeatedly diverting resources to expeditions meant to
raise money from their fewer and fewer remaining allies. The Athenians
and Peloponnesians traded the likes of Miletos, Knidos, Mytilene, Rhodes,
Abydos, and Lampsakos back and forth during 412 and much of 411.
7.2 The Oligarchy of the Four Hundred

The most significant event during these years was the oligarchic revolution
in Athens that in the spring of 411 replaced the democracy with a narrow
oligarchy of four hundred men. This movement began as a scheme of Alkibi-
ades and some of the leaders of the fleet on Samos in the winter of 412/11 to
return him to an Athens free of “the base democracy that had exiled him”
(8.47.2). Alkibiades sweetened the deal by claiming he could bring Persia
over to Athens’s side. The conspirators in Athens soon tired of Alkibiades
but not of the idea of oligarchy and set up the oligarchic government of the
Four Hundred (8.67–70.1). The fleet on Samos, however, after a flirtation
with oligarchy, reverted to democracy, constituted themselves as the real
city of Athens, and claimed the city in Athens had revolted from them
(8.73–76). The men on Samos thus effected the abandonment of Athens
that the men in Sicily repeatedly flirted with (see section 6.6 above). They
soon recalled Alkibiades to Samos and made him a general (8.82.1). The
disunity in Athens encouraged Euboia to revolt, which caused a panic in
Athens “greater than any before,” even greater than the panic over Sicily
(8.96.1; see commentary to 8.1 in chapter 4).
The shock encouraged the Athenians in Athens to work together; they
deposed the Four Hundred and empowered the short-lived government
of “the Five Thousand.” This government expanded the franchise much
more widely to a nominal five thousand adult males, a number that might
strike some in Athens as quite democratic (cf. Rhodes 1972, 121). Thucydides
says that during the “first period” of this government, Athens was “best
governed” during his lifetime (8.97.2). Toward the end of the summer of
411, the Athenians won the naval battle of Kynossema, off a headland in
the Hellespont. After the difficulties of the loss of Euboia and the chaos of
stasis, the victory raised the Athenians’ morale (8.106.2, 5). It is at about
this point that Thucydides’s text breaks off, although we know he lived to
see the end of the war (5.26.1). From this point on, our main sources are
Xenophon’s Hellenika and the history of Diodoros Sikulos.
In (probably) early spring 410 (Lazenby 2004, 208; Andrewes 1992,
512), the Athenians won another naval victory at Kyzikos, which gave them
“almost complete command in northern waters, and mostly elsewhere,”
Introduction 41
for most of the next three years (Lazenby 2004, 205; cf. Andrewes 1992,
483). They rejected a peace offering from Sparta based on the status quo
(Diodoros 13.52.2)—probably rightly because Byzantion and Chalkedon
were still in Spartan control, and so the Athenians’ essential grain supply
from the Black Sea was still under threat. But the Athenians’ continued
financial difficulties meant that they could not really follow up on their
victories. Sometime in 410 (June?), Athens also seems to have returned to
full democracy (Andokides, On the Mysteries 96–98; Lazenby 2004, 207;
Andrewes 1992, 484).
7.3 Alkibiades Again

Throughout these years, Alkibiades continued to serve with the Athenian
fleet based on Samos (first as a general elected only by them, later as a
general elected in Athens for 407/6). He returned to Athens in June 407
(Andrewes 1992, 487) and while there contrived to provide security for the
Athenians to make the annual procession to Eleusis by land—something
they had not done since the Spartan fortification (on his suggestion) of
Dekeleia in 413 (Plutarch, Alkibiades 34.2; Xenophon, Hellenika 1.4.20).
This was a propaganda move meant to wipe out the old stigma of his alleged
profanation of the mysteries of Eleusis (6.28). However, in very late 407
or early 406 (Lazenby 2004, 224; Andrewes 1992, 490), Alkibiades left
a second-in-command in charge off Notion (about eight miles northwest
of Ephesos) with strict orders not to engage the fleet of the new Spartan
naval commander Lysandros. The man disobeyed orders, however, engaged
Lysandros, and lost between fifteen and twenty-two ships. Alkibiades knew
his time was up. He fled to his private strongholds in the Thracian Cher-
sonese and never returned to Athens (Diodoros 13.71.2–4, 13.74.4). Lazenby
judges the loss of Alkibiades disastrous: only Alkibiades “might have been
able to drive a wedge between the Spartans and the Persians even now, and,
in the end, that is the only way the Athenians could have won” (2004, 224).
7.4 Arginousai
In 406, the Athenian general Konon found himself blockaded at Mytilene
on the island of Lesbos with almost the whole Athenian fleet. In response,
the Athenians manned 110 ships by employing metics, cavalrymen, and even
slaves, who were promised their freedom and some form of citizenship for
serving (Xenophon, Hellenika 1.6.24; cf. Aristophanes, Frogs 693–94). They
later added 40 more ships before meeting the Peloponnesian fleet of 120
ships at the Arginousai Islands near Lesbos. The battle was a victory for the
Athenians. Diodoros (13.100.3) and Xenophon (1.6.34) almost agree on the
losses: 25 ships for the Athenians and around 70 for the Peloponnesians.
In addition, the Peloponnesians evacuated Mytilene.
However, because of a storm that came up after the battle, the Athenians
were not able to recover the stranded crews from the sunken ships or the
bodies of the dead. Therefore, the eight generals were all deposed from
their posts and called back to Athens to stand trial. The six generals who
were foolish enough to return to Athens were illegally put on trial together
in what Xenophon presents as a scene of mob rule, where men who spoke
against the illegality were threatened with being put on trial themselves.
Nevertheless, Sokrates, who happened to be serving that day as one of
the prytaneis of the boule (see section 4 above), refused to join in putting
forward the motion. He was therefore deposed from his position but not,
in fact, put on trial for his obstructionism (Xenophon, Hellenika 1.7.15). In
the end, the six generals tried were all found guilty and were executed,
including Perikles, the son of the famous statesman.
This affair both stripped the Athenians of the services of eight of their
generals and also, surely, encouraged the remaining generals to be extremely
cautious. The Aristotelian Constitution of the Athenians (but no other
source) reports another Spartan peace offer at this time (34.1). Because
the Athenians had by now recovered Byzantion and the route to the grain
stores of the Black Sea, they might have been well advised to accept it (if it
occurred). But they did not.
7.5 Aigospotamoi
In the spring of the next year, 405, Lysandros was again naval commander
for Sparta. His focus being on the Hellespont, he based his fleet at Lampsa-
kos, on the eastern shore of the Hellespont, not too far south of the Propontis
(see map 1). The Athenians stationed themselves at Aigospotamoi, probably
Introduction 43
on the open shore right across the Hellespont (Xenophon, Hellenika 2.1.21).
Here there was no nearby town to provision the crews, the nearest one being
Sestos some twelve miles southwest. Alkibiades, whose stronghold was in
the area, approached the Athenian commanders and urged them to leave
the poor site and relocate to Sestos (Xenophon, Hellenika 2.1.25). Diodoros
adds that he offered to bring a Thracian army to help them if he got a share
of the command (13.105.3). Whether he offered an army or just advice, the
Athenians rebuffed him. And so, day after day the Athenians sailed out to
challenge Lysandros, but he always refused to engage. As the days passed,
the Athenians grew more and more careless when they returned to shore,
going further and further away from their ships in search of food. Finally,
on the fifth day, Lysandros refused the Athenians’ initial challenge but
then, after they had returned to shore, quickly came down on them. The
Athenians lost virtually all of their fleet; only nine ships escaped. Konon,
one of the generals, fled with eight to Kypros. He was too smart to return
to Athens after the debacle. The state ship Paralos brought the news of the
disaster to Athens (Xenophon, Hellenika 2.1.27–29).
When the Athenians heard the news, they despaired, thinking that they
would suffer the fate that they had meted out to Skione and to Melos: death
for the men, slavery for the women and children (Xenophon, Hellenika
2.2.3). They therefore prepared to stand a siege for as long as they could
since Lysandros would now blockade the grain route from the Black Sea
in order to starve them into submission. Lysandros also continued to pluck
cities from Athenian control. In the end, only Samos remained loyal (for
which the Athenians granted all Samians citizenship; Meiggs and Lewis
1988, #94, available translated online at Attic Inscriptions Online). Further-
more, whenever Lysandros took Athenian prisoners, he sent them back
to Athens to increase the number of starving mouths (Xenophon, Hellenika
2.2.2).
Eventually, in spring 404, the Athenians surrendered, and the Spartans
held a congress of their allies to consider what to do. The Korinthians and
Thebans urged the Spartans to destroy Athens (Xenophon, Hellenika
2.2.19). This would have benefitted the Korinthians and the Thebans (at
the expense of Sparta) since they were the nearest neighbors of Athens and
could have expanded into the empty territory. For this or some other reason,
the Spartans rejected destruction. They said that they were unwilling to
destroy a city that had been so important in saving the Greeks from Persia
(Xenophon, Hellenika 2.2.20). They agreed to make peace on the condition
that the Athenians destroy the walls of the Peiraieus and the Long Walls,
surrender all their ships but twelve, restore their exiles, and make a full
alliance with the Spartans (Xenophon, Hellenika 2.2.20). The provision
about exiles meant that Thucydides, exiled after the loss of Amphipolis (see
sections 1.1 and 3.5 above), was now free to return to Athens. We do not
know for certain if he ever did so. Soon after the Athenians voted to accept
the peace, Lysandros sailed into the Peiraieus and the Peloponnesians tore
down its walls to the celebratory music of flute girls, “thinking that that day
was the beginning of freedom for Greece” (Xenophon, Hellenika 2.2.23).
The war, according to Thucydides, lasted almost exactly twenty-seven
years (5.26.1–3).
Maps
Map 1. Greece and the Aegean. Map by Philip Schwartzberg.
45
Map 2. Sicily and South Italy. Map by Philip Schwartzberg.
46
Map 3. The Environs of Syracuse. Map by Philip Schwartzberg.
47
Commentar y on Thuc ydides’s
Melian Dialog ue and A f termath
(5.84–5.116)
In the summer of 416, during the unsettled years of the so-called Peace
of Nikias (421–ca. 414; see introduction 3.6 and n. 6.105.1), the Athenians
sailed to Melos and demanded that the Melians join the Athenian Empire.
The “Melian Dialogue” (5.84.1b–114) presents the negotiations between
the two sides. After turning away to minor skirmishes elsewhere (5.115.1–3,
116.1), Thucydides returns to Melos to describe its capture and destruction.
Although strictly speaking not part of the Sicilian expedition, the Melian
Dialogue has rightly been called the “prelude” to Sicily (Wasserman 1947,
30), and the section explores many of the themes that exercise Thucydides
in his account of the Sicilian expedition, including the theme of “the near
and the far,” xyngeneia, the city theme, the nature of Athenian imperialism
and its connection to Perikles, and the Peloponnesian War as a “perversion”
of the Persian Wars (see introduction 6.1, 6.2, 6.4, and 6.6).
SIXTEENTH YEAR OF THE WAR (416–415)
Alkibiades and Argive Hostages (5.84.1a),

“Summer” 416
Dewald has demonstrated that in books 1–5.24, Thucydides organizes his
material by dividing it up into “discrete units of action,” each of which
48
Melian Dialogue 49
declares its beginning with a formular sentence “announc[ing] its sub-

ject, the action undertaken, the place, and (in almost 90 percent of the
units) a rough indication of time” (2005, 3). Dewald’s work allows us to
see Thucydides’s organizational architecture and the units with which it
is made up. In books 5.25–6.7, although units of action still exist, they tend
to be shorter, “less crisply focused” and “less sharply separated from one
another” (120).
Dewald’s study has revealed that Thucydides’s original divisions of the
text sometimes subdivide the traditional (but non-Thucydidean) paragraph-
ing followed in the Oxford Classical Text. Hence this unit ends after the
first sentence of 5.84.1. The next sentence, with its change of subject, active
verb, and notice of location, is a formular sentence marking the beginning
of a new unit. I follow Dewald’s divisions below.
84.1a τοῦ δ᾿ ἐπιγιγνομένου θέρους: Genitive of time within which (Sm.

1444). ἐπιγίγνομαι means “the following, the next” (LSJ). This is
the “summer” of 416, beginning in ca. mid-March 416 and running
until the end of October. See introduction 1.6 for Thucydides’s dating
system.
ναυσὶν εἴκοσιν: The “dative of military accompaniment” (Sm. 1526).
Ἀργείων τοὺς δοκοῦντας ἔτι ὑπόπτους εἶναι: In the prior summer,
Argos had experienced a democratic revolution and joined with Ath-
ens. These men are suspected of still supporting oligarchy.
The Melian Dialogue (5.84.1b–5.114), “Summer” 416

The dialogue structure is unique in Thucydides’s work. It has the precedents
of the Mytilenaian debate (3.36–49) and the Plataian debate (3.52–68), where
first Kleon and Diodotos, and later the Thebans and Plataians argue directly
against one another, but each of those debates still involves full speeches,
not the shorter responses we have in the dialogue. Hudson-Williams argues
that it is “inconceivable” that the dialogue could really have occurred as
Thucydides presents it because statesmen “could not have argued so aca-
demically on matters of such moment” and because, if interrupted and
50 Melian Dialogue
asked a question, “statesmen and generals . . . always spoke at length” (1950,
167–68). He argues, however, that other gentlemen of the day would have
been well versed in the private intellectual dialogues on which the Melian
Dialogue is based (165).
Commentators have sometimes wondered what source Thucydides could
have had for the dialogue, given the few participants, only half of whom
survived. He may well have known no more than that the Athenians gave
the Melians a chance to surrender and that they rejected the offer, choosing
to rely on the gods, hope, and the Spartans. Thucydides presumably chose
to write up a full dialogue because it gave him the opportunity to investigate
the topic of Athenian aggression and the responses to it (see introduction
1.4 on the speeches in Thucydides). Dionysius of Halicarnassus, for one, is
shocked by the sentiments of the Athenians and so does not “approve” the
dialogue because in it “the wisest of the Greeks advance the most disgraceful
arguments . . . and clothe them in most unpleasing language” (On Thucydides
41; trans. Pritchett).
84.1b τὴν νῆσον: As the Athenians reveal (5.97), the fact that Melos is an
island and not subject to them is all that matters in their accounting.
Melos lies in the southwest Kyklades and was united into a single polis.
ναυσὶν . . . τριάκοντα: Another “dative of military accompaniment” (Sm.
1526).
Λεσβίαιν: Dative dual (Sm. 287). Another “dative of military accompani-
ment” (Sm. 1526).
καὶ νησιωτῶν: “and islanders into the bargain” (cf. Andrewes in HCT
4:155). Andrewes’s acceptance of this translation demonstrates the
desire of some commentators to find a justification (unexpressed by
Thucydides) for the attack on Melos. Andrewes, for example, argues
from the presence of these islanders that the campaign against Melos
was not a “mere monstrosity of aggression” but something with which
Athens’s island subjects could “sympathise” (1960, 2). He concludes
that there was a “case, perhaps even a plausible case, for Athens’
attack” that Thucydides knew but excluded from his text. Others have
Melian Dialogue 51
argued that the Athenian attack was precipitated either by Melian

contributions to the Spartan war fund or because the island was
tributary to Athens but had never paid (based on its presence in the
propaganda tribute reassessment of 425/24; cf. Treu 1954a, 1954b,
and Seaman 1997, 414n108). But the Melian assessments in question
have now been down-dated to the so-called Ionian or Dekeleian war,
and in any case, all such discussions discount what Thucydides’s
Athenians say and thus ignore Thucydides’s presentation of the event:
that the Athenians attacked Melos simply because it was an island and
unwilling to submit like the others.
μάλιστα: “in round numbers, about” (LSJ s.v. μάλα ΙΙΙ.5).
84.2 ἄποικοι: The Melians hope to get much from this connection (see n.
5.104). Thucydides does not give this information in his account of the
earlier campaign against Melos in 426 (3.91), signaling his particular
interest in the issue here.
τὸ μὲν πρῶτον: Adverbial accusative; translate as “in the earlier years of
the war.”
ὡς: “when” (Sm. 3000).
δῃοῦντες τὴν γῆν: This probably refers to an earlier unsuccessful
attempt under Nikias to force Melos into the Athenian Empire in
426 (3.91.3) and Melos’s new stance from that date. It cannot refer to
the present campaign because the Athenians have not yet taken any
military action. Note here the echo of the descriptive phrase from
3.91.2 (ὄντας νησιώτας καὶ οὐκ ἐθέλοντας ὑπακούειν). The echo
underscores that the Melian campaign of 416 was not some aberration
but part of consistent Athenian policy of at least ten years’ standing.
84.3 τῇ παρασκευῇ ταύτῃ: The “dative of military accompaniment”

(Sm. 1526).
Κλεομήδης . . . καὶ Τεισίας: These men do not appear elsewhere in
Thucydides’s work. It is not they who negotiate with the Melians.
Rather, they send unnamed ambassadors who are addressed only
once and, when they are, only as Athenians (5.112.2). Thucydides
does not report what we learn from other sources—that Alkibiades,
52 Melian Dialogue
one of the commanders of the Sicilian expedition, particularly urged

Melos’s eventual punishment (cf. Pseudo-Andokides, 4.22–23; Plu-
tarch, Alkibiades 16.5). Thus Thucydides keeps the statements of the
ambassadors separate from the politics of individuals and makes their
position a blanket Athenian one.
πρὶν ἀδικεῖν: After an affirmative clause, πρίν usually takes an infinitive
and means “before” (Sm. 2431).
ποιησομένους: Future participle to express purpose (Sm. 2065).
πρὸς μὲν τὸ πλῆθος οὐκ ἤγαγον: That is, to the whole body of Melians—
what would in Athens be the ruling demos but which does not have
such sovereign power in Melos. The Melians have a choice about what
to do, but the Melian oligarchs do not extend that choice to the people
(cf. Dewald 2005, 142).
ταῖς ἀρχαῖς: αἱ ἀρχαί are “the authorities, the magistrates” (LSJ IΙ.4).
περὶ ὧν: “concerning those things about which.” Thucydides has left out
the antecedent, as is common when it refers to a general idea (Sm.
2509).
85 ὅπως δὴ μὴ . . . ἀπατηθῶσιν: Subjunctive in a purpose clause in pri-

mary sequence (Sm. 2196). The Athenians do not here admit that they
would have deceived the Melians. Rather, they sarcastically repeat
what the Melians said or implied. The δή emphasizes the “ingenious
stratagem or device” and gives an “indignant or contemptuous” tone
(Denniston GP, 232–33). As Morrison notes, this comment must
“cause some uneasiness for the reader,” who must now “revisit” earlier
speeches “in an entirely new light” since it highlights the deceptive
power of rhetoric (2000, 124). The comment also primes the reader to
critically appraise the coming speeches of the Sicilian debate as well
as the performance of the demos and the democracy there.
ἐπαγωγά: This recalls the ἐπαγωγά words of Brasidas at Akanthos
(4.88.1; see n. 5.110) and his “enticing but untrue” claims in Boiotia
(ἐφολκὰ καὶ οὐ τὰ ὄντα, 4.108.5. See n. 6.8.2). The Athenians were led
astray in part by ἐπαγωγὰ καὶ οὐκ ἀληθῆ claims when they decided to
attack Sicily (6.8.2).
Melian Dialogue 53
ἀνέλεγκτα: Not subject to elenchos, the kind of quick, pointed question-

ing that Sokrates made famous.
φρονεῖ: Not “thinks” but “means” or “intends” (LSJ II, citing this pas-
sage).
ἡμῶν ἡ . . . ἀγωγή: An abstract noun where a different writer might have
said, “that you brought us into the council” (see introduction 2.3.1).
ἡμῶν is objective genitive (“the leading of us”).
οἱ καθήμενοι: From κάθημαι, of courts and councils (LSJ II).
μηδ᾿ ὑμεῖς ἑνὶ λόγῳ . . . ὑπολαμβάνοντες: That is, “you, too, do not reply
in one long speech.”
86 ἡ μὲν ἐπιείκεια . . . οὐ ψέγεται: “there is no objection to” (LSJ s.v.

ψέγω, citing this passage).
τοῦ διδάσκειν: Αrticular infinitive as genitive of explanation (Sm. 1322).
διαφέροντα: Predicate (after φαίνεται) with subject τὰ δὲ τοῦ πολέμου
. . . οὐ μέλλοντα. The Melians seem clear-eyed here. They intend
a contrast (διαφέροντα) between war material that is present
(παρόντα) and not merely potential or imaginary (οὐ μέλλοντα) and
the Athenians’ claim that they will be able to speak καθ᾿ ἡσυχίαν.
αὐτοῦ: Genitive of comparison (Sm. 1402), referring to the proposition
just described (τοῦ διδάσκειν).
αὐτούς τε κριτὰς ἥκοντας ὑμᾶς: Accusative and supplementary parti-
ciple in indirect discourse after ὁρῶμεν (Sm. 2110).
τὴν τελευτὴν . . . πόλεμον . . . φέρουσαν . . . δουλείαν: “we see . . .
the outcome (τελευτήν) . . . bringing war on us (πόλεμον ἡμῖν
φέρουσαν) if we prevail in justice (περιγενομένοις μὲν τῷ δικαίῳ)
and on account of that (καὶ δι᾿ αὐτό) do not give in (μὴ ἐνδοῦσι) or
if we are persuaded (πεισθεῖσι), [bringing] subjugation (δουλείαν).”
Accusative and participle in indirect discourse after ὁρῶμεν (Sm.
2110). The Melians outline the two possible outcomes they see for the
proceedings. (See n. 5.93 on the meaning of δουλεία). The participles
περιγενομένοις, ἐνδοῦσι, and πεισθεῖσι modify ἡμῖν (dative after
φέρουσαν) and are conditional (Sm. 2067). ἐξ αὐτοῦ = “from these
proceedings.”
54 Melian Dialogue
87 εἰ . . . λογιούμενοι . . . ξυνήκετε . . . βουλεύσοντες . . . , παυοίμεθ᾿ ἄν:

“if you have assembled (ξυνήκετε) to . . . (λογιούμενοι) . . . or for any
other reason than (ἢ ἄλλο τι . . . ἤ) to . . . (βουλεύσοντες) . . . , we can
stop.” The participles are future participles expressing purpose (Sm.
2065).
τοίνυν: Α typically Attic and “conversational and lively” particle.
Thucydides uses it only in Athenian speeches (Denniston GP, 569).
Translate as “well then; well now.”
ὑπονοίας τῶν μελλόντων . . . ἢ ἐκ τῶν παρόντων: The theme of “the
near and the far” (see introduction 6.1). The Athenians accuse the
Melians of not seeing the present reality, but as Macleod notes, the
Athenians falsely treat as “mere ‘suppositions about the future’ ” the
reality that “the islanders see they must endure” (1983, 57).
ὧν ὁρᾶτε: “from the things that you see.” Thucydides has left out the
antecedent, as is common when it refers to a general idea and the rela-
tive has been attracted into its case (Sm. 2509, 2522).
περὶ σωτηρίας: Allison (1997b, 56–59 points out the foreshadowing.
Only the Melians need worry about soteria here; but as book 6 moves
to book 7, it is the Athenians who need to take thought for such
things.
88 εἰκὸς μὲν καὶ ξυγγνώμη [ἐστι]: “it is natural and excusable that”
(LSJ s.v. συγγνώμη, citing this passage). τρέπεσθαι is the subject
of εἰκός and ξυγγνώμη (Sm. 1985) with its own accusative subject
καθεστῶτας.
ᾧ προκαλεῖσθε τρόπῳ: “in the manner that you propose.”
89 τοίνυν: Α typically Attic and “conversational and lively” particle.

Thucydides uses it only in Athenian speeches (Denniston GP, 569).
Translate as “well then; well now.”
τὸν Μῆδον καταλύσαντες . . . ἀδικούμενοι: “we will not say that we rule
justly because we defeated the Mede or because. . . .” Causal participles
(Sm. 2064). Because the Athenians did defeat the Medes, and so the
first part of the sentence is at least partly true, some have argued that
perhaps the second part of the sentence, about Athenian complaints
Melian Dialogue 55
against Melos, may also be at least partly true. But if there are griev-
ances, Thucydides is not interested in detailing them. His focus is on
Athens’s desire to control this island outlier (see n. 5.84.1).
oὔθ᾿ ὑμᾶς ἀξιοῦμεν ἢ ὅτι . . . ἢ ὡς . . . λέγοντας οἴεσθαι πείσειν: “nor do
we deem it right that you should think (οἴεσθαι) you will persuade
(πείσειν) [us] saying (λέγοντας) either that . . . or that. . . .” Infinitive
with subject accusative in indirect discourse after ἀξιοῦμεν (Sm. 2018).
ἐξ ὧν: “from those things that.” Thucydides omits the antecedent, as
is common when it refers to a general idea and the relative has been
attracted into its case (Sm. 2509, 2522).
διαπράσσεσθαι: “but we deem it right (ἀξιοῦμεν) that you accomplish
(διαπράσσεσθαι).” The accusative subject is ὑμᾶς.
ἐπισταμένους [ὑμᾶς] πρὸς εἰδότας: “since you know as well as we do”
(Graves).
δίκαια . . . κρίνεται: “justice is decided.” In their speech at Sparta before
the war, the Athenians claimed that “the rule has always been estab-
lished that the weaker is kept down by the stronger,” and they also
accused the Spartans of “calculating your interests” but “employing
an argument about justice” (1.76.2).
ἐν τῷ ἀνθρωπείῳ λόγῳ: “in human considerations” (Lattimore). The
contrast between these statements and the Athenians’ glorious stance
in the Persian Wars against the attempted imperialism of the Medes
is striking. Dionysius of Halicarnassus remarked on these lines that
“words like these were appropriate to oriental monarchs addressing
Greeks, but unfit to be spoken by Athenians to the Greeks whom they
liberated from the Medes” (On Thucydides 39; trans. Pritchett).
90 ᾗ: “as” (LSJ Ab.II), with νομίζομεν, “as we think, at any rate” (Craw-
ley).
μέν: “μέν solitarium,” that is, a μέν without a corresponding δέ. With
a word meaning opinion, appearance, or probability, that word is
“implicitly contrasted with certainty or reality” (Denniston GP, 382).
χρήσιμον . . . ὠφεληθῆναι: “it is useful that you not destroy (μὴ
καταλύειν ὑμᾶς) . . . and that fairness and justice exist (εἶναι τὰ εἰκότα
56 Melian Dialogue
καὶ δίκαια) for . . . and that one be benefitted (τινα ὠφεληθῆναι) even
if persuading (πείσαντά, concessive participle) something short of
exactness (τι καὶ ἐντὸς τοῦ ἀκριβοῦς).” The infinitives are subject of
χρήσιμον with ἐστί understood (Sm. 1985). As Hornblower notes, “the
Melians carefully avoid the language of pity” (3:234). And wisely so,
given the explicit statement from Kleon in the Mytilene debate that
“pity is incompatible with empire” (3.40.2) and Diodotos’s claim that
even his less Draconian position gives “no priority to pity or even-
handedness” (3.48.1; Lattimore).
ἀνάγκη: That is, to speak in this way “is necessary.”
παρὰ τὸ δίκαιον τὸ ξυμφέρον: “expediency, apart from justice” (Lat-
timore).
καὶ πρὸς ὑμῶν οὐχ ἧσσον τοῦτο, ὅσῳ: “this point (τοῦτο) is not less
applicable to you in as much as (ὅσῳ).” A comparative clause of quan-
tity or degree (Sm. 2468); πρός + genitive means “to the advantage
of” (Sm. 1695.1b).
σφαλέντες ἂν . . . γένοισθε: A conditional participle (“if you . . .”) in a
future less vivid condition (Sm. 2329). Τhe first verb, derived from a
wrestling fall, is Thucydides’s “favourite expression for failure” in the
Sicilian expedition (Hornblower 2004, 351–52; see n. 6.10.1).
91.1 ἢν καὶ παυθῇ: Τhat is, ἡ ἡμετέρα ἀρχή. ἤν = ἐάν. This reference to
an end to the Athenian Empire (and that above at 5.90) need not be
deliberate foreshadowing of the actual fall of Athens, the Athenians’
fear at that time that they would suffer the same fate as Melos, and
the exhortation by the Thebans, Korinthians, and others that they
should be “wiped out” (all covered by Xenophon, Hellenika 2.2.3,
2.2.19–20)—but it is a tempting possibility. Rawlings (1981) argues
that Thucydides intended a ten-book work, divided into two five-
book sections, with the Melian Dialogue ending the first section,
and thus paralleling an assumed section on the fall of Athens. He
suggests, furthermore (247), that Thucydides might have planned an
“Athenian dialogue” on the negotiations over what to do with Athens
as the “final dramatic episode” of the work. Arnold notes that as the
Melian Dialogue 57
Spartans at Plataia demonstrate “the irrelevance of the past to [their]

policy” here, the Athenians, in contrast, “exclude . . . all arguments
concerning the future” (1996, 109).
ἔστι δὲ οὐ πρὸς Λακεδαιμονίους ἡμῖν ὁ ἀγών: Now, that is—reflecting
the view (not held by Thucydides, see 5.26 and introduction 3.6) that
during the period of the Peace of Nikias (421–ca. 414; see n. 6.105.1)
Athens was not at war with the Lakedaimonians.
τῶν ἀρξάντων: Genitive after κρατήσωσιν, as is common with verbs of
ruling (Sm. 1370).
91.2 ἡμῖν ἀφείσθω: “let it be permitted to us.” Translate with
κινδυνεύεσθαι. From ἀφίημι. ὡς = “that,” introducing a dependent
statement explaining ταῦτα δηλώσομεν (Sm. 2577).
ὑμᾶς . . . σωθῆναι: Infinitive with subject accusative after βουλόμενοι
(Sm. 1991).
χρησίμως δ᾿ . . . ἀμφοτέροις: “beneficially to both.” The Athenians
coldly talk as if the survival of Melos offers equal benefits to them and
to the Melians.
92 ἂν ξυμβαίη: Potential optative (Sm. 1824) with the two infinitives

δουλεῦσαι and ἄρξαι as subject (Sm. 1985). χρήσιμον is predicate.
93 ὑμῖν . . . ὑπακοῦσαι ἂν γένοιτο: “submitting would occur for you.”

Potential optative (Sm. 1824). The subject of the verb is the infinitive
ὑπακοῦσαι. Hornblower notes that the Athenians “accept the Melian
bleak assessment of the position in terms of prospective slavery” but
with ὑπακοῦσαι “use a less crude word” (3:236). The Athenians’ word
is more correct, however, because the Melians’ word, δουλεῦσαι, is
political hyperbole, seeming to give the sense of “slavery” to the act of
submitting to subject status in an empire. The Melians, however, face
(and ultimately suffered) actual slavery, ἀνδραποδίσαι, if they resist
and lose (5.116.4). They seem unwilling to acknowledge that.
πρὸ τοῦ . . . παθεῖν: Articular infinitive after a preposition (Sm. 2032g).
ἡμεῖς . . . κερδαίνοιμεν ἄν: Variatio. Thucydides, in typical fashion,
avoids a parallel construction with ἡμῖν.
58 Melian Dialogue
94 ὥστε . . . ἡμᾶς . . . εἶναι . . . , οὐκ ἂν δέξαισθε: “would you not accept
[this situation] that (ὥστε) we be (ἡμᾶς . . . εἶναι). . . .” A natural
result clause with the infinitive (with subject ἡμᾶς) explaining the
terms (Sm. 2258) that the Melians wish the Athenians would accept
(δέξαισθε is a potential optative, Sm. 1824). The square brackets
around δὲ indicate that although it is found in some manuscripts,
the editor thinks that it does not belong to Thucydides’s text but was
added at some later point by an overactive scribe.
95 ἡ φιλία . . . δουλούμενον: In this “extraordinary sentence” (Graves),

Thucydides merges two thoughts. τὸ δὲ μῖσος . . . δηλούμενον is in
apposition to ἡ ἔχθρα, while ἡ φιλία “does double duty” (Graves).
In the first thought, ἡ φιλία is parallel to ἡ ἔχθρα, and also parallel,
in the second thought, to τὸ δὲ μῖσος. ὅσον ἡ φιλία completes the
first thought (“as much as your friendship [hurts us]”). The genitive
ἀσθενείας, together with what follows about τὸ δὲ μῖσος, then
conveys “[demonstrating] an example (παράδειγμα) of weakness
(ἀσθενείας) to our subjects (ἀρχομένοις).” Melos, the Athenians
claim, is a “didactic arena” (cf. Rood 1998, 67, using the phrase of
Davidson 1991, 14) through which the audience of the Greek world can
learn about Athens’s strength. Kallet connects the Athenians’ interest
here in how their power looks to other Greeks with the ostentatious
display of the Sicilian expedition (2001, 17).
96 τὸ εἰκός: “that which is reasonable.”

τοὺς τε μὴ προσήκοντας: “Those who are not connected to you.” Horn-
blower objects to those who translate so as to miss the “vital point” of
kinship or χyngeneia (3:237). The Melians are kin, not of Athens, but
of Sparta, as Thucydides was careful to note at the beginning of the
episode (cf. n. 5.84.2). In the Melians’ worldview this marks them as
outside Athens’s sphere. They think that sphere, furthermore, includes
only states already tied to Athens through colonization or participa-
tion in the Delian League. An echo of Perikles here shows how dif-
ferent the Athenian view is. In the Funeral Oration, Perikles claimed
that the whole earth was the grave of brave Athenians, stating, “not
Melian Dialogue 59
only the inscription on the stelai in their homeland marks it.” Rather,
there exists an unwritten memorial “even in land that is unconnected
to them” (ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐν τῇ μὴ προσηκούσῃ ἄγραφος μνήμη, 2.43.3). In
his last speech, Perikles also claimed that the Athenians were already
somehow “masters” (κυριωτάτους) of the watery half of the world
(2.62.2). These passages suggest both that the Athenians have no
home territory and that no land is unconnected to Athens—certainly
not an island—ideas that helped lead the Athenians to Sicily (Taylor
2010, 135–51). Thus, I disagree with Fragoulaki (2013, 166), who asserts
“the absence of any claim of kinship between the Melians and the
Athenians,” though she is, of course, speaking about kinship in more
conventional terms than the Athenians.
ὅσοι . . . οἱ πολλοὶ καὶ . . . τινές: “And those as many as who. . . .”
Thucydides has left out the antecedent, as is common when it refers to
a general idea (Sm. 2509).
97 δικαιώματι: “when it comes to appeals to right.”

ἐλλείπειν . . . περιγίγνεσθαι . . . ἐπιέναι: Infinitives with subject accusa-
tives οὐδετέρους, τοὺς μέν, and ἡμᾶς δέ in indirect discourse after
ἡγοῦνται (Sm. 2018).
κατὰ δύναμιν . . . φόβῳ: Thucydides again avoids a parallel construction
(see introduction 2.3.6).
ὥστε . . . καὶ τὸ ἀσφαλὲς ἡμῖν . . . παράσχοιτε: ὥστε + potential optative
(Sm. 2278).
ἔξω . . . τοῦ . . . ἄρξαι: Articular infinitive after a preposition (Sm. 2032g).
διὰ τὸ καταστραφῆναι: “on account of [you] being subdued.” Articular
infinitive after a preposition (Sm. 2034b).
ἄλλως τε καί: “ ‘both otherwise and . . . ,’ i.e., ‘especially, above all’ ” (LSJ 3).
νησιῶται ναυκρατόρων . . . εἰ μὴ περιγένοισθε: The first two words are
juxtaposed for emphasis. ναυκρατόρων is genitive after περιγένοισθε
(Sm. 1403). ναυκράτορες, repeated at 5.109, has important echoes
both forward and backward. It fits with Perikles’s claim that the
Spartans would not easily or quickly threaten the Athenians’ superi-
ority at sea (1.142) and especially his boast that the Athenians “were
60 Melian Dialogue
masters (κυριωτάτους) of half the world” (2.62.2). The word thus

raises a question about the attack on Melos, which was—technically,
at least—in peacetime, even if in Thucydides’s eyes not really so, given
his opinion of the peace of Nikias, 5.26.2: was it contrary to Perikles’s
war strategy, which eschewed new conquests during the war (1.144),
and contrary to his general view of empire, or did it fit with important
elements of his worldview (Taylor 2010, 118–19)? If Athens is master
of all the watery part of the world, Melos already, in a sense, belongs
to it, and this campaign is not so much adding a new conquest to the
empire as gathering in something that already belongs to Athens.
Alkibiades used the claim that the Athenians would be ναυκράτορες
over all the Sicilians to urge on the Sicilian expedition (6.18.5). In the
Sicilian expedition, however, the Athenians lost this national charac-
teristic and were ναυκράτορες no longer.
98 ἐν δ᾿ἐκείνῳ: That is, the proposal of neutrality they made at 5.94

above.
αὖ καὶ ἐνταῦθα: “here again,” i.e., in addition to above at 5.90.
ἐκβιβάσαντες: “diverting us from” + genitive (cf. LSJ, citing this pas-
sage).
τῷ ὑμετέρῳ ξυμφόρῳ ὑπακούειν: “to be subservient to your interests”
(Sm. 1464, translating this passage). Infinitive after πείθετε.
ἡμᾶς . . . διδάσκοντας . . . , πειρᾶσθαι πείθειν: “it is necessary that we,
instructing . . . try to persuade.” The infinitives are subject of δεῖ (Sm.
1985) with their own accusative subject.
εἰ τυγχάνει . . . ξυμβαῖνον: “if it (that is, “what is useful to us” τὸ ἡμῖν
χρήσιμον) happens to be the same also for you.” Supplementary
participle with τυγχάνω (Sm. 2096). This clause represents what the
Melians must try to persuade the Athenians to believe.
ὅταν . . . ἡγήσωνται: Protasis (the “if” clause) of a future more vivid
temporal condition (with πῶς οὐ πολεμώσεσθε in the apodosis or
“then” clause) (Sm. 2323). The verb sets up indirect discourse with the
accusative and infinitive (ὑμᾶς . . . ἥξειν; Sm. 2018). How neutrals will
react to Athens is important in Sicily.
Melian Dialogue 61
ἐς τάδε βλέψαντες: Like the Athenians at 5.95, the Melians try to direct
the Athenians’ gaze to the audience of Greeks. The Plataians tried
the same thing at their “trial” in 427. As part of their failed attempt
to argue the Spartans out of killing them all, the Plataians warned
the Spartans that although “at the moment among most of the Hel-
lenes” they were “held up as an example of faith and honour,” they
should “beware lest public opinion condemn” them if they killed the
Plataians unjustly (3.57; Warner 1972 trans.). The Spartans did kill
all the Plataians, and Thucydides gives no evidence that any public
condemnation attached to the Spartans as a result or hindered their
future actions. As Morrison notes, the Athenians are trying to teach
the Melians “what the reader has already learned” from events like
the trial of the Plataians: “that decisions are made on considerations
of advantage, not elevated sentiments or a rosy picture of the past”
(2000, 129). He notes also the “distance created” between the reader
and the Melians because by reading the text the reader is “now better
versed in the ways of the world than the Melians.”
τοὺς δὲ μηδὲ μελλήσαντας γενέσθαι: “those not intending to become
[enemies].”
99 που: “I think” or “I suppose.” Τhe particle conveys a feeling of

uncertainty on the part of the speaker but can be used ironically (as
here) “by a speaker who is quite sure of his ground” (Denniston GP,
490–91).
τῷ ἐλευθέρῳ: Causal dative, “because of their freedom” (Sm. 1517),
expressing the reason why mainlanders, because they do not feel
imminent danger, delay their precautions and are therefore less of a
threat to the Athenians.
νησιώτας τέ που ἀνάρκτους: Obvious foreshadowing of the Sicilian
expedition. In addition, as Macleod notes, “there is a tragic flaw in the
Athenians’ argumentation. It is their empire that makes them afraid
. . . , but the only safeguard they can see against the dangers empire
creates is to enlarge it” (1983, 59).
πλεῖστ᾿: Adverbial accusative (Sm. 345, 1609).
62 Melian Dialogue
100 εἰ τοσαύτην . . . τὴν παρακινδύνευσιν ποιοῦνται: “if you take such
desperate action not to” (Lattimore). παρακινδύνευσιν is a hapax
legomenon, meaning that it occurs nowhere else in Greek literature
(Graves; Allison 1997b, 254). ποιοῦνται has a double subject, ὑμεῖς and
οἱ δουλεύοντες, but it takes its form from the closer one (Sm. 969)
and governs both infinitives μὴ παυθῆναι ἀρχῆς and ἀπαλλαγῆναι
[ἀρχῆς], which express purpose (Sm. 2008).
μὴ . . . ἐπεξελθεῖν: Subject of κακότης καὶ δειλία [ἐστι] (Sm. 1985). This is
an epexegetical (explanatory) infinitive further defining the meaning
of κακότης καὶ δειλία (Sm. 2001). πᾶν is adverbial.
πρὸ τοῦ δουλεῦσαι: Articular infinitive after a preposition (Sm. 2032g).
The Melians repeat the hyperbolic verb of 5.92, rejecting the milder
ὑπακοῦσαι of 5.93.
101 μὴ αἰσχύνην ὀφλεῖν: “not to bring shame on yourselves.” From

ὀφλισκάνω. The infinitive phrase explains ἀνδραγαθία as an apposi-
tive (Sm. 1987).
πρὸς τοὺς κρείσσονας . . . μὴ ἀνθίστασθαι: This infinitive phrase is in
apposition to σωτηρίας (Sm. 1987). πολλῷ is a dative of degree of dif-
ference after κρείσσονας (Sm. 1513).
102 ἐπιστάμεθα: A major question of the dialogue, of course, is who

understands the world better, the Melians or the Athenians?
τὰ τῶν πολέμων . . . κοινοτέρας τὰς τύχας λαμβάνοντα ἢ κατά . . . :
“there are situations where (ἔστιν ὅτε) the experience of war (τὰ
τῶν πολέμων) admits of (λαμβάνοντα) fortunes more equal (LSJ
s.v. κοινός, -ή, -όν IV.3.d, citing this passage) than according to
(κατά) [a calculation based on] the differing numbers of each side.”
λαμβάνοντα is a supplementary participle in indirect discourse after
ἐπιστάμεθα (Sm. 2110). ἔστιν ὅτε is a fixed phrase meaning “there are
situations when, sometimes” (Sm. 2515). It is unlikely that Thucydides,
who praised Perikles’s pronoia (while at the same time showing its
limitations), wanted his readers to approve the Melians’ reliance on
luck here.
τὸ μὲν εἶξαι: “to yield is. . . .” From εἴκω. An articular infinitive subject
[with ἐστί understood] and predicate ἀνέλπιστον (Sm. 1985).
Melian Dialogue 63
μετὰ δὲ τοῦ δρωμένου: “with action.” Neuter participle for an abstract

idea. See introduction 2.3.2.
ἔτι καὶ στῆναι ἐλπὶς ὀρθῶς: “[there is] still hope to. . . .” στῆναι . . .
ὀρθῶς explains the nature of the hope they claim still exists (Sm.
2001).
103.1 ἐλπίς: Denniston (GPS, 30–31) notes the “strikingly vivid, almost
allegorical personification.” Hope is here clearly a negative element in
the theme of “the near and the far” (see introduction 6.1). At Salamis,
however, according to the Athenians before the war, Athens “rose up
from a city that no longer existed” and faced the danger “on behalf of
a city that had little hope of existing” (1.74.3), which would seem to
align Athens on the negative/destructive side of “the near and the far.”
But Thucydides does not present the action negatively—the differ-
ence, presumably, being that the Athenians had hundreds of ships in
addition to hope, the kinds of “resources” that the Athenians discuss
here. In Sicily, in contrast, the Athenians were the ones to rely on
hope to their own destruction (cf. esp. Nikias at 7.77.1–4).
κινδύνῳ παραμύθιον οὖσα: “The sense required is ‘an encouragement to
risk’ rather than ‘a solace (relief) to danger’ ” (Graves). If the second
reading holds, the participle is concessive (“although a solace”).
τοὺς μὲν ἀπὸ περιουσίας χρωμένους αὐτῇ: Object of βλάψῃ and
καθεῖλεν. Thucydides represents Perikles as stating that wars are
won by intelligence (γνώμη) and abundance of resources (χρημάτων
περιουσία, 2.13.2). Kallet’s (2001) study shows how the Athenians
increasingly lost their ability to judge and manage resources in the
Sicilian books.
τοῖς δ᾿ ἐς ἅπαν τὸ ὑπάρχον ἀναρριπτοῦσι: “but for those.” Dative plural
participle. Variatio. Thucydides refuses to refer to the second group
with τοὺς δέ. LSJ (s.v. ἀναρρίπτω II) translates this passage, “throw
for one’s all; stake one’s all.” Dewald remarks, “one may call both
Melians and Athenians self-destructive, but Thucydides lets us see the
glory of risking all on a single throw, along with the foolishness. It is
part of human nature, he seems to say, to seek for more than security”
(2005, 143).
64 Melian Dialogue
δάπανος γὰρ φύσει: Understand ἐλπίς ἐστιν. As Andrewes (in HCT)

notes, this is “much more appropriate” to the Athenians in Sicily than
to the Melians. Sicily is ever in the background of this dialogue. Kallet
sees powerful foreshadowing here of 8.1, Thucydides’s description
of the reaction in Athens to the loss of the Sicilian expedition (2001,
230).
γιγνώσκεται: That is, “is recognized as ruinous” (the subject is hope).
σφαλέντων: Temporal genitive absolute, “when they are . . .” (Sm.
2070). The subject is those who stake their all on hope. Another use of
a favorite word for failure (Hornblower 2004, 350–51; see n. 6.10.1).
καὶ ἐν ὅτῳ . . . οὐκ ἐλλείπει: “and does not leave [any time? opportunity?]
in which one might still guard against it (φυλάξεταί τις αὐτὴν), once
recognized (γνωρισθεῖσαν).” Thucydides has left out the antecedent,
the object of ἐλλείπει (Sm. 2509).
103.2 ὅ: That is, the experience of such foolish men as just described.
Object of μὴ βούλεσθε παθεῖν.
ἐπὶ ῥοπῆς μιᾶς: “at the mercy of a single weighing in the scales” (LSJ b).
παρόν: “it being possible.” The subject is ἀνθρωπείως ἔτι σῴζεσθαι (“to
be saved through human means”). Accusative absolute (Sm. 2076A).
μαντικήν τε καὶ χρησμούς: In apposition to τὰς ἀφανεῖς [ἐλπίδας].
Thucydides does not show the Melians relying on oracles or seers. It
seems Thucydides is again trying to make a comparison to the Sicilian
expedition. Listening to seers (μάντεις) caused a crucial delay in the
Athenian retreat from Syracuse (7.50.4), and Thucydides represents
the Athenians as (after the fact, at least) thinking that oracle-mongers
and seers (χρησμολόγοι, μάντεις) urged them on to the expedition
(8.1.1).
104 εἰ μὴ ἀπὸ τοῦ ἴσου ἔσται: “if it will not be equal.”

ἀγωνίζεσθαι: Subject of χαλεπὸν [εἶναι] (Sm. 1985) in indirect discourse
after νομίζομεν (Sm. 2018).
μὴ ἐλασσώσεσθαι: “we will not have the worst of it in” X (dat.) (cf. LSJ
II.2). Middle in passive sense. An infinitive in indirect discourse after
Melian Dialogue 65
πιστεύομεν (Sm. 2018). The subject is the Melians. The subject is not
expressed because it is the same as that of the leading verb (Sm. 1972).
προσέσεσθαι: From πρόσειμι (ibo). An infinitive in indirect discourse
after πιστεύομεν (Sm. 2018). The accusative subject of the infinitive
is τὴν Λακεδαιμονίων ἡμῖν ξυμμαχίαν, which, in the Melians’ vision,
will “add itself to” (i.e., make up for) τῆς δὲ δυνάμεως τῷ ἐλλείποντι
(“that which is lacking in [Greek “of”] power”). This last is another
neuter participle for an abstract idea (see introduction 2.3.1 and
2.3.2). Note how in the Melians’ mind their kinship with the Lakedai-
monians has transformed itself into an alliance.
ἀνάγκην ἔχουσαν: Causal participle (Sm. 2064) agreeing with τὴν
Λακεδαιμονίων . . . ξυμμαχίαν. βοηθεῖν represents the obligation the
Melians believe that the Spartans must feel (Sm. 2001).
εἰ μή του ἄλλου: Understand ἕνεκα.
τῆς γε ξυγγενείας ἕνεκα καὶ αἰσχύνῃ: Variatio again (see introduction
2.3.6). A prepositional phrase paired with causal dative (Sm. 1517)
giving the reasons why the Lakedaimonians must help. Hornblower
insists that the Melians were not simply mad to think that the Lake-
daimonians would help them because of xyngeneia, arguing that “the
Spartans take, and are thought to take, kinship relations seriously”
(3:222). And yet, Thucydides does not show the Spartans as caring or,
indeed, even hearing about the sufferings of Melos. It is forays into
Argos and plundering raids from Pylos that Thucydides represents
as possibly moving Sparta to war, not the sufferings of Melos (5.115).
That is, if it was not mad for the Melians to trust in their kinship with
Sparta, Thucydides gives them no support in this section at least.
Furthermore, the trial of the Plataians has already powerfully dem-
onstrated that ties of philia between states had lost their force. The
Plataians, who fought together with the Spartans against the Persians
and Thebans in the battle in their territory in 479, supplicated the
Spartans by the “tombs of their fathers” and appealed to the Spartan
dead from the battle not to allow “their best friends” to be handed
over to the Thebans, “their worst enemies” (3.59.2). But the Spartans’
66 Melian Dialogue
new friends, the Thebans, were “useful” to them in the present war
(3.68.4), and that trumped their old ties of philia with the Plataians
from the old war. To a reader learning about the ways of the world
from Thucydides’s text, the Plataian example would strongly suggest
that xyngeneia, too, may well no longer hold (cf. Morrison 2000, 129;
Taylor 2010, 127–28).
105.1 πρὸς τὸ θεῖον: Not goodwill toward the gods but “from” or “at the
hands of” the gods (LSJ s.v. πρός C.6.b).
λελείψεσθαι: From λείπω, “to be wanting of or lacking in a thing”
with the genitive (LSJ B.II.4). An infinitive in indirect discourse
after οἰόμεθα (Sm. 2018). The subject is the Athenians. No subject is
expressed because it is the same as the subject of the leading verb (Sm.
1972).
oὐδέν: Object of δικαιοῦμεν and πράσσομεν.
τῆς ἀνθρωπείας τῶν μὲν ἐς τὸ θεῖον νομίσεως: “the established belief
about the deity” (LSJ s.v. νόμισις). νόμισις seems to be a new coinage
made by Thucydides.
τῶν δ᾿ ἐς σφᾶς αὐτοὺς [ἀνθρωπείας] βουλήσεως: A parallel construc-
tion to that above, also dependent on ἔξω; “men’s . . . attitude toward
themselves” (Lattimore).
105.2 τό τε θεῖον . . . τὸ ἀνθρώπειον . . . ἄρχειν: Both accusatives are

subjects of ἄρχειν in a present general condition (Sm. 2337) with
relative protasis (the “if” clause) (οὗ ἂν κρατῇ) in indirect discourse
after ἡγούμεθα (Sm. 2018). οὗ ἂν κρατῇ means “wherever they have
power” (Derow 1994, 84, cited by Hornblower 3:244).
δόξῃ . . . σαφῶς: Variatio again (see introduction 2.3.6). A dative of
instrument (Sm. 1503) paired with an adverb, explaining the degree
of certainty of the Athenians’ calculations about men (we can know
“clearly”) and the gods (we can know only “by reputation”).
διὰ παντός: sc. χρόνου (LSJ s.v. πᾶς D.IV).
ὑπὸ φύσεως ἀναγκαίας: “by a compulsory law of nature.”
ἡμεῖς οὔτε θέντες τὸν νόμον: The theme of the Athenians as the Persians
(see introduction 6.4). Xerxes made this same point when planning
Melian Dialogue 67
the invasion of Greece (Herodotus 7.8a). Parry argues that Thucydides

includes the Melian Dialogue “for purely dramatic purposes, to show
the turn the Athenian intellect had finally taken” (1981, 194). However,
the similarity between what the Athenians’ say here and in their speech
at Sparta before the war, when they argued that “the rule has always
been established that the weaker is kept down by the stronger” (1.76.2),
suggests, in contrast, that the Athenian position here is nothing new.
κειμένῳ: Undertand νόμῳ (cf. κεῖται νόμος, “the law is laid down,” LSJ
s.v. κεῖμαι IV.3). Dative with χρησάμενοι (Sm. 1509).
ὄντα δὲ . . . ἐσόμενον ἐς αἰεί: Sc. τὸν νόμον.
ὑμᾶς ἂν . . . γενομένους δρῶντας ἄν: “knowing that you . . . would do.”
Supplementary participles in indirect discourse after εἰδότες (Sm.
2106), representing a present contrary-to-fact condition (Sm. 2304) in
indirect discourse. The present participles represent the imperfect of
direct speech (Sm. 2344). The ἄν is repeated early in the sentence in
order to quickly indicate its character (Sm. 1765).
ἡμῖν: Dative with ἐν τῇ αὐτῇ δυνάμει (Sm. 1500).
ταὐτό: = τὸ αὐτό. The article and the adjective have combined by crasis
(Sm. 328N).
105.3 πρὸς μὲν τὸ θεῖον: “in respect to the gods.”

οὕτως: “for the reasons given.”
ἐλασσώσεσθαι: “that we will be at a disadvantage.” We would expect an
object clause with μή (or μή οὐ) and the subjunctive for a fear for the
future after φοβούμεθα (Sm. 2225), but verbs of fearing can take an
object infinitive (Sm. 2238). Thucydides employs the future infinitive
when he wants to “make the reference to the future especially promi-
nent” (Goodwin 27.2a).
τῆς . . . δόξης . . . τὸ ἀπειρόκακον . . . τὸ ἄφρον: “the unsuspicious nature
of . . . the witlessness of . . . your belief.”
ἥν . . . βοηθήσειν . . . πιστεύετε αὐτούς: “on account of which/with
regard to which you believe that they will help you.” Accusative of
motive (Sm. 1610). The antecedent is τῆς . . . δόξης. The infinitive, with
subject accusative, is in indirect discourse after πιστεύετε (Sm. 2018).
68 Melian Dialogue
105.4 πλεῖστα: Adverbial accusative (Sm. 345, 1608).

πολλὰ ἄν τις ἔχων εἰπεῖν: “one could say much.” ἔχω + infinitive indi-
cates the means or the power to do something (LSJ A.III). The ἄν
is repeated here early in the sentence in order to quickly indicate its
potential character (Sm. 1765).
ὡς προσφέρονται: “how they differ.” This is adverbial ὡς (Sm. 2990).
ξυνελών: From ξυναιρέω, of speaking; “concisely, briefly, in a word”
(LSJ 2.b).
ἐπιφανέστατα: Adverbial accusative (Sm. 345, 1608).
ὧν: “of those whom.” Thucydides has left out the antecedent, as is com-
mon when it refers to a general idea (Sm. 2509), and the relative has
been attracted into its case (Sm. 2522).
τὰ μὲν ἡδέα καλὰ νομίζουσι, τὰ δὲ ξυμφέροντα δίκαια: Understand
εἶναι; “they consider the pleasant good and the expedient just.”
Infinitive with subject accusative in indirect discourse after νομίζουσι
(Sm. 2018). καλά and δίκαια are predicate. At their trial in 427, the
Plataians warned the Lakedaimonians that if they “define[d] justice
by their immediate advantage along with [the Thebans’] hostility,”
they would appear to be “not true judges but servants of expediency”
(τὸ δὲ ξυμφέρον μᾶλλον θεραπεύοντες, 3.56.3). Thucydides himself
says that the Spartans killed the Plataians because the Thebans were
“useful” to them in the present war (3.68.4). Once again the Plataian
background seems to confirm the Athenians’ judgment and show the
Melians to be deluded (see n. 5.104).
πρὸς τῆς ὑμετέρας νῦν ἀλόγου σωτηρίας: πρός here = “agreeable to/
in conformity with” (LSJ C.III.5). ἄλογος σωτηρία here must mean
something like “your irrational pursuit of salvation.”
ἡ τοιαύτη διάνοια [ἐστι]: That is, such a mindset as the Lakedaimonians
have, relying on such ideas.
106 κατ᾿ αὐτὸ τοῦτο: “on this very point/consideration.”

τῷ ξυμφέροντι αὐτῶν: Causal dative (Sm. 1517); “because of their con-
cern for expediency.”
Μηλίους ἀποίκους ὄντας: Object of προδόντας, which modifies
they/the Spartans (understood), who are the accusative subject of
Melian Dialogue 69
μὴ βουλήσεσθαι . . . καταστῆναι, infinitives in indirect discourse

after πιστεύομεν (Sm. 2018). “We trust that they would not wish
(μὴ βουλήσεσθαι) to become (καταστῆναι) . . . , if they betray
(προδόντας, a conditional participle Sm. 2067) the Melians, their
colonists.” The Melians refer to themselves in the third person as
if from the Spartan point of view. Thucydides, on the other hand,
never shows the Spartans, at least in the books we have, thinking or
speaking about the Melians. Only the Melians’ fantasy-Spartans seem
aware of them (see n. 5.104).
τοῖς μὲν . . . ἀπίστους . . . τοῖς δὲ . . . ὠφελίμους: These accusatives also
modify the understood Spartans. They represent how the Spartans
would be situated (καταστῆναι) in respect of two groups if they
betray (προδόντας) the Melians.
107 οὔκουν οἴεσθε τὸ ξυμφέρον μὲν μετ᾿ ἀσφαλείας εἶναι: “do you not
then think that the expedient exists together with safety.”
τὸ δὲ δίκαιον καὶ καλὸν μετὰ κινδύνου δρᾶσθαι: Like τὸ ξυμφέρον . . .
εἶναι, infinitive with accusative subject in indirect discourse after
οἴεσθε (Sm. 2018).
ὅ: The antecedent is κινδύνου.
ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ πολύ: “for the most part” (LSJ. s.v. πολύς IV.4.c). This descrip-
tion conforms to that of the Korinthians in their speech at the Spartan
Congress before the war. There the Athenians are “risk-takers”
(τολμηταί) and the Spartans the exact opposite (1.70.3).
108 τοὺς κινδύνους: Object of ἂν ἐγχειρίσασθαι, an infinitive in indirect

discourse after ἡγούμεθ᾿ with accusative subject αὐτούς (Sm. 2018).
Αlso modified by the predicate adjective βεβαιοτέρους. The infinitive
+ ἄν represent an original potential optative (Sm. 1845).
βεβαιοτέρους . . . νομιεῖν: “and we think (ἡγούμεθ᾿) that they would
consider (νομιεῖν) them [the dangers] more secure (i.e., less danger-
ous).” Infinitive in indirect discourse after ἡγούμεθ᾿ (Sm. 2018). Its
subject is also αὐτούς.
ὅσῳ: “inasmuch as” in a comparative clause of quantity or degree with-
out demonstrative expressed (Sm. 2470).
70 Melian Dialogue
τὰ ἔργα: Literally “the action,” meaning near enough for actions of war.
Melos is not particularly close to Sparta but could serve as a useful
base for fleets sailing east.
τῆς δὲ γνώμης τῷ ξυγγενεῖ: “from kinship of spirit.” Causal dative (Sm.
1517). Xyngeneia again (see n. 5.104), here of sensibility.
ἑτέρων: Genitive of comparison (Sm. 1402) after πιστότεροι.
109 τὸ δ ἐχυρόν . . . οὐ τὸ εὔνουν . . . φαίνεται, ἀλλ᾿ ἤν: “the good will
of . . . does not seem [to be] the . . . but if. . . .” Two abstract neuter
substantives, the first predicate, the second the subject of φαίνεται.
Thucydides then continues his thought not with another substantive
but with a conditional clause “but if. . . .”
τῶν ἔργων . . . δυνάμει: “in the power of actions.”
ὅ: The antecedent is the idea of the prior sentence.
τῶν ἄλλων: Genitive of comparison (Sm. 1402) after πλέον.
τῆς . . . παρασκευῆς ἀπιστίᾳ: Causal dative (Sm. 1517).
ἐς νῆσον: Βefore the war, the Korinthians insisted that while the Athe-
nians were “always abroad” (ἀποδημηταί), the Spartans were “com-
plete homebodies” (ἐνδημοτάτους, 1.70.4). Furthermore, in response
to the Korinthians’ suggestion that the Spartans could induce the
Athenians’ allies and subjects to revolt (1.122), Archidamοs noted the
difficulty of this because it would for the most part require the Spartans
to “give aid to them with a fleet, because most of them are islanders”
(1.81.3). The Spartans promised to help Mytilene in its revolt but wasted
time and arrived toο late. When urged at least to attack some other
polis, the Spartan commander decided instead to just return home
(3.29–31). Once again the history told in Thucydides’s text suggests that
the Melians do not understand how the world really works.
ναυκρατόρων ὄντων: Temporal or causal genitive absolute, “while (or
since) we are naukratores” (Sm. 2070). See n. 5.97 above.
περαιωθῆναι: Subject of οὐκ εἰκός (Sm. 1985) with αὐτούς, the accusa-
tive subject to the infinitive.
110.1 ἂν ἔχοιεν πέμψαι: ἔχω (here in the potential optative; Sm. 1824) +
infinitive indicates the means or power to do something (LSJ III).
Melian Dialogue 71
δι᾿ οὗ: “on account of which” (i.e., the size of the sea).
τῶν κρατούντων ἀπορώτερος ἡ λῆψις ἤ . . . ἡ σωτηρία: “capture
[of enemy ships] by (Greek “of”) those ruling [it] is more difficult
than is the security of those wishing to escape notice (τῶν λαθεῖν
βουλομένων).” Thucydides’s love of abstract substantives (i.e., ἡ
λῆψις) leads to a convoluted sentence (see introduction 2.3.1). Others
would have written, using personal verbs, “it is more difficult for the
ones who rule the sea to capture . . . than for. . . .” The object of the
participle must be the Kretan Sea or the sea in general. The Melians
thus seem to describe these Athenians just as Perikles did, as “masters
of the sea” (2.62.2; see n. 5.97).
110.2 εἰ τοῦδε σφάλλοιντο: “if they should fail of this,” i.e., fail to come
to our aid. Thucydides’s favorite word for failure (See Hornblower
2004, 350–51 and n. 6.10.1) with τράποιντ᾿ ἄν in a future less vivid
condition (Sm. 2329). The Melians hope that an invasion of Attica
might save them, despite all the evidence of the earlier years of the
war when the Spartans’ yearly invasions did not get the Athenians to
back down (just as Archidamos warned before the war, 1.81, 1.82.4;
see n. 5.109). The Mytilenians had hoped that an invasion of Attica
would keep the Athenians from punishing them for revolting and
were sadly disappointed (3.13, 16, 26–33; see 7.18.1 for the Spartans’
similar hopes for their invasion of 413).
καὶ ἐπὶ τοὺς . . . ὅσους μὴ Βρασίδας ἐπῆλθεν: Before the war, the Korin-
thians urged the Peloponnesians to attempt to cause the Athenians’
allies to revolt (1.122). In 424, the Spartan general Brasidas eventually
put the Korinthians’ plan into practice, leading a force against the
Athenian cities of the three-pronged Chalkidike Peninsula projecting
southeastward from Thrace (see map 1). He induced some cities to
revolt, including Akanthos and the important polis of Amphipolis (the
site of the failures that led to Thucydides’s exile from Athens in 424;
4.103–8, 5.26.5; see introduction 1.1, 3.5). The Chalkidike was still not
firmly in Athenian control at this time (see introduction 3.6), but the
activities of Brasidas, who attacked coastal but nevertheless mainland
72 Melian Dialogue
allies of Athens with a land force and had to be introduced into Skione
secretly at night because of his fear of hostile ships (4.120.2), offer
little evidence that the Spartans will provide “help with a fleet” to the
island-dwelling Melians themselves or will divert the Athenians from
Melos by attacking the Athenians’ (primarily) island empire. The fact
that the Melians know about Brasidas and his activities indicates that
they probably also know about what the Spartans did at Plataia, how
they failed to help Mytilene, and what the Skionians suffered for their
revolt—all incidents that might have made others calculate differently
than the Melians do (see n. 5.104, 5.105.4, 5.109).
τῆς μὴ προσηκούσης: This is the second time that the Melians describe
themselves this way, using an adjective that echoes Perikles’s words
but revealing an entirely different worldview from that of Perikles
(see n. 5.96 above). The Melians draw a contrast between τῆς μὴ
προσηκούσης and τῆς οἰκειοτέρας ξυμμαχίδος τε καὶ γῆς. This raises
the question of what is οἰκεῖος to the Athenians since that which is
“homelike” ought to be Attica, not Athens’s empire of “allies.” Earlier
characterizations of the Athenians strongly suggest that they do not
feel home attachments like other people. They famously abandoned
their land during the Persian Wars, and Perikles’s war policy required
them to “abandon their houses and their land” and to focus instead
on “the sea and the city” (1.143.5). Although initially a source of
Athenian strength, a failure to focus on home resonates with the
theme of “the near and the far” and is a quality that Thucydides will
reveal as a liability and that will turn against the Athenians during the
Sicilian expedition (see especially 7.27–28; Taylor 2010, 135–87). Note
here Thucydides’s characteristic use of forms of οἰκεῖος to mean not
“belonging to the household or family” but “belonging to the state”
(Crane 1996, 24).
111.1 τούτων . . . καὶ ὑμῖν: Hornblower (following Radt 1976, 39)
translates “something of this sort (τι) could indeed happen (ἄν . . .
γένοιτο) in your case (ὑμῖν) who in the first place have experience of
(πεπειραμένοις) invasion (τούτων) yourselves” (3:246).
Melian Dialogue 73
ὅτι οὐδ᾿ ἀπὸ μιᾶς . . . πολιορκίας . . . ἀπεχώρησαν: The Athenians began
their imperial career with the successful siege of Sestos (1.89). This
passage also nods ahead to the Sicilian expedition, during which the
Athenians, losing another national characteristic, eventually aban-
doned the siege of Syracuse.
111.2 φήσαντες . . . βουλεύσειν: “although you said that you would delib-
erate.” Infinitive in indirect discourse after φήσαντες (Sm. 2017). The
subject is the Melians; the subject is not expressed because it is also
that of the leading verb (Sm. 1972). The participle is concessive.
ὑμῶν τὰ μὲν ἰσχυρότατα ἐλπιζόμενα μέλλεται: μέλλω can mean “to be
always going to do without ever doing: hence, delay, put off” (LSJ III).
LSJ translates “your strongest pleas are hopes in futurity” (LSJ IV).
τὰ δ᾿ ὑπάρχοντα . . . περιγίγνεσθαι: “but your resources are puny to
withstand.” περιγίγνεσθαι is an epexegetical (explanatory) infinitive
further defining the meaning of βραχέα (Sm. 2001). An eloquent
example of the theme of “the near and the far” pitting the future
(μέλλεται) and hopes (ἐλπιζόμενα) against the Athenians’ present
and tangible resources (ὑπάρχοντα . . . ἤδη ἀντιτεταγμένα).
ἔτι: The word “affects the whole clause” (Graves) but emphasizes that
even after the Melians dismiss the Athenians (μεταστησάμενοι . . .
ἡμᾶς), they “still” have time to take better counsel.
τῶνδε: Genitive of comparison (Sm. 1402) after ἄλλο τι . .
σωφρονέστερον, referring to the arguments the Melians have used
up to now.
111.3 ἐπί γε τὴν . . . διαφθείρουσαν . . . αἰσχύνην: The object of the parti-
ciple is ἀνθρώπους.
ἐν τοῖς αἰσχροῖς καὶ προύπτοις κινδύνοις: The point is that the Melians’
dangers will come not because of misfortune but because, although
the dangers were προύπτοι, the Melians nevertheless refused to see
them or to take any rational precautions against them. It is that blind-
ness, in the Athenians’ eyes, that is αἰσχρόν. The Athenians already
warned the Melians against indulging in “foreseeable dangers” at 5.99.
πλεῖστα: Adverbial accusative (Sm. 345, 1608).
74 Melian Dialogue
πολλοῖς γὰρ προορωμένοις . . . ἐπεσπάσατο ἡσσηθεῖσι . . . περιπεσεῖν:

“for the many foreseeing (προορωμένοις) into what straits (ἐς οἷα)
they were being borne (φέρονται), the thing called disgrace, by the
power of its alluring name, entices them (ἐπεσπάσατο), overcome
(ἡσσηθεῖσι, dative participle) by the force of the word, willingly
(ἑκόντας) to fall into fatal misfortune and to take on (προσλαβεῖν)
a shame more shameful in folly (μετὰ ἀνοίας) than fortune.” The
subject of ἑπεσπάσατο is τὸ αἰσχρὸν καλούμενον. δυνάμει and
ἔργῳ are causal datives (Sm. 1517). ἐπισπάω is usually construed
with an accusative object, but as Graves notes, the series of datives
here must be “the grammatical object of the verb,” and the sense
must be “in the case of many . . . it drew them on,” with the infini-
tive περιπεσεῖν indicating what it led them to do. In an instance of
anacolouthon, Thucydides then reverts to the usual construction of
an accusative object for ἐπεσπάσατο and accusative subject for the
infinitives (ἑκόντας). The verb is a gnomic aorist. ἐπαγωγοῦ again
nods backward to other fools (the men of the Chalkidike, for example;
see n. 5.85, 5.110.1) and also forward to the mistakes of judgment the
Athenians made about Sicily (6.8).
μετὰ ἀνοίας ἢ τύχῃ: This is the crucial point for the Athenians. They
think the Melians foolish, not just unlucky. Note the characteristi-
cally Thucydidean lack of balance: a prepositional phrase and then a
dative noun rather than two prepositional phrases, or two datives (see
introduction 2.3.1).
111.4 ὅ: The antecedent is the whole prior idea. The relative is the object
of φυλάξεσθε.
ἤν εὖ βουλεύησθε, φυλάξεσθε, καὶ . . . νομιεῖτε: ἤν = ἐάν. A future more
vivid condition (Sm. 2323).
ἀπρεπές . . . ἡσσᾶσθαι: Understand εἶναι. “do not consider it unbecoming
to be bested.” ἡσσᾶσθαι is the subject, and ἀπρεπές the predicate, of
the understood infinitive in indirect discourse after νομιεῖτε (Sm. 2018).
πόλεως: Genitive after ἡσσᾶσθαι because of the sense of comparison in
the verb (Sm. 1431).
Melian Dialogue 75
ξυμμάχους γενέσθαι . . . ὑποτελεῖς: An epexegetical (explanatory)

appositive infinitive (Sm. 1987) giving the details of the μέτρια terms
the Athenians offer. The Athenians do not explicitly say what will hap-
pen to the Melians if they do not comply with Athens’s wishes. They
use only vague phrases like σωτηρία or ἀσφάλεια for the contrast.
Given the examples of Plataia and Skione, the Melians ought to have
known what they would suffer if they resisted and lost, but (as the
Athenians say) the Melians seem prone to illusion.
ἔχοντας τὴν ὑμετέραν: Understand γήν.
δoθείσης αἱρέσεως: Causal genitive absolute, “since a choice has been
given” (Sm. 2070).
μὴ . . . φιλονικῆσαι: “not to be so obstinate as to choose the worst” (LSJ,
translating this passage). The infinitive is parallel to ἡσσᾶσθαι and
another subject for ἀπρεπές in the phrase οὐκ ἀπρεπὲς νομιεῖτε.
111.5 μεταστάντων ἡμῶν: Temporal genitive absolute, “after we . . .”

(Sm. 2070). As above at μεταστησάμενοι ἔτι in 5.111.2, the Athenians
urge the Melians to think carefully even after they have departed.
ἧς μιᾶς πέρι . . . ἔσται: The general meaning here is clear enough
(something like “the very existence of your one city (whether it
succeeds or fails) hangs on this one deliberation,” but as Andrewes
notes (in HCT), “the syntax is not easy.” The section running ἧς μιᾶς
πέρι . . . ἔσται makes sense as “it will be [a question] concerning [the
very existence of] which one [fatherland]” if we take the parallel to
Lysias, Against Eratosthenes 74. In addition, καὶ ἐς μίαν βουλήν seems
plausible as “[depending on] this one deliberation,” but it is hard to see
how to attach the accusative participles to the fatherland, as it seems
we need to, and so I agree with Andrewes that the passage is corrupt.
112.2 τὸ πρῶτον: Adverbial accusative (Sm. 345, 1611).

πόλεως ἑπτακόσια ἔτη ἤδη οἰκουμένης: This places Sparta’s foundation
of Melos at 1116 b.c. Thucydides presumably thinks it was after the
Dorian conquest of the Peloponnesos (the “return of the Herakleidai”),
which he puts eighty years after the Trojan War (1.12.2–3), suggesting
that Thucydides thought that the Trojan War occurred around 1200
76 Melian Dialogue
or 1250 b.c. (around the end of what we call the Mycenaean period).
Stylistically, the Melians here are allowed to write their own epitaph.
Dreizehnter argues that seven hundred years is probably a rhetorical
formula for the “lifespan” of a city (1978, 90–91). As Hornblower
notes, if that is true, then there is irony here because “time is up” for
the Melians (3:250). The reference to a span of time echoes other cases
where Thucydides puts a number to the length of an alliance or a
city’s existence—at the point when it ends. A direct comparison is to
Plataia, where Thucydides notes the length of its alliance with Athens
only when Sparta captured and destroyed it (3.68.5). In both cases the
reference to the length of the relationship underscores the failure of the
great power to help its dependent (cf. Connor 1984, 92n30).
αὐτήν: Object of τῇ . . . σῳζούσῃ τύχῃ. It refers to Melos’s freedom.
τιμωρίᾳ: Here “help” (LSJ II).
112.3 φίλοι: Because it is nominative, this refers to the Melians (as does
πολέμιοι). The more usual construction of προκαλεῖσθαι with an
accusative and infinitive is to “invite x (acc.) to do (inf.)” (LSJ e). Here
it must mean “we invite you [to allow] us (nom.) to be x (nom.).”
ἀναχωρῆσαι: This infinitive resumes the more usual construction with
προκαλεῖσθαι and has as subject ὑμᾶς (modified by ποιησαμένους).
113.1 τὰ μὲν μέλλοντα . . . θεᾶσθε: “you judge what is to come (τὰ μὲν
μέλλοντα) as more clear (σαφέστερα) than the things that you see
(τῶν ὁρωμένων, genitive of comparison; Sm. 1402) and by wishing
(τῷ βούλεσθαι) look on insubstantial things (τὰ δὲ ἀφανῆ) as already
taking place (ὡς γιγνόμενα ἤδη).” τῷ βούλεσθαι is an articular
infinitive as causal dative (Sm. 1517). This is a devastating instance
of the theme of “the near and the far” (see introduction 6.1). Note
here Thucydides’s use of θεάομαι, a verb much more common in
Herodotus, where it denotes the “wondering gaze” of the traveler. In
contrast, Thucydides regularly employs σκέπτομαι and σκοπέω for
sight (Crane 1996, 239–41). θεᾶσθε here thus suggests that the Melians
have been struck out of their rational wits by the marvelous sight of
what they hope will be. Perikles combines the “wondering gaze” of
Melian Dialogue 77
θεάομαι with σκοπέω in the Funeral Oration (2.43), a possible early

signal that it was dangerous for Perikles to direct the Athenians’ eyes
away from a real city in Attica to an idealized vision of the city-empire
(Taylor 2010, 150–52).
πλεῖστον . . . πλεῖστον: “in the full measure . . . in that measure” (Lattimore).
παραβεβλημένοι: Often taken as middle, i.e., “having risked far the
most on” the Lakedaimonians (LSJ II); I prefer Stahl’s suggestion
(cited by Graves) that it is passive, meaning “given over to” (citing
Aristophanes, Wealth 243, “given over to whores and dice”). Although
the sense of risk and hazard in the middle is attractive, given the
prevalence of those ideas in the passage as a whole (cf. Graves), I
prefer the sense the passive gives of the Melians being in thrall to the
Spartans, hope, and fortune. This is more foreshadowing of the way
the Athenians committed themselves to Sicily.
σφαλήσεσθε: A final use of Thucydides’s “favourite word for failure”
(Hornblower 2004, 350–51; see n. 6.10.1).
114.1 διελόμενοι: From διαιρέω [sc. τὸ ἔργον]. “divide among them-

selves” (LSJ II).
κατὰ πόλεις: κατά + accusative = “distributively” (LSJ II). That is, “by
polis.”
περιετείχισαν κύκλῳ: The walls and counter-walls at Melos foreshadow
the dueling walls at Syracuse. The Athenians intend to starve the
Melians into submission. What Andrewes calls Aristophanes’s
“casual” reference to the gods dying of “Melian hunger” in the Birds
(186) indicated to him (in HCT) that in spring 414, at the time of the
performance, the Athenians’ actions on Melos “did not lie heavy”
on their conscience. This suggests that it was only later that Melos
became the most famous example of Athens’s outrages, as Xenophon
implies it was when he has the Athenians immediately fear they will
suffer the fate of Melos upon hearing of their defeat at Aigospotamoi
(Xenophon, Hellenika 2.2.3).
114.2 τῷ πλέονι τοῦ στρατοῦ: The “dative of military accompaniment”

(Sm. 1526).
78 Melian Dialogue
The Argives Invade Phlious (5.115.1)

115.1 ὡς ὀγδοήκοντα: ὡς + numbers = “about, nearly, not far from” (Sm.
2995).
An Athenian Raid on Pylos and Results

(5.115.2–5.115.3)
115.2 οἱ ἐκ τῆς Πύλου Ἀθηναῖοι: The Athenians captured Pylos in 425
(see introduction 3.5). They were supposed to return it under the
terms of the Peace of Nikias but did not do so because the Spartans
did not return Amphipolis to Athens. The Athenians later returned
some Messenians to Pylos specifically “to plunder” (5.56.2–3). This
reference thus underscores how close to open war the Athenians and
Lakedaimonians were at this time. Note, however, that it is events
close to home, not on Melos, that almost (but still do not) bring the
Spartans to war. The reference to Pylos may be meant also to remind
the reader of the overconfidence that the unexpected victory there
bred in the Athenians (4.65.4 and n. 6.1.1; see introduction 3.5, 3.6).
oὐδ᾿ ὥς: “not even after this” (Graves). The negative goes with both the
participle and the verb. The Spartans’ inactivity is striking, given
that the Melians had presumably appealed to them to help them
by invading, just as the Melians suggested they would do at 5.110.2.
Thucydides, however, never shows the Melians communicating
directly with the Spartans, nor does he ever show the Spartans hear-
ing of events on Melos.
115.3 καὶ Κορίνθιοι ἐπολέμησαν: The Korinthians particularly urged the

Spartans to begin the Peloponnesian War. Here again they appear
more active and belligerent than the Spartans. Korinthian animos-
ity—and activity—will matter in Sicily.
The Melians Counterattack (5.115.4)

115.4 εἷλον . . . οἱ Μήλιοι: The Athenians did not subdue the Melians
quite as easily as the dialogue might have led the reader to expect. Of
course, they had only a small portion of their force in place. Lazenby
suggests the difficulty may “explain . . . the savage fate meted out” to
Melian Dialogue 79
the Melians (2004, 130). But the Athenians contemplated such a fate
for the Mytilenaians in 427 (3.36.2) and inflicted it already on the Skio-
nians in 421 (5.32). With regard to Skione, which was not, in fact, an
island, the Athenians were nevertheless outraged that “now even the
islanders had the audacity to revolt” (4.122.5). Melos was not in revolt
from the Athenian Empire, but it was actually an island, as Thucydides
pointed out at the beginning of the episode (5.84.1), and an island that
refused to submit to Athens. Thucydides’s presentation suggests that
this simple fact had as much to do with its fate as anything else.
κατὰ τὴν ἀγοράν: “opposite” the agora (LSJ B.I.3).
νυκτός: Genitive of time within which (Sm. 1444).
τὸ ἔπειτα: “what follows” (LSJ I.2), i.e., for the future. Accusative of
extent of time (Sm. 1582).
The Lakedaimonians Plan to

Invade Argos (5.116.1), “Winter” 416–415
116.1 τοῦ δ᾿ ἐπιγιγνομένου χειμῶνος: Genitive of time within which
(Sm. 1444). ἐπιγίγνομαι here = “the following, the next” (LSJ I),
meaning the “winter” of 416/15, running from ca. November 416 to
early March 415. See introduction 1.6 for Thucydides’s dating system.
μελλήσαντες . . . ὡς . . . τὰ διαβατήρια . . . οὐκ ἐγίγνετο, ἀνεχώρησαν:
ὡς is causal (Sm. 3000). The square brackets around ἱερὰ ἐν τοῖς
ὁρίοις indicate that although it is found in some manuscripts, the edi-
tor thinks that it does not belong to Thucydides’s text but was added
by a scribe at some later point as an explanatory gloss (cοmpare the
words’ absence at 5.54). This little sentence encapsulates much of the
work’s presentation of the Spartan national character, eloquently
described in the Korinthians’ speech before the war, where the
Spartans are homebound, hidebound, conservative delayers (1.68–71).
Spartans are also famously pious and allowed their piety to delay
military action at, e.g., Marathon (Herodotus 6.106) and even Ther-
mopylai (Herodotus 7.206). In Sicily, however, the Athenians come
to act less like Athenians and more like Spartans with regard to both
religion and speed. See introduction 6.5.
80 Melian Dialogue
The End of Melos (5.116.2–5.116.4)

116.2 καθ᾿ ἕτερόν τι: “apparently . . . governed directly by εἷλον and is
equivalent to a single word” (Graves); “a part of the wall in a different
area” (Lattimore).
παρόντων . . . φυλάκων: Temporal or causal genitive absolute, “when or
since . . .” (Sm. 2070).
116.3 ἐλθούσης στρατιᾶς . . . ἄλλης: Temporal genitive absolute, “when

another . . .” (Sm. 2070).
ὡς . . ἐγίγνετο: Causal ὡς (Sm. 3000).
κατὰ κράτος: “with all one’s strength” (LSJ s.v. κράτος).
γενομένης καὶ προδοσίας τινός: Causal genitive absolute, “because of”
(Sm. 2070). Treachery, not actual conquest, is often what ended sieges
in the fifth century and before, since the technology necessary to take
well-walled cities was not yet available to the besieging army.
ὥστε ἐκείνους περὶ αὐτῶν βουλεῦσαι: That is, no terms were agreed on.
The natural result clause with infinitive merely further explains the
thought in the main clause (Sm. 2258).
116.4 ὅσους . . . ἔλαβον: Not absolutely all Melians were killed or
enslaved. After the end of the war, the Spartans restored those
Melians they could find to the city (Xenophon, Hellenika 2.2.9).
παῖδας δὲ καὶ γυναῖκας ἠνδραπόδισαν: These women and children suf-
fered actual slavery, not δουλεία (see n. 5.93).
ἀποίκους . . . πέμψαντες: Thus a Spartan colony was wiped out and
replaced with an Athenian colony. In the same way, the Spartans
wiped out and later razed the Plataian polis (3.68.3–5; not a “colony”
of Athens but, so they at least claimed at 3.55.3, an outpost of citizens),
and the Athenians resettled the few surviving Plataian citizens at
Skione in 421 after wiping out that city (5.32). Thucydides judged his
war the κίνεσις μεγίστη (1.2), in part because “never had there been so
many cities captured or left desolate . . . and some cities even changed
population after they were taken” (1.23.2). Without any further com-
ment, “with the destruction of Melos fresh in mind” (Connor 1984,
157), Thucydides moves readers into the Sicilian expedition, where the
Athenians will act as irrationally as the Melians.
Sicilian Expedition, Book 6
The book divisions of Thucydides are not his own (Hornblower 2004, 329;
Dover xviii). What we call book 5 ends with Athens’s conquest of the neutral
island of Melos (5.84–116). Although Thucydides carefully closes off his
account of that campaign with a new act of colonization on the island, his
reference here to “the same winter” and numerous thematic parallels link
Thucydides’s narrative of the Sicilian expedition to Melos. Furthermore,
Connor notes the “abrupt” juxtaposition with Melos (1984, 158). Thucydides
gives readers “no transition” and “no discussion of the strategic situation”
with regard to Sicily. At the same time, the Sicilian expedition clearly marks
a new beginning, and a major war within the larger war (Thucydides will
even refer to “two wars,” making the Sicilian expedition equivalent to the
larger “Peloponnesian War,” 7.27–28).
SIXTEENTH YEAR OF THE WAR (416–415)
Athens Turns to Sicily (6.1.1–6.7.1a),

“Winter” 416–415
Dewald has demonstrated that in books 1–5.24, Thucydides organizes his
material by dividing it up into “discrete units of action,” each of which
declares its beginning with a formular sentence “announc[ing] its subject, the
81
82 Sicilian Expedition, Book 6
action undertaken, the place, and (in almost 90 percent of the units) a rough
indication of time” (2005, 3). Dewald’s work allows us to see Thucydides’s
organizational architecture and the units with which it is made up. In
books 5.25–6.7, although units of action still exist, they tend to be shorter,
“less crisply focused” and “less sharply separated from one another” (120).
According to Dewald, the first narrative unit of book 6 is “complex” (172).
It starts in Athens, moves to Sicilian history to put the Athenians’ decision
in context, and then returns to Athens.
Dewald’s study has revealed that Thucydides’s original divisions of the
text sometimes subdivide the traditional (but non-Thucydidean) para-
graphing followed in the Oxford Classical Text. Hence this unit ends after
the first sentence of 6.7.1. The next sentence, with its change of subject,
time marker, active verb, and notice of location, is a formular sentence
marking the beginning of a new unit. I have followed Dewald’s divisions
and subdivided her (and Thucydides’s) larger “complex” unit below solely
for ease of description.
The Decision to Invade Sicily (6.1)

1.1 τοῦ δ᾿ αὐτοῦ χειμῶνος: Genitive of time within which (Sm. 1444). This
is the winter of 416/15, beginning in early November 416 and running
until spring 415. See introduction 1.6 for Thucydides’s dating system.
μείζονι παρασκευῇ: The “dative of military accompaniment” (Sm.
1526). The force that the Athenians initially intend to send out is not,
in fact, greater (6.8.1). Found only eleven times in works of his con-
temporaries, παρασκευή is a favorite word of Thucydides and bears
careful attention. It can mean either “X gathers and prepares materials
for a purpose” or “X organizes and mobilizes materials already at
hand.” The noun can also, as here, indicate the thing prepared (or
organized and mobilized), i.e., “force” or “fleet.” As Allison (1989) has
demonstrated, the Athenians are associated with the second type of
“process-παρασκευή” throughout book 6. They have an abundance
of resources and so organize things that they already have at hand. By
book 7, on the other hand, they have used up their resources and must
try to gather them anew (Allison 1989, 38, 133). Toward the end of
Sicilian Expedition, Book 6 83
book 7, the Athenians have lost faith in all their resources, according
to the Syracusans, and trust only in fortune (7.67.4).
τῆς μετὰ Λάχητος καὶ Εὐρυμέδοντος: Genitive of comparison after
μείζονι (Sm. 1431). Thucydides refers to two different expeditions
here, one in 427 and a later one in 425 (see introduction 3.4). When
the second set of generals returned to Athens from Sicily, the Athe-
nians exiled or fined them because “although it had been possible for
them to subdue Sicily, they were suborned by bribes and withdrew”
(4.65.3). Thucydides explains the Athenians’ decision as due to over-
confidence because of their unexpected victory at Pylos (4.65.4; see
introduction 3.5 for Pylos). His reference to these expeditions and to
the generals who suffered from the Athenians’ overconfidence is an
early indication that he thinks that the psychological effect of Pylos
still held in Athens. Furthermore, Laches’s and Eurymedon’s failure
occurred because the Sicilians banded together. This mention of the
earlier expedition “reminds his reader of Sicily’s ability to unite when
threatened” (Connor 1984, 159; see introduction 6.2).
καταστέψασθαι: Thucydides here underscores how great are Athenian
ambitions in Sicily.
ἄπειροι: If translated as “ignorant,” this is hard to believe given the
Athenians’ contacts with Sicily since the 440s (see introduction 3.2).
Perhaps better to translate as personally “unacquainted” (Hornblower
3:260). As Connor notes, “the early books” of Thucydides’s history
“emphasize the experience . . . of the Athenians and rarely associate”
ἀπειρία with them (1984, 159n5). This is perhaps a hint of the charac-
ter reversal to come (see introduction 6.5). More important is the dif-
ference in the representation of the Sicilian expedition between these
chapters, where the campaign is presented as utter folly, and 2.65.11,
where it seems potentially winnable (see appendix).
τοῦ μεγέθους . . . καὶ . . . τοῦ πλήθους: Genitive after ἄπειροι, as is com-
mon with alpha privative adjectives (adjectives that negate the core
meaning of the word with an initial alpha, Sm. 1428).
καὶ ὅτι . . . ἀνῃροῦντο: A dependent clause after ἄπειροι, which must
here mean something more like “ignorant.” Note the characteristic
absence of parallelism. Thucydides uses first a genitive phrase then a

full clause after ἄπειροι.
oὐ πολλῷ τινί: “not by much, if at all” (Spratt). Dative of measure of dif-
ference after the comparative (Sm. 1513).
ὑποδεέστερον πόλεμον . . . ἢ τὸν πρὸς Πελοποννησίους: At 7.27–28,
Thucydides expands on the madness of the Athenians’ decision to
take on this second war.
1.2 περίπλους . . . ἐστιν . . . οὐ πολλῷ τινὶ ἔλασσον ἢ ὀκτὼ ἡμερῶν: “a
sailing-round . . . is not by any great amount less than eight days.” The
repetition of οὐ πολλῷ τινί “emphasises the vastness of the undertak-
ing” (Marchant). That Thucydides even gives the dimension marks
Sicily out as foreign and unknown.
τοσαύτη οὖσα: “for all its size” (Lattimore). A concessive participle (Sm.
2066). The subject is now Sicily itself.
ἐν εἰκοσισταδίῳ μάλιστα μέτρῳ: Here ἐν = “by.” A dative of means with
ἐν (Sm. 1511). μάλιστα with numbers = “in round numbers, about”
(LSJ s.v. μάλα III.5). A stade is an imprecise unit of measurement in
Thucydides. When used for distances that can be checked today, it
ranges from about 130 to 170 meters.
διείργεται τὸ μὴ ἤπειρος εἶναι: Verbs like “prevent,” “deny,” and “hinder”
often have a redundant μή that reinforces the negative idea of the intro-
ductory verb (Sm. 2739). To prevent the island from not being X would
be μὴ οὐ + infinitive. The infinitive can have the article (Sm. 2744).
The Sicilian Archaeology (6.2–6.5)

This section serves as an introduction to the narrative about the Sicilian
expedition, just as the “archaeology” chapters of 1.1–20, which give an over-
view of early Greek history, serve as an introduction to the whole History.
The presence of an introduction helps identify the account of the Sicilian
expedition as a separate unit. Rawlings’s (1981) study argues that Thucydides
intended a ten-book work, divided into two five-book halves, and that this
section serves as the introduction to the second five-book half. As Thucydides
shows, the peoples of Sicily are from all over the Mediterranean. The colonial
ties that Thucydides discusses here will be important in the coming narrative.
2.1 τὸ ἀρχαῖον: “anciently” (LSJ III). Adverbial accusative (Sm. 1611).

λέγονται . . . οἰκῆσαι: Infinitive in indirect discourse after a verb of say-
ing (Sm. 2017b) in a personal passive construction, i.e., “they are said
to have . . .” rather than (impersonally) “it is said that they . . .” (Sm.
1982a).
Κύκλωπες καὶ Λαιστρυγόνες: We are in the world of myth. Odysseus
encountered the race of cannibal Lastrygonians in book 10 of the
Odyssey. The Kyklopes—also cannibals—appear in book 9. Mackie
argues that this and other references to epic help paint the Sicilian
expedition as “a kind of heroic quest . . . that goes disastrously wrong”
(1996, 103). Greenwood notes that this “epic war” is “entirely an Athe-
nian epic, with the Athenians as both agressors and victims” (2017,
163).
ἔχω εἰπεῖν: ἔχω + infinitive = “have the means or power to do, to be
able” (LSJ A.III; Sm. 2000a).
ἀρκείτω: Third singular present active imperative from ἀρκέω; “let it
suffice.”
2.2 φαίνονται ἐνοικισάμενοι: Supplementary participle in indirect

discourse in a personal construction with φαίνονται, i.e., “they seem
to . . .” rather than “it seems that they . . .” (Sm. 1983 and 2106). The
participle (instead of an infinitive) means “they clearly are,” not “they
seem and might not be” (Sm. 2143).
ὡς μὲν αὐτοί φασι: Qualifies καὶ πρότεροι, i.e., Thucydides does not
agree.
διὰ τὸ αὐτόχθονες εἶναι: Articular infinitive after a preposition (Sm.
2034b).
ὑπὸ Λιγύων ἀναστάντες: The participle is from ἀνίστημι, “to be com-
pelled to migrate” (LSJ B.II.2).
πρότερον: Adverbial accusative (Sm. 1611).
τὰ πρὸς ἑσπέραν: “the western parts.” Adverbial accusative (Sm. 1606).
2.3 Ἰλίου δὲ ἁλισκομένου: Temporal genitive absolute, “but when

Troy . . .” (Sm. 2070). This reference to Troy is a “seed” that will
resonate with Thucydides’s later presentation of the destruction of the

Sicilian expedition as the fall of the new Troy (Hornblower 3:269).
ἀφικνοῦνται: Historical present (Sm. 1883).
Ἔρυξ τε καὶ Ἔγεστα: For the location of these and other cities
mentioned in the Sicilian Archaeology, see map 2. In Virgil, Aeneas
founds the temple at Eryx (Aeneid 5.759). Egesta (modern Segesta),
mentioned early here, will urge Athens on to the Sicilian expedition
(6.6.2) and will use the temple treasures at Eryx as part of their decep-
tion about how much money there is to pay for the war (6.46.3).
χειμῶνι: Dative of instrument (Sm. 1503). Here χειμών = “storm” (LSJ II).
2.4 Ὀπικούς: These are the Oscans of Italy (OCD).

κατιόντος τοῦ ἀνέμου: Temporal genitive absolute, “when the wind . . .”
(Sm. 2070).
τάχα ἄν: τάχα ἄν + participle = “probably, perhaps” (LSJ II, citing this
passage).
2.5 ἐλθόντες . . . στρατὸς πολὺς . . . κρατοῦντες . . . ἀνέστειλαν: Τhe
collective singular στρατὸς πολύς takes plural verb forms because it
implies a plural subject (Sm. 950).
τὰ κράτιστα: “the best, most excellent.” This serves as the superlative οf
ἀγαθός (LSJ s.v. κράτιστος, -η, -ον 2).
ἔτη ἐγγὺς τριακόσια: ἐγγύς with numbers = “nearly” (LSJ III).
Thucydides regularly uses μάλιστα to qualify numbers (cf. 6.1.2) yet
uses ἐγγύς or ἐγγύτατα several times in these chapters (here, 6.4.4,
6.5.2, 6.5.3). This and the unusual (for him) use of the relative pronoun
at 6.3.1 suggest that he used an Ionic written source for the Sicilian
Archaeology, probably Antiochos of Syracuse (Hornblower 3:272–74.
πρὶν Ἕλληνας . . . ἐλθεῖν: πρίν + infinitive = “before,” especially after
affirmative clauses (Sm. 2431).
2.6 περὶ πᾶσαν μὲν τὴν Σικελίαν: “all round Sicily” (Sm. 1693.3a).
ἐκλιπόντες τὰ πλείω: πλείω is neuter plural accusative of πλείων (Sm.
293), comparative of πολύς. Adverbial accusative (Sm. 1609). In not-
ing this withdrawal, Thucydides may mean to point out that all power,
colonies, and empires are only temporary (cf. Morpeth 2006, 25).
καὶ ὅτι . . . Καρχηδὼν Σικελίας ἀπέχει: “and because. . . .” A causal

clause (Sm. 2241). Σικελίας is genitive of separation (Sm. 1392). Note
the lack of parallelism. A dative of cause is followed by a full causal
clause.
ἐλάχιστον πλοῦν: Accusative of extent of space (Sm. 1581).
3.1 Χαλκιδῆς: Nominative plural masculine (Sm. 275).

Νάξον ᾤκισαν: For the date of this and the other foundations here, see n.
6.4.2.
ὅστις: Not indefinite (Sm. 2496b, citing this passage). Ionic Greek uses
ὅστις of a definite object. This is another indication that Thucydides
probably used an Ionic written source in this section (see n. 6.2.5).
ὅταν . . . πλέωσι . . . θύουσιν: A present general temporal condition (Sm.
2410).
3.2 τοῦ ἐχομένου ἔτους: “during the next year” (LSJ s.v. ἔχω C.3, citing
this passage). Genitive of time within which (Sm. 1444). This is not
Thucydides’s regular phrasing, and so probably another indication of
Antiochos (see n. 6.2.5).
τῶν Ἡρακλειδῶν: The account of the return of the Herakleidai to the
Peloponnesos (cf. 1.12.3) serves “as a charter myth for the division of
the Peloponnese between different Dorian states” (OCD). The Sicilian
Archaeology demonstrates how the island was divided among differ-
ent ethnic groups (see introduction 3.2). One of the questions raised
in Thucydides’s account of the Sicilian expedition will be how Ionian
and Dorian Greeks as well as non-Greeks will respond to an invasion
by Ionian Athens (see introduction 6.2).
νῦν οὐκέτι περικλυζομένῃ: Because of the construction of an artificial
causeway, the island, called Ortygia, was in Thucydides’s day no
longer an island. For Syracusan topography, see map 3.
ὕστερον: Adverbial accusative (Sm. 1611).
3.3 μετὰ Συρακούσας οἰκισθείσας: “after the founding of Syracuse.” A

participle and a noun often correspond to a verbal noun (as in the
translation here) or to an articular infinitive (Sm. 2053).
Λεοντίνους: The city of Leontinoi and the people had the same name.
This is the city. Leontinoi was a main focus of the Athenians in Sicily
from at least the 440s (see introduction 3.2, 3.4).
4.1 κατὰ δὲ τὸν αὐτὸν χρόνον: κατά + accusative and an indication of

time = “about” (LSJ B.VII.2).
ὑπὲρ Παντακύου τε ποταμοῦ: ὑπέρ + genitive = “beyond” (LSJ A.I.3).
ὄνομα: “by name” (Sm. 1601b). Accusative of respect.
τοῖς Χαλκιδεῦσιν: Dative after ξυμπολιτεύσας.
ὀλίγον χρόνον: Accusative of extent of time (Sm. 1582).
ἐκπεσών: From ἐκπίπτω. Literally “to fall out of,” this word also means
“to be banished from” (LSJ 3).
ἀναστάντες: From ἀνίστημι; “to be compelled to migrate” (LSJ B.II.2).
῞Υβλωνος . . . προδόντος: Causal genitive absolute, “since Hyblon . . .”
(Sm. 2070).
Μεγαρέας . . . τοὺς Ὑβλαίους: The people, with the added epithet from
their benefactor, stand in for the place.
4.2 ὑπὸ Γέλωνος . . . ἀνέστησαν: The verb is from ἀνίστημι, “to be
compelled to migrate” (LSJ B.II.2). Because Thucydides dates the
foundations by reference to each other and especially to the founda-
tion of Syracuse, this one event, which can be given an absolute date,
dates many of the foundations. Because Gelon died in 478/77 (Dio-
doros 11.38.1), had ruled for 7 years when he died (i.e., since 484/83;
Aristotle, Politics 1315b36), and had already destroyed Megara when
Greek envoys arrived in 481/80 (Herodotus 7.156–57), we can calcu-
late that Megara was destroyed in 483/82, plus or minus 1 year, that is,
in 484/83, 483/82, or 482/81. Because Megara was 245 years old at the
time of its destruction, we can conclude that it was founded in 728,
plus or minus 1 year. This gives foundation dates as follows: Naxos,
733; Syracuse, 732; Leontinoi, 728; Katane, 728; Gela, 688; Akrai,
662; Kasmenai, 642; Selinous, 628; Kamarina, 597; Akragas, 580 (all
plus or minus 1 year and—for all but Megara—plus “X,” the length of
time between the founding of Leontinoi and the founding of Megara
about which Thucydides is vague and so seems to have been unsure;

see Dover in HCT 4:202–4 for these calculations). Thucydides’s dates
seem to accord well with what archaeology tells us about the date of
the foundation of these cities (de Angelis 2016).
πρὶν δὲ ἀναστῆναι: πρίν + infinitive means “before” after an affirmative
clause (Sm. 2431).
ἔτεσιν . . . ἑκατόν: The dative of measure of difference (Sm. 1513) express-
ing by how much it was ὕστερον (Sm. 1611).
ὕστερον . . . ἢ αὐτοὺς οἰκίσαι: “after they founded it.” ὕστερον + infini-
tive is unusual. Thucydides is using a construction on analogy with
πρότερον ἤ + infinitive (cf. Sm. 2458b, 2459). Since the subject of the
infinitive is the same as the subject of the main verb, the accusative
ἀυτούς should not refer to that subject (we would rather expect a nom-
inative; see Sm. 1973). αὐτούς should then refer to the city, Megara.
κτίζουσι: A historical present (Sm. 1883).
καὶ . . . ξυγκατῴκισεν: The switch to a third singular subject here
(presumably Pamillos?) after a simple καί (rather than, for example,
moving into a relative clause with ὅς) is “odd” (Dover). It is hard, too,
to understand how Pamillos can be said to “help” in the founding.
Dover suggests that a proper name and cofounder with Pamillos has
fallen from the text. The mention of the metropolis underscores the
ethnic connections between these cities and those on the mainland.
See Fragoulaki 2013 on the obligations of cities to their metropoleis.
4.3 τῇ μὲν πόλει: Dative of possession with ἐγένετο (Sm. 1476).

Γέλα: A Doric genitive masculine singular (Sm. 214D.5).
οὗ: “where.”
νόμιμα δὲ Δωρικά: The first use of this important ethnic term in the
account of the Sicilian expedition; νόμιμα indicates “usages, customs”
(LSJ) and includes religious practices. See introduction 6.2 for the
importance of ethnicity.
4.4 ἐγγύτατα: ἐγγύς with numbers = “nearly” (LSJ III; see n. 6.2.5).
4.5 τὴν μὲν ἀρχήν: “to begin with; at first” (LSJ C). Adverbial accusative.
Ὀπικίᾳ: Southern Italy, the land of the Ὀπικοί or Oscans (OCD).
λῃστῶν ἀφικομένων: Temporal genitive absolute, “when pirates . . .”

(Sm. 2070).
πλῆθος ἐλθὸν ξυγκατενείμαντο: A collective singular, πλῆθος takes a
plural verb because it implies a plural (Sm. 950).
τὸ μὲν πρῶτον: Adverbial accusative (Sm. 1611).
τὴν ἰδέαν: Accusative of respect (Sm. 1600).
ὑπὸ Σαμίων καὶ ἄλλων Ἰώνων: These “Ionians” mean former residents
of “Ionia,” the central part of coastal Asia Minor. Athens claimed to be
the metropolis of all Ionians (OCD; Fragoulaki 2013, 212–20).
ἐκπίπτουσιν: Literally, “to fall out of,” this word also means “to be ban-
ished from” (LSJ 3). An historical present (Sm. 1883).
οἳ Μήδους φεύγοντες: Because of the failed Ionian revolt of 499–94.
4.6 οὐ πολλῷ ὕστερον: An adverbial accusative time marker (Sm. 1611)

with a dative of degree of difference (Sm. 1513).
τὸ ἀρχαῖον: “anciently” (LSJ III). Adverbial accusative (Sm. 1611).
5.1 Χαλκιδῆς: Masculine nominative plural (Sm. 275).

ἐκράθη: From κεράννυμι, “to mix.”
5.2 ἐγγὺς ἔικοσι: ἐγγύς with numbers = “nearly” (LSJ III; see n. 6.2.5).
5.3 τὸ πρῶτον: Adverbial accusative (Sm. 1611).

ἔτεσιν ἐγγύτατα πέντε: ἐγγύς with numbers = “nearly” (LSJ III; see n.
6.2.5).
ἀναστάτων δὲ Καμαριναίων: Thucydides ends his Sicilian Archaeology
with the troubled history of Kamarina that underscores how danger-
ous Syracuse was to the other cities of Sicily. This background fuels
the Sicilian expedition and is what makes the Athenians hope that
they will have local allies when they invade.
χρόνῳ . . . ὕστερον: An adverbial accusative time marker (Sm. 1611) with
a dative of degree of difference (Sm. 1513).
λύτρα ἀνδρῶν Συρακοσίων . . . λαβὼν τὴν γῆν: λύτρα λαβεῖν τινος +
accusative = “to receive X (accusative) as a ransom for Y (genitive)”
(LSJ s.v. λύτρον 1, citing this passage).
The Egestaian Embassy to Athens (6.6.1–6.7.1a)

6.1 στρατεύειν ὥρμηντο: Thucydides returns to his point from 6.1.1.
τῇ ἀληθεστάτῃ προφάσει: This is a precise internal cross-reference to
1.23.6, where Thucydides uses the same phrase to discuss Athens’s
motives for taking up the first of the “two wars” (that is, the Pelopon-
nesian War; see n. 7.27–28). The reference equates the Sicilian expedi-
tion to the wider war and underscores that we are starting something
new. In typically unbalanced fashion, Thucydides joins the dative
phrase not with another dative but with ἐυπρεπῶς.
τῆς πάσης: Genitive with ἄρξαι (Sm. 1370).
τοῖς . . . ξυγγενέσι καὶ . . . ξυμμάχοις: Dative after βοηθεῖν (Sm. 1461).
Leontinoi, about which the Egestaians will remind Athens, is Ionian
(see introduction 3.2, 3.4, and 6.2 on ethnic relations in the account of
the Sicilian expedition).
6.2 [τε]: The square brackets around τε indicate that although it is found
in some manuscripts, the editor thinks that it does not belong to
Thucydides’s text but was added at some later point by an overactive
scribe.
προθυμότερον: A comparative adverb (Sm. 345) in an adverbial accusa-
tive (Sm. 1606).
περί τε γαμικῶν τινῶν: “things related to marriage.” This perhaps refers
to marriage rights, which would have to be negotiated by treaty.
οἱ Σελινούντιοι Συρακοσίους ἐπαγόμενοι: The Selinountians’ decision
to call in Syracuse caused the Egestaians to call in the even bigger
dog, the Athenians.
τὴν γενομένην . . . Λεοντίνων . . . ξυμμαχίαν ἀναμιμνῄσκοντες: One
reminds a person of a thing with a double accusative (LSJ). Λεοντίνων
is artfully placed. It does not, as one would expect, modify τοῦ
προτέρου πολέμου, which it immediately follows, but the more distant
and enclosing τὴν γενομένην . . . ξυμμαχίαν. The word order allows
Thucydides to juxtapose “the Leontinoi” with “the Egestaians” and
so to underscore how strange it is that the Egestaians appeal to an
Athenian alliance with someone else (cf. Dover in HCT 4:221). The
Athenian alliance with Leontinoi dates probably to the 440s and was
renewed in 433/32. We have the text partially preserved (Meiggs-
Lewis #64; IG I3 54, available translated online at Attic Inscriptions
Online). Athens intervened in Sicily in 427 in aid of Ionic Leontinoi
(see introduction 3.2), and the Egestaians hope they will do so again.
The appeal of the Egestaians is especially strange because they seem
to have had their own treaty with Athens made (or possibly renewed)
in 418 (Meiggs-Lewis #37; IG I3 11), to which they presumably also
appealed when they came to Athens. Thucydides seems to have delib-
erately suppressed mention of this alliance, perhaps in order to make
Athens’s contacts with the West seem less extensive than they really
were as part of his presentation of the Sicilian expedition as a leap into
the unknown (see n. 7.33 for other examples). In addition, however, the
suppression of a mention of the Egestaians’ alliance underscores that
the alliance with Leontinoi is more useful to them than their own. This
is because mention of Leontinoi moves quickly to mention of Syra-
cuse, and because the Egestaians are calculating that it is the specter of
an expanding Syracuse that has the real chance of bringing Athens to
Sicily, not Egesta’s alliance with Athens or its little war with Selinous.
ἐπὶ Λάχητος: ἐπί + genitive = “in the time of” (LSJ A.II; on the expedi-
tion of Laches, see introduction 3.4).
σφίσι: Dative plural pronoun referring back to the Egestaians as an indi-
rect reflexive (Sm. 325d; 1228). It is dative after ἐπαμῦναι (Sm. 1483),
which is an infinitive after ἐδέοντο (Sm. 1991). “They [the Egestaians]
begged them [the Athenians] . . . to help them [themselves, the
Egestaians].”
εἰ . . . ἀτιμώρητοι γενήσονται καὶ . . . σχήσουσι, κίνδυνον εἶναι: This is
an “emotional future condition” having εἰ + future indicative in the
protasis (the “if” clause) instead of ἐάν + subjunctive (as with future
more vivid constructions), showing strong emotion about something
feared or undesired (Sm. 2328). The apodosis (the “then” clause) has
an infinitive (κίνδυνον εἶναι) in indirect discourse after λέγοντες
(Sm. 2017b). σχήσουσι is the future of ἔχω and formed off the aorist
rather than the present stem.
Λεοντίνους τε ἀναστήσαντες: In the mid 420s, Leontinoi effectively

ceased to exist when the upper classes called in Syracuse to drive out
the demos and then themselves migrated to Syracuse (see introduc-
tion 3.4).
μή . . . ξυγκαθέλωσιν: An object clause after a verb or expression of
caution (κίνδυνον εἶναι; Sm. 2221). μή is “lest” or “that.” A fear that
something may not happen would employ μή οὐ. That the subjunctive,
not optative, is used after a secondary tense is common in Thucydides.
Smyth sees special “vividness” in the usage (Sm. 2226), whereas Dover
(at 6.96.3) denies it.
Δωριῆς τε Δωριεῦσι κατὰ τὸ ξυγγενὲς καὶ ἅμα ἄποικοι: The Egestaians
make xyngeneia explicit. Δωριῆς is masculine nominative plural
(Sm. 275). Δωριεῦσι modifies τοῖς ἐκπέμψασι Πελοποννησίοις and is
dative after βοηθήσαντες (Sm. 1461) (see introduction 6.2 on xynge-
neia).
Πελοποννησίοις βοηθήσαντες: At the beginning of the war, Sparta
ordered the states in Sicily that backed them to build five hundred
ships (2.7.2.), but there is no evidence that Syracuse had any intention
of helping Sparta against Athens. Nevertheless, the idea is a useful one
for Egesta.
σῶφρον δ᾿ εἶναι . . . ἀντέχειν: “saying that to resist . . . was (εἶναι) pru-
dent.” σῶφρον is predicate adjective to the infinitive subject ἀντέχειν
(Sm. 1985). εἶναι is an infinitive in indirect discourse after λέγοντες
(Sm. 2017b).
ἄλλως τε καί: “both otherwise and . . . , i.e., especially, above all” (LSJ 3).
σφῶν παρεξόντων: Causal genitive absolute referring to the Egestaians,
“since they would . . .” (Sm. 2070).
6.3 ὧν ἀκούοντες: Genitive after a verb of hearing or perceiving (Sm.

1361).
περί τε τῶν χρημάτων . . . εἰ ὑπάρχει: “concerning the money . . . if
it exists.” Τhis is prolepsis, a “lilies of the field” construction, i.e.,
“consider the lilies of the field, how they grow” (καταμάθετε τὰ κρίνα
τοῦ ἀγροῦ πῶς αὐξάνουσιν, Matthew 6:28). Thucydides makes the
subject of the dependent clause more prominent by pulling it ahead of

its clause (Sm. 2182). How much money the Athenians have and how
they use (and misuse) it for Sicily is important in the coming narrative
(Kallet 2001).
σκεψομένους . . . εἰσομένους: Future participles modifying πρέσβεις
and expressing purpose, which is common after a verb of motion
(πέμψαι) (Sm. 2065). εἰσομένους is from οἶδα.
ὅτῳ ἐστίν: The indirect relative in an indirect question (Sm. 339; 2664).
Lakedaimon Invades Argos (6.7.1b)

The first sentence of this section is a formular marker of a new narrative
unit, showing subject, action, location, and time. Dewald points out how
this invasion is followed immediately by Athenian and Argive reactions to
its effects, and remarks that “the isolation of . . . the individual unit is being
eroded” (2005, 126). (See n. 6.1.1–6.7.1a for Dewald’s study of the divisions
of Thucydides’s text).
7.1b Λακεδαιμόνιοι δὲ τοῦ αὐτοῦ χειμῶνος: Genitive of time within

which (Sm. 1444). This quick account of unrelated events is typical of
Thucydides’s style. He tends to report collections of these at the end of
a year.
τοὺς Ἀργείων φυγάδας: Argos, a traditional enemy of Sparta, under-
went a democratic revolution in spring 417 and allied with Athens (cf.
5.82.5). These Argives are oligarchic exiles from this revolution.
σπεισάμενοί: From σπένδω.
ὥστε μὴ ἀδικεῖν . . . τὴν ἀλλήλων: A natural result clause explaining the
terms of the truce (Sm. 2258). Understand τὴν γῆν ἀλλήλων.
τῷ στρατῷ: The “dative of military accompaniment” (Sm. 1526).
Reaction in Athens and Argos (6.7.2)

7.2 οὐ πολλῷ ὕστερον: An adverbial accusative time marker (Sm. 1611)
with a dative of degree of difference (Sm. 1513).
ναῦσι . . . ὁπλίταις . . . πανστρατιᾷ: Another “dative of military accom-
paniment” (Sm. 1526).
μίαν ἡμέραν: Accusative of extent of time (Sm. 1582).

ὑπὸ δὲ νύκτα: “toward nightfall” (LSJ s.v. νύξ 2).
αὐλισαμένου τοῦ στρατεύματος: Causal genitive absolute, “since the
soldiers . . .” (Sm. 2070).
τῇ ὑστεραίᾳ: Understand ἡμέρᾳ. Dative of time when (Sm. 1539).
ὡς: Here = “after” (Sm. 3000).
κατασκάψαντες: Connor argues that this verb “connotes the extirpation
of the individual and his immediate kin from the society,” often as a
punishment for treachery (1985, 86).
ταῖς ναυσίν: More “dative of military accompaniment” (Sm. 1526).
Athenian Skirmishes in Makedonia (6.7.3–6.7.4)

7.3 ἐς Μεθώνην: Methone lay just north of Pydna and had paid tribute to
Athens from sometime before 432/31 (Dover).
σφῶν τε αὐτῶν: Genitive plural reflexive pronoun (Sm. 329) referring to
the Athenians.
τὴν Περδίκκου: Understand γῆν. Perdikkas, king of Makedonia, was an
ally of Athens, but in 418/17, as part of their attempt to cause trouble
for Athens in Thrace, the Argives and Spartans persuaded him to
ally with them instead (5.80.2), and in winter 417/16 Athens set up a
blockade of Makedonia (5.83.4).
7.4 Χαλκιδέας τοὺς ἐπὶ Θρᾴκης, . . . δεχημέρους σπονδάς: For the
Chalkidians, see n. 6.8.2 below. The Chalkidians did not join the
Peace of Nikias of 421 but operated under “ten day truces” and so
were always potential enemies of the Athenians and proof of the
unsettled nature of the peace that ended the “Archidamian War” (see
introduction 3.6).
ξυμπολεμεῖν . . . Περδίκκᾳ: That is, to fight together with Perdikkas.
τῷ πολέμῳ τῷδε ὃν Θουκυδίδης ξυνέγραψεν: Thucydides ends most
years of his narrative with a comment like this that names himself
in the third person. (Years 1, 8, and 10 through 15, in contrast, have
a year-ending notation that does not include his name.) E. J. Bakker
points out that Thucydides does not say he writes about the war but
rather writes the war, “this war here” (2006, 111–12). According to
Bakker, “the war as Thucydides’ work presents it, perhaps its very
existence, is bound up with its very writing” (111), as if he presents
what Loraux called the “war in person” (1986, 161).
SEVENTEENTH YEAR OF THE WAR (415–414)
Athenian Assemblies (6.8–6.26), “Summer” 415

Dewald’s (2005) study has shown that, in contrast to his earlier organiza-
tional practice (see n. 6.1.1–6.7.1a), Thucydides in the rest of book 6 (from 6.8)
and in all of books 7 and 8 “abandon[s] the previous narrative structure” and
no longer organizes his material “as a sequence of discrete units of action.”
Instead, “diverse elements are often considered, and make sense, together
as complementary aspects of a larger ongoing, multifaceted account” (4).
Thus Dewald demonstrates that 6.8–26 is one large narrative segment. I
have subdivided it below simply for ease of description.
The First Assembly (6.8.1–6.8.2)

8.1 τοῦ δ᾿ ἐπιγιγνομένου θέρους: “during the following summer,” i.e.,
Thucydides’s “summer” of 415, beginning in early to mid-March 415
and running until the end of October. Genitive of time within which
(Sm. 1444). See introduction 1.6 on Thucydides’s dating system.
ἅμα ἦρι: ἅμα + dative = “at the same time with, together with” (LSJ B).
ἑξήκοντα τάλαντα: A talent was equal to sixty minas, and one mina was
equal to one hundred drachmas.
ὡς ἐς . . . μηνὸς μισθόν: “as pay for a month for. . . .” The sum works out
to 1 drachma (= 6 obols) per man per day as follows. Sixty talents
= 360,000 drachmas, giving 6,000 drachmas per ship, hence 200
drachmas per ship per day (assuming a thirty day month), and 1
drachma per man per day (assuming two hundred men per ship). This
is the standard Athenian rate of pay (3.17.4; 6.31.3; Dover in HCT at
6.31.3). After the disaster in Sicily, when finances were tight, the rate
decreased both for Athens and for the Spartan fleet financed by Persia
(8.29.1, 8; 8.45.2; Xenophon, Hellenika 1.5.3–6). The apparent initial
intention to send only sixty ships may indicate that Athens did not, in
fact, intend to conquer all of Sicily from the beginning (cf. Kagan 1981,
173). Contrast 6.1.1 above.
ἅς: The antecedent is ἑξήκοντα ναῦς.
8.2 ἀκουσάντες τῶν τε Ἐγεσταίων . . . τά τε ἄλλα: ἀκούω takes an

accusative of the thing heard and a genitive of the person speaking
(Sm. 1361).
ἐπαγωγὰ καὶ οὐκ ἀληθῆ: This is narrative anticipation (prolepsis).
Thucydides will not reveal the whole story about the (lack of) money
until 6.46. The Athenians charge the Melians with being led astray
by such things (5.85, 5.111.3). This phrase also recalls the “enticing but
untrue” (ἐφολκὰ καὶ οὐ τὰ ὄντα) words of Brasidas that caused the
Chalkidians to revolt during the Archidamian War, mostly to their
grief (4.108.5), and Thucydides’s biting authorial comment on that
revolt (see introduction 3.5). The echoes invite the reader to compare
the Athenians to the Chalkidians and the Melians.
περὶ τῶν χρημάτων ὡς εἴη: For a second time (see above n. 6.6.3),
regarding this money, Thucydides uses the “lilies of the field construc-
tion” and makes the subject of the dependent clause more prominent
by pulling it ahead of its clause (through prolepsis, Sm. 2182). ὡς +
optative is in indirect discourse after ἀκούσαντες (Sm. 2110).
Ἀλκιβιάδην . . . καὶ Νικίαν . . . καὶ Λάμαχον: The genitives are standard
formula for indicating Χ [son] of Y. To introduce these men like this,
all of whom have appeared already, underscores their importance
and also reinforces the sense of a second beginning. Alkibiades was
a member of the genos of the Alkmaionidai and related to Perikles.
He appears earlier in Thucydides’s text as an opponent of the Peace
of Nikias (see introduction 3.6) and a proponent of an aggressive
anti-Spartan policy that included allying with Sparta’s enemies Argos,
Mantineia, and Elis (5.43–48). This alliance led to the battle of Man-
tineia in 418, where the Spartans routed their opponents and restored
their own confidence and reputation (5.64–75; see introduction 3.6).
Alkibiades gets a full introduction at 6.15. Nikias was a seasoned
general at this point. He figures prominently in Thucydides’s text as a
proponent and signatory of the peace of 421 (5.19.2). He had opposed
Alkibiades’s support for the Argive alliance (see introduction 3.6).

Lamachos appears in Thucydides’s text as a general who lost his ships
to a flood in the Pontos in 424 (4.75). He is probably the Lamachos
who swore to the Peace of Nikias (5.19.2)
βοηθούς: Understand εἶναι. This is parallel to ξυγκατοικίσαι and πρᾶξαι,
infinitives dependent on ἐψηφίσαντο (LSJ II.3).
ξυγκατοικίσαι δὲ καὶ Λεοντίνους: The Egestaians invoked the destruc-
tion of Leontinoi in their initial appeal to the Athenians (6.6.2), and
here we see aid for Athens’s ally serving as one of the main attested
purposes of the Sicilian expedition.
ἤν τι περιγίγνηται αὐτοῖς τοῦ πολέμου: “if they gain any advantage in
the war” (trans., LSJ s.v. περιγίγνομαι 2). Alternately, περιγίγνομαι
may mean “to be left over” (LSJ II.3). If so, the sense here is “if they
had anything left over from the campaign.”
ὅπῃ ἂν γιγνώσκωσιν ἄριστα Ἀθηναίοις: “in whatever way they consid-
ered best for the Athenians.”
The Second Assembly (6.8.3–6.26)

In contrast to the Athenian assembly of book 1 where he focuses on the
petitioners (Korinth and Kerkyra), Thucydides focuses here on Athenian
decision making and dissension (cf. 2.65.11; see appendix). “What better
way to introduce [the themes of 2.65.11] than a full-scale presentation of
the bitter debate in the Athenian assembly?” (Rawlings 1981, 75). There are
numerous echoes here of the debate in Herodotus between Artabanos and
Mardonios over the wisdom of Xerxes’s proposed expedition against Greece.
The speeches also investigate the public/private theme, with Nikias envi-
sioning a relationship between city and individual whereby the individual
benefits the city in hopes of benefiting himself (i.e., “I depend on the city”;
Macleod 1983, 71). Alkibiades, in contrast, argues that his personal gain and
aggrandizement is what benefits the city (i.e., “The city, in a sense, depends
on me”; Macleod 1983, 71). There will be important points of connection
between the following narrative of the Sicilian expedition and the speeches
from this assembly (Stahl 2003). How closely Thucydidean speeches repre-
sent those actually given is a vexed question (see introduction 1.4).
8.3 ἡμέρᾳ πέμπτῃ: Greek counting is inclusive with ordinal numbers,

and so Greek “fifth” is our “fourth.”
ἐκκλησία . . . ἐγίγνετο, καθ᾿ ὅτι χρὴ . . . γίγνεσθαι: “There was an assem-
bly to discuss or to deliberate. . . .” Thucydides leaves out the infinitive.
ὅτι is the neuter of the indefinite pronoun (Sm. 339). Literally “accord-
ing to what it is necessary,” i.e., with what provisions we ought to
sail to Sicily. The subject of χρή is γίγνεσθαι (with its own accusative
subject, Sm. 1985b). γίγνεσθαι serves as the passive of ποιεῖσθαι, i.e.,
“to be produced” (LSJ I.2).
εἴ του προσδέοιντο, ψηφισθῆναι: του is genitive of the indefinite
pronoun (Sm. 334), “if they needed anything.” ψηφισθῆναι is passive
(see LSJ III, citing this passage), its subject is those things the gener-
als might need. It is dependent not on καθ᾿ ὅτι χρή but on ἐκκλησία
ἐγίγνετο.
8.4 ἀκούσιος μὲν ᾑρημένος: The participle is from αἱρέω. It is not that
Nikias did not want to be a general; rather, he did not want to com-
mand this expedition.
νομίζων . . . βεβουλεῦσθαι: Infinitive with subject accusative in indirect
discourse after νομίζων (Sm. 2018). Thucydides’s presentation of
Nikias’s thoughts echoes Nikias’s own comments below.
τῆς Σικελίας ἁπάσης . . . ἐφίεσθαι: Genitive after a verb of desire (Sm.
1349). Thucydides has himself already told the reader that this was the
real aim of the Sicilian expedition (6.6.1). This point, together with the
echo in προφάσει of Thucydides’s comment in 6.6.1, gives the impres-
sion that Thucydides agrees with Nikias.
μεγάλου ἔργου: This is in apposition to the preceding phrase. The words
recall the Homeric phrase μέγα ἔργον, which connotes “a greatness
which is excessive and alarming” (Griffin 1987, 89).
The First Speech of Nikias (6.9–6.14)

When Nikias stood up to speak, the Athenians had already decided to send
the expedition to Sicily, and they expected him to discuss how best to fit
out that fleet for success. Instead, he tries to slam on the breaks and get
them to reconsider the whole idea. His speech is depressing throughout and
singularly ill-suited to his audience. He admits that he would fail if he told
the Athenians to keep what they have and not risk it for uncertain gains,
and then he goes on to make just that argument.
Nikias’s speech is a litany of weakness, constraint, and defeatism: the
Athenians have enemies here they should worry about and restive subjects
they cannot control, so they should not think they can bite off more in Sicily.
Even if they succeed in Sicily, they are too weak to hold it. Finally, they have
only recently recovered their resources after the ravages of the plague and
can only afford to spend them here, close to home, not on new conquests.
This is a vision of Athens as small, weak, and vulnerable, and hardly one to
inspire his audience. Furthermore, Nikias provides no details of the situation
in Sicily that might deter his audience, just emotionally laden warnings
about being drawn across natural boundaries in aid of foreigners. Nikias
then injects private rivalries into the debate by claiming that Alkibiades
supports the expedition for selfish reasons, and he divides his audience by
suggesting that the young are mad for conquest and by urging the old men
to counter them. But instead of framing this countervailing force as one of
sage elders tempering the high-spirited enthusiasm of the young, Nikias
himself admits it will look like cowardice.
Once before, Thucydides showed the Athenians reconsidering a decision
already made, when they changed their minds about what to do with rebel-
lious Mytilene (in 427; 3.35–49). Then, by the time of the second debate,
passions had cooled. This time, Thucydides makes it clear that the Athenians
are still hot for Sicily and that even Nikias’s bitter pill of a speech is not
enough to dissuade.
Rhetorically, Nikias’s speech is full of hesitation. It is “packed with con-
cessions and reversals” and the “constant subordination of one thought to
another” (Tompkins 1972, 185). It is full of conditional participles, potential
optatives, and “perhaps.” That is, even Nikias’s style is weak. This hesitant
rhetoric fits Nikias’s role as a (flawed) “Tragic Warner” (Lattimore 1939,
Marinatos 1980), a Cassandra-figure who warns in vain of coming catas-
trophe.
9.1 ἡ μὲν ἐκκλησία . . . ἥδε: Thucydides leaves out the infinitive; “this
assembly was convened to discuss or to deliberate. . . .”
περὶ παρασκευῆς: A favorite word of Thucydides (see n. 6.1.1).
καθ᾿ ὅτι χρή: ὅτι is the neuter of the indefinite pronoun (Sm. 339); liter-
ally “according to what it is necessary,” i.e., with what provision we
ought to sail to Sicily.
μέντοι: Adversative μέντοι (Denniston GP, 404–5) with preceeding μέν
tο bring out the contrast. Lamberton suggests translating as “it is true,
this assembly . . . , but. . . .”
δοκεῖ . . . χρῆναι σκέψασθαι . . . μὴ . . . ἄρασθαι: δοκεῖ . . . χρῆναι sets
up an accusative/infinitive construction where both accusative/
infinitive phrases are the subject of the verb (Sm. 1985). πειθομένους
is an accusative subject of the infinitive, referring to the Athenians, an
understood “we.” πόλεμον οὐ προσήκοντα is the object of ἄρασθαι.
αὐτοῦ τούτου: “this very thing.” Intensifying αὐτός (Sm. 328), referring
to the idea in the “if” clause that follows.
εἰ ἄμεινόν ἐστιν ἐκπέμπειν: The infinitive is the subject of ἐστιν (Sm.
1985). ἄμεινον = “advisable.”
oὕτω βραχείᾳ βουλῇ: Dative of instrument (Sm. 1507). The charge is that
the Athenians did not deliberate well about Sicily.
περὶ μεγάλων πραγμάτων: μεγάλων πραγμάτων echoes the ominous
characterization of the expedition as a μεγάλον ἔργον (6.8.4). The
alliteration of the sentence underscores the points (Denniston GPS,
128).
ἀλλοφύλοις: Dative after πειθομένους. Nikias refers to non-Greek
Egesta (cf. 6.2.3). He elides Greek Leontinoi, as does Thucydides,
who waits until 6.19.1 to reveal that exiles from Leontinoi were also in
Athens pleading their own case. Nikias also acts as if Athens has no
connection to Egesta when in fact Athens made (or renewed) an alli-
ance with Egesta in 418/17 (Meiggs-Lewis 1988 #37; IG I3 11, available
translated online at Attic Inscriptions Online; see introduction 3.2).
πόλεμον οὐ προσήκοντα: Nikias invokes the theme of “the near and
the far” (see introduction 6.1) and argues that a distant war in Sicily
is “unconnected” to the Athenians. His phrase recalls the argument

of the Melians, who unsuccessfully asserted a difference between
themselves, who they claimed were “unconnected” to Athens (τούς
τε μὴ προσήκοντας), and the Athenians’ subjects (5.96, 5.110). The
Athenians, in contrast, revealed that all that mattered to them was
that the Melians were islanders and that the Athenians were “masters
of the sea” (νησιῶται ναυκρατόρων, 5.97, 109). The Athenians’
response at Melos does not encourage the expectation that the
assembly will be diverted from a war against the great island of Sicily
because it is “unconnected” to them. At the same time, in suggesting
a limit to Athenian claims (which the reader knows the Athenians
will overstep), the warner Nikias recalls Herodotus’s presentation
of the Persian expedition of Xerxes as a campaign that transgressed
physical boundaries (Herodotus 1.4). Nikias’s image thus facilitates
Thucydides’s increasingly overt presentation of the Athenians as the
new Persians (see introduction 6.4).
9.2 καίτοι: “and yet.” The particle “introduces an objection . . . of the
speaker’s own” (Denniston GP, 556).
ἔγωγε: Emphatic, concentrating focus on the “I” (Denniston GP, 115).
ἐκ τοῦ τοιούτου: “a thing such as this,” meaning a great expedition.
ἑτέρων: Genitive of comparison after ἧσσον (Sm.1431).
περὶ τῷ ἐμαυτοῦ σώματι: Nikias claims for himself a courage that the
Korinthians presented in their speech before the war as a common
Athenian trait (1.70.6). Events will show that Nikias cares less for his
life (or body) than for his reputation (7.48.4).
νομίζων: The participle is not causal (“because I believe”) but concessive
(“although I believe”) and represents another shift in thought. It sets
up indirect discourse with accusative and infinitive (Sm. 2018).
ὃς ἂν . . . προνοῆται: Present general condition with a relative clause with
the subjunctive as protasis (the “if” clause), “whoever takes thought
for. . . .” (Sm. 2337, 2560). The verb of the apodosis (the “then” clause),
usually a present indicative in a present general condition, is repre-
sented by the infinitive phrase in indirect discourse after νομίζων.
ἂν ὁ τοιοῦτος . . . βούλοιτο: Potential optative (Sm. 1824). Nikias is

particularly fond of this construction, using it more than any other
speaker except Hermokrates (Tompkins 1972, 185n15). This contrib-
utes to Thucydides’s characterization of him as hesitant and weak-
minded.
τὰ τῆς πόλεως δι᾿ ἑαυτὸν . . . ὀρθοῦσθαι: Accusative subject and infini-
tive after βούλοιτο. Nikias raises the theme of “public vs. private” (see
introduction 6.3). He inserts private considerations into the public
debate and asserts a primacy for private interests that conforms neither
to Perikles’s vision of the Athenian citizen (who flourishes through
the polis, 2.40.2, 2.42.3, 2.60.2) nor to the Korinthians’ claim in their
speech before the war that the Athenians use their bodies for their
city’s sake as if they were not their own (1.70.6). See Kallet 2001, 32.
ὅμως δέ: Another shift in thought.
διὰ τὸ προτιμᾶσθαι: Articular infinitive after a preposition (Sm. 2034b).
οὔτε νῦν . . . ἐρῶ: The text as written means (literally) “nor [will I] now
[speak contrary to my judgment] but in whatever way I think best, I
will speak.” ᾗ ἂν γιγνώσκω is a relative protasis (“in whatever way”)
to the future more vivid condition (Sm. 2323, 2560). ᾗ is the feminine
singular dative relative pronoun in adverbial sense, here of manner
(Sm. 346). Nikias asserts that (despite what he has just said) he (as
opposed to Alkibiades) speaks with the city’s interests uppermost, not
his own.
9.3 πρὸς μὲν τοὺς τρόπους τοὺς ὑμετέρους: πρός + accusative =

“proportion or relation to, in comparison with” (LSJ C.III.4). There
is a hint of medicine here. Nikias’s argument is a weak drug for the
Athenians’ peculiar nature. On the Spartans’ and Athenians’ nature,
see, again, the Korinthians’ speech from before the war (1.68–71).
ἀσθενὴς ἄν μου ὁ λόγος εἴη, εἰ . . . παραινοίην: A future less vivid condi-
tion (Sm. 2329). Nikias exactly telegraphs the (failing) argument he
does use. Nikias also assumes that national characteristics are constant
when Athens’s own history and the coming transformation of the
Syracusans show that they can change (cf. Connor 1984, 173–74).
τά τε ὑπάρχοντα σῴζειν . . . μὴ τοῖς ἑτοίμοις . . . κινδυνεύειν: Understand

ὑμᾶς as the accusative subject of the infinitives that are dependent on
εἰ . . . παραινοίην. τοῖς ἑτοίμοις is dative after κινδυνεύειν (LSJ 2). The
obsession to “preserve what they have” is the very first element in the
Korinthians’ characterization of the Spartans in their speech before
the war (1.70.2). Nikias could not have used a more un-Athenian idea.
Nikias employs the theme of “the near and the far” (see introduction
6.1), suggesting that if they do not heed him, the Athenians are liable
to fall into the same errors that destroyed the Melians. There are
echoes of 5.113 in περὶ τῶν ἀφανῶν καὶ μελλόντων.
ὡς: “that.” The whole clause up to the comma is in apposition to ταῦτα.
ἐν καιρῷ: Literally “in season” (LSJ III.b), meaning “opportunely.”
οὔτε ῥᾴδιά ἐστι κατασχεῖν: κατασχεῖν is an epexegetical (explanatory)
infinitive, which further defines the meaning of the adjective (Sm.
2001). The adjective describes “those things” that are the antecedent
to the following relative clause. They are not easy “to hold.”
ἐφ᾿ ἃ ὥρμησθε: Properly, “those things against which. . . .” Thucydides
has omitted the antecedent, as is common when it refers to a general
idea (Sm. 2509).
10.1 φημὶ γὰρ ὑμᾶς . . . ὑπολιπόντας: Nikias’s first point from above
(οὔτε ἐν καιρῷ σπεύδετε). ὑμᾶς and its participle are the accusative
subject of the coming infinitive in indirect discourse after φημί (Sm.
2017a). The pronoun and participle enclose their object. The verb fore-
shadows Nikias’s warning against fatal longing (6.13.1) and the ἔρως
that captured the Athenians (6.24.3).
ἐνθάδε . . . ἐκεῖσε . . . δεῦρο: Nikias continues the theme of “the near and
the far” (see introduction 6.1) and foreshadows Thucydides’s discus-
sion of the “two wars” in which Athens embroiled itself with its attack
on Sicily (7.27–28). Twenty-two Sicilian ships did eventually come to
attack the Athenians (8.26.1).
καὶ ἑτέρους ἐπιθυμεῖν . . . πλεύσαντας . . . ἐπαγαγέσθαι: καὶ ἑτέρους
moves us into Nikias’s second thought. It is the object of ἐπιθυμεῖν
. . . ἐπαγαγέσθαι (more infinitives in indirect discourse after φημὶ).
πλεύσαντας is a second participle modifying ὑμᾶς; the accusatives

are still subject of the infinitives.
10.2 τὰς γενομένας ὑμῖν σπονδάς: Accusative subject of ἔχειν in accusa-

tive/infinitive construction in indirect discourse after οἴεσθε (Sm.
2018) referring to the Peace of Nikias of 421, which Thucydides judged
to be no real peace (5.26.2–3; see introduction 3.6). Nikias sees it as, at
best, a weak peace and so raises the question of whether the Sicilian
expedition is contrary to Perikles’s dictum not to try to add to the
empire during the war (1.144.1).
ἡσυχαζόντων μὲν ὑμῶν: Conditional genitive absolute, “even if you are
quiet . . .” (Sm. 2070). Nikias’s reference to the Athenians remain-
ing inactive recalls Perikles’s initial strategy for the Athenians
that (in Thucydides’s formulation) required them to keep quiet
(ἡσυχάζοντας), guard the navy, not extend the empire during the
war, and not run risks with the city (2.65.7). But Perikles’s last speech
presented a much less quiet vision of Athens (2.60–64, especially
2.62), and Nikias’s reference also recalls the Korinthians’ assertion on
the eve of war that one could sum up the Athenian character by not-
ing that they had no quiet (ἡσυχίαν) themselves and allowed none to
others (1.70.9). Alkibiades specifically refutes Nikias’s encouragement
to inactivity (6.18.2).
οὕτω . . . ἄνδρες ἔπραξαν: Alkiabiades at Athens (5.43) and Kleoboulos
and Xenares at Sparta (5.36.1) were opposed to the peace.
ἐνθένδε . . . καὶ ἐκ τῶν ἐναντίων: “from here” or “from this quarter . . .
from the enemies.” Typical Thucydidean lack of balance. Thucydides
uses an adverb and then a genitive after a preposition rather than
“from here and from there” or “from us and from our enemies” (see
introduction 2.3.6)
σφαλέντων δέ: Like ἡσυχαζόντων, this agrees with ὑμῶν (in a second
conditional genitive absolute); it gives the consequences of failed
activity (“but if you slip up . . .”). Nikias’s verb echoes the Melians’
foreshadowing of Athens’s missteps (5.90). Hornblower calls this verb
Thucydides’s “favourite expression for failure” (2004, 351) and notes
how its literal meaning (“I trip someone up in wrestling”) and its ath-
letic echoes contribute to Thucydides’s depiction of the Sicilian expedi-
tion as “an agon or struggle of the kind celebrated by Pindar” (329).
ταχεῖαν τὴν ἐπιχείρησιν: The article implies that the coming of an attack
is inevitable (Dover). But, Nikias says, it will be sooner and greater if
Athens is foolish.
οἷς: “for whom” or “to whom.” The antecedent is οἱ ἐχθροί.
πρῶτον: His first point, followed by ἔπειτα below.
διὰ ξυμφορῶν: Chief among Spartan misfortunes was the unexpected
defeat and capture of the Spartan citizens at Pylos (4.37–38) and the
death of Brasidas (see introduction 3.5).
ἐκ τοῦ αἰσχίονος ἢ ἡμῖν κατ᾿ ἀνάγκην ἐγένετο: The surrender of the
Spartans shocked the Greek world and reversed the glory of Ther-
mopylai (4.36, 40). αἰσχίονος is a comparative adjective (Sm. 293)
standing in for the idea “from a more shameful position” or “in a more
shameful way.” ἢ ἡμῖν contrasts to οἷς, i.e., “than us.”
ἐν αὐτῇ ταύτῃ: “this very treaty.” Intensifying αὐτός (Sm. 328).
πολλὰ τὰ ἀμφισβητούμενα: = ἀμφισβητήματα (LSJ II). The Spartans
failed to return Amphipolis, as required by the treaty (5.35.3–4), just
as the Athenians continued to make raids from Pylos, like the recent
one mentioned at 5.115.2.
10.3 εἰσὶ δ᾿ οἵ: “there are [those] who. . . .”

οὐδὲ . . . πω . . . ἐδέξαντο: οὐδὲ . . . πω = “not yet, not as of yet.” The
Boiotians, Elaians, Megarians, and Korinthians did not join the peace
(5.17.2). Given the Korinthians’ role in urging the Spartans to war in
the first place, their attitude was ominous.
οἱ μὲν ἄντικρυς πολεμοῦσιν, οἱ δὲ . . . κατέχονται: The first group is
probably the Korinthians, who “went to war” against the Athenians
in the summer of 416 (5.115.2–3). Boiotia and Chalkidike, on the other
hand, still kept repeated ten-day armistices with Athens (5.26.2, 6.7.4).
διὰ τὸ Λακεδαιμονίους ἔτι ἡσυχάζειν: Articular infinitive (with accusa-
tive subject) after a preposition (Sm. 2034b) giving the reason why
these states still kept armistices.
10.4 τάχα δ᾿ ἂν ἴσως, εἰ . . . λάβοιεν . . . ἂν ξυνεπιθοῖντο: A future less

vivid condition (Sm. 2329). Thucydides places an extra ἄν early in
the sentence to quickly signal its conditional nature (Sm. 1765). The
subject of ξυνεπιθοῖντο is all the enemies listed above.
ὅπερ νῦν σπεύδομεν: The antecedent is the preceding idea (εἰ δίχα ἡμῶν
τὴν δύναμιν λάβοιεν), which is itself another reference to the coming
“two wars” (see above n. 6.10.1).
μετὰ Σικελιωτῶν: The Greeks of Sicily.
οὓς . . . ἂν ἐτιμήσαντο ξυμμάχους γενέσθαι: “whom they would have
prized. . . .” Aorist + ἄν in the apodosis (the “then” clause, without
protasis or “if” clause, Sm. 2349) of a past contrary-to-fact condition
(Sm. 2305).
10.5 χρὴ . . . ὀρέγεσθαι: χρή has three infinitive subjects (Sm. 1985b),
each in accusative/infinitive construction and with ὑμᾶς understood
as the accusative subject of all three infinitives: (a) σκοπεῖν (object:
τινὰ αὐτά “certain things”), (b) μὴ . . . ἀξιοῦν κινδυνεύειν (dative
object: μετεώρῳ τε <τῇ> πόλει), and (c) μὴ . . . ὀρέγεσθαι (genitive
object: ἀρχῆς ἄλλης after a verb of desire, Sm. 1349). With this third
infinitive, Nikias makes the very argument he predicted above would
not work (6.9.3). ὀρέγεσθαι is the same verb Thucydides uses to
describe the grasping after more that caused the Athenians to refuse
Spartan peace offers after Pylos (4.21.2, 4.41.4; see introduction 3.5).
μετεώρῳ τε <τῇ> πόλει: μετέωρος means “raised off the ground,”
“unsupported” (LSJ). The surface meaning is “insecure” or
“unsettled.” But Nikias will soon liken the naval expedition to a city
(6.23.2; an image Thucydides himself picks up at 7.75.5 and elsewhere).
This and the metaphor of the “ship of state” suggest that we should
read μετέωρος here to mean “out at sea” (one of its other meanings
in Thucydides) and thus (in Nikias’s eyes) still in danger. The phrase
then foreshadows the floating city of 6.31 (See Taylor 2010, 140–43).
Nikias’s phrase μὴ . . . τῇ πόλει . . . κινδυνεύειν echoes Perikles’s
warning that the Athenians must not take risks with the city (μηδὲ τῇ
πόλει κινδυνεύοντας, 2.65.7). But a “city at sea” resembles an island
(which Perikles urged the Athenians to imagine they were, 1.143.5;

see introduction 3.1) and recalls both (1) Perikles’s grandiloquent
boasting that the Athenians were masters of the watery half of the
world (2.62.2.) and (2) the Athenians’ claim at Melos that they were
naukratores or “masters of the sea” (5.97, 109). Those Athenians who
believed these characterizations were unlikely to be scared into cau-
tion by Nikias’s image of a “city at sea.” The angled brackets around τῇ
indicate that the word is not in the manuscripts but is an emendation.
πρὶν ἣν ἔχομεν βεβαιωσώμεθα: πρίν here means “until” after a nega-
tive clause. The subjunctive is used for indefinite time (Sm. 2432).
Thucydides omits the antecedent to the relative, as is common when
it refers to something general as here (so, “[the one] which we have,”
Sm. 2509).
εἰ Χαλκιδῆς γε οἱ ἐπὶ Θρᾴκης: εἰ here means “since” (LSJ B.VI). This is
Nikias’s proof that the Athenians have not yet “secured the empire we
have.” His best evidence is that the Athenians had not yet restored the
important city of Amphipolis to the empire. Thucydides’s failure to
prevent its capture led to his exile (see introduction 1.1 and 3.5).
ἔτη τοσαῦτα: Accusative of extent of time (Sm. 1582). Amphipolis was
lost back in 424.
ἡμεῖς δὲ Ἑγεσταίοις δὴ . . . ὀξέως βοηθοῦμεν: The δὲ marks the illogic.
ὀξέως contrasts with ἔτη τοσαῦτα. Nikias objects because instead of
acting quickly to secure their current subjects, the Athenians rashly
plan to aid a nominal ally on a specious pretext.
ὡς ἀδικουμένοις: ὡς suggests that Nikias may not agree with this assess-
ment (Sm. 2086). Combined with the δή, which here “denotes that
words are not to be taken at their face value . . . but express something
merely believed, or ironically supposed, to be true” (Denniston GP,
234), it gives a sarcastic flavor to the whole sentence.
ὑφ᾿ ὧν . . . ἀδικούμεθα . . . μέλλομεν ἀμύνεσθαι: “[those] by whom . . .
we are wronged. . . .” Thucydides omits the antecedent, as is common
when it refers to a general thing or person (Sm. 2509). That missing
antecedent is the object of ἀμύνεσθαι. ἀφεστώτων agrees with the
relative. Delay is more commonly a Spartan characteristic. See the
Korinthian speech from before the war, where the Athenians are
swift (1.70.2). In Sicily, however, the Athenians increasingly lose their
native strengths or see them transformed into liabilities (see introduc-
tion 6.5).
11.1 καίτοι: Again a reversal of thought. Nikias moves here to the second
of the two main points he promised at 6.9.3.
τοὺς μέν: Rebellious allies like those in Thracian Chalkidike.
κατεργασάμενοι κἂν κατάσχοιμεν: A conditional participle, “if we
should conquer the one group . . .,” replacing an optative (Sm. 2067,
2344) in the protasis (the “if” clause) of a future less vivid construction
(Sm. 2329). κἄν = καὶ ἄν (through crasis, Sm. 62–69).
τῶν δ᾿: The other group, the Sicilians. Genitive after a verb of ruling
(Sm. 1370).
εἰ καὶ κρατήσαιμεν . . . χαλεπῶς ἂν ἄρχειν δυναίμεθα: “even if we
should conquer the Sicilians (τῶν δ’) . . . , we would be able to rule
them only with difficulty.” καί is concessive (Sm. 2372). Another
future less vivid construction (Sm. 2329).
διὰ πολλοῦ γε καὶ πολλῶν ὄντων: This phrase modifies τῶν and explains
why the Sicilians would be hard to rule. διὰ πολλοῦ = “at a great dis-
tance” (LSJ s.v. πολύς IV). Thucydides’s Sicilian Archaeology in 6.2–5
demonstrates the second point to the reader. Nikias barely develops it
for his audience. Alkibiades uses it as an argument for the expedition
(6.17.2).
ἀνόητον δ᾿ [ἐστι] . . . ἰέναι: ἰέναι is the subject of ἀνόητον (Sm. 1985).
Athenagoras (incorrectly and ironically) argues to the Syracusans
that the Athenians cannot be coming because “clever and experienced
people” (as he deems the Athenians to be) would never do something
so foolish (6.36.3–4).
ὧν κρατήσας τε μὴ κατασχήσει τις: “whom, even if one. . . .” κρατήσας
is another conditional participle (Sm. 2067). ὧν is genitive after a verb
of ruling (Sm. 1370). The future here (with μή) indicates an intended
result (Sm. 2558).
μὴ κατορθώσας: “and if one does not succeed. . . .” Another conditional
participle parallel to the first. The μή makes this clear (Sm. 2728).
μὴ ἐν τῷ ὁμοίῳ . . . ἔσται: That is, will be in a worse position than

“before. . . .”
πρὶν ἐπιχειρῆσαι: “than before one. . . .” πρίν means “before” and takes
the infinitive after an affirmative leading clause (Sm. 2431).
11.2 Σικελιῶται δ᾿ ἄν: Nikias repeats the ἄν early in the sentence to

bring attention to the hypothetical character of the construction, a
future less vivid condition (Sm. 1765).
μοι δοκοῦσιν . . . ἔτι ἂν ἧσσον δεινοὶ ἡμῖν γενέσθαι, εἰ ἄρξειαν . . .
Συρακόσιοι: A future less vivid condition (Sm. 2329). The verb of the
apodosis (the “then” clause) is in the infinitive (+ ἄν) after δοκοῦσιν.
The construction is personal (“the Sicilians seem . . .”), as is usual with
δοκέω, rather than impersonal (“it seems that the Sicilians . . .”) (Sm.
1983).
ὥς γε νῦν ἔχουσι: ὡς ἔχω means “how or as I am” (LSJ s.v. ἔχω B.II.2).
Translate as “how or as they now are.” This phrase cannot mean
“independent” because Nikias imagines the Sicilians “as they now
are at least” being conquered by Syracuse. He must mean to indicate
something innate about their character.
ὅπερ: “with which eventuality” (i.e., the possibility of Syracuse ruling all
of Sicily). One frightens someone (acc.) with something in the accusa-
tive.
11.3 νῦν μέν: i.e., both ὥς γε νῦν ἔχουσι and if they are not ruled by
Syracuse.
κἂν ἔλθοιεν: i.e., “against us.” Potential optative (Sm. 1824). κἄν = καὶ
ἄν (through crasis, Sm. 68c).
Λακεδαιμονίων . . . χάριτι: Dative of cause (Sm. 1517).
ἕκαστοι: “all and each severally” (LSJ II), i.e., separately, as individual
cities.
ἐκείνως δ᾿: “but in that case” (LSJ II), i.e., under the other scenario, if
Syracuse ruled them all.
oὐκ εἰκὸς . . . στρατεῦσαι: Literally, “an empire to war against an empire
is not likely.” εἰκός sets up an accusative/infinitive construction where
the infinitive (with its own accusative subject ἀρχήν) is the subject of
εἰκός (Sm. 1985). The thought is, as Dover puts it, “a remarkable piece
of nonsense.”
ᾧ γὰρ ἂν τρόπῳ . . . ἀφέλωνται: “by whatever means they take ours
away,” meaning “if they take ours away by some means.” A condi-
tional relative clause (Sm. 2560) showing ᾧ ἂν τρόπῳ + subjunctive in
the protasis (the “if” clause) of a present general condition (Sm. 2337).
τὴν σφετέραν . . . καθαιρεθῆναι: More accusative/infinitive construc-
tion after εἰκός, where καθαιρεθῆναι (with its own accusative subject)
is another subject for εἰκός (Sm. 1985). Literally, “theirs to be stripped
away is likely,” i.e., “it is likely that theirs would be stripped away.”
This eventuality, then, is the reason why one empire would not join
with the Peloponnesians in attacking another empire.
διὰ τοῦ αὐτοῦ: “in the same manner.”
11.4 ἡμᾶς δ᾿ ἂν . . . ἐκπεπληγμένοι εἶεν εἰ μὴ ἀφικοίμεθα, ἔπειτα . . . εἰ

. . . ἀπέλθοιμεν: They “would be most of all amazed at us, first if . . . ,
then if. . . .” An extended future less vivid construction (Sm. 2329).
Nikias pulls the ἄν to the front to make the conditional nature of the
sentence clear early (Sm. 1765). As Connor notes, although Nikias
seems wise for opposing the expedition, Thucydides’s portrait of him
grows “more complex and ambiguous” as his speech goes on, not least
because “the policies he urges are inappropriate and implausible” and
“in conflict with his audience’s restless disposition” (1984, 163).
δείξαντες: “after we displayed our strength.” A temporal circumstantial
participle (Sm. 2061).
δι᾿ ὀλίγου: Either “for a short time” with δείξαντες or “after a short
time” with ἀπέλθοιμεν (LSJ IV.2).
τὰ γὰρ διὰ πλείστου . . . θαυμαζόμενα: “the things that are furthest off”
(LSJ s.v. πλεῖστος, -η, -ον IV.1) are “held in awe” or “wondered at.”
The theme of “the near and the far” again (see introduction 6.1).
τὰ πεῖραν . . . δόντα: “things least offering. . . .”Another subject for
θαυμαζόμενα. πεῖραν = trial or proof of something with τῆς δόξης.
The Syracusans do grow contemptuous of the Athenians as time
passes and the Athenians do not attack (6.63.2).
εἰ δε σφαλείημέν τι, τάχιστ᾿ ἂν . . . ἐπιθοῖντο: A future less vivid con-

struction (Sm. 2329). τι, when joined with verbs, means “somewhat, in
any degree, at all” (LSJ A.II.11.c). In this sentence Nikias betrays the
Athenians’ fear of the Sicilians entering the war in Greece proper.
11.5 ὅπερ νῦν ὑμεῖς . . . πεπόνθατε: The thing Nikias refers to so gener-
ally here must be the contempt that the Athenians developed for the
Lakedaimonians after their failure at Pylos (see introduction 3.5). The
text has been emended to make this more clear. The sentence τὰ γὰρ
. . . δόντα appears in the manuscripts after the sentence running εἰ δὲ
σφαλείημέν τι . . . but has been moved earlier in the text of the OCT to
make the idea of contempt for an enemy after a failure the antecedent
to the ὅπερ in this sentence. Without the transposition, it is less clear
to what ὅπερ . . . πεπόνθατε refers. The “thing that you have yourself
suffered” must then mean not “you have grown contemptuous of an
enemy after his failure,” but “you have experienced an enemy who
gave test of his reputation and failed.” The sentence probably still refers
to the events at Pylos, however, and the obscurity is not great enough
to justify changing the text. The transposition should be reversed.
διὰ τὸ . . . περιγεγενῆσθαι: Literally, “because of (διὰ τὸ . . . ) your (ὑμᾶς
understood) overcoming them (αὐτῶν . . . περιγεγενῆσθαι) contrary
to your expectation (παρὰ γνώμην) in comparison to the things that
you feared at first.” A characteristically long and elaborate articular
infinitive after a preposition (Sm. 2034b), modified by both a preposi-
tional phrase and a relative clause within another prepositional phrase
(see introduction 2.3.5). An understood ὑμᾶς is the accusative subject
of the infinitive; αὐτῶν is the genitive object of περιγεγενῆσθαι. τὸ
πρῶτον = an adverbial accusative (Sm. 1611). πρός + acc = “in com-
parison with” (LSJ C.III.4).
καταφρονήσαντες: The participle expresses the psychological result
of the articular infinitive clause (διὰ τὸ . . . περιγεγενῆσθαι), and
Σικελίας ἐφίεσθε indicates the practical result of the Athenians’ con-
tempt. Nikias presents this psychological portrait as holding νῦν, but
it must be the result of the unexpected victory at Pylos years before.
Nikias, that is, suggests that the psychological effect of Pylos still
holds the Athenians (see introduction 3.5). Thucydides implied this

already by his use of ορέγεσθαι above (6.10.5) and his reference to the
expedition of Laches and Eurymedon (6.1.1). Thucydides’s emphasis
on the Athenian mood supports his claim that the Athenians had
grand intentions in Sicily from the beginning (6.1.1), despite having
voted at first to send only sixty ships, and underscores our sense that
the Athenians are too puffed up to think clearly about anything.
11.6 χρὴ . . . ἡγήσασθαι: χρή has three infinitive subjects (Sm. 1985b),
with ὑμᾶς understood as the accusative subject of all three infinitives:
(a) μὴ . . . ἐπαίρεσθαι, (b) αλλὰ . . . θαρσεῖν (κρατήσαντας modifies
the understood ὑμᾶς), and (c) μηδὲ . . . ἡγήσασθαι (where the object
is Λακεδαιμονίους).
πρὸς τὰς τύχας: Here, as often, τυχή is not good fortune but rather
misfortune. πρός indicates “in proportion to” or “in relation to” (LSJ
C.III.4), with the idea that the Athenians were puffed up as much as
the Spartans were deflated by Pylos.
τὰς διανοίας: Because κρατέω in Thucydides takes a direct object
only of men defeated in battle (together with accompanying μάχῃ
or μαχόμενοι), τὰς διανοίας should be an accusative of respect (cf.
Dover). The thought is something like “with regard to planning.”
ἄλλο τι . . . ἢ . . . σκοπεῖν: μὴδε . . . ἡγήσασθαι sets up another accusative
infinitive construction, Λακεδαιμονίους . . . σκοπεῖν, i.e., “and do
not think that the Lakedaimonians are considering anything other
than. . . .”
διὰ τὸ αἰσχρόν: “because of their disgrace” (Pylos again).
ὅτῳ τρόπῳ . . . σφήλαντες . . . εὖ θήσονται: σκοπεῖν introduces this
future more vivid interrogative clause, “how (ὅτῳ τρόπῳ) even still
now, if they are able, if they trip us up (σφήλαντες, a conditional
participle) they will set right (εὖ θήσονται) their embarrassment.” ἤν
= ἐάν.
ὅσῳ . . . μελετῶσιν: A comparative clause of quantity or degree (Sm.
2472). It sets up proportionality between this clause and the prior
clause and so explains how hard the Lakedaimonians are working τὸ
σφέτερον ἀπρεπὲς εὖ θήσονται: “by as much as (ὅσῳ) they always
care about a reputation for virtue most powerfully.” περὶ πλείστου

is genitive of value (Sm. 1336), i.e., it is “of greatest consequence”
(LSJ s.v. περί A.IV). διὰ πλείστου = “furthest off in time” (LSJ s.v.
πλεῖστος IV.1) and probably “for the longest time.”
11.7 Ἐγεσταίων ἡμῖν, ἀνδρῶν βαρβάρων: Nikias sandwiches “us”

between “the Egestaians” and its appositional explanation “barbarian
men” to underscore the Athenians’ separation from them and lack of
obligation to them. An example of hyperbaton (introduction 2.3.7).
ὁ ἀγών: ἀγών is the usual word for an athletic contest. Athletic metaphors
are frequent in the account of the Sicilian expedition (see n. 6.10.2 on
σφαλέντων δέ). Nikias here expresses what he hopes the result will be
if the Athenians follow his advice and recognize the continuing danger
from the Lakedaimonians (i.e., εἰ σωφρονοῦμεν). The ambiguity of ὁ
ἀγών is the pivot of the sentence. In the result clause it means “contest,
struggle, battle” and expresses Nikias’s hope that there will be no war
with the Sicilians (“so that, if we are prudent, the contest will not be
. . .”). For the second half of the sentence, however, ὁ ἀγών connotes
“the question” or “the issue,” leading into ὅπως . . . φυλαξόμεθα (“how
we will guard against . . .”), an object clause of effort (Sm. 2209). ὁ
ἀγών contrasts a present war Nikias hopes to avoid with an inevitable
future war he hopes (by avoiding the first) better to prepare for.
δι᾿ ὀλιγαρχίας: It is not clear if Nikias means Sparta is plotting “through
oligarchy” in the sense of conspiring to foment oligarchic revolution
in Athens, or in the sense of “because of oligarchy” i.e., “as a (natu-
rally hostile) oligarchy.” The failure of the Sicilian expedition caused
the Athenians to take small steps toward oligarchy when they created
the board of probouloi (8.1.3), and Alkibiades’s desire to return to Ath-
ens from exile set in motion the events that led to the oligarchy of the
Four Hundred (8.47; see introduction 7.2). The loss of the war (which
Sicily foreshadows) saw the brutal oligarchy of the “Thirty Tyrants.”
12.1 μεμνῆσθαι χρή: χρή sets up an accusative/infinitive construction,

where the infinitive is the subject of χρή (Sm. 1985). The subject of the
infinitive is ἡμᾶς.
νεωστὶ . . . λελωφήκαμεν: The verb is from λωφάω, “take rest or

abate from, recover from” (LSJ 2). The νόσος μεγάλη is the plague,
the last outbreak of which was in 427/26 (3.87), so it is surprising
to find Nikias characterizing Athens’s recovery from it as νεωστί a
decade later. Thucydides himself makes a similar judgment at 6.26.2,
however, stating that the city had ἄρτι recovered from the plague.
However, he does not qualify that recovery, like Nikias here, as βραχύ
(a neuter adjective used adverbially, i.e., “lightly, slightly” LSJ 4).
ὥστε . . . ηὐξῆσθαι: Natural result (Sm. 2260) that indicates that condi-
tions are ripe for the result but does not, like actual result, indicate
that the consequence actually occurred.
καὶ ταῦτα . . . δίκαιον . . . εἶναι ἀναλοῦν: One manuscript omits εἶναι,
and the sense and structure is clear without it. ἀναλοῦν (from
ἀναλόω, an alternate form of ἀναλίσκω) is the infinitive subject of
δίκαιον, with an understood ἡμᾶς as an accusative subject of the
infinitive (Sm. 1985). ταῦτα is the object. If εἶναι is retained, it must
be an infinitive in indirect discourse dependent on μεμνῆσθαι (i.e.,
“and it is necessary to remember that it is right to . . .”), and there must
be a change of construction after μεμνῆσθαι from a ὅτι clause to an
accusative/infinitive construction.
ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν . . . ἐνθάδε . . . καὶ μὴ: The theme of “the near and the far” and
of the “two wars” again (cf. 7.27–28; see introduction 6.1).
οἷς . . . χρήσιμον: χρήσιμον has three infinitives as subject: (a) τό
τε ψεύσασθαι καλῶς, (b) μὴ . . εἰδέναι (object: χάριν . . . ἀξίαν;
κατορθώσαντας modifies the understood accusative subject of the
infinitive, “them,” most recently seen in αὐτοὺς, despite appearing
in the dative, οἷς, above), and (c) ξυναπολέσαι (object: τοὺς φίλους;
πταίσαντας also modifies “them,” the accusative subject of the infini-
tive). Thus, “and for whom it is useful (χρήσιμον) to lie prettily (τό τε
ψεύσασθαι καλῶς) and, through the danger of a neighbor (τῷ τοῦ
πέλας κινδύνῳ), while they themselves provide only talk (αὐτοὺς
λόγους μόνον παρασχομένους), either to know no appropriate
gratitude (χάριν μὴ ἀξίαν εἰδέναι) if they succeed (κατορθώσαντας,
a conditional participle modifying “them”) or to also destroy their
friends (τοὺς φίλους ξυναπολέσαι) if they trip up (πταίσαντας,

another conditional participle).”
12.2 εἴ τέ τις . . . παραινεῖ: Without naming him, Nikias accuses Alkibi-
ades of confusing public and private issues (see introduction 6.3), and
of urging a public war for his own private gain. Because Nikias above
(6.9.2) calls a good citizen the man who cares for the city because
he will prosper through it, the problem must be, as Nikias charges,
that Alkibiades thinks only of himself (τὸ ἑαυτοῦ μόνον σκοπῶν).
Thucydides accuses the Athenians of destroying Athens because of
their inability to separate public and private with regard to Alkibiades
(6.15), and he accuses the successors of Perikles of destroying the city
by their rivalries and selfishness (see 2.65.7–12 and appendix).
νεώτερος ὤν: Alkibiades was born not later than 452 and so would be
at least thirty-six years old, but “it is always rhetorically possible to
suggest that a man younger than oneself is too young” (Dover in HCT
4:237).
ὅπως θαυμασθῇ μὲν ἀπὸ τῆς ἱπποτροφίας, διὰ δὲ πολυτέλειαν καὶ
ὠφεληθῇ: A purpose clause with subjunctive after a primary verb
(Sm. 2196). Thucydides makes the clauses parallel, but the thought
is really “so that he can continue to be admired . . . by deriving some
benefit to deal with the expense.” Horse breeding is expensive (see,
e.g., Aristophanes’s Clouds for a wastrel, debt-ridden, horse-loving
son who is descended on his mother’s side from a Megakles—a name
prominent in the Alkmaionidai clan to which Alkibiades belonged).
Alkibiades’s desire to win glory from horse rearing partly explains
the πολυτέλειαν he hopes to make up for. Horse breeding (and the
wealth it suggests) can also be taken as evidence of antidemocratic
sentiments (or at least of sentiments antithetical to the community).
See, for example, an ostrakon cast against Megakles, an ancestor of
Alkibiades, that notes that he is a hippotrophos, as if that alone was
evidence of his fitness for ostracism (Brenne 1994, figs. 12–13).
μηδὲ τούτῳ ἐμπαράσχητε . . . νομίσατε δὲ: With the imperatives,
Nikias finishes the condition he began with εἰ τέ τις . . . παραινεῖ.
ἐμπαράσχητε is from ἐμπαρέχω, meaning “to give power” to X

(dative) to do Y (infinitive).
τῷ τῆς πόλεως κινδύνῳ: “through danger to the city.” Dative of instru-
ment (Sm. 1507).
ἰδίᾳ: “by oneself, privately, on one’s own account” (LSJ VI.2).
νομίσατε δὲ τοὺς τοιούτους . . . μεταχειρίσαι: νομίσατε sets up a com-
plicated accusative/infinitive construction of indirect discourse (Sm.
2018). τοὺς τοιούτους are the subject of both ἀδικεῖν (object: τὰ μὲν
δημόσια) and ἀναλοῦν (object: τὰ δὲ ἴδια). The two objects form
an elegant antithesis. Then τὸ πρᾶγμα is a new subject for the next
infinitive, εἶναι, and is followed by two predicate adjectives, μέγα and
μὴ οἷον. οἷον is followed by two infinitives and indicates the fitness or
ability to do the action in the infinitive, hence “not fit to be decided by
a young man or. . . .”
13.1 οὕς: Given the last sentence this means “young men whom . . .” Here
begins a monster sentence, which I break down below.
παρακελευστούς: LSJ cites this passage for the translation “summoned,
of a packed audience.” Hornblower argues that Nikias’s answering
ἀντιπαρακελεύομαι (which cannot mean—because he says it during
his speech and not before—“I summon to the assembly the older men
in response”) indicates that παρακελευστούς must mean “having
been appealed to” (3:334–35). But Nikias could be putting different
spins on the verbs based on their different object, i.e., “when I see the
assembly packed with young men summoned here, I appeal to the old
men in response,” and Nikias’s evident agitation suggests that there
was some assembly packing. There is certainly evidence for a “genera-
tion gap” during the Peloponnesian War (see Forrest 1975, Telo 2010,
and Aristophanes’ Clouds and Wasps).
ἀντιπαρακελεύομαι: This verb takes six infinitives, with several embed-
ded ideas attached to each,
(1) μὴ καταισχυνθῆναι: “not to be ashamed.”

(a) εἴ τῴ τις παρακάθηται τῶνδε—τις is one of the old men;
τῷ . . . τῶνδε is one of the young men; τῳ = τινι, Sm. 334;
(b) ὅπως μὴ δόξει . . . μαλακὸς εἶναι—“that he may be thought

to be soft.” ὅπως μή + a future indicative in an object
clause after a verb of fear, effort, or caution (Sm. 2220,
2231). If the concern for the future were negative, i.e., “that
he may not be thought . . . ,” the construction would use
ὅπως μή οὐ. Given that Nikias will almost immediately
invoke a sick eros, there is no doubt a sexual connotation to
“soft” here.
(c) ἐὰν μὴ ψηφίζηται πολεμεῖν—third singular because of the
τις; “if he does not vote to go to war.”
(2) μηδ᾿ . . . δυσέρωτας εἶναι τῶν ἀπόντων: δυσέρωτας modi-
fies “the old men,” the understood accusative subject of the
infinitives (despite their appearance above in the dative after
ἀντιπαρακελεύομαι).
(a) ὅπερ ἂν αὐτοὶ πάθοιεν—a potential optative (Sm. 1824);
Nikias does not say this will or has actually happened.
αὐτοί refers to the young men.
(b) γ νόντας ὅτι ἐπιθυμίᾳ μὲν ἐλάχιστα κατορθοῦνται,
προνοίᾳ δὲ πλεῖστα—γνόντας modifies “the old men,”
the understood accusative subject of the main infinitives.
Nikias employs another elegant antithesis here.
(3) ἀ λλ᾿ ὑπὲρ τῆς πατρίδος . . . ἀντιχειροτονεῖν
(a) ὡς μέγιστον δὴ τῶν πρὶν κίνδυνον ἀναρριπτούσης—a
participial phrase modifying τῆς πατρίδος and using a
metaphor from dicing, “to stand the hazard of a thing, run
a risk” (LSJ s.v. ἀναρρίπτω II), to give citizens the grounds
for changing their vote (ὡς). Αnother link to the Melian
Dialogue, where the Athenians warned the Melians that
they were “throwing for it all” (5.103.1). τῶν πρὶν is a geni-
tive of comparison after the superlative adverb (Sm. 1431,
1086).
(4) καὶ ψηφίζεσθαι τοὺς μὲν Σικελιώτας . . . καθ᾿ αὑτοὺς καὶ
ξυμφέρεσθαι: ψηφίζεσθαι sets up its own accusative/infini-
tive construction of implied indirect discourse, “and to vote
that the Sicilians. . . .”

(a) οἷσπερ νῦν ὅροις χρωμένους πρὸς ἡμᾶς, οὐ μεμπτοῖς—
“using the very same boundaries as now with regard to us,
not blameworthy ones.” Once again Nikias stresses separa-
tion between Athens and Egesta and Leontinoi rather
than the connection that their alliances demonstrate.
Furthermore, since Athens will not respect the boundaries
Nikias reinforces here, it will appear to act like the Per-
sians in Herodotus who, although Herodotus reports that
they thought Europe “separate” from them, nevertheless
invaded that territory (Herodotus 1.4.4).
(b) τῷ τε Ἰονίῳ . . . πλέῃ—a phrase in apposition to ὅροις
above, giving one set of boundaries “if one sails along the
coast.” τῷ Σικελικῷ διὰ πελάγους gives the other set.
(c) τὰ αὑτῶν νεμομένους—a participial phrase modifying the
Sicilians.
13.2 (5) τοῖς δ᾿ Ἐγεσταίοις ἰδίᾳ εἰπεῖν . . . μετὰ σφῶν αὐτῶν
καταλύεσθαι: εἰπεῖν sets up accusative/infinitive indirect
statement (and means “command”; Sm. 1997); the understood
accusative subject of καταλύεσθαι is the Egestaians (despite
appearing in the dative after εἰπεῖν); the object is the (under-
stood) war against the Selinountians.
(a) ἐ πειδὴ . . . ξυνῆψαν . . . πόλεμον—a causal clause; the
subject is the Egestaians.
(6) καὶ . . . ξυμμάχους μὴ ποιεῖσθαι ὥσπερ εἰώθαμεν: the under-
stood subject is now “us,” the Athenians, as εἰώθαμεν shows.
ξυμμάχους is object of ποιεῖσθαι. τὸ λοιπόν is accusative of
extent of time (Sm. 1582).
(a) οἷς κακῶς μὲν πράξασιν ἀμυνοῦμεν—a relative clause
describing past allies. Dative after ἀμυνοῦμεν; “whom
we defend when they have fared badly.” πράττω + adverb
means not “do Χ” in that way but “fare” in that way.
(b) ὠφελίας δ᾿ αὐτοὶ δεηθέντες οὐ τευξόμεθα—another
relative clause about past allies. ὡφελίας is genitive after
the verbs. αὐτοί refers to the Athenians; “but from whom

(understood) we derive no benefit when we need it”
(δεηθέντες, a conditional participle).
Wohl argues (regarding ὅπως μὴ δόξει . . . μαλακὸς εἶναι)
that “in their imperial ventures” the Athenians “pursue an
elusive ideal of masculine ‘hardness’ ” and points out that
Nikias’s “fear of softness evokes this idea and also the polar
logic that sustains it: the Athenian is hard, not soft; master, not
slave; free, not constrained” (2002, 173). δυσέρωτας εἶναι τῶν
ἀπόντων powerfully evokes the theme of “the near and the
far” (see introduction 6.1). The idea of eros for the expedition
will return (6.24.3).
14.1 ὦ πρύτανι: This is the member of the prytaneis of the council of five
hundred serving as chairman of this assembly (see introduction 4).
προσήκειν κήδεσθαι: κήδεσθαι is subject of προσήκειν, which is
infinitive in indirect discourse after ἡγεῖ (Sm. 2018). Literally, “if you
consider to care for the city to be in your purview.”
νομίσας . . . τὸ μὲν λύειν τοὺς νόμους μὴ . . . ἂν . . . αἰτίαν σχεῖν:
νομίσας sets up accusative/infinitive indirect discourse (Sm. 2018).
The accusative subject of the infinitive μὴ . . . ἂν . . . αἰτίαν σχεῖν is
the (understood) prytanis. The articular infinitive τὸ μὲν λύειν is a
dependent infinitive explaining the charge (αἰτίαν) that the prytanis
will not face, i.e., “considering that you would not incur (ἂν . . . σχεῖν)
a charge of abolishing our regular practice.” The ἄν indicates that
the main infinitive represents what would be a potential optative in
direct speech (Sm.1845). σχεῖν is second aorist active infinitive from
ἔχω. What λύειν τοὺς νόμους means is vexed. It cannot mean “break
the law” because bringing a topic up for a second vote was not illegal
(cf. the second vote on Mytilene at 3.36.5) and it is “very doubtful”
whether one who violates a law can be said to λύειν that law (Dover in
HCT 4:240), hence the less dramatic translation.
<κακῶς> βουλευσαμένης: Τhe angled brackets around κακῶς indicate
that the word is not in the manuscripts but is an emendation.
ἰατρὸς ἂν γενέσθαι: Τhe men who are sick with longing for Sicily and war
need a doctor. This infinitive + ἄν also represents a potential optative
(Sm. 1845) in indirect discourse after νομίσας (Sm. 2018). The predicate
adjective is nominative (not accusative) because it agrees with the sub-
ject of the leading verb, “considering that you would be . . .” (Sm. 1973).
τὸ καλῶς ἄρξαι: Articular infinitive subject of εἶναι in an accusative/
infinitive construction of indirect discourse after νομίσας (Sm. 2018);
“considering that to rule well is this.” “This” is described by the fol-
lowing relative clause. “To rule” here means to perform the business
of one’s office.
ὃς ἂν . . . ὠφελήσῃ . . . ἢ . . . βλάψῃ: The switch to a present general
conditional relative clause (“whoever helps . . .”; Sm. 2337, 2560) is
unexpected. The clause explains the preceding articular infinitive τὸ
καλῶς ἄρξαι. ὡς + the superlative intensifies the superlative (Sm.
1086), here used adverbially (Sm. 345) as “the most.” ἑκὼν εἶναι is an
idiomatic expression meaning “willingly, intentionally” (Sm. 2012c).
μηδέν is adverbial, “not at all.”
The Introduction of Alkibiades (6.15)

15.1 οἱ μὲν πλεῖστοι . . . οἱ δέ: Good evidence for the selectivity of
Thucydides’s method. Of all these speeches, he gives us only three.
15.2 προθυμότατα: Superlative adverb (Sm. 345).

Ἀλκιβιάδης ὁ Κλεινίου: A long and complex second introduction (cf.
5.43.2; see also n. 6.8.2) that is powerfully negative toward Alkibi-
ades’s greed and ambition. Alkibiades himself seems to engage with
(and put a positive spin on) the ideas of this introduction in the begin-
ning of his speech. That the Athenians so disliked Alkibiades seems to
put the lie to Perikles’s claims in the Funeral Oration that Athenians
did not despise a neighbor for “doing what he likes” (2.37.2).
τῷ τε Νικίᾳ: Dative after ἐναντιοῦσθαι (Sm. 1471).
ὢν . . . καὶ ὅτι: Variatio (see introduction 2.3.6). Two reasons why Alkibi-
ades wished to oppose Nikias but expressed in an unparallel manner,
using a causal participle (Sm. 2064) and then, instead of another par-
ticiple, a causal clause. τὰ πολιτικά is accusative of respect (Sm. 1600).
αὐτοῦ διαβόλως ἐμνήσθη: Although elsewhere in this section

Thucydides seems to endorse Nikias’s judgment, here he seems to
criticize Nikias for his ad hominem attack. Nikias’s personal attacks,
which themselves confused public and private (see introduction 6.3),
surely added to public misgivings about Alkibiades and thus to the
consequences that flowed from public mistrust of him.
δι᾿ αὐτοῦ καὶ Καρχηδόνα λήψεσθαι: The verb is from λαμβάνω, an
infinitive in accusative/infinitive indirect statement after ἐλπίζων
(Sm. 2018). δι᾿ αὐτου = “through this office” (i.e., this generalship),
not “through him” since he is the understood subject of λήψεσθαι.
A bold vision. Karthage, a major Phoenician colony, lay on the north
coast of Africa, in modern Tunisia. The Phoenicians also had colonies
in Sicily (6.2.6) and so would be interested in Athenian ambitions
there. Alkibiades claims that Athens wants to conquer Karthage in his
rhetorically charged (and hence unreliable) speech at Sparta (6.90.2).
Thucydides says that the Athenians proposed friendship to Karthage
in winter 415/14 (6.88.6).
ὠφελήσειν: Another infinitive in accusative/infinitive indirect state-
ment after ἐλπίζων (Sm. 2018). Alkibiades is still the understood
subject. Thucydides gives his backing to Nikias’s personal charges
about Alkibiades’s motives. εὐτυχήσας is a conditional participle (Sm.
2067), i.e., “if he did well/ if the expedition succeeded.”
15.3 ταῖς ἐπιθυμίαις μείζοσιν: Dative after ἐχρῆτο (Sm. 1509).

τὰς ἱπποτροφίας: See n. 6.12.2.
ὅπερ καὶ καθεῖλεν: The antecedent is Alkibiades’s profligacy and
lack of restraint. Thucydides at first seems to lay the blame for the
destruction of Athens on him. As the passage continues, however, one
sees that, in Thucydides’s eyes, it is not Alkibiades’s profligacy that
destroyed Athens but the Athenians’ response to him and his lifestyle.
They do not properly judge public and private (see introduction 6.3).
Thus Thucydides’s introduction of Alkibiades “moves from a restate-
ment and apparent acceptance of Nicias’ criticisms to a total reassess-
ment of those criticisms” (Connor 1984, 165).
15.4 αὐτοῦ: Possessive genitive with τὸ μέγεθος τῆς τε . . . παρανομίας

. . . καὶ τῆς διανοίας . . . ἔπρασσεν. Literally, “For the masses, fearing
the magnitude (τὸ μέγεθος) both (τε) of his (αὐτοῦ) transgression
(τῆς παρανομίας) with regard to his body (κατὰ τὸ ἑαυτοῦ σῶμα)
in his daily life (ἐς τὴν δίαιταν) and of the type of thinking (καὶ τῆς
διανοίας) of the things which (ὧν) in each and every thing (καθ᾿ ἓν
ἕκαστον) he did (ἔπρασσεν) in whatever he was involved (ἐν ὅτῳ
γίγνοιτο).” In short, Alkibiades was transgressive and outrageous in
body and mind in every way.
ὡς τυραννίδος ἐπιθυμοῦντι: “became his enemies on the grounds that
he was desirous of tyranny.” The participle is dative after πολέμιοι
καθέστασαν (Sm. 1499). The verb is from καθίστημι, which means
in its intransitive forms “come into a certain state, become” (LSJ
B.5). The ὡς indicates that this is the thinking of the Athenians. Fear
of tyranny and the overthrow of the democracy exploded after the
mutilation of the herms (6.27–29, 6.53–61). Alkibiades’s ancestors
Kleisthenes and Megakles were both associates of Hippias, the last
tyrant of Athens. Kleisthenes was archon under Hippias in 525/24, but
the Alkmaionidai later played a role in the expulsion of the tyrants,
and Kleisthenes instituted democratic reforms (Herodotus 5.62–66,
69). Alkibiades himself started the process that led to the oligarchy
of the Four Hundred in 411 (8.47), though in the end he did not join it
(see introduction 7.2).
δημοσίᾳ . . . διαθέντι τὰ τοῦ πολέμου ἰδίᾳ . . . ἀχθεσθέντες: Dover and
Hornblower both emend διαθέντι to διαθέντος, giving a concessive
genitive absolute (Sm. 2070) for the first idea (“although publicly he
. . .”). With the genitive absolute construction proposed, the dative
phrase τοῖς ἐπιτηδεύμασιν αὐτοῦ is the object of ἀχθεσθέντες (“on a
personal level each of them were disgusted at his habits”). ἰδίᾳ links
to the “ἴδιος language” of 2.65.7, 11, and 12, and Thucydides thus con-
nects the people’s misjudgment of Alkibiades here to his comments on
the loss of the war there (Rood 1998a, 127 and note 66; see appendix).
οὐ διὰ μακροῦ ἔσφηλαν τὴν πόλιν: διὰ μακροῦ = “after a long time”
(LSJ ΙΙΙ). Although as Thucydides explains later in this book, the
Athenians turned away from Alkibiades in 415, Thucydides must

here (and above, καθεῖλεν) be speaking of the end of the war, not the
loss of the Sicilian expedition. The verbs are strong, and Thucydides
at 2.65.12 and in book 8 insists on the resiliency of Athens after the
failure in Sicily. Furthermore, at the time of the defeat of the Sicilian
expedition, Alkibiades’s management of public affairs had mostly
been poor (his great accomplishment being the loss of the battle of
Mantineia in 418). His impressive actions came during the Ionian
War between 411 and 406, after he had rejoined the Athenian fleet
in Samos from exile (see introduction 7.3). The reference to turning
to others despite Alkibiades’s clear superiority thus must refer to
Alkibiades’s second exile in 406 after the Battle of Notion (see intro-
duction 7.3). That does not mean, however, that Thucydides did not
also mourn the consequences of turning from Alkibiades in 415. See
appendix.
Alkibiades’s Speech (6.16–6.18)

In contrast to Nikias, Alkibiades focuses on brilliance, strength, and safety
through expansion. His speech owes a debt in parts to Perikles’s last speech
and its focus on expansion (2.60–64, esp. 62). His vision of Athens is much
more attractive than that of Nikias. He begins with himself, defending
against Nikias’s personal attack, and argues that his brilliance in the city
and at the Olympic games displays the Athenians’ power. In Alkibiades’s
presentation, almost everything, even the loss of the battle of Mantineia, is
proof of the power and promise of himself and Athens. As for Sicily, the cities
are divided and weak and will quickly come over to Athens. The enemies
here are nothing to worry about since Athenian naval power dominates
them. That naval power, in turn, will also guarantee safety in Sicily. Shrink-
ing back or going small is not an option because expansion equals safety
while idleness equals deterioration. Youth and age will work together, and
following Alkibiades, Athens will likely rule all Hellas.
The speech is quick and forceful and rockets from one advantage to
another. Who would not want to believe Alkibiades’s optimistic presenta-
tion of the situation? That his presentation “deals above all in semblances”
(Macleod 1983, 73) and gives a “glib and tendentious” account of events (Con-
nor 1984, 165), and that it does not admit that the Sicilian “rabble’s” ability
to unite against foreign intervention doomed Athens’s earlier attempts on
Sicily (see introduction 3.4) just underscores how emotionally charged the
debate is. Neither Nikias nor Alkibiades gives full, accurate, and relevant
information about Sicily or Syracuse or what the Athenians are likely to
face there. They both fail in their first duty as rhetors.
16.1 καὶ προσήκει . . . καὶ ἄξιος: “both . . . and.” Construe both words
with ἄρχειν. Attend here also to the difference in meaning between
ἄρχειν and ἄρξασθαι.
ἑτέρων: Genitive of comparison after μᾶλλον (Sm. 1431).
ἀνάγκη: Understand ἐστι. Its subject is ἄρξασθαι (Sm. 1985).
ἄξιος . . . νομίζω εἶναι: νομίζω sets up accusative/infinitive indirect
discourse (Sm. 2018). Since the (understood) subject of the infinitive
is the same as that of the main verb, it and the predicate adjective are
nominative rather than accusative (Sm. 1973).
ὧν γὰρ πέρι: = περὶ ὧν (anastrophe; Sm. 175a). The antecedent is ταῦτα
below.
τοῖς μὲν προγόνοις . . . δόξαν . . . τῇ δὲ πατρίδι . . . ὠφελίαν: An elegant
antithesis. As Macleod notes, Alkibiades’s arguments are “particularly
disturbing,” especially when he argues that “the city, in a sense,
depends on me” (1983, 71). (See introduction 6.3 on public/private.)
16.2 καὶ ὑπὲρ δύναμιν μείζω: That is, “even greater than our real power.”
Alkibiades’s boast raises the issue of correctly judging displays of
power (see 6.31). By linking his personal display with judgments
about the city’s power, Alkibiades also blurs public and private (see
introduction 6.3).
τῷ ἐμῷ διαπρεπεῖ . . . θεωρίας: Dative of cause (Sm. 1517). Αn impressive
example of Thucydides’s penchant for abstract substantives, writing
“because of my magnificence of . . .” rather than “because I magnifi-
cently. . . .” (see introduction 2.3.1). Thucydides creates the noun by
adding the article to an adjective.
ἐλπίζοντες . . . καταπεπολεμῆσθαι: ἐλπίζοντες sets up accusative/infini-

tive indirect discourse (Sm. 2018). Τhe accusative subject is αὐτήν
(i.e., τὴν πόλιν).
καθῆκα: From καθίημι, “send down into the arena; enter for racing”
(LSJ 2).
ἰδιώτης: Alkibiades mimicked the action of tyrants of an earlier age, or
of states.
ἐνίκησα . . . ἐγενόμην: Because Thucydides tells us that Lichas won
the chariot race in 420 (5.50.4), and the Hellenes could hardly have
believed that Athens was beaten down by war in 424 because of Pylos
(see introduction 3.5), Alkibiades’s victory must have been in 416.
Euripides wrote a victory ode for Alkibiades (Plutarch, Alkibiades
11.2–3; Bowra 1960).
τἆλλα: = τὰ ἄλλα (crasis; Sm. 62).
νόμῳ: “traditionally, by custom.” Adverbial dative (Sm. 1527b).
τιμὴ τὰ τοιαῦτα: The article shows τὰ τοιαῦτα is the subject (Sm. 1150),
with τιμὴ a predicate adjective.
ἐκ δὲ τοῦ δρωμένου: Articular infinitive after a preposition (Sm. 2034b);
“from it being done, from the accomplishment.”
16.3 ὅσα . . . λαμπρύνομαι: “as many other things by which I distinguish
myself.”
χορηγίαις: In Athens, wealthy men were expected to perform public ser-
vices for the benefit of the city. This is Alkibiades saying “I’m a good
citizen!” These so-called liturgies included the trierarchy—in which a
citizen would serve as commander of a trireme and pay for the costs
of its maintenance and repair—and the choregia. Men who served as
choregos paid for the production of a chorus at the festivals in Athens.
τοῖς μὲν ἀστοῖς φθονεῖται: The subject is ὅσα. φθονεῖται is passive.
φύσει: Adverbial dative (Sm. 1527b; see LSJ III).
ἥδ᾿ ἡ ἄνοια, ὃς ἄν: The switch from an abstract noun to a personal rela-
tive clause is awkward. This is a clear reference to Nikias’s speech.
Although Nikias did not accuse Alkibiades personally of folly, he did
describe the plan to go to Sicily as foolishness (6.11.1). See also n. 6.17.1.
τοῖς ἰδίοις τέλεσι: Dative of instrument (Sm. 1503).
16.4 οὐδέ γε ἄδικον . . . μὴ ἴσον εἶναι: Understand ἐστι. ἄδικον sets up
an accusative/infinitive construction where the infinitive εἶναι (with
its accusative subject μέγα φρονοῦντα) is the subject of ἄδικον (Sm.
1985). μὴ ἴσον εἶναι is predicate: “nor is it unjust for the one who
thinks big not to be on an equal level.” This is not a very democratic
point of view, needless to say, especially considering that a byword
of democratic ideology was ἰσονομία or “equality before the law.”
As Palmer notes, Alkibiades applies “the principles that Athens uses
to justify her rule over fellow Greeks to justify his own rule over his
fellow Athenians. . . . Why is the successful tyrant not as entitled to his
tyranny as the Athenians are to their empire?” (1992, 97).
ὁ κακῶς πράσσων: Not “doing bad things” but “suffering” them; i.e.,
“doing badly, failing” (LSJ s.v. πράσσω II).
ἰσομοιρεῖ: The verb takes the genitive τῆς ξυμφορᾶς. πρός τινα = “in
reference to, in respect of, touching” something or someone (see LSJ
s.v. πρός C.III.1), so “with no one.”
δυστυχοῦντες: “when we are unlucky or unsuccessful.”
ἐν τῷ ὁμοίῳ: That is, ὁμοίως or “similarly.”
τις ἀνεχέσθω . . . ἀνταξιούτω: Two third-person imperatives, the
first is middle from ἀνέχω. “Similarly let him endure being . . .
(ὑπερφρονούμενος) by . . . (ὑπο τῶν εὐπραγούντων) or let him
demand equality in turn (τὰ ὁμοῖα ἀνταξιούτω) if he dispenses equal-
ity (τὰ ἴσα νέμων; the participle is conditional).”
16.5 τοὺς τοιούτους: That is, men like Alkibiades. An accusative subject
(with participle λυπηροὺς ὄντας) in indirect discourse after οἶδα (Sm.
2106).
τοῖς ὁμοίοις: Their “peers” (Lattimore).
ξυνόντας: Another participle for τοὺς τοιούτους above. Since Alkibiades
has already talked about their offensiveness during their lifetimes, this
perhaps means when they mingle with others, cf. “to all who come in
contact with them” (Lattimore).
τῶν δὲ ἔπειτα ἀνθρώπων: Men of a later age. Partitive genitive (Sm.
1306) with τισί.
καὶ μὴ οὖσαν: “even if it does not exist.” Modifies προσποίησιν. A con-

cessive participle (Sm. 2066).
καταλιπόντας: Another participle for τούς τοιούτους still in indirect
discourse after οἶδα (Sm. 2106).
ἧς ἂν ὦσι πατρίδος: “and of whatever state they are.” A present general
relative protasis (the “if” clause) in indirect discourse (Sm. 2567).
αὔχησιν: Another object (like προσποίησιν) for καταλιπόντας.
ὡς οὐ περὶ . . . ἀλλ᾿ ὡς περί: Construe with αὔχησιν. One may boast
περί τινος, so “leaving behind for it (ταύτῃ) a boast not concerning
foreigners or failures but concerning native sons who excelled.”
16.6 ὧν: “this kind of reputation.” Genitive with ὀρεγόμενος (LSJ II.2).
τὰ ἴδια: An accusative οf respect with ἐπιβοώμενος. Τhe participle is
concessive, so “although I am privately. . . .” In his contrast between
τὰ ἴδια and τὰ δημόσια, Alkibiades underscores the public/private
divide that Thucydides highlights in his introduction of him (6.15; see
introduction 6.3).
του: “than anyone.” του = τινος, the indefinite pronoun (Sm. 334). Geni-
tive of comparison after the comparative adverb χεῖρον (Sm. 1431),
i.e., “worse than anyone.” Alkibiades expects the answer “no” and so
is here saying he is the best.
Λακεδαιμονίους . . . κατέστησα . . . ἀγωνίσασθαι: “made the Lakedai-
monians. . . .” The infinitive indicates what he made them do.
ἐς μίαν ἡμέραν: ἐς + accusative of time is used “to determine a period”
(LSJ s.v. εἰς II.2); so “within” or “during” one day.
ἐν Μαντινείᾳ: Alkibiades’s claims about Mantineia are laughably false.
The Lakedaimonians won the battle. According to Thucydides, seven
hundred of the Athenians’ allies, the Argives, Orneatoi, and Kleona-
ians died, as well as two hundred each of the Mantineians and the
Athenians (5.74.3). Furthermore, far from the Lakedaimonians still
being laid low by the danger they faced then, as Alkibiades claims,
Thucydides remarks that the poor reputation they had in Greece
because of Pylos (see introduction 3.5) was wiped away “by this single
deed (ἑνὶ ἔργῳ, 5.75.3).” See also introduction 3.6.
καὶ περιγενόμενοι τῇ μάχῃ: “and even though. . . .” The participle is

concessive (Sm. 2066).
17.1 ταῦτα . . . λόγοις τε πρέπουσιν ὡμίλησε καὶ ὀργῇ πίστιν

παρασχομένη ἔπεισεν: “And my youth and supposedly abnormal
folly had this interaction (ταῦτα . . . ὡμίλησε) with the power of
the Peloponnesians by means of appropriate arguments (λόγοις τε
πρέπουσιν), also providing (παρασχομένη, modifying ἡ ἐμὴ νεότης
καὶ ἄνοια) trustworthiness for the words through zeal (ὀργῇ).”
πρέπουσιν is a dative plural participle (Sm. 305).
αὐτήν: Alkibiades’s νεότης and ἄνοια.
ἀποχρήσασθε: As a prefix ἀπο- can signify completion or act as an
intensive (Sm. 1684.2).
17.2 ὡς ἐπὶ μεγάλην δύναμιν ἐσόμενον: Modifies τὸν . . . πλοῦν. ὡς

indicates that the idea is the thought of the subject of the principal
verb (Sm. 2996). The participle is future of εἶμι (ibo). Cornford (1907,
211n3) compares this to the slanderous claims Xerxes’s advisor Mardo-
nios made about the weakness of the Greeks when urging him to war
(Herodotus 7.9).
ἔχουσι . . . ἐπιδοχάς: Earlier in the fifth century, the Sicilian tyrants
displaced the populations of many cities. The only recent one was
Leontinoi (see n. 6.3.3 and introduction 3.4). Alkibiades here surely
means to contrast the populations of Sicilian cities with the popula-
tion of Athens, which claimed to be autochthonous or born of the
soil of Athens (Thucydides makes Perikles allude to this tradition at
2.36.1). The passage is more ironic foreshadowing, however, given that
the Athenians (and Thucydides) will describe their army in Sicily as a
city, and so will themselves seem to be abandoning their original city.
Thucydides, furthermore, represents that new city as a mixed crowd
17.3 οὐδεὶς . . . ἐξήρτυται: From ἐξαρτύω, “fit out, furnish, equip.” It
takes the datives ὅπλοις and νομίμοις κατασκευαῖς. τὰ περὶ τὸ σῶμα
and τὰ ἐν τῇ χώρᾳ are accusative of respect (Sm. 1600). Note how
Thucydides refuses to use the same preposition twice in a row (see

introduction 2.3.6). κατασκευαί are farms.
δι᾿ αὐτό: That is, because of the ideas in the previous sentence.
ὡς περὶ οἰκείας πατρίδος: An idea that Thucydides brings increasingly
to the fore in books 6–8 is what is οἰκεῖος—“homelike, related, par-
ticular”—to the Athenians (see introduction 6.6).
ὅτι . . . ἑτοιμάζεται: ὅτι is the indefinite pronoun “whatever” (Sm. 339).
ἐκ τοῦ λέγων πείθειν and στασιάζων are parallel, giving two different
possible ways ἀπὸ τοῦ κοινοῦ λαβών. The nominative for the parti-
ciple λέγων is regular even with an articular infinitive in a case other
than the nominative (Sm. 1973a).
οἴεται . . . οἰκήσειν: This is the core of this part of the sentence, with
μὴ κατορθώσας an embedded “if” clause (the μή shows that the
participle is conditional, Sm. 2067, 2344). Translate as “whatever each
man (ὅτι δὲ ἕκαστος), taking it . . . (ἀπὸ τοῦ κοινοῦ λαβὼν) either by
(ἐκ τοῦ λέγων πείθειν) . . . or by (ἤ στασιάζων) . . . thinks that he will
. . . (οἴεται . . . ἄλλην γῆν . . . οἰκήσειν) if . . . (μὴ κατορθώσας), this
(ταῦτα) he has ready (ἑτοιμάζεται).”
17.4 οὐκ εἰκὸς . . . ἀκροᾶσθαι . . . τρέπεσθαι: οὐκ εἰκός sets up an accusa-
tive/infinitive construction where the infinitive (with its accusative
subject) is the subject of εἰκός (Sm. 1985). The subject of the infinitives
is τὸν τοιοῦτον ὅμιλον. λόγου is genitive object of the first infinitive
(Sm. 1361), and μίᾳ γνώμῃ is a dative of instrument (Sm. 1503).
ταχύ: Adverbial accusative (Sm. 1608).
ἂν . . . προσχωροῖεν: Potential optative (Sm. 1824).
ὡς ἕκαστοι: “individually, separately.”
εἰ στασιάζουσιν, ὥσπερ πυνθανόμεθα: The slur that the Sicilians are
quick to fall into stasis is more ironic foreshadowing, given that
Alkibiades was the catalyst for the introduction of the oligarchy of the
Four Hundred in 411 and the stasis that ensued in Athens (8.47; see
introduction 7.2).
17.5 ἐκείνοις: Dative of possession (Sm. 1476).

οὔτε . . . διεφάνησαν τοσοῦτοι ὄντες ὅσους . . . ἠρίθμουν: “did not show
themselves to be so numerous (τοσοῦτοι) as (ὅσους) each measured
themselves.”
μέγιστον: Adverbial (Sm. 1609).
αὐτοὺς ἐψευσμένη: LSJ 3 takes the verb as passive and translates
“deceived in its estimate of them”; understand αὐτούς as an accusa-
tive of respect (Sm. 1600). Alkibiades is comparing supposedly false
numbers in Sicily to supposedly false numbers in Greece.
ἐν τῷδε τῷ πολέμῳ: Thucydides argues in 5.26.1–2 that the war he
wrote up was one war, lasting from 431 to 404. His vehemence implies
that this was not the common view. And yet with this phrase (“this
present war”) Thucydides represents Alkibiades as indicating that
the war was not over but ongoing in a manner that does not suggest
Alkibiades thought this would be a startling concept to the assembly.
Classen-Steup deleted all of 6.17.5 on the grounds that no one in 415
could take Alkibiades’s position. This goes too far. In 5.26 Thucydides
could be arguing against a viewpoint common in the later years of the
war or after it had ended. 5.26 would, then, say nothing about what
Athenians thought in 415.
17.6 ἐξ ὧν ἐγὼ ἀκοῇ αἰσθάνομαι: Properly, “from those things

which. . . .” Thucydides leaves out the antecedent, as is common when
it refers to a general idea (Sm. 2509). See also n. 6.20.2 on Nikias’s
repetition of this phrase.
[τε]: The square brackets around τε indicate that although it is found
scribe.
Συρακοσίων μίσει: Dative of instrument (Sm. 1503).
17.7 τοὺς αὐτοὺς τούτους: Object of ἔχοντες. Understand “as enemies” or

“hostile to them.” Parallel to καὶ προσέτι τὸν Μῆδον ἐχθρόν.
οὕσπερ . . . φασὶ πολεμίους ὑπολείποντας ἂν ἡμᾶς πλεῖν: φασί sets up
an accusative/infinitive construction in indirect discourse within this
relative clause (Sm. 2017). The subject of the infinitive ἂν . . . πλεῖν
is ὑπολείποντας . . . ἡμᾶς. The infinitive + ἄν represents an original

potential optative in direct speech (Sm. 1845). Alkibiades deliberately
ignores that the Athenians created the Delian League and developed
it into an empire while the Spartans and Athenians were allies (cf.
Hunter 1973, 138).
οὐκ ἄλλῳ τινὶ [τρόπῳ]: Dative of manner (Sm. 1527).
17.8 εἴ τε . . ἔρρωνται, . . . τὸ μὲν . . . ἐσβάλλειν, κἂν μὴ ἐκπλεύσωμεν,

ἱκανοί εἰσι . . . οὐκ ἂν δύναιντο βλάπτειν: Alkibiades begins this
thought with “The Peloponnesians were never more hopeless with
regard to us than now nor (τε). . . .” He then goes into a complicated
condition: “and even if they were at full strength” (ἔρρωνται, a
perfect passive, with present sense, in the protasis or “if” clause of a
contrary to fact condition) “they are sufficient to invade our land” (τὸ
μὲν . . . ἐσβάλλειν is either a limiting infinitive explaining for what
the Peloponnesian forces are sufficient [Sm. 2001] or an accusative of
respect describing in what realm they are sufficient) “even if we do
not sail away” (κἂν μὴ ἐκπλεύσωμεν) “but” (δέ) “they would not be
able to harm [us] with their naval power” (οὐκ ἂν δύναιντο βλάπτειν
is properly the apodosis—the “then” clause—of a future less vivid or
“should/would” condition in a mixed condition answering “even if
they were at full strength”). A foreshadowing of the “two wars” again.
Alkibiades concedes that the Peloponnesians might invade the land,
but they will not be able “to harm” Athens with their navy, as if that is
the only harm that matters (see introduction 3.1 and 6.6).
ἀντίπαλον ναυτικόν: More foreshadowing. In response to setbacks in
Sicily, the Athenians eventually send part of this reserve force there as
well (7.16, 7.20).
18.1 ὥστε τί ἂν λέγοντες εἰκός: Literally “so that saying what reasonable
thing,” i.e., “with what reasonable argument.” The ἄν goes with the
potential optatives ἀποκνοῖμεν ἢ . . . μὴ βοηθοῖμεν.
ἐπαμύνειν . . . ἀντιτιθέναι: Infinitive subjects of χρεών (Sm. 1985).
ὅτι οὐδὲ ἐκεῖνοι ἡμιν: Thucydides refuses to repeat the verb here.
ἵνα ἀντιβοηθῶσι . . . κωλύωσιν: The subject is the Athenians’ allies in

Sicily. That the subjunctive, not optative, is used in a purpose clause
after a secondary tense is common in Thucydides. Smyth sees special
“vividness” in the usage (Sm. 2197N), while Dover (at 6.96.3) denies it.
18.2 εἰ γε ἡσυχάζοιεν . . . ἢ φυλοκρινοῖεν . . . ἄν . . . κινδυνεύοιμεν: Α

future less vivid or “should/would” condition (Sm. 2329). Whereas
Perikles had said that a nonacquisitive policy of “quiet” was essential
to winning the war (at least in Thucydides’s formulation of his
comments at 2.65.7), Perikles’s last speech is a paean to expansion
(2.60–64), and Alkibiades here claims that keeping “quiet” is danger-
ous. As Alkibiades urges, the Athenians will neither φυλοκρίνειν nor
take account of xyngeneia in Sicily (see introduction 6.2).
οἷς χρεὼν βοηθεῖν: The infinitive is the subject of χρεών and takes the
dative. Literally “whom to help is necessary,” so “whom it is necessary
to help.”
βραχύ . . . τι προσκτώμενοι αὐτῇ: “adding [only] a little to it,” that is, to
the ἀρχή. The ἄν is repeated for emphasis (Sm. 1765b).
περὶ αὐτῆς . . . ταύτης: That is, the very existence of the empire would be
in danger.
οὐ μόνον ἐπιόντα: Goes with τὸν γὰρ προύχοντα. “not only when it is
attacking” or “if it is attacking.”
ἔπεισι: From ἔπειμι (ibo) in future sense. Thus a future indicative after
ὅπως in an object clause of effort (Sm. 2211): “so that it will not attack.”
18.3 οὐκ ἔστιν ταμιεύεσθαι: οὐκ ἔστιν + infinitive = “it is not possible
to . . .” (LSJ A.VI). This financial metaphor for managing the empire
links to other suggestions that the Athenians hoped for financial gain
from the Sicilian expedition (6.12.2, 6.15.2, 6.24.3). It is ominous that
Alkibiades suggests that Athens is not in control of events (Kallet
2001, 40–41).
ἀνάγκη . . . ἐπιβουλεύειν . . . μὴ ἀνιέναι: ἀνάγκη sets up an accusative/
infinitive construction where the infinitives are the subject of ἀνάγκη
(Sm. 1985). The understood accusative subject of the infinitives is “us.”
ἀνιέναι is from ἀνίημι, “let go, yield.”
διὰ τὸ . . . κίνδυνον εἶναι: A complicated articular infinitive after a preposi-

tion (Sm. 2034b). ἀρχθῆναι is then the subject of κίνδυνον εἶναι (“on
account of there being the danger for us that we would be ruled by
others”). The ἄν shows that the articular infinitive is the apodosis (the
“then” clause) of a future less vivid or “should/would” condition, with εἰ
μὴ . . . ἄρχοιμεν as the protasis (the “if” clause). Alkibiades’s stress is on
the danger of being ruled, and so he pulls that verb forward for emphasis
and surrounds it with words that emphasize the necessity to rule.
ὑμῖν τοῖς ἄλλοις: Two datives of agent after ἐπισκεπτέον, a verbal adjec-
tive with the force of necessity (Sm. 473, 1488). Literally “the being
quiet must not be examined by us and by others in the same way.”
18.4 αὐξήσειν: An infinitive in indirect discourse after λογισάμενοι (Sm.

2018). The subject of the infinitive is the same as that of the participle,
i.e., the Athenians. The future infinitive represents an original future
indicative in a future more vivid construction (Sm. 2019). The protasis
(the “if” clause) of the condition is ἢν ἴωμεν. ἤν = ἐάν. τάδε = the situ-
ation in Greece.
ποιώμεθα: Hortatory subjunctive (Sm. 1797); “Let’s. . . .”
στορέσωμεν τὸ φρόνημα: The metaphor is striking.
δόξομεν: Means here not “seem” but “be seen to. . . .”
τῶν ἐκεῖ προσγενομένων: Conditional genitive absolute, “if those ele-
ments there . . .” (Sm. 2070). Alkibiades imagines either the territory
or the men there being added to Athens (the verb can be used of
acquiring allies).
18.5 τὸ δὲ ἀσφαλές, καὶ μένειν . . . καὶ ἀπελθεῖν: Epexegetical (explana-

tory) infinitives that more fully explain what kind of “safety” the
Athenians will have (Sm. 2001).
ναυκράτορες: The Athenians use this word of themselves on Melos
when they take a boldly acquisitive stand and argue that Melos, as an
island, must submit to them (5.97). Τhere is ironic foreshadowing here
because the Athenians were not ναυκράτορες in Sicily and, after they
lost their ships, had no safety or means to sail away. Nikias seems to
echo this misplaced confidence during the conference over whether
to withdraw from Sicily when he uses the no-longer-correct word

θαλασσοκρατούντων for the Athenians (7.48.2).
18.6 μὴ . . . ἀποτρέψῃ: “do not let the do-nothingness of Nikias’s

speech. . . .” A prohibitive subjunctive (Sm. 1840).
διάστασις τοῖς νέοις ἐς τοὺς πρεσβυτέρους: It is not clear why “young
men” is in the dative rather than the expected genitive.
τῷ δὲ εἰωθότι κόσμῳ: Dative of manner (Sm. 1527).
ἐς τάδε ἦραν: Τhe verb is from ἀείρω.
τῷ αὐτῷ τρόπῳ: Dative of manner (Sm. 1527).
νομίσατε: Sets up an accusative/infinitive construction (Sm. 2018).
νεότητα and γῆρας are the accusative subjects of δύνασθαι; τό τε
φαῦλον, τὸ μέσον, and τὸ πάνυ ἀκριβές are the subjects of ἂν ἰσχύειν.
ξυγκραθέν is from ξυγκεράννυμι. The ἄν is repeated for emphasis
(Sm. 1765) and indicates that the thought here was (in direct speech) a
potential optative.
τὴν πόλιν . . . τρίψεσθαί . . . τὴν ἐπιστήμην ἐγγηράσεσθαι . . .
προσλήψεσθαι: Still in accusative and infinitive construction after
νομίσατε (Sm. 2018). LSJ III translates the first idea as “wear itself out
by internal struggles.”
ἀγωνιζομένην δέ: “if it is challenged.” Variatio (see introduction 2.3.6).
Instead of another “if” clause (like ἐὰν μὲν ἡσυχάζῃ), Thucydides uses
a conditional participle. The subject is still τὴν πόλιν.
τὸ ἀμύνεσθαι . . . ξύνηθες ἕξειν: The articular infinitive is the object of
ἕξειν, still in accusative/infinitive construction after νομίσατε. “The
city will hold warding off as customary.”
18.7 γιγνώσκω πόλιν . . . διαφθαρῆναι . . . τούτους οἰκεῖν: γιγνώσκω

sets up an accusative/infinitive construction. Verbs of knowing and
showing usually take a participle in indirect discourse (Sm. 2106), but
when it means judge, γιγνώσκω can employ an accusative/infinitive
construction as here (Sm. 2129).
ἀπραγμοσύνης μεταβολῇ: “by a change of [English would say to] do-
nothingness.” Dative of means (Sm. 1507).
ἀσφαλέστατα: Superlative adverb (Sm. 345).
οἳ ἂν . . . πολιτεύωσιν: A general relative protasis (or “if” clause) (Sm.

2567) of a present general condition in indirect discourse. The main
verb of the condition has become the infinitive οἰκεῖν in indirect
discourse after γιγνώσκω.
παροῦσιν: Dative plural participle from παρών (Sm. 305). The phrase is a
dative of means (Sm. 1507).
ἢν: = ἐάν in a present general protasis (or “if” clause) (Sm. 2337).
The Appeal of the Egestaians and Nikias’s Second Speech

(6.19–6.23)
Thucydides tells us that most speakers at the debate spoke in favor of the
expedition, not just Alkibiades, and that after listening to them, the Athe-
nians were even more eager for the expedition. Nikias, therefore, abandons
his earlier arguments against the expedition and instead tries to frighten the
Athenians into changing their minds by exaggerating the forces he says they
have to bring. The debate suggests, then, that rhetors in Athens cannot hope
to get the masses to choose the wisest course simply by telling the truth.
Indeed, an earlier Athenian rhetor complained that speakers often had to
deceive the demos in order to persuade it to the right decision (3.43.2–3).
Nikias is unsuccessful for two reasons. First, his speech is not very clear.
His sentences are too long (one is over thirteen OCT lines long!) and too
hard to follow; his point often gets lost. Second, Nikias says that the Athe-
nians must bring an overwhelming number of hoplites, cavalry, archers, and
ships to Sicily because he magnifies the power of the enemy there. But that
tactic merely increases the size of the prize the Athenians have convinced
themselves they are going to win. Nikias expects the Athenians to focus on
the problems and be deterred by their number and size; instead, his exag-
geration makes them think he has thought of, and made provision against,
every difficulty. This is partly because of the way he crafts his sentences:
we must bring X “if we want to do anything worthy of our ambition” or
“so that we can hold out against the enemy’s cavalry” or “so the army will
have provision if we are caught off somewhere.” He makes it sound like the
armament he proposes will protect the Athenians, and he ends on a note
of security and safety. No wonder he fails to dissuade them.
This failed speech, furthermore, by increasing the size of the expedi-

tion, also increases the problem of supply Nikias envisions and, of course,
increases the magnitude of the eventual disaster. There are many echoes
of this speech in the narrative that follows. According to Stahl, Thucydides
“measures the Athenian failure by the bushel of Nicias’ speech” (1973, 75).
19.1 καὶ Λεοντίνων φυγάδων: This is our first indication that men from
Leontinoi were in Athens pleading their case on the basis of their alli-
ance with Athens (see introduction 3.2 on that alliance).
πολλῷ: Dative of degree of difference with the adverb μᾶλλον (Sm. 1513).
19.2 γνοὺς ὅτι . . . οὐκ ἂν ἔτι ἀποτρέψειε: Most verbs of knowing and
showing take the participle in indirect discourse (Sm. 2106) but can
also use a construction with ὅτι or ὡς (Sm. 2592c). The ἄν indicates
that Nikias’s thought is potential.
εἰ πολλὴν ἐπιτάξειε, τάχ᾿ ἂν μεταστήσειεν: A future less vivid condi-
tional clause (Sm. 2329) in indirect discourse after ὅτι. Nikias’s plan,
of course, maximized the potential for disaster for the Athenians if
they went ahead with the expedition anyway (as they did).
20.1 ξυνενέγκοι: From ξυμφέρω. The subject is ταῦτα. An optative of

wish (Sm. 1814); “may these things turn out. . . .”
20.2 ὡς ἐγὼ ἀκοῇ αἰσθάνομαι: Nikias repeats Alkibiades’s words (6.17.6)

but gives a different analysis of the situation in Sicily. As Dover points
out, Nikias and Alkibiades would have spoken these identical words
very differently from each other.
ἄσμενος: With τις (πόλις), subject of ἂν . . . χωροίη, a potential optative
(Sm. 1824) of χωρέω.
ἐς ῥᾴω μετάστασιν: “into an easier change of circumstance.” ῥᾴω is
the feminine singular accusative comparative of ῥάδιος (Sm. 319,
293). Syracuse was a democracy, so Athens could not follow its usual
practice and hope to find a fifth column inside willing to join them in
order to overthrow an oligarchy (see introduction 5).
ἂν . . . προσδεξαμένας: Another participle modifying πόλεις. The ἄν
indicates that this is another potential idea (Sm. 1824).
τό τε πλῆθος: “and in number, the Greek [cities] are many for one
island.” Accusative of respect (Sm. 1600).
20.3 τὸ Λεοντίνων ξυγγενές: Men of Ionian Chalkis in Euboia founded

Naxos (6.3.1). The same founders next established Leontinoi and
Katane (6.3.3). The citizens of these cities are, then, all Ionian, like the
Athenians. As Ionians, they all suffered under the imperial policies
of Dorian Syracuse (see introduction 3.2 and 3.4). Thucydides takes
care to demonstrate, however, that the Sicilian war played havoc with
people’s expectations about the importance of xyngeneia in alliances
and war (see introduction 6.2).
τοῖς πᾶσιν: Dative of respect (Sm. 1516) with παρεσκευασμέναι (a key
word to follow, see n. 6.1.1).
ὁμοιοτρόπως: Thucydides will later state that Syracuse was a particu-
larly difficult opponent because it was so like Athens (7.55.2; 8.96.5).
See introduction 6.5 on the symbolic transformation of Syracusans
into Athenians.
ἐπὶ ἃς μᾶλλον πλέομεν: Properly, “and not least those against which.”
Thucydides leaves out the antecedent, as is common when it refers to
a general idea (Sm. 2509). This phrase, together with the plural “cities”
at 6.20.2, indicates that the goal of Athens is the subjugation of all
Sicily.
20.4 Σελινουντίοις: Dative of possession (Sm. 1476).

ᾧ . . . ἡμῶν προύχουσιν: “the thing by which they most exceed us.”
Dative of degree of difference (Sm. 1513) and genitive of comparison
(Sm. 1402).
ἵππους . . . κέκτηνται: The verb is perfect from κτάομαι, meaning “to
have acquired,” i.e., “to possess, hold” (LSJ II). The superiority of
the Syracusans in cavalry will be a repeated theme throughout the
Sicilian expedition. See Stahl (2003, 178–80) for how remarks about
the cavalry in these speeches intersect with the narrative of events.
According to Stahl, Thucydides “elucidat[es]” speeches “by the ensu-
ing (or preceding) narrative of events,” and “only the combination
of speeches and course of events gives Thucydides’ full judgment”
(174–75).
σίτῳ οἰκείῳ: Athens, in contrast, relied on imported grain. οἰκεῖος is an

important adjective that resonates both with the theme of the “near
and the far” and with Thucydides’s equation of the Sicilian expedition
with a city, raising, as it does, the question of what is “home” to the
Athenians (see introduction 6.6). Nikias is correct that Syracuse will
have the advantage over the Athenians in supplies, the lack of which
damages the campaign throughout (Rood 1998a, 166; 7.42.1).
21.1 ναυτικῆς καὶ φαύλου στρατιᾶς μόνον δεῖ, ἀλλὰ καὶ . . . ξυμπλεῖν:
The construction with δεῖ changes from genitive to accusative and
infinitive (Sm. 1400, 1985b). φαῦλος here expresses a key ambiguity
between “cheap” and “slight or paltry” that Thucydides will exploit at
6.31 and elsewhere. It is a shocking, though ultimately correct, state-
ment that the Athenian navy will not suffice.
ξυστῶσιν: From ξυνίστημι. As Dover notes, εἰ should be emended to ἤν
since εἰ + subjunctive is very rare (Sm. 2327).
ἀντιπαράσχωσιν . . . ᾧ: Properly, “if they do not provide the means
by which.” As usual, Thucydides leaves out the general antecedent,
the object of ἀντιπαράσχωσι (Sm. 2509). Thucydides is very fond
of words compounded with ἀντι-, and he coined a number of them
(Classen-Steup at 4.80.1).
21.2 αἰσχρόν: Understand ἐστι. The subject of αἰσχρόν is ἀπελθεῖν

and ἐπιμεταπέμπεσθαι (Sm. 1985). The infinitives have as accusa-
tive subject an understood “us,” modified by βιασθέντας and
βουλευσαμένους. This is foreshadowing because the Athenians did
have to send for reinforcements in 414 (7.16.1).
αὐτόθεν . . . πολύ τε ἀπὸ τῆς ἡμετέρας αὐτῶν . . . τῇδε: Nikias is work-
ing the theme of the “near and the far” hard here (see introduction
6.1).
ἐπιέναι: Still dependent on δεῖ above and in accusative/infinitive con-
struction.
γνόντας ὅτι: γνόντας also modifies “us,” still in accusative/infinitive
construction after δεῖ above.
τῆς ἡμετέρας: Understand γῆς. Cf. ἐκ τῆς φιλίας, ἐς ἀλλοτρίαν, ἐξ ἧς,

etc.
οὐκ ἐν τῷ ὁμοίῳ . . . καὶ ὅτε . . . ἤλθετε: “and you will not be fighting
in the same circumstances” (οὐκ ἐν τῷ ὁμοίῳ) “as when you went
against someone allied together with your subjects here.”
ὅθεν . . . προσέδει: “whence provision of those things of which there was
a need (ὧν προσέδει) was easy from friendly territory.”
οὐδὲ . . . ῥᾴδιον: “from which it is not easy for a messenger to come
within four months during the winter.” Understand ἐστι. The infini-
tive subject of οὐδὲ . . . ῥᾴδιον is ἐλθεῖν, with its own accusative
subject ἄγγελον (Sm. 1985).
22.1 δοκεῖ χρῆναι ἡμᾶς ἄγειν . . . ναυσί τε . . . περιεῖναι . . . ἄγειν . . . τά τε
ἄλλα . . . ἑτοιμάσασθαι, καὶ μὴ . . . γίγνεσθαι, . . . ἔχειν: The string of
infinitives (with accusative subject ἡμᾶς) here is nominally dependent
on χρῆναι, but after the first one, they tend to sound like commands
(cf. Dover 1997, 30). (See Sm. 2013 for this use of the infinitive).
πρὸς τὸ ἐκείνων ἱππικόν: More foreshadowing. The Athenians did not
hold out well against the Syracusan cavalry.
πρὸς μέρος: “in proportion” (LSJ s.v. μέρος IV.2b), but to what? To
some divisions of the whole force or proportionately to each mill?
Thucydides is not clear.
πολλὴ γὰρ . . . οὐ πάσης ἔσται πόλεως ὑποδέξασθαι: “being big, it will
not be the business (οὐ . . . ἔσται) of every city to receive the force.”
With the genitive, εἰμί can express “one’s duty, business, custom,
nature, and the like” (LSJ C.ΙΙ.e).
μὴ ἐπὶ ἑτέροις γίγνεσθαι: “not to be dependent on others.”
νομίσατε καὶ λόγῳ ἂν μάλιστα . . . εἶναι: “consider that it would be ready
mostly in talk.” Τhat is, not really. Τhis is the “theme of the near and
far” in the guise of word versus reality (see introduction 6.1). The ἄν
shows that the infinitive represents a potential optative in indirect
discourse (Sm.1845).
23.1 ἢν . . . μόλις . . . οἷοί τε ἐσόμεθα . . . : “For if we go ourselves, from
here, not merely having equipped ourselves as a match for them
(μὴ ἀντίπαλον μόνον παρασκευασάμενοι)—except, of course,
for their fighting force, their hoplites—but even being superior

(ὑπερβάλλοντες) in all respects, we shall scarcely be able. . . .”
Nikias’s thought is difficult. Since Nikias has been urging the Athe-
nians to take enough hoplites, he can hardly be cavalierly dismissing
the need to at least be a match for the Syracusans in that area, or
thinking that that is a given. Maybe what Nikias means is that they
must not only be a match for the Syracusans but actually even supe-
rior to them, “except, of course, for their hoplites” where they would
be only a match.
οἷοί τε ἐσόμεθα τῶν μὲν κρατεῖν, τὰ δὲ καὶ διασῶσαι: οἷος + εἰμί fol-
lowed by an infinitive indicates the fitness or ability to X (Sm. 2003).
Here, it refers to the ability to conquer those they want to conquer and
to save themselves. κρατέω takes the genitive.
23.2 πόλιν τε νομίσαι χρὴ . . . ὀικιοῦντας ἰέναι: “It is necessary for us
to consider that we. . . .” νομίσαι is the infinitive subject of χρή and
then itself sets up an accusative/infinitive construction (Sm. 2018).
The subject of the dependent infinitive ἱέναι is an understood “us”
modified by ὀικιοῦντας, a future participle from οἰκίζω expressing
purpose (Sm. 2065). Nikias here employs a colonization theme in
which he imagines the expedition as a city. Thucydides will return to
this theme repeatedly as he presents the Sicilian expedition as a city
in competition with the one in Athens (see introduction 6.6). In a
confident speech early in the war, Perikles dismissed the possibility
of the enemy building a fortified outpost in Attica, remarking, “it is
hard even in peacetime to construct a rival city,” for which idea he
used the phrase πόλιν ἀντίπαλον (1.142.3). Nikias has just said that the
expedition must be ἀντίπαλον and more. When he now imagines the
expedition as a city, it seems clear that Thucydides is urging readers
who remember Perikles’s words to suspect that the Athenians will
find it hard to construct their rival city in Sicily.
οὓς πρέπει . . . κρατεῖν . . . ἢ εἰδέναι: “for whom it is necessary that
they conquer . . . or know that. . . .” The antecedent is the subject of
οἰκιοῦντας, i.e., “us” again. πρέπει sets up an accusative/infinitive
construction.
ᾗ ἂν κατάσχωσιν: “on which they land.” From κατέχω, “come from the
high sea to shore; put in” (LSJ B.2).
ἢν σφάλλωνται: One of Thucydides’s favorite words for failure in his
narrative of the Sicilian expedition (cf. n. 6.10.2).
23.3 εἰδὼς . . . ἡμᾶς δέον εὖ βουλεύσασθαι . . . εὐτυχῆσαι: Literally,

“knowing it is greatly (πολλά) necessary that we deliberate well and
still more (ἔτι δὲ πλείω) that we be lucky.” δέον is a participle of δεῖ
in indirect discourse after εἰδὼς (Sm. 2106). δέον then sets up its
own accusative/infinitive construction (Sm. 1985). πλείω = πλείονα
(Sm.293), an adverbial accusative (Sm. 1609).
χαλεπὸν δὲ ἀνθρώπους ὄντας: The understood infinitive εὐτυχῆσαι,
which Thucydides refuses to repeat, is the subject of χαλεπόν, with
“men” its accusative subject. Literally, “men, being human, to be lucky
is hard,” i.e., “it is hard for humans to be lucky.”
ὅτι ἐλάχιστα: = ὅτι + superlative = “as X as possible” (Sm. 1086).
παρασκευῇ δὲ ἀπὸ τῶν εἰκότων: Literally, “by equipment from what is
likely,” meaning “with the equipment that our understanding of the
coming eventualities indicates seems right.”
βούλομαι . . . ἀσφαλὴς ἐκπλεῦσαι: Tragically, Nikias’s enumeration of
all the provisions they should bring causes the Athenians to think that
they can sail “safe.”
τῇ τε ξυμπάσῃ πόλει: But the city is terribly divided.
τῷ: = the indefinite pronoun τινι (Sm. 334).
παρίημι: “yield, give up” (LSJ IV).
The Result of the Debate (6.24–6.26)

24.1 νομίζων . . . ἢ ἀποτρέψειν ἢ, . . . ἀσφαλῶς ἐκπλεῦσαι: Two infini-
tives in accusative/infinitive indirect discourse after νομίζων. The
second infinitive is the apodosis (the “then” clause) of a future less
vivid or “should/would” condition (together with εἰ ἀναγκάζοιτο).
24.2 τὸ μὲν ἐπιθυμοῦν . . . ἐξῃρέθησαν: “they did not have their desire
for sailing taken away from them” (LSJ III.3 Pass.). This is a striking
example of Thucydides’s propensity for impersonal expressions (see
introduction 2.3.2). That is, instead of using an emotional verb for the
Athenians themselves (“they wanted to sail even more”), he expresses
the idea of the emotion as an abstract noun (“the desiring”). The verb
is from ἐξαιρέω.
ὑπὸ τοῦ ὀχλώδους τῆς παρασκευῆς: Kallet argues that Thucydides uses
this phrase “to bring out the tangled complexity of Nikias’ speech”
(2001, 44).
αὐτῷ: Nikias. Nikias experienced the opposite of what he expected.
εὖ τε γὰρ παραινέσαι ἔδοξε: Ironic, given the knowledge that the reader
has and the assembly lacks. The effect is to cause the reader to view
the Athenians “from an ironic distance” and “broader perspective”
(Connor 1984, 167).
24.3 ἔρως: In the Funeral Oration, Perikles told the Athenians to be

lovers (ἐρασταί) of Athens (2.43.1). When Thucydides now reports
that the Athenians had an eros to sail to Sicily, they appear fickle
lovers, quick to turn from the city in Athens to Nikias’s “city at sea.”
In another respect, however, the Athenians still love Perikles’s city
(even as they seem to abandon the city in Attica) because Perikles
repeatedly denigrated Attica and fixed his sights instead on “the sea
and the city” (1.143.5), a city focused on conquest, empire, and the sea,
not the Athenians’ own land in Attica. There are “mythic patterns”
as well. The phrase is “poetic, evocative of tragic drama” and possibly
meant specifically to evoke Klytaimnestra, who pretended to hope
no “fatal desire for plunder and pillaging” would beset the Greeks at
Troy (ἔρως δὲ μή τις πρότερον ἐμπίπτῃ στρατῷ πορθεῖν ἃ μὴ χρή,
Aeschylus, Agamemnon 341–42; Connor 1984, 167; see also Cornford,
1907, 214). See introduction 6.1 for the theme of the “near and the far.”
ὡς . . . καταστρεψομένοις: “in the belief that they would. . . .” A future
participle to express purpose (Sm. 2065). The participle modifies τοῖς
μὲν . . . πρεσβυτέροις, which is dative in apposition to τοῖς πᾶσιν.
ὡς . . . οὐδὲν ἂν σφαλεῖσαν μεγάλην δύναμιν: “in the belief that a great
force would in no way (οὐδέν) be overthrown.” Accusative absolute.
These are usually impersonal (i.e., ἔξον, “it being possible”) but can
be used of personal verbs with the addition of ὡς (Sm. 2078). Another

use of one of Thucydides’s favorite words for failure (see n. 6.10.2).
τῆς τε ἀπούσης πόθῳ ὄψεως καὶ θεωρίας: In characteristic fashion,
instead of explaining the eros of the young men as he did that of the
old with a clause using ὡς + a dative participle, Thucydides uses a
causal dative (πόθῳ) and then a nominative participle. Thucydides
dramatically wields the theme of “the near and the far” against the
Athenians (see introduction 6.1) in a powerful expression of the folly
of the Sicilian expedition. Additionally, Thucydides indicts the Athe-
nians for their lust for show and spectacle. As Kallet’s (2001) study
points out, Thucydides charges throughout his account of the Sicilian
expedition that the Athenians have lost their ability to properly assess
the look of things.
εὐέλπιδες ὄντες: Thucydides abruptly changes the construction from
dative with ἐνέπεσε to nominative. That the Athenians are dependent
on hope further condemns them, especially after the Athenians’ com-
ments regarding hope in the Melian Dialogue (5.103).
ἀργύριον οἴσειν καὶ προσκτήσεσθαι: The infinitives are dependent in
thought on εὐέλπιδες ὄντες (Sm. 1868). The hope for private gain on a
venture risky for the state raises the public/private issue (introduction
6.3).
24.4 ὥστε . . . δεδιὼς μὴ . . . κακόνους δόξειεν εἶναι τῇ πόλει ἡσυχίαν
ἦγεν: A fear clause embedded in an actual result clause (Sm.
2257). This represents a fear that something would happen; a fear
that something would not happen would be expressed by μὴ οὐ.
ἀντιχειροτονῶν is a conditional participle (“if he . . .”). Because
Nikias urged the Athenians to think of the expedition as a city, it is
not clear what city a voter would seem to be opposed to if he voted
against the Sicilian expedition—the city in Athens or the city/expedi-
tion? Thucydides thus demonstrates the conflict now set up between
the city/expedition and the city in Attica. To “keep quiet” is generally
an un-Athenian quality. Recall the Korinthians’ comment before the
war that the Athenians “have been constituted by nature neither to
have quiet (ἡσυχίαν) themselves nor to allow it to others” (1.70.9).
Thucydides’s language suggests that a true Athenian should probably

have spoken up in this situation. As Yunis remarks, “the prevailing
passion overwhelmed isolated opposition. The mutation into a mob is
complete” (1996, 108).
τῷ: = τινι (Sm. 334).
25.1 καὶ τέλος παρελθών τις: τέλος is adverbial (Sm. 1607). Plutarch
(Nikias 12.4) names the man as Demostratos, but this may only be an
inference from Aristophanes (Lysistrata 387–98), who mentions a Dem-
ostratos as speaking at some point in the Sicilian expedition debate.
οὐκ ἔφη χρῆναι προφασίζεσθαι οὐδὲ διαμέλλειν, ἀλλ᾿ . . . λέγειν: οὐκ
ἔφη = “denied” (LSJ III) and takes the infinitive; “denied that it was
necessary to . . .” effectively means “said that it was necessary not
to. . . .” To delay is also traditionally not an Athenian characteristic (cf.
the Korinthians again, 1.70–71).
ἥντινα . . . παρασκευὴν . . . ψηφίσωνται: This is a deliberative subjunc-
tive retained in the indirect question (Sm. 2677a); “what equipment
the Athenians should vote for him.”
25.2 εἶπεν ὅτι . . . βουλεύσοιτο . . . πλευστέα εἶναι: εἶπον can take
either ὅτι/ὡς or the infinitive in indirect discourse (Sm. 2017c). Here
Thucydides uses both. As for πλευστέα, verbal adjectives in -τέος,
-τέα, -τέον express necessity (Sm. 473) and take the dative of agent
(Sm. 1488). Thucydides often uses the neuter plural of verbal adjec-
tives impersonally, e.g., ἐψηφίσαντο . . . πολεμητέα εἶναι, “they voted
that it was necessary to make war” (1.88; Sm. 1003a; see introduction
2.3.4). Thus, literally, “he said that it had to be sailed,” meaning “he
said that they had to sail.”
τριήρεσι . . . ὁπλίταις: The “dative of military accompaniment” (Sm.
1526).
ἔσεσθαι ὁπλιταγωγοὺς ὅσαι ἂν δοκῶσι: The accusative and infinitive
are in indirect statement after εἶπεν, the subjunctive is retained in a
subordinate clause (Sm. 2603), “and said that there would be hoplite
transports as many as seem appropriate.” “Hoplite transports” are
either fighting triremes that have been reconfigured in some way so as
to serve as troop ships and that can be reworked again to allow them
to serve in battle or (more likely) simply regular triremes that carry
hoplites and with only skeleton crews of sailors. See n. 7.75.5 for the
difficulties these hoplite-transports pose for our understanding of the
numbers of men in the Sicilian expedition.
καὶ ἄλλας . . . μεταπεμπτέας εἶναι: Accusative and infinitive in indirect
discourse after εἶπεν. Verbal adjectives in -τέος, -τέα, -τέον express
necessity (Sm. 473) and take the dative of agent (Sm. 1488); “and said
that others must be sent for.”
ἢν δέ τι δύνωνται: “if they were at all (τι) able.” Another retained sub-
junctive in a subordinate clause in indirect discourse (Sm. 2603).
ὡς κατὰ λόγον: “according to correct proportions.”
ἑτοιμασάμενοι ἄξειν: The infinitive is still in indirect discourse after
εἶπεν. The participle is nominative, not accusative (the regular case
for subjects of infinitives), because it includes the speaker of the main
verb.
26.1 αὐτοκράτορας εἶναι: The subject is τοὺς στρατηγούς below, in

accusative and infinitive construction after ἐψηφίσαντο; “and they
voted that the generals should be autonomous.”
ᾗ ἂν: “in whatever way . . . / however” (LSJ s.v. ὅς, ἥ, ὅ Ab.II). Dative of
manner.
26.2 ἀνειλήφει: From ἀναλαμβάνω.

ἀπὸ τῆς νόσου: This is the plague, the last outbreak of which was actu-
ally in 427/26.
ἐς τε ἡλικίας πλῆθος ἐπιγεγενημένης: “in regard to (LSJ s.v. εἰς IV) the
number of the youth that had grown up after it.”
ἐς χρημάτων ἅθροισιν: Thucydides does not often make clear how
demanding Perikles’s war was on Athens’s finances.

Profanation of the Mysteries, Pt. 1 (6.27–6.29)
For this episode we have two important sources outside Thucydides. The
Athenian orator Andokides gave information regarding the mutilation of the
herms and confessed to a role in the profanation of the mysteries (cf. 6.60.2
below). He left the city soon afterward and returned only under the amnesty
of 403 after the end of the war and the downfall of the Thirty Tyrants. In
his speech On the Mysteries delivered probably in 400, he defended himself
against a charge of outlawry stemming from these events. Andokides’s
speech provides much more detail than Thucydides, including the names
of the slave, metic, and Athenian accusers, as well as the names of the men
denounced by these informants. Several of the men named by Andokides
appear on our other outside source, the preserved fragments of the accounts
of the Poletai that record the sale of the property confiscated from the men
condemned in the affair (see Lalonde, Langdon, and Walbank 1991, P1; IG
I3 421–30). The overlap between Andokides’s list and the accounts of the
Poletai lends a certain credibility to Andokides’s account. A number of
the other perpetrators listed in Andokides are connected to Alkibiades by
blood or association (cf. Dover in HCT 4:283).
In the course of his account of these events, right after he mentions
Andokides and his confession (without naming him), Thucydides remarks
that it is unclear whether he was telling the truth, and he states that nobody
either then or later was able to get to the bottom of the matter (6.60.2). It
therefore seems that Thucydides and his informants were unsatisfied not
only by the investigation at the time but also by whatever account Andokides
gave at the time, and perhaps also—assuming he lived long enough to hear
it—by the account Andokides gave in his speech after the war. But we cannot
know that Thucydides lived long enough to hear Andokides’s speech or,
if he did, that he had time to revise his text before he died and chose not
to—which would mean that his judgment that no one ever knew the truth
represents his thoughts after hearing Andokides’s account. In any case,
Thucydides seems much less sure of things than Andokides. For more on
this episode, see MacDowell 1962 and Dover in HCT 4:264–88.
27.1 Ἑρμαῖ . . . λίθινοι: Herms were square stone pillars topped with the
bearded head of a man, with small rectangular spurs at the “shoul-
ders” and an erect phallus carved on the front. They were common in
Athens at crossroads, doorways, and other transitional or “liminal”
spaces because of their connection to Hermes. There was a collection

of them in the agora near the Stoa Poikile (Thompson and Wycherley
1972, 94–96.
μιᾷ νυκτί: Ιt would be more regular for Thucydides to use ἐν for this
statement of the time within which something occurred (Sm. 1542c).
τὰ πρόσωπα: “were cut around with respect to their faces,” i.e., had their
faces mutilated. Accusative of respect (Sm. 1600). In Aristophanes
(Lysistrata 1093–94), some men with erections are warned to watch
out for the “Hermokopidai” or “Herm-choppers,” showing that at
least some of the herms had more than their faces mutilated.
27.2 ᾔδει: From *εἴδω.

δημοσίᾳ: “at the public expense” (LSJ V.1).
ἐψηφίσαντο: The understood subject is “the Athenians.”
μηνύειν ἀδεῶς τὸν βουλόμενον: The infinitive (with subject accusative)
is dependent on ἐψηφίσαντο. Informants were told they could report
with impunity.
27.3 μειζόνως ἐλάμβανον: With an adverb, λαμβάνω means to take

something in a certain way (LSJ 9.c). The adverb is an intensifying
comparative (Sm. 1067).
οἰωνὸς ἐδόκει: The herms’ connection to Hermes, a god of (among other
things) travel and transitions, makes the bad omen for a long voyage
obvious. It is hard to imagine why Alkibiades or his supporters could
want such a thing. But his enemies might.
ἐπὶ ξυνωμοσίᾳ . . . δήμου καταλύσεως: “in connection with a conspiracy
of revolution and the overthrow of the democracy.” Although the
Athenian herms seem to originate in the period of the tyranny, by this
time they appear to have had a particular association with democracy
(Osborne 1985; Quinn 2007; Winkler 1990, 35–36; Parker 1996,
80–81).
28.1 μετοίκων τέ τινων: Metics were foreigners resident in Attica. They

were registered with the demarch in their deme of residence and had
certain official obligations (see Whitehead 1977).
περὶ μὲν τῶν Ἑρμῶν οὐδέν: According to the sequence given by

Andokides (On the Mysteries 11–15, 34–35), Alkibiades was first
denounced by a slave for profaning the mysteries, and then a metic
named Teukros gave information about both the herms and the
mysteries. This is not compatible with Thucydides, who says here
that although metics and slaves gave information, it did not concern
the herms. Thucydides also indicates that no information was given
about the mutilation of the herms until after the expedition had sailed.
Either Thucydides is wrong that metics (i.e., Teukros) informed
before the expedition left, or he is wrong that those metics gave no
information about the herms. As Dover notes, it is easier to believe
Thucydides got the sequence of events wrong (HCT 4:274). Dover sug-
gests that Thucydides’s desire to stress the class differential between
the informers and the accused has caused him to say that metics were
involved in this first denunciation.
μετὰ παιδιᾶς καὶ οἴνου: Murray (1990) underscores the sympotic aspect
of at least some of the crimes.
τὰ μυστήρια . . . ὡς ποιεῖται: The “mysteries” are the mysteries of Deme-
ter and Kore.
ἐν οἰκίαις ἐφ᾿ ὕβρει: Murray emphasizes that the mysteries were not
parodied but “performed,” with the “ritual . . . followed accurately” in
an “illegal, sacrilegious, and immoral, but not unreal” way (1990, 155).
The reference to hubris indicates that what was done was done as a
definite, deliberate insult and was no drunken prank (cf. Parker 1983,
169–70).
Ἀλκιβιάδην ἐπῃτιῶντο: The verb is from ἐπαιτιάομαι. One accuses
someone (accusative) of a thing (genitive).
28.2 αὐτά: The charges against Alkibiades. Object of both

ὑπολαμβάνοντες and ἐμεγάλυνον below.
ἐμποδὼν ὄντι σφίσι: Dative to agree with Alkibiades above. Dover (in
HCT 4:289) notes that it is a group that opposes Alkibiades. He was “a
giant, and men who were potentially rivals of one another combined
to overthrow him.”
μὴ . . . προεστάναι: The infinitive indicates what Alkibiades was prevent-

ing them from being. Verbs like “prevent,” “deny,” and “hinder” often
have a redundant μή that reinforces the negative idea of the introduc-
tory verb (Sm. 2739).
πρῶτοι ἂν εἶναι: Apodosis (the “then” clause) of a future less vivid or
“should/would” condition (Sm. 2329), with εἰ αὐτὸν ἐξελάσειαν as
the protasis (the “if” clause). The verb is infinitive because it is in
indirect discourse after νομισάντες (Sm. 2018, 2621). The adjective is
nominative, not accusative, the regular case for the subject of infini-
tives, because it includes also the subject of the main verb.
ὡς . . . γένοιτο καὶ οὐδὲν εἴη: Optatives in indirect discourse after
ἐμεγάλυνον καὶ ἐβόων.
τὴν ἄλλην . . . παρανομίαν: A deliberate echo of 6.15.4 at the point at
which Alkibiades’s undemocratic and irregular behavior begins to
have serious consequences. He is undemocratic not just in his politics
but also in his life.
29.1 ὁ δ᾿: Alkibiades.

κρίνεσθαι, εἴ τι τούτων εἰργασμένος ἦν: That is, to be judged “as to
whether. . . .” The pluperfect is periphrastic, formed from the perfect
passive participle and the imperfect of εἰμί (Sm. 599d).
δίκην δοῦναι: “to pay the penalty; to be punished.” The infinitive, like
κρίνεσθαι above and ἄρχειν, which follows, is dependent on ἑτοῖμος
ἦν.
29.2 ἐπεμαρτύρετο μὴ . . . ἀποδέχεσθαι, ἀλλ᾿ . . . ἀποκτείνειν: “appealed

[to them] not to . . . , but to. . . .”
ἀπόντος: Agrees with αὐτοῦ. It is pulled forward for emphasis.
καὶ ὅτι σωφρονέστερον εἴη . . . μὴ . . . πέμπειν: Thucydides changes
construction from the infinitive after ἐπεμαρτύρετο to a ὅτι clause
with the optative (Sm. 2579). In that clause, πέμπειν is the subject of
σωφρονέστερον, “and that it would be more prudent to. . . .”
ἐπὶ τοσούτῳ στρατεύματι: ἐπί here indicates having authority over
something (LSJ Β.ΙΙΙ.6).
29.3 μὴ εὔνουν ἔχῃ: The verb is here equivaent to εἰμί (LSJ B.II). It is
subjunctive in a fear clause after δεδιότες (Sm. 2221). This is a fear that
something may be; a fear that something may not be uses μή οὐ.
μὴ μαλακίζηται: Also governed by δεδιότες in a fear clause (Sm. 2221).
ἐνιέντες: From ἐνίημι.
πλεῖν αὐτὸν . . . ἐλθόντα δὲ κρίνεσθαι: Accusative and infinitive in
indirect discourse after ἔλεγον, which here means something like
“command” or “urge” (LSJ III.5).
αὐτοῦ ἀπόντος: Temporal genitive absolute, “while he . . .” (Sm. 2070).
μετάπεμπτον κομισθέντα: Both participles modify αὐτόν as subject of
ἀγωνίσασθαι, an object infinitive after βουλόμενοι, a verb of will or
desire (Sm. 1991); “wishing that he, conveyed home under a summons,
be tried. . . .”
καὶ ἔδοξε πλεῖν τὸν Ἀλκιβιάδην: Because of everything that flows from
this decision, which Thucydides describes so briefly, Cornford regards
this simple sentence as the height of Thucydides’s artistry (1907, 216).
The Launching of the Expedition (6.30–6.32.2)

This set piece describes in vivid detail the departure of the Athenian fleet
and the impression its extravagant appearance made on the spectators. That
Thucydides was not present in Athens to see the launch makes his emphasis
on its “visual impact” especially “ironic” (Kallet 2001, 48). Thucydides
charges that the audience did not judge the display well and failed to see
that the expedition, although visually stunning, was ill-equipped against
its object (Kallet 2001; Jordan 2000). Numerous ironies and echoes of the
last terrible naval battle in Sicily raise the specter of doom (Jordan 2000).
The chapter “exploit[s] the gap between the expectations of participants
and the reader’s knowledge that the expectations will fail” (Rood 1999, 153).
Hornblower argues that the naval departure here recalls the quest of Jason
and the Argonauts through its Pindaric retelling in Pythian 4 (2004, 330–36).
30.1 ταῖς σιταγωγοῖς ὁλκάσι: At 6.44.1 these ships are said to carry (in
addition to grain) bakers, stonemasons, and workmen. The ships (and
the other datives) are the object of εἴρητο.
παρασκευή: An important recurring word. See n. 6.1.1.

ξυνείπετο: “and to the other paraskeue, as much as followed with them.”
This is the verb of the relative clause with ὅση ἄλλη.
ξυλλέγεσθαι: An object infinitive with εἴρητο, which here is equivalent
to “command” (LSJ II.2; Sm. 1997).
ὡς . . . διαβαλοῦσιν: ὡς + future participle expresses purpose (Sm.
2065). The participle modifies all the datives above.
ἁθρόοις: The fleet would want to sail en masse from Kerkyra to Iapygia
for safety because that leg of the voyage was across open sea. Her-
mokrates discusses how difficult it will be for the Athenians to make
the crossing (6.34.4).
ἐπὶ ἄκραν Ἰαπυγίαν: The headland of Iapygia is at the tip of the bootheel
of Italy.
τὸν Ἰόνιαν: Understand κόλπον, the stretch of open sea between
Kerkyra and Iapygia across which Io swam (Aeschylus, Prometheus
Bound 840).
ἐς τὸν Πειραιᾶ: One of the demes of Attica and the walled harbor town
of Athens, Peiraieus was connected to the asty (or city-center of Ath-
ens) by three “Long Walls” that linked the civic and religious center
to the sea, making Athens the “island” that Perikles envisioned (see
introduction 3.1 and 6.6).
ὡς ἀναξόμενοι: ὡς + future participle expresses purpose (Sm. 2065).
30.2 ὁ ἄλλος ὅμιλος ἅπας: The entire city, citizen and foreign, comes
to see the expedition off. This furthers Thucydides’s equation of the
expedition with a (the) city and contributes to the sense of the totality
of defeat in book 7 (see introduction 6.6).
ὡς εἰπεῖν: “so to speak, almost.” An idiomatic infinitive used to limit
statements that are very general or potentially too expansive; often, as
here, limiting πᾶς or οὐδείς (Sm. 2012b).
ἀστῶν: Literally “dwellers in the city,” this word (as opposed to
πολίτων) can include women and prepares for the family tableaux
Thucydides describes below.
οἱ μὲν ἐπιχώριοι: That is, οἱ ἀστοί (balanced by οἱ δὲ ξένοι in 6.31.1). This
group is further divided into three groups (οἱ μέν . . . οἱ δέ . . . οἱ δέ)
and is in apposition to ὁ ἄλλος ὅμιλος ἅπας. The “natives” are modi-

fied by three participles, προπέμποντες, ἰόντες, and ἐνθυμούμενοι,
each further explaining their psychological state.
μετ᾿ ἐλπίδος . . . καὶ ὀλοφυρμῶν: The juxtaposition of contrary emo-
tions. Hope, which the Athenians counseled the Melians against
(5.103), leads them to defeat in Sicily. ὀλοφυρμός is a “semi-poetic”
word that contributes to the “emotionally charged” scene and looks
forward to Thucydides’s use of it during and after the last sea battle at
7.71.3, 4, and 7.75.4 (Jordan 2000, 68, 77).
τὰ μὲν ὡς κτήσοιντο, τοὺς δ᾿ εἴ ποτε ὄψοιντο: “with the hope on the
one hand that they might make an acquisition (τά) [of Sicily], but with
lamentation about whether they would ever see them (τούς) again.”
The Athenians’ hopes of gain echo Thucydides’s emphasis on Alkibi-
ades’s acquisitiveness.
ὅσον πλοῦν . . . ἀπεστέλλοντο: “how long a voyage they were being sent
on.” Despite Nikias’s emphasis on this point in his first speech, the
Athenians only now seem to take to heart how far away Sicily is. The
subject of ἀπεστέλλοντο is the companions, relatives, and sons from
above.
ἐκ τῆς σφετέρας: Understand γῆς, “from their homeland.”
31.1 ὡς: Temporal; “when,” “now that. . .” (Sm. 3000).

μᾶλλον . . . ἐσῄει τὰ δεινά: Thucydides’s foreshadowing of disaster
heightens the pervasive impression of bad judgment. The verb is from
ἔσειμι (ibo).
τῇ παρούσῃ ῥώμῃ . . . τῇ ὄψει ἀνεθάρσουν: “in their present strength
. . . they cheered up from the sight” (Kallet 2001, 49). Dover (in HCT
4:291) objects to the two datives with different points of view and
counsels punctuating “not after ἑώρων but after ὄψει” in order to read
“which they saw with their sight,” i.e., with their own eyes. I prefer
Kallet’s reading and her argument that Thucydides uses ῥώμῃ “to
draw attention to the emotional effect of sheer size on the spectators”
(51). Thucydides underscores that the spectators took heart at the look
of things. The departure of the fleet is as much a spectacle as Alkibi-
ades’s exaggerated display of the power of Athens at the Olympic
Games (6.16.2). διὰ τὸ πλῆθος here, furthermore, prepares the reader

to notice the odd use of numbers in Thucydides’s comparison at 6.31.2
and the vagueness of his information for the Sicilian fleet. The crowd
is impressed by “the numbers,” but Thucydides himself gives only two
specific numbers for the Sicilian fleet and leaves the impression that
the spectators could not have judged the size of the fleet accurately.
His account throughout emphasizes appearances, charging that the
Athenians did not judge them well (cf. 1.10.2).
ἑκάστων ὧν ἑώρων: The relative has been attracted into the case of the
antecedent (Sm. 2522).
οἱ δὲ ξένοι: Answering οἱ μὲν ἐπιχώριοι of 6.30.2.
κατὰ θέαν ἧκεν ὡς ἐπ᾿ ἀξιόχρεων καὶ ἄπιστον διάνοιαν: The foreigners
came for the spectacle, thinking (ὡς) that the Sicilian expedition was
“sufficient” and “beyond belief,” but as Jordan points out, ἄπιστον can
also connote “unreliable, not to be trusted,” suggesting that the Sicil-
ian expedition was not all it seemed (2000, 71). Further, Nikias pre-
dicted (6.10.2) that if the Athenians failed anywhere “with a sufficient
force” (ἀξιόχρεῳ δυνάμει), their enemies would be swift to attack
them. These words then suggest that although the Sicilian expedition
was not big enough to conquer Sicily, it was more than big enough to
destroy Athens if it failed.
παρασκευὴ . . . πρώτη . . . πολυτελεστάτη . . . καὶ εὐπρεπεστάτη:
Thucydides seems to conflate two thoughts, “this was the first force
to . . .” and “this force was the most. . . .” Thucydides carefully says
that the expedition was most extravagant and most splendid; he does
not say that it was most formidable. On the surface, πρώτη compares
this fleet to all prior fleets (ἐς ἐκεῖνον τὸν χρόνον, “up to that time”).
On another level, however, πρώτη reminds us that this force was
only the first of two sent to Sicily. The ill-fitting πρώτη looks forward
to Thucydides’s description of the fleet’s departure from Kerkyra
(6.44.1): τοσαύτη ἡ πρώτη παρασκευὴ πρὸς τὸν πόλεμον διέπλει.
Calling the fleet the first (here and at 6.44.1) underscores its inade-
quacy (because it required a second; Allison 1989, 91–92). πρώτη here
reinforces Thucydides’s carefully crafted description of a “potemkin
fleet” (Jordan 2000), as does εὐπρεπής, which can mean “specious” in

addition to “comely” or “lovely” (Allison 1989, 92).
31.2 ἀριθμῷ . . . οὐκ ἐλάσσων ἦν: The comparison shows that the Sicilian
expedition, although πολυτελεστάτη and εὐπρεπεστάτη, was not
μεγίστη, and that its audience did not judge τὸ πλῆθος well. That
Thucydides reports that this comparable fleet “did not succeed either
in capturing Poteidaia or in any other way worthy of their prepara-
tion” (2.58.2) does not inspire confidence in the prospects of the Sicil-
ian expedition.
ἡ ἐς Ἐπίδαυρον: This fleet sailed with Perikles in summer 430 to rav-
age the Peloponnesos. Later that summer, Hagnon took the fleet to
Poteidaia (2.56, 58).
τετράκις . . . ξυνέπλευσαν: The numbers Thucydides details for the
earlier fleet highlight their absence in his description of the Sicilian
expedition. The numbers Thucydides eventually gives for the Sicilian
expedition (6.43) show that the earlier fleet was not only “not less”
but actually greater. The Sicilian expedition had fewer ships (134 vs.
150), fewer Athenian hoplites (although possibly more Athenian and
foreign hoplites combined), and, especially, fewer horses. Whereas
Perikles and Hagnon had three hundred horses, the Sicilian expedi-
tion brought only thirty (6.43; so few that they do not even appear
in the description of the fleet here). Lack of horses, and an inability
to defend against the Syracusan cavalry, played no small part in the
Athenians’ defeat (Stahl 2003, 179–80).
31.3 παρασκευῇ φαύλῃ: Since Thucydides has indicated that the earlier
expedition was equal to the Sicilian fleet in numbers of ships and
hoplites, παρασκευή here must not mean “force” in general but
equipment or supplies. Thucydides’s emphasis throughout on the cost
and extravagance of the Sicilian expedition suggests that φαύλη here
means not “slight” or “paltry” but “cheap” or “frugal.”
ὡς . . . ἐσόμενος: “since, on the grounds that. . . .” Not a future participle
+ ὡς for purpose (Sm. 2065). Rather, this expresses expectations
about the expedition.
κατ᾿ ἀμφότερα: Expanded by the following καὶ ναυσὶ καὶ πεζῷ. The
naval Athenians brought both sea and land forces to Sicily, foreshad-
owing the awful, final “land battle from ships” (7.62.2) and the expedi-
tion’s ultimate surrender on land. Thucydides elaborates a point that
is not particularly impressive about the Sicilian expedition, since
Perikles’s and Hagnon’s fleet was also fitted out καὶ ναυσὶ καὶ πεζῷ.
οὗ ἂν δέῃ: “whichever it may need.”
τὸ μὲν ναυτικὸν . . . τὸ δὲ πεζόν: These are in apposition to, and expand
on, οὗτος δὲ ὁ στόλος.
τριηράρχων: In Athens rich men were required to perform work for the
state at personal expense. These so-called liturgies could include serv-
ing as a trierarch for a year, during which time a citizen took charge
of a trireme. The state provided the ship, but the trierarch had the
responsibility of maintaining and repairing it, as well as commanding
it in battle.
τοῦ μὲν δημοσίου . . . διδόντος . . . παρασχόντος: Causal genitive abso-
lute, “since the public treasury was . . .” (Sm. 2070). These words more
fully explain the “expenditure of the city” mentioned above.
δραχμὴν τῆς ἡμέρας: The state has named a rate of pay, but the expedi-
tion does not have the money to pay it. The first month’s pay for sixty
ships came from Egesta (6.8.1), and the Athenians expected them to
pay the rest of the cost as well. The enumeration of the rate of pay,
when Thucydides makes clear that the Athenians do not send the
means to fill it, highlights the lack of proper paraskeue for the Sicilian
expedition.
ναῦς . . . κενὰς . . . ταχείας: A “fast ship” is a fighting trireme, as opposed
to a ὁπλιταγωγός. The ships are “empty” because the city provided
the ships and paid the crew, but the trierach had to assemble the crew.
Jordan argues that this is the only instance of such a procedure in
Thucydides (Jordan 2000, 72).
ὁπλιταγωγούς: See n. 6.25.2.
ὑπηρεσίας: A ship’s petty officers (Morrison, Coates, and Rankov 2000,
109–14).
τῶν <δὲ> τριηράρχων . . . διδόντων . . . χρησαμένων: Causal genitive

absolute, “since the trierarchs . . .” (Sm. 2070), expanding on μεγάλαις
δαπάναις τῶν τε τριηράρχων above. In addition to the state pay, the
trierarchs added an additional stipend for some of the crew.
θρανίταις: These were the men in the top row of the three rows of rowers
on an Athenian trireme. Aristophanes suggests that they were the
most skilled (and the most vulnerable) of the rowers (Acharnians 162;
Frogs 1074), hence their higher pay (cf. Morrison, Coates, and Rankov
2000, 136–40).
σημείοις: A σημεῖον could be a signaling device (at 1.49.1 and 1.63.2,
raised σημεῖα give the signal to begin battle), but it could also be a
purely decorative figurehead (Aristophanes, Frogs 933) and so (with
πολυτελέσι) again suggests costly (but useless) show.
ἐς τὸ μακρότατα: “to the utmost, to the greatest lengths.”
προθυμηθέντος ἑνὸς ἑκάστου ὅπως . . . εὐπρεπείᾳ τε ἡ ναῦς . . . προέξει
. . . τῷ ταχυναυτεῖν: Literally “since each one was exerting himself
. . . so that . . . his ship would stand out both for elegance and swift
sailing.” Causal genitive absolute (Sm. 2070), introducing a result
clause. The competition is as much over the look of things as over
actual superiority in naval maneuvers. Thucydides’s description has
specific verbal echoes of the competitiveness of the men in the final
battle in Sicily (7.70.3; Jordan 2000, 77). Thucydides has now repeated
both ideas that he gave in superlatives above (πολυτελεστάτη,
εὐπρεπεστάτη, 6.31.1), underlining that the Sicilian expedition was
preeminent, especially, in looks and cost.
τὸ δὲ πεζόν: In apposition to οὗτος δὲ ὁ στόλος above and parallel to τὸ
μὲν ναυτικόν.
καταλόγοις τε χρηστοῖς ἐκκριθέν: Athens mustered its citizens for war
through the tribes, using lists compiled in the demes. A “good” list
would include only men fit and eligible for service. Compare Apol-
lodoros’s complaints that when he was trierarch, only a few of the
men listed by the deme showed up, and those were no good (pseudo-
Demosthenes 50.7).
πρὸς ἀλλήλους ἁμιλληθέν: Thucydides makes the competition explicit.

See also on 6.32.1 below.
31.4 ξυνέβη . . . ἔριν . . . γενέσθαι . . . ἐπίδειξιν . . . εἰκασθῆναι . . . ἢ . . .
παρασκευήν: ξυνέβη has two infinitives as subject, each with its
own accusative subject (Sm. 1985). πρός τε σφᾶς αὐτοὺς and ἐς τοὺς
ἄλλους Ἕλληνας are parallel, though Thucydides characteristically
uses different prepositions for them. Thucydides is describing two
sets of people at once (ἅμα)—the men in the fleet, on the one hand,
and their rivalry with each other and the impression they gave to
the spectators on shore, on the other. “And it happened at the same
time that with regard to themselves a competition occurred and as
for the other Greeks that it was conjectured to be more a display of
power and wealth than a paraskeue against the enemy.” Thucydides’s
description of the competition that occurred among the men in the
fleet “wherever each was stationed” (ᾧ τις ἕκαστος προσετάχθη)
echoes his description of the competition among the men in the final
battle in Syracuse (πᾶς τέ τις ἐν ᾧ προσετέτακτο αὐτὸς ἕκαστος,
7.70.3; Jordan 2000, 77). Dover (in HCT 4:295) objects that “no one
is likely to have conjectured that the Athenians were not mounting
a military expedition but merely making a display” and argues that
the sense we need is “it was as if they were making a display.” Dover
seems perhaps not to give enough weight to μᾶλλον, which shows that
the spectators were aware it was a military force—even if a force that
seemed more concerned with display. The parallel to 1.10.2 (διπλασίαν
ἂν τὴν δύναμιν εἰκάζεσθαι . . . ἢ ἔστιν, “the power of Athens would
be conjectured to have been double what it was”) is powerful and
important. Thucydides charges both that the Athenians foolishly put
their energies more into displays of wealth and visual signs of power
than into real fighting capability and that the spectators did not know
how to judge signs of power properly (cf. Kallet 2001, 53–59).
31.5 εἰ γὰρ τις ἐλογίσατο . . . ηὑρέθη: “if someone had calculated . . . ,
many talents in all would have been discovered being carried out of
the city.” A past contrary-to-fact condition (Sm. 2305). Nobody did
calculate. As Kallet notes, the comment is “loaded with sarcastic con-

demnation” (2001, 60). Dover (in HCT 4:296) says πολλὰ . . . τάλαντα
seems “to us . . . anticlimactic” but adduces a parallel to argue that it
“can bear a lot of emphasis.” However, the anticlimax may be deliber-
ate, meant to force the reader to focus on the difference between
expenditure for display and ready cash (literal “talents carried out”)—
a distinction the spectators in the passage do not make. Judging from
appearances, the onlookers do not bother to ask themselves or anyone
else just how much money the fleet has been given, nor, indeed, how
much money ought to be sent on such an expedition. It is clear, at
least, that the Sicilian expedition did not bring enough ready cash.
The Athenians relied on the Egestaians for the pay for the fleet, and
by the beginning of winter the generals deemed it necessary to send
not only for cavalry but also for money from Athens (6.71.2). Three
hundred talents arrived in the spring of 414 (6.94.4; cf. Jordan 2000,
73–76).
τῆς μὲν πόλεως ὅσα . . . προετετελέκει καὶ ἃ ἔχοντας . . . ἀπέστελλε:
More fully describes τήν . . . ἀνάλωσιν δημοσίαν and τῶν
στρατευομένων τὴν ἰδίαν [ἀνάλωσιν]. The subject of the verbs is the
understood city.
χωρὶς δ᾿: “not to mention.”
ἃ εἰκὸς ἦν . . . παρασκευάσασθαι: The infinitive subject of εἰκὸς ἦν (Sm.
1985) with its own accusative subject (πάντα τινά). ἃ is the object; “the
things which it was likely that each man. . . .”
ἐφόδιον: “as or for money for the voyage.”
ἐπὶ μεταβολῇ: “for exchange,” i.e., for purchases.
ἐκ τῆς πόλεως: The sense of the diminution of the city in Attica, and the
separation of the fleet from that city, is powerful. Since Nikias (6.23.2)
and Thucydides (7.75.5) compare the expedition itself to a city, the
impression is also of Athens splitting into two (in some ways rival)
cities. Athens later suffered confusion about which city (and war) to
privilege (7.27–29, etc.). The image of two cities also foreshadows the
civil war that came in 411 and 404 (cf. Avery 1973; Kallet 2001, 50;
Taylor 2010, 152; see introduction 6.6 and 7.2).
31.6 οὐχ ἧσσον . . . ἢ . . . ὑπερβολῇ: The expedition, that is, was not
more impressive because of its size in relation to its object than it
was because of its astonishing daring and flashy appearance. As
Thucydides explains above, the Sicilian expedition was not astonish-
ingly large. It was, in short, impressive especially as a display.
περιβόητος: Another word with a double meaning, “famous” but also
“notorious, scandalous” (Jordan 2000, 71). The word echoes Alkibi-
ades’s self-promotion as ἐπιβόητος (6.16.1).
καὶ ὅτι μέγιστος . . . καὶ ἐπὶ μεγίστῃ: Thucydides links the Sicilian expe-
dition to his theme of the magnitude of the war as a whole (which led
him to decide to record it: 1.1.1–2) and foreshadows the enormity of
the coming defeat. Thucydides does not call the expedition the “great-
est force” (since he has already shown that earlier expeditions were at
least as big) but the “greatest voyage” and focuses on the magnitude
of the hope that led the Athenians on. He contrasts that hope with τὰ
ὑπάρχοντα, which may mean the Athenians’ existing imperial posses-
sions. This is what Nikias had urged the Athenians to preserve and not
risk (6.9.3). In this case Thucydides highlights the enormous increase
in empire the Athenians hope for. τὰ ὑπάρχοντα could also mean the
fleet’s present resources, which would highlight how little the Athe-
nians are hoping to spend to achieve that increase. In either case the
differential (between the Athenians’ hopes and their existing empire
or resources) is far greater than that between the Athenians’ force and
the Sicilians’ (the στρατιᾶς . . . ὑπερβολῇ). The links to the Melian
Dialogue and the theme of the “near and the far” are overwhelming
(see introduction 6.1). From this great voyage far from home based
on wild hopes rather than good planning and solid preparation, only
“few out of many returned home” (7.87.6).
32.1 ὑπὸ κήρυκος: That is, a herald made the prayers for all.
κρατῆράς τε κεράσαντες: “mixing up bowls of wine.” A krater was a
large open vessel used for mixing water and wine.
ἐπιβάται: “Marines” on board a trireme who would grapple and board
enemy vessels (or repel the enemy from their own ship) if they
became entangled during a ramming maneuver. Thucydides tells us

that the ἐπιβάται were all thetes, of the lowest social class (6.43).
32.2 ὁ ἄλλος ὅμιλος ὁ ἐκ τῆς γῆς: Thucydides focuses our attention

again on the two groups: performers and spectators. The collective
singular takes a plural verb.
εἴ τις ἄλλος: One expects καὶ τῶν δὲ μετοίκων or some other genitive,
but Thucydides eschews such symmetry (see introduction 2.3.6).
Thucydides does not mean many present were ill-disposed, but rather
indicates “all the other well-wishers present.”
παιανίσαντες: “Paian” is an epithet of Apollo and Asklepios and the
name of a song addressed to the gods in thanksgiving, in victory, and
(as here) at the beginning of an undertaking in hopes of salvation. It
is another small irony that the singing of the paean will help to doom
the Athenians during the night battle on Epipolai (7.44.6).
ἐπὶ κέρως: “in column.”
ἅμιλλαν: They raced “across the waters of Salamis! Even so, with prayer
and libations from golden vessels, had the armament drowned in
those very waters traversed the Hellespont” (Cornford 1907, 218).
This word, together with πρὸς ἀλλήλους ἁμιλληθέν above (6.31.3),
recalls Herodotus’s description of Xerxes “looking on” at his forces
and “desiring to see a contest of ships” (7.44; Rood 1999, 153). The
same word reappears in Thucydides’s account of the final battle in
the harbor, where he speaks of the “long-lasting indecision of the
contest” (7.71.3). As Rood notes, “the brilliant display of the present is
overshadowed by the destruction that awaits” (1999, 153).
The Debate at Syracuse (6.32.3–6.41)

Thucydides stops his account of the progress of the fleet toward Sicily to
switch the scene to Syracuse. He interrupts again briefly at 6.42–44 to
give an update on the fleet and then returns to Syracuse. In this way he
“knits” simultaneous actions together (de Romilly 2012, 30). Ironically, as
the Syracusans debate the reality of the expedition, the reader knows it is
already on its way.
The meeting itself, where rhetors debate an issue before the people,
underscores the similarity between Athens and Syracuse. When readers
turn to Syracuse, they expect to see “a remote, alien antithesis to Athens and
find instead a close analogue” (Connor 1984, 172). Syracuse was a democracy
in the fifth century, although seemingly not as radical a democracy as Athens
at this time (see below and introduction 5).
Nikias emphasized the power and resources of Syracuse. This debate
allows the reader to judge whether the Syracusans have leaders of sufficient
wisdom to mobilize those resources against the Athenians.
32.3 Ἑρμοκράτης ὁ Ἕρμωνος: Hermokrates, an influential Syracusan

statesman and general, appeared in Thucydides before, giving the
speech at the conference at Gela in 424 in which he denied the impor-
tance of the Ionian/Dorian distinction, claimed that the Athenians
wanted to control all of Sicily, and argued for unity against the Athe-
nians (4.59–64). He succeeded in getting the warring cities of Sicily to
join a common peace and so thwarted the Athenians’ attempt at that
time to use discord in Sicily as an excuse to intervene there (see intro-
duction 3.4). Thucydides waits until 6.72.2 to introduce Hermokrates
and allows no speaker to make allusions to the events of 424, perhaps
to keep the Sicilian expedition a self-contained unity that a reader (or
auditor) could understand without knowing the earlier text.
Hermokrates’s Speech (6.33–6.34)

Heromokrates’s speech is supremely confident. He claims to tell the truth
even though his audience does not want to hear it. He thus presents himself
as the responsible rhetor looking to the facts to advise his people wisely and
with foresight (cf. Perikles at 2.62.5). Hermokrates tells the Syracusans that
the incredible is true and that the Athenians are coming, and he urges them
to make preparations against them. One might expect this communication
to inspire fear in his audience, but Hermokrates quickly pivots to the good
news: Athens will lose, and Syracuse will not only beat them but win glory
in the fight. Hermokrates echoes or refutes elements of Nikias’s and Alkibi-
ades’s speeches so that he seems to know the truth of events and the planning
of his enemy; he even knows that Nikias does not want the command. At
the same time, Hermokrates appropriates the Athenians’ victory in the
Persian Wars to his own purposes. Connor remarks, as Athens moves to
attack Sicily, “it is also moving chronologically backward to confront its own
past. The analogy between the Persian invasion and the Athenian attack on
Syracuse . . . involves a recapitulation of a crucial episode in the history of
the city, with a reversal of Athens’ role” (1984, 176; see introduction 6.4 and
6.5). Moreover, Hermokrates’s bold plans and preparations—especially his
exhortation to daring (6.34.8)—foreshadow both the bold resistance that
the Syracusans show under Gylippos and Thucydides’s judgment that of all
Athens’s enemies the Syracusans were most like them (8.96.5).
33.1 τὰ μὴ . . . εἶναι: “things that do not seem to be believable.” Object of

οἱ . . . λέγοντες ἤ ἀπαγγέλλοντες.
ὅμως: Answers ἴσως above.
καταφοβηθείς: “I will not hold back because I am afraid.” A causal parti-
ciple (Sm. 2064).
κινδυνευούσης τῆς πόλεως: Temporal genitive absolute, “when the city
is . . .” (Sm. 2070).
πείθων γε ἐμαυτὸν . . . λέγειν: “persuading myself,” i.e., “being per-
suaded, believing . . . that I speak” (LSJ A). Sets up λέγειν.
33.2 πρόφασιν: “in pretence, ostensibly” (LSJ I.2). Adverbial accusative

(Sm. 1608). Opposite to τὸ δὲ ἀληθές below, also used adverbially, i.e.,
“truly” (LSJ III.3).
ξυμμαχίᾳ . . . κατοικίσει . . . ἐπιθυμίᾳ: Causal datives (Sm. 1517) stating
the alleged reason for the Athenians’ expedition.
σχοῖεν: The verb is from ἔχω in the protasis (or “if” clause) of a condi-
tion. The apodosis (the “then” clause) has ἕξειν, which is an infinitive
in indirect discourse after ἡγούμενοι (Sm. 2018). Combining an opta-
tive and a primary tense of the indicative (here the future) in this way
is not “infrequent” (Sm. 2359, 2361).
33.3 ὡς . . . παρεσομένων: “since they will soon be here.” Supply αὐτῶν.
Causal genitive absolute (Sm. 2070). This is not ὡς + future participle
to express purpose (Sm. 2065). Rather, it gives the thoughts of the
speaker.
ὅτῳ: = ᾧ τινι, “in whatever” (Sm. 339).
33.4 εἰ δὲ τῷ καὶ πιστά: Supply δόξω λέγειν. τῷ = τινί (Sm. 334).

τόλμαν: “Daring” is an important characteristic of the Athenians. In
their speech at the Spartan congress in 432, they pointed to the dar-
ing of their decision to go on board ship to resist Xerxes (1.74.2–4).
At that same congress the Korinthians tried to suggest the danger
in daring when they claimed that the Athenians are “daring beyond
their power” (1.70.3). Daring is one of the qualities the Athenians lose
during the Sicilian campaign (see introduction 6.5).
μὴ ἐκπλαγῇ: “let him not be panic struck.” Prohibitive subjunctive (Sm.
1840) from ἐκπλήσσω.
πλείω: Neuter plural (Sm. 293). Adverbial accusative (Sm. 1609).
οἷοί τ᾿ ἔσονται: οἷός τε + infinitive = “be able to” (LSJ III.B.2).
ἀνωφελεῖς: Understand εἰσι.
πρός τε τοὺς . . . Σικελιώτας: πρός here = “in reference to, in respect of,
touching” (LSJ C.III.1).
πολὺ ἄμεινον: That is, “that they are coming with a great force is πολὺ
ἄμεινον.”
ἤν . . . ἀπράκτους . . . ἀπώσωμεν: “if we drive them off and so prevent
them from accomplishing.” ἀπώσωμεν is from ἀπωθέω.
ὧν: Genitive after ἐφίενται. Properly “those things after which.”
Thucydides leaves out the antecedent, as is common when it refers to
a general idea (Sm. 2509).
οὐ γὰρ δὴ μὴ τύχωσι . . . φοβοῦμαι: οὐ negates φοβοῦμαι. μὴ τύχωσι is
subjunctive in a fear clause (Sm. 2221). A fear that something would
not happen would have μή οὐ.
ὧν: Properly “those things which. . . .” Thucydides has left out the ante-
cedent, as is common when it expresses a general idea (Sm. 2509).
33.5 πολὺ ἀπὸ τῆς ἑαυτῶν: Understand γῆς. The theme of “the near and
the far” (see introduction 6.1).
ἀπάραντες: From ἀπαίρω, “sail away, march away, depart” (LSJ II.2).
πλείους: = πλείονες (Sm. 293) with genitive of comparison (Sm. 1431).
The subject is the men of the expedition. Literally, “they do not come
greater than. . . .”
πάντα: Impersonal, meaning “everything.”
δι᾿ ἀπορίαν τῶν ἐπιτηδείων: Like Hermokrates, Herodotus’s Artabanos
warned that trouble with supplies would doom Xerxes (Herodotus
7.49). Hermokrates here also echoes Nikias’s warning that a lack of sup-
plies will hurt the Athenians (6.20.4; see also 6.42.1, 6.48, 6.71.2, 7.4.4).
σφαλῶσι: Thucydides’s favorite verb for failure in the Sicilian expedition
(see n. 6.10.2).
ὄνομα: Object of καταλείπουσιν. It is striking that far from worrying
about survival, Hermokrates expects glory to accrue to the Sicilians
from the Sicilian expedition. He is right, and this expectation fore-
shadows the καλὸν ἀγώνισμα he and the Spartan Gylippos win by not
just defeating but capturing the Athenian force (7.56.2, 7.59.2, 7.86.2).
περὶ σφίσιν αὐτοῖς τὰ πλείω: περί here means “on account of, by reason
of” (LSJ B.II.3). τὰ πλείω = neuter plural. Adverbial accusative (Sm.
1609). Hermokrates seems here to echo Thucydides’s judgment in
2.65.11–12 that the Athenians defeated themselves both in Sicily and in
the war in general (see appendix).
33.6 ὅπερ . . . ηὐξήθησαν: “the very kind of increase that they experi-
enced. . . .”
τοῦ Μήδου . . . σφαλέντος: Causal genitive absolute, “because the Mede
. . .” (Sm. 2070).
πολλά: Adverbial accusative (Sm. 1609).
ἐπὶ τῷ ὀνόματι: “on account of the belief that. . . .”
ᾔει: From εἶμι (ibo).
ἀνέλπιστον: Hermokrates’s hopes, unlike those of the Melians, are
realized. ξυμβῆναι is infinitive subject of ἀνέλπιστον (Sm. 1985) with
accusative subject τὸ τοιοῦτο.
34.1 τά τε αὐτοῦ: “things here.”

τοὺς μὲν . . . τοῖς δέ: Τhose Sicilians already allied to Syracuse and those
with whom there was the possibility of making an alliance.
ἐς τε τὴν ἄλλην Σικελίαν: That is, those outside the first two groups.
ὅπως . . . ποιώμεθα . . . ἢ μὴ δέχωνται: Subjunctives in a purpose clause
after a hortatory subjunctive, a primary verb (Sm. 2196, 1858a).
34.2 Καρχηδόνα: There is no evidence that Syracuse made any overture

to Karthage. The Athenians did (6.88.6). Thucydides says that Alkibi-
ades hoped to conquer both Sicily and Karthage (6.15.1). Because
there were Phoenician colonies in Sicily (6.2.6), Karthage might well
help to resist a takeover by Athens.
πέμψαι: An infinitive subject of ἄμεινον in indirect discourse (with
εἶναι) after δοκεῖ (Sm. 1985).
ἀνέλπιστον: “It will be no surprise to them.” The subject is Her-
mokrates’s imagined Syracusan embassy to Karthage.
διὰ φόβου . . . μή . . . ἔλθωσιν: “in fear that . . .” (Sm. 1685 1d; LSJ II.b).
ἔλθωσιν is subjunctive in a fear clause. This is a fear that something
may happen. A fear that something might not happen would have μή
οὐ (Sm. 2221).
ὥστε ταχ᾿ ἂν ἴσως . . . ἐθελήσειαν . . . ἀμῦναι: “so that perhaps they
would be willing to help us.” A clause of actual result incorporating
also a potential optative. Result clauses with finite verbs can take any
mood of verb (Sm. 2273, 2278).
νομίσαντες, εἰ τάδε προήσονται, κἂν σφεῖς ἐν πόνῳ εἶναι: A mixed con-
dition in indirect discourse after νομίσαντες (Sm. 2018). προήσονται
is from προίημι in a future most vivid protasis (the “if” clause) (Sm.
2328), with a future less vivid apodosis (the “then” clause) represented
by the infinitive + ἄν (Sm. 2621).
βουληθέντες: “if they are willing.” A conditional participle (Sm. 2067).
34.3 πέμπωμεν . . . ἐς Κόρινθον: The Syracusans waited until the winter
to send these ambassadors (6.73.2), and the Spartans waited until
summer 414 to send Gylippos to Sicily. When they did, his arrival
proved decisive (7.2).
τὸν ἐκεῖ πόλεμον: Hermokrates picks up Nikias’s theme of the two wars,
which will be a major focus for Thucydides in later sections (cf. 7.27).
The Spartans did not take up “the war over there” until spring 413
(7.19).
34.4 ὅ . . . νομίζω ἐπίκαιρον . . . ἥκιστ᾿ ἂν . . . πείθοισθε . . . εἰρήσεται:
νομίζω here sets up indirect discourse first with accusative and
infinitive (ὅ . . . ἐπίκαιρον [εἶναι]) then with the optative (ὑμεῖς . . .
πείθοισθε). ὅ is then also the subject of εἰρήσεται. It refers to the plan
Hermokrates will reveal in the next sentence.
διὰ τὸ ξύνηθες ἥσυχον: “on account of your natural indolence.”
εἰ ἐθέλοιμεν . . . ἀπαντῆσαι . . . δῆλον ποιῆσαι: Protasis (the “if” clause)
of a future less vivid condition (Sm. 2329). The apodosis (the “then”
clause) is ἂν . . . ἐκπλήξαιμεν . . . καταστήσαιμεν below.
ὅτι πλεῖστοι: ὅτι + superlative = “as X as possible” (Sm. 1086).
δυοῖν μηνοῖν: Genitive dual (Sm. 287).
ἢ τοῦ ἐκείνους περαιωθῆναι τὸν Ἰόνιον: “than about their crossing the
Ionian gulf.” Genitive articular infinitive (with accusative subject),
after περί (Sm. 2032g).
τὸ δὲ πέλαγος . . . πολὺ περαιοῦσθαι: This is a second point that
Hermokrates wants to make the Athenians consider (ἐς λογισμὸν
καταστήσαιμεν). The infinitive here more clearly defines the meaning
of the adjective (Sm. 2001). Hornblower adduces a parallel in Aeschy-
lus’s Agamemnon 1655 for πολύ with the infinitive (3:404).
μεῖναι: Infinitive subject for χαλεπόν (Sm. 1985). A third point for the
Athenians to consider.
εὐεπίθετος: That is, their παρασκευή.
βραδεῖά . . . προσπίπτουσα: “encountering us gradually.” This also refers
to the Athenians’ παρασκευή.
κατ᾿ ὀλίγον: “a few at a time.” As often with the accusative, κατά has
a distributive function (LSJ B.II). Dover (in HCT 4:299) judges that
the result of Hermokrates’s plan would have been a crushing defeat
for Syracuse and the imposition of Athenian rule over all of Sicily.
Hunter (1973, 157), in contrast, argues that Thucydides thought the
plan reasonable since the “psychological generalizations” on which

it is based have been shown to be true in the earlier narrative. Stahl
(2003, 194) asks why Thucydides has granted so much space to
the “non-event” of Hermokrates’s plan, and concludes (199) that
Thucydides wanted to force the reader to realize that “what may look
like a predictable train of events can be interrupted and thrown off
course by unforeseen factors, here consisting of bold planning on the
opposite side.”
34.5 τῷ ταχυναυτοῦντι ἁθροωτέρῳ: “with a quick-sailing, more

massed-together [force].” The “dative of military accompaniment”
(Sm. 1526).
κουφίσαντες: That is, after the Athenians have separated themselves
from supply ships.
κεκμηκόσιν: Dative plural participle (Sm. 309) from καμνέω, referring
to the Athenians.
εἰ δὲ μὴ δοκοίη: That is, if attacking them did not seem like a good idea.
ἔστι: + infinitive = “it is possible” (LSJ A.VI) + dative for the persons
with the opportunity.
ὡς ἐπὶ ναυμαχίᾳ περαιωθέντες: That is, after having crossed over pre-
pared for a battle and so without many supplies.
πολιορκοῖντο ἄν: Foreshadowing. Nikias will later tell the Athenians,
“we who supposed we were besieging others are ourselves suffering
the same thing on land at least” (7.11.4).
τὰ τῶν πόλεων οὐκ ἂν βέβαια ἔχοντες, εἰ ὑποδέξοιντο: Literally, “not
having the attitudes (τά) of the cities secure, whether they would
receive them,” i.e., “not knowing securely whether the cities would
receive them.” Prolepsis (Sm. 2182). The “lilies of the field” construc-
tion (see n. 6.3). It is only when one reaches the second part of this
sentence that readers know that τὰ τῶν πόλεων means “the attitudes”
rather than, say, “the situation in,” as it does in 3.82.3 (cf. Yaginuma
1995, 141–42).
34.6 οὐδ᾿ ἂν ἀπᾶραι . . . ἐξωσθῆναι ἂν . . . καταλῦσαι ἄν: Infinitives

in indirect discourse after ἡγοῦμαι (Sm. 2018). The presence of ἄν
indicates that the direct statements would be potential optative (Sm.

1845). The subject of the infinitives is the Athenians (αὐτούς), modi-
fied by a number of participles.
κατασκοπαῖς: “spies [to find out],” setting up the following indirect
questions.
ἀσμένου ἂν πρόφασιν λαβόντος: Together with τοῦ ἐμπειροτάτου . . .
ἡγουμένου this is a causal genitive absolute (Sm. 2070) about Nikias
that reveals curiously detailed knowledge on Hermokrates’s part. This
part of the genitive absolute forms the apodosis (the “then” clause)
of a future less vivid condition with εἰ . . . ὀφθείη (Sm. 2329), i.e., “he
would . . . if anything worthy of note . . . ,” hence the ἄν.
34.7 ἀγγελλοίμεθα . . . ἐπὶ τὸ πλέον: “we would be reported about more,”
that is, “reports about us would be exaggerated.”
εὖ οἶδ᾿ ὅτι: “surely” (Sm. 2585), used parenthetically.
τῶν δ᾿ ἀνθρώπων . . . ἵστανται: “men’s opinions are based on what is
said.”
τοῖς γε ἐπιχειροῦσι προδηλοῦντας: A second object for μᾶλλον
πεφόβηνται.
34.8 ὡς οὐκ ἀμυνουμένοις: “under the impression that we will not

defend ourselves.” ὡς here indicates the thought is that of the subject
of the principal verb (Sm. 2996).
ὅτι . . . ἐφθείρομεν: “because [LSJ s.v. ὅτι B] we did not try to destroy
them. . . .” This is a conative imperfect, expressing “an action
attempted, intended, or expected, in the past” (Sm. 1895).
τολμήσαντας: Understand ἡμᾶς. Daring again (see n. 6.33.4).
ἢ τῇ ἀπὸ τοῦ ἀληθοῦς δυνάμει: Hermokrates raises the question (raised
already at 6.30–31) of whether the Athenians can properly assess
power (cf. Kallet 2001).
34.9 τολμήσαντες . . . ἑτοιμάζειν . . . παραστῆναι: All are dependent on

πείθεσθε.
εἰ δὲ μή: That is, “if you will not show this daring and set sail against
them.”
ὅτι τάχιστα: ὅτι + superlative = “as X as possible” (Sm. 1086).

παραστῆναι παντί: “to set before the mind of everyone,” that is, “to
consider.” This infinitive sets up two clauses of indirect discourse
with infinitive and subject accusative (Sm. 2018). The first infinitive,
δείκνυσθαι, has as subject the articular infinitive τὸ μὲν καταφρονεῖν.
The second infinitive, ξυμβῆναι, has as its subject another articular
infinitive, τὸ . . . ὡς ἐπὶ κινδύνου πράσσειν. The accusative subject of
this articular infinitive is νομίσαντας, which sets up its own indirect
discourse (τὰς μετὰ φόβου παρασκευὰς ἀσφαλεστάτας [εἶναι]).
Literally, “be persuaded . . . to consider (παραστῆναι παντὶ) that
despising invaders (τὸ μὲν καταφρονεῖν) is shown (δείκνυσθαι) in
strength of deeds (ἐν . . . ἀλκῇ) and that to act as if already facing the
danger (τὸ δ᾿ ἤδη . . . ὡς ἐπὶ κινδύνου πράσσειν), while considering
(νομίσαντας) that preparations made under the force of fear are the
safest (τὰς μετὰ φόβου . . . ἀσφαλεστάτας), would turn out to be
most useful (χρησιμώτατον ἂν ξυμβῆναι).”
εὖ οἶδ᾿ ὅτι: “surely,” used parenthetically (Sm. 2585).
ὅσον οὔπω: “all but” (LSJ s.v. ὅσος, -η, -ον IV.5).
Athenagoras’s Speech (6.35–6.41)

We know nothing about Athenagoras, whose name means something like
“Athenian speaker.” Thucydides introduces him with words that suggest
he is a demagogue, and Athenagoras’s speech does not disappoint. He tells
the Syracusans what they want to hear: that the Athenians are definitely
not coming but if they are, Syracuse will win. He gives a judgment based
on likelihood alone with no reasoned refutation of whatever intelligence
had come to Syracuse about the expedition. Indeed, he dismisses these
reports out of hand.
Athenagoras then pivots to the internal politics of Syracuse and accuses
the enemies of the people of fabricating the reports about the expedition
in order to scare the demos into making constitutional changes. But it is
Athenagoras, with a nod to the tyrannies and civil wars of Syracuse’s past
and his claims of present-day intrigue, who hopes to use the people’s panic
for his own purposes. “I will protect you,” he says. “Suppport me.” Thus if
Syracuse is like Athens, we see its internal divisions are even worse than
those of Athens.
Despite his mistake (or calculated lie) about the truth of the invasion,
Athenagoras engages in an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of
the combatants like that of the speakers at the beginning of the Archidamian
War (1.67–86, 1.119–25, 1.139–45), and he gives good reasons for Syracusan
confidence. As Stahl notes, Athenagoras’s emphasis on the Athenians’
supposed common sense is a “cynical judgment” on the real Athenians’
“irrational vote for the expedition” (1973, 77).
35.1 ἂν . . . ἔλθοιεν: This represents an original potential optative (Sm.

1845) in implied indirect discourse (Sm. 2622).
τοῖς δέ: It is not clear what governs this dative or why Thucydides
wrote this instead of οἱ δέ (“and others [asked]”). Dover suggests an
understood ἔρις ἦν (“there was disagreement”) similar to 2.54.3. If
the dative is correct, we must also understand, for these people, an
implied “asking.”
αὐτούς: That is, to the Syracusans.
ὅτι: = the indefinite pronoun ὅ τι, “whatever” (Sm. 339).
ὀλίγον . . . τὸ πιστεῦον . . . καὶ φοβούμενον: Α striking example of
Thucydides’s penchant for neuter abstracts (see introduction 2.3.2).
Instead of speaking of men—i.e., “very few believed . . .”—he speaks of
abstract entities: “small was the element of belief. . . .”
36.1 τοὺς μὲν Ἀθηναίους . . . φρονῆσαι . . . γενέσθαι: Object infinitive
(with accusative subject) after βούλεται (Sm. 1991).
τοὺς δὲ ἀγγέλλοντας . . . τῆς μὲν τόλμης: οὐ θαυμάζω governs both the
accusative and the genitive (LSJ 2).
ἔνδηλοι εἶναι: An infinitive in indirect discourse after οἴονται. ἔνδηλοι
is nominative because it refers to the same subject as the leading verb,
namely, the men making these reports (Sm. 1973).
36.2 δύνανται: Here = “avail” or “are good for” (LSJ II.3b).

οὐκ ἀπὸ ταὐτομάτου . . . ξύγκεινται: They are not concocted “by acci-
dent” (LSJ II).
36.3 ἐξ ὧν: Properly, “from those things which.” Here and below
Thucydides has omitted the antecedent, as is common when it
expresses a general idea (Sm. 2509), and the relative has been
attracted into its case (Sm. 2522).
λογιεῖσθε τὰ εἰκότα: To use calculations of likelihood in order to per-
suade was one of the chief skills of rhetoric and sophistry. The irony is
thick here about the character of the Athenians, for the debate in Ath-
ens has shown they are not at all as clever as the “Athenian speaker”
supposes.
36.4 τὸν ἐκεῖ πόλεμον: Athenagoras echoes Thucydides’s judgment that

the present peace was no real peace and that the war was not over
(5.26.2).
οὐκ ἐλάσσω: = ἐλάσσονα (Sm. 293). With this word, Athenagoras
echoes Thucydides’s equivalence between the main war and the
Sicilian expedition (7.28.3). There are also echoes of Nikias’s use of the
theme of “the near and the far” (see introduction 6.1).
ελθεῖν: Infinitive subject of εἰκός (Sm. 1985). The accusative subject
of the infinitive is αὐτοὺς . . . ὑπολιπόντας . . . καταλελυμένους . . .
ἑκόντας, referring to the Athenians.
ἀγαπᾶν . . . αὐτούς: Infinitive with subject accusative (referring to the
Athenians) in indirect discourse after οἴομαι (Sm. 2018). The ὅτι clause
expresses what Athenagoras thinks the Athenians are happy about.
37.1 ἱκανωτέραν . . . Σικελίαν . . . διαπολεμῆσαι: Infinitive with subject

accusative in indirect discourse after ἡγοῦμαι (Sm. 2018).
ὅσῳ . . . ἄμεινον ἐξήρτυται: The phrase is a dative of degree of differ-
ence (Sm. 1513) expressing the superiority of Sicily, the subject of
ἐξήρτυται, over the Peloponnesos. ἄμεινον is adverbial.
τὴν δὲ ἡμετέραν πόλιν . . . πολὺ κρείσσω εἶναι: Another infinitive with
subject accusative in indirect discourse after ἡγοῦμαι.
τῆς νῦν στρατιᾶς . . . ἐπιούσης: Genitive of comparison after κρείσσω
(Sm. 1431).
οἷς . . . οὔθ᾿ ἵππους ἀκολουθήσοντας . . . πορισθησομένους: The relative
refers to the Athenians. It is dative after ἀκολουθήσοντας. Athena-
goras echoes Nikias’s point about the Athenians’ weakness in cavalry

(6.20.4), though it is not true that they have none (6.43).
εἰ μή: “except for.”
μέγα γὰρ τὸ . . . κομισθῆναι: A parenthetical articular infinitive.
37.2 παρὰ τοσοῦτον: means “by so great—or so little—a degree,” accord-

ing to context. “I have reached the point of thinking” (Lattimore).
μόλις ἄν . . . δοκοῦσιν, εἰ . . . ποιοῖντο, . . . οὐκ ἂν . . . διαφθαρῆναι:
“they seem that they would scarcely not be utterly destroyed if,” i.e.,
that they probably would be destroyed. The ἄν is repeated to make
the character of the sentence clear from the beginning (Sm. 1765).
Thucydides uses a personal form of δοκέω (“they seem,” Sm. 1983)
rather than the impersonal construction more common in English (“it
seems that they”).
πόλιν ἑτέραν . . . ὅμορον οἰκίσαντες: Like Perikles in the debates before
the war, Athenagoras seems to know a great deal about his enemy’s
plans. He picks up Nikias’s image of the expedition as a city (6.23.2)
but denies the force of his ideas. Even Nikias’s grandest vision is
refuted. The startling echo gives weight to Athenagoras’s assessment
of the strengths and weaknesses of both sides, and the rhetorical
defeat foreshadows the coming military defeat.
στρατοπέδῳ . . . ἱδρυθέντι: Dative of cause (Sm. 1517).
ἐκ σκηνιδίων . . . παρασκευῆς: Either more description of the camp
or description of what the Athenians cannot go far away from. Here
Athenagoras anticipates Nikias’s letter (7.11.4).
τὸ τε ξύμπαν: “altogether, on the whole, in general” (LSJ II.2.b). Adver-
bial accusative (Sm. 1609).
ἂν κρατῆσαι αὐτούς: Infinitive with subject accusative in indirect
discourse after ἡγοῦμαι. The ἄν shows that the infinitive represents an
original potential optative of direct speech.
τῆς γῆς: This must mean the area right around their camp.
38.1 τὰ σφέτερα αὐτῶν . . . σῴζουσι: Athenagoras is, of course, wrong on

this point. That he is right about so much else simply serves to under-
score the Athenians’ folly.
εὖ οἶδ᾿ ὅτι: “surely,” used parenthetically (Sm. 2585).

οὔτε ὄντα οὔτε ἂν γενόμενα: “things that are not true and that could not
be.” The ἄν indicates that the second participle represents a potential
idea (Sm. 1845).
38.2 οὕς . . . ἐπίσταμαι . . . βουλομένους . . . αὐτοὺς . . . ἄρχειν: “I know
that they want to rule the city themselves.” A participle in indirect
discourse after ἐπίσταμαι (Sm. 2106).
μήποτε . . . κατορθώσωσιν: Subjunctive in a fear clause (Sm. 2221). This
is a fear that something may happen. A fear that something may not
happen has μή οὐ.
προφυλάξασθαι . . . ἐπεξελθεῖν: Epexegetical (explanatory) infinitives
explaining what the Syracusans are bad at (Sm. 2001).
38.3 τοιγάρτοι: “therefore, in consequence” (cf. Denniston GP, 566).

ἔστιν ὅτε: “sometimes, now and then” (Sm. 2515). See introduction 3.2
and 3.4 for the history of Syracuse.
38.4 ὧν: Partitive genitive (Sm. 1306) with τι below.

ἐφ᾿ ἡμῶν: “in our time” (LSJ s.v. ἐπί A.II).
περιιδεῖν: “to allow” (LSJ II), followed by accusative (τι) and infinitive
(γενέσθαι). Literally, “any of which I will try never to allow to occur.”
τοὺς . . . κολάζων . . . καὶ ὧν: “punishing them . . . also for the things
which. . . .” Genitive of crime (Sm. 1376). Thucydides has left out the
antecedent, which is common when it expresses a general idea (Sm.
2509) and the relative has been attracted into its case (Sm. 2522).
ἐπιτυγχάνειν: Infinitive subject of χαλεπόν (Sm. 1985).
προαμύνεσθαι: Takes accusative of the person and genitive of the crime
(Sm. 1376). Infinitive subject of χρή (Sm. 1985). ὧν again should
properly be “for those things which,” but Thucydides has left out the
general antecedent, and the relative has been attracted into its case
(Sm. 2509, 2522).
εἴπερ: “if, as is the fact, since” (LSJ II).
μὴ προφυλαξάμενός τις προπείσεται: προπείσεται is from προπάσχω.
The μή shows that the participle is conditional (Sm. 2728); “if some-
one does not . . . he will. . . .”
τοὺς δ᾿ αὖ ὀλίγους: “the oligarchs” (LSJ II).

τὰ μὲν . . . τὰ δὲ . . . τὰ δέ: Divides the oligarchs into three groups accord-
ing to what Athenagoras will do to them. “Some . . . others . . . the
rest.”
ἀποτρέπειν: The object is the oligarchs.
38.5 ὦ νεώτεροι: We see here that Syracuse, too, is divided on genera-

tional lines. Athenagoras suggests that all the youth are oligarchs.
ἄρχειν . . . μὴ . . . ἰσονομεῖσθαι: Dependent on τί καὶ βούλεσθε.
ἐκ τοῦ μὴ δύνασθαι ὑμᾶς μᾶλλον ἢ δυναμένους . . . ἀτιμάζειν: Two
articular infinitives with accusative subject after a preposition (Sm.
2032g) explaining why the law was established; “out of your being
incapable rather than out of dishonoring you when you were capable
(ὑμᾶς . . . δυναμένους).”
39.1 δημοκρατίαν . . . οὔτ᾿ ἴσον εἶναι, τοὺς δ᾿ ἔχοντας . . . βελτίστους:
Infinitive with accusative subject in indirect discourse after φήσει (Sm.
2017). ἄρχειν ἄριστα βελτίστους = “the best at ruling in the best way.”
The epexegetical (explanatory) infinitive limits and explains βελτίστους
(Sm. 2001). ἄριστα is an adverbial accusative (Sm. 345, 1608).
φημι: sets up extended accusative/infinitive indirect discourse (Sm.
2017): (1) δῆμον . . . ὠνομάσθαι, (2) φύλακας . . . εἶναι, (3) βουλεῦσαι
δ᾿ ἂν . . . τοὺς ξυνετούς, (4) κρῖναι δ᾿ ἂν . . . τοὺς πολλούς, (5) καὶ
ταῦτα . . . ἰσομοιρεῖν. The ἄν indicates that the infinitives represent
original potential optatives in direct discourse (Sm. 1845). βέλτιστα
and ἄριστα are adverbial accusatives (Sm. 345, 1608). ταῦτα indicates
all the groups and ideas in the thought.
39.2 ἅ: The ability to greedily take all.

κακὰ σπεύδοντες: A participle in indirect discourse after μανθάνετε. It
is nominative because it refers to the subject of the main verb. “If you
do not realize that you are. . . .”
40.1 τοῦτο μέν: “in this way,” i.e., in a democracy.

oἱ ἀγαθοί: Although this is the subject of μετασχεῖν (in accusative/
infinitive indirect discourse after ἡγησάμενοι, Sm. 2018), it is in the
nominative rather than the accusative because it represents the subject

of the main verb (Sm. 1973).
κινδυνεῦσαι στερηθῆναι: Another infinitive of indirect discourse after
ἡγησάμενοι (Sm. 2018). The understood subject is again οἱ ἀγαθοί.
τῶν τοιῶνδε ἀγγελιῶν: Genitive after ἀπαλλάγητε.
ὡς πρός: “in as much as/since they are given to men who. . . .”
40.2 καταπλαγεῖσα . . . ἑλομένη . . . ἐπιβαλεῖται: The subject is ἡ πόλις

above.
ὡς ἔργα δυναμένους: “as if they are equivalent to deeds” (LSJ s.v.
δύναμαι II).
ἐκ δὲ τοῦ . . . φυλασσομένη μὴ ἐπιτρέπειν: “by guarding in reality
and not yielding.” A participle, modifying the city, embedded in an
articular infinitive. The nominative is regular for the participle in an
articular infinitive of any case (Sm. 1973a).
The General’s Speech (6.41)

One can only imagine the crowd’s reaction to Athenagoras’s speech, as
they cheered his plan to root out the oligarchs and looked with fear and
anger for the traitors in their midst. That the crowd had some such reaction
seems evident from the intervention of this general who stops the debate.
He redirects the discussion to the reports that are coming in and says the
generals will make preparations. That a general could stop discussion in
this way makes one wonder how radical a democracy Syracuse had. Did
generals have some executive or constitutional authority that limited the
power of the assembly or freedom of speech within it (see introduction 5)?
Thucydides’s presentation of the debate at Syracuse leads the reader to
feel that Syracuse is not well governed and will not be able to deploy its
resources well against Athens. In addition, the specter it raises—of oligarchic
conspiracy and civil war—suggests that Athens might be able to use those
political divisions against it just as Alkibiades had suggested (6.17.2–5).
41.2 λέγειν . . . ἀποδέχεσθαι . . . ὁρᾶν: The infinitives are subjects of οὐ
σῶφρον (Sm. 1985). τοὺς ἀκούοντας is subject of ἀποδέχεσθαι.
41.3 δεήσῃ: From δέω.

oὐδεμία βλάβη τοῦ . . . κοσμηθῆναι . . . καὶ τῶν . . . διαπομπῶν: English
speakers would say “no harm in. . . .”
41.4 ὁ πόλεμος ἀγάλλεται: A striking metaphor and personification.

ὅτι ἂν: “whatever.” ὅτι = the indefinite pronoun ὅ τι (Sm. 339).
ἐπιόντος τοῦ στρατηγοῦ: Temporal genitive absolute, “after the general
. . .” (Sm. 2070).
The Athenian Preparations in Kerkyra (6.42)
42.1 ἤδη: Underscores that no matter what the Syracusans might have
thought, the Athenians were already on their way.
ὥσπερ ἔμελλον . . . στρατοπεδεύεσθαι: This explains the purpose of the
ξύνταξις. With such numbers, arranging things carefully in advance
would be crucial to avoiding chaos.
ἵνα μήτε . . . ἀπορῶσιν . . . καὶ τῶν ἐπιτηδείων: Rood (1998a, 166)
emphasizes how concern over supplies influenced and weakened
Athenian decision making just as Nikias had warned (6.20.4; see also
6.48, 6.71.2, 7.4.4). Thucydides himself identifies lack of supplies as the
reason why the Trojan War took so long (1.11).
ῥᾴους: = ῥᾴονες, comparative of ῥᾴδιος (Sm. 293, 319).
κατὰ τέλη: “by divisions” (LSJ s.v. κατά B.II).
42.2 εἰσομένας: From *εἴδω. A future participle expressing purpose

(Sm. 2065).
The Athenians Sail for Rhegion (6.43–6.44)

43 τοσῇδε ἤδη τῇ παρασκευῇ: The list that follows both undercuts
Athenagoras’s doubts that the Athenians are coming and echoes
the Homeric Catalogue of Ships in Iliad 2. See below 7.57–59.1 for
Thucydides’s greater catalogue.
τριήρεσι: The “dative of military accompaniment” (Sm. 1526).
δυοῖν Ῥοδίοιν πεντηκοντόροιν: Another dual “dative of military accom-
paniment” (Sm. 287, 1526).
ἑξήκοντα ταχεῖαι: See n. 6.31.3 for “fast triremes.”
στρατιώτιδες: See n. 6.31.3 on ὁπλιταγωγούς. This seems to be a syn-

onym.
Χίων: In the Athenian Empire, only Chios and Methymna were autono-
mous (see 7.57.4 and 5).
ἐκ καταλόγου: See n. 6.31.3.
θῆτες: Men of the lowest property class, too poor to equip themselves
as hoplites. They could be equipped at public expense, however, and
serve as marines; there were usually ten marines per ship.
ἱππαγωγῷ μιᾷ: Thucydides closes his list with this one ship and its
meager cargo. Stahl suggests that after Nikias’s comments on the need
for cavalry (6.20.4–21.1), this brief phrase is an example of “author’s
irony by ‘no comment’ method” (2003, 178). We hear no more of these
horses, and by 6.64.1, the Athenians have no cavalry.
44.1 τοσαύτη ἡ πρώτη παρασκευή: Thucydides’s notation that this was the
“first” force underscores right at the beginning of the narrative of the
expedition that the force was inadequate (because it required a second,
reinforcing force) and so foreshadows the doom to come (see n. 6.31.1).
ὅσα ἐς τειχισμόν: This shows that the Athenians must have planned from
the beginning to build a siege wall around Syracuse.
44.2 προσβαλοῦσα: “putting in to land” (LSJ II.2).

πρὸς Τάραντα: Modern day Tarentum at the instep of the “boot” of
Italy. For places in South Italy and Sicily, see map 2.
τῶν μὲν πόλεων οὐ δεχομένων . . . Τάραντος . . . Λοκρῶν: Circumstan-
tial genitive absolute, “with the cities . . .” (Sm. 2070).
ὕδατι δὲ καὶ ὅρμῳ: “but (δέ) with water and an anchorage.”
οὐδὲ τούτοις: “not even with these.” Taras was “the only certain overseas
settlement of Sparta” (Fragoulaki 2013, 180). As Fragoulaki points out,
Thucydides does not tell his readers this and so obscures the probable
reason for Taras’s refusal. She concludes that Thucydides’s “handling
of Sparta’s xyngeneia ties with the Greeks of the West is a superb and
large-scale example of his art of understatement and even ‘silencing.’ ”
44.3 οὗ: “where” (LSJ s.v. ὅς, ἥ, ὅ

A.b.I.1)
παρεῖχον: The subject of the verb is suddenly the Rhegians.
Χαλκιδέας . . . Χαλκιδεῦσιν . . . βοηθεῖν: Infinitive with subject accusa-

tive in indirect discourse after ἀξιοῦντες. The Athenians expect that
xyngeneia will win out, but Thucydides demonstrates the waning
power of such ties over the course of the war (see introduction 6.2).
Even here, already what the Italiots will do (who are by no means all
Chalkidians) matters more to Chalkidian Rhegion than their ethnic
ties with Leontinoi—although those ties had caused them to side with
Leontinoi in the 420s.
ἔσεσθαι . . . ποιήσειν: Infinitives in indirect discourse after ἔφασαν (Sm.
2017). The unexpressed subject is the Rhegians. Readers who remem-
ber that Rhegion was the base of operations for the Athenians when
they intervened in Sicily in 427 (3.86.5; see introduction 3.4) will see
this as an ominous sign for their prospects now.
ὅτι ἂν: = ὅ τι, the indefinite pronoun (Sm. 339); “whatever.” Subject of
ξυνδοκῇ.
44.4 οἱ δέ: The Athenians.

προσοίσονται: From προσφέρομαι, “deal with something” (LSJ
B.Pass.4).
ἔστιν: Here this means “are true” (LSJ A.III).
Reactions at Syracuse (6.45)

45 ὡς ἐπὶ τούτοις: “on this understanding.” The subject has now
switched to the Syracusans.
ἔνθα μέν: “to some.”
πρὸς δὲ τούς: “to others.”
τά τε ἐν τῇ πόλει: Accusative of respect (Sm. 1600).
ἐπὶ ταχεῖ πολέμῳ: A war that was “rapid, sudden,” that is, coming soon.
ὅσον οὐ: “all but” (LSJ IV.5).
The Egestaian Deception and the

Council of Athenian Generals (6.46–6.50.1a)
See above (n. 6.1.1–6.7.1a) for ending a narrative unit within the traditional
(but non-Thucydidean) paragraphing.
46.2 ἐν ἀθυμίᾳ ἦσαν: As with cavalry and supplies, the Athenians clearly
also did not sail with enough money since this setback so demoralized
them. The narrative “subverts completely” the image from 6.31 of a
great force sailing with “vast treasure” (Kallet 2001, 103).
καὶ εἰκὸς ἦν μάλιστα: “and it was likely [that they would be persuaded].”
τῷ μὲν Νικίᾳ προσδεχομένῳ ἦν: Literally, “occurred to Nikias expecting
it,” i.e., “Nikias was prepared for the news . . .” (Sm. 1487 trans.).
τοῖν δὲ ἑτέροιν . . . ἀλογώτερα: Dual datives (Sm. 287). The comparative
is intensive (Sm. 1067).
46.3 τότε ὅτε: Finally Thucydides tells us the story that he has led us to
expect since the narrative prolepsis at 6.8.2.
πόλλῳ πλείω τὴν ὄψιν . . . παρείχετο: That is, the silver gave off an
appearance of wealth greater than its actual value. Thucydides
means here to indicate that the Athenians wrongly took the precious
dedications as a sign of great public wealth in treasuries. Once again,
the Athenians do not judge appearances or wealth properly (cf. n.
6.30–32.2). πόλλῳ is dative of degree of difference (Sm. 1513).
46.4 πάντων . . . χρωμένων . . . πολλῶν φαινομένων: Causal genitive

absolute, “since they all . . .” (Sm. 2070).
ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ πολύ: “for the most part.” The Egestaians’ trick foreshadows
other even more damaging tricks at the Athenians’ expense to come
(see below 7.73.3).
The Conference of the Generals (6.47–6.50.1a)

47 πλεῖν . . . βουλεύεσθαι: Here begin a series of infinitives dependent
on ἦν γνώμη (LSJ III.5).
ἐφ᾿ ὅπερ μάλιστα ἐπέμφθησαν: The whole prior clause is the antecedent
(Sm. 2501a). Nikias seems to forget that the goal of the expedition was
to do as much as possible in Sicily, including conquering Syracuse.
πρὸς ταῦτα: “therefore; this being so; in that case” (LSJ s.v. πρός
C.III.2).
ὅσασπερ ᾐτήσαντο: The subject is the Egestaians. This reminds us of the

imprudent increase in the size of the expedition that Nikias himself
was responsible for.
ἀξιοῦν: This infinitive is also dependent on ἦν γνώμη (LSJ III.5). αὐτούς
refers to the Egestaians and is the object of ἀξιοῦν and subject of
διδόναι. ἀξιοῦν is here “require” (LSJ II.2).
παραμείναντας Σελινουντίους . . . διαλλάξαι: Infinitive with subject
accusative in indirect discourse after ἦν γνώμη (Sm. 2018). The
accusative subject of the infinitive now refers to the Athenians. The
Selinountians are the object.
παραπλεύσαντας . . . ἐπιδείξαντας . . . ἀποπλεῖν οἴκαδε: Another infini-
tive with subject accusative (referring to the Athenians) in indirect
discourse after ἦν γνώμη. Nikias tries again the argument he had
already made in Athens (6.11.4).
ἤν μή τι: “unless.”
δι᾿ ὀλίγου καὶ ἀπὸ τοῦ ἀδοκήτου: “within a short time” (LSJ IV.2) “and
unexpectedly.”
οἷοί τε ὦσιν: οἷός τε + infinitive = “fit or able to” (LSJ III.B.2).
τῇ πόλει δαπανῶντας τὰ οἰκεῖα μὴ κινδυνεύειν: This infinitive with
subject accusative (referring to the Athenians) is also dependent on ἦν
γνώμη at the beginning of the chapter. Nikias here has a clear sense of
where Athens’s “home goods” are, and he values them over any pos-
sible gains in Sicily (contrast 7.47–48 below; see introduction 6.6).
48 ἐκπλεύσαντας . . . ἀπελθεῖν . . . ἐπικηρυκεύεσθαι . . . πειρᾶσθαι . . .

πείθειν . . . ἐπιχειρῖν: Infinitive subjects of χρῆναι (with their own
accusative subjects referring to the Athenians). οὐκ ἔφη χρῆναι,
literally, “denied that it was necessary,” really means “said that it was
imperative that they not. . . .”
ἀφιστάναι . . . ποιεῖσθαι: Two infinitives dependent on πειρᾶσθαι. The
first means “to cause them to revolt.” ἵστημι is transitive in the present
system. In the second infinitive phrase, φίλους is predicate, “try to
make the others allies.”
ἵνα σῖτον καὶ στρατιὰν ἔχωσι: A purpose clause (Sm. 2196). Lack of
adequate supplies dictated the Athenians’ slow diplomatic policy.
ἐν πόρῳ . . . εἶναι . . . καὶ λιμένα . . . ἔσεσθαι: The infinitives are in indi-
rect discourse after ἔφη (Sm. 2017).
προσαγαγομένους . . . εἰδότας . . . ἐπιχειρεῖν: Another infinitive subject
of χρῆναι with its own subject accusative referring to the Athenians.
ἢν μὴ οἱ μὲν . . . ξυμβαίνωσιν, οἱ δὲ . . . ἐῶσι κατοικίζειν: “unless the
latter . . . , the former. . . .” The verbs are subjunctive because they
represent the protasis (the “if” clause) of a future more vivid condition
(Sm. 2323). ἤν = ἐάν. Alkibiades here also reminds both his audience
and the reader about the supposed original main intent of the expedi-
tion. The Egestaians had appealed to Athens on behalf of Leontinoi
(see n. 6.6.2).
49.1 πλεῖν . . . ποιεῖσθαι: Infinitive subjects of χρῆναι (Sm. 1985).

ἕως: “while.”
49.2 τὸ γὰρ πρῶτον: Adverbial accusative (Sm. 1611).

εἶναι: In indirect discourse after ἔφη (Sm. 2017).
πρὶν ἐς ὄψιν ἐλθεῖν: This chapter focuses on appearances and the judg-
ment of them, and on the correct estimation of power, and so echoes
the departure of the fleet from Athens (6.30–31).
ἀναθαρσοῦντας . . . καταφρονεῖν: Still accusative and infinitive in indi-
rect discourse after ἔφη (Sm. 2017). τῇ ὄψει means “even at sight.” The
later narrative (6.63.2) confirms Lamachos’s psychologizing here (cf.
Rood 1998a, 169), as it seems Thucydides does himself (7.42.3).
ἢν προσπέσωσιν: The protasis (the “if” clause) of a future more vivid
condition. ἤν = ἐάν.
περιδεεῖς προσδέχονται: The subject is the Syracusans.
ἂν σφεῖς περιγενέσθαι . . . ἐκφοβῆσαι: The infinitives + ἄν are in
indirect discourse after ἔφη (Sm. 2017) and represent the apodosis
(the “then” clause) of the condition instead of a future indicative (Sm.
2326d). The subject is the Athenians. The reflexive is used to contrast
with the Syracusans, represented soon by αὐτούς. The reflexive is
nominative rather than accusative, the regular case for the subject
of an infinitive, because it includes also Lamachos, the speaker and

subject of the main verb (Sm. 1974).
τῇ τε ὄψει . . . τῇ προσδοκίᾳ . . . τῷ αὐτίκα κινδύνῳ: Dative of cause (Sm.
1517).
πλεῖστοι . . . φανῆναι: Infinitive in indirect discourse after ἔφη (Sm.
2017). The subject of the infinitive is nominative, rather than accusa-
tive, the regular case for the subject of an infinitive, because it
includes also the speaker of the main verb (Sm. 1973).
ὧν: Properly “of those things which.” Thucydides has left out the ante-
cedent, as is common when it refers to a general idea (Sm. 2509) and
the relative has been attracted into its case (Sm. 2522).
πείσονται: From πάσχω.
49.3 εἰκὸς δὲ εἶναι: Infinitive in indirect discourse after ἔφη (Sm. 2017).
πολλοὺς ἀποληφθῆναι is the subject of εἰκός (Sm. 1985).
διὰ τὸ ἀπιστεῖν σφᾶς μὴ ἥξειν: “because of not believing that they would
come.” An articular infinitive after a preposition with modifiers (see
introduction 2.3.5). Verbs of negative meaning, like “disbelieve,” often
take a redundant μή to underscore the negative idea of the introduc-
tory verb (Sm. 2739).
ἐσκομιζομένων αὐτῶν: Temporal genitive absolute, “while they . . .”
(Sm. 2070).
τὴν στρατιὰν οὐκ ἀπορήσειν: Infinitive with subject accusative in
indirect discourse after ἔφη (Sm. 2017). It is the apodosis (the “then”
clause) of a future more vivid construction with ἤν . . . καθέζηται as
the protasis (the “if” clause).
49.4 τούς τε ἄλλους Σικελιώτας . . . οὐ ξυμμαχήσειν . . . προσιέναι . . . οὐ

διαμελλήσειν: Infinitives with subject accusative in indirect discourse
after ἔφη (Sm. 2017).
ἐφορμηθέντας: This word is wrong. Thucydides probably wrote
ἐφόρμησιν τὰ Μέγαρα, meaning “with Megara as an anchorage” (cf.
Hornblower 3:425).
ἃ ἦν ἐρῆμα: Because the Syracusans had driven the Megarians out too
(6.4.2).
οὔτε πλοῦν πολὺν οὔτε ὁδόν: Accusative of extent of space with

ἀπέχοντα (Sm. 1581).
50.1a Λάμαχος . . . προσέθετο . . . τῇ Ἀλκιβιάδου γνώμῃ: The generals

needed a majority agreement, so someone had to yield.
Alkibiades at Messana (6.50.1b)

See above (n. 6.1.1–6.7.1a) for beginning a narrative unit within the tradi-
tional (but non-Thucydidean) paragraphing.
50.1b τῇ αὑτοῦ νηί: Literally his own ship. Alkibiades’s great-grandfather

Kleinias fought at Artemesion in his own ship (Herodotus 8.17). This
detail both demonstrates that Alkibiades does not fully appreciate the
democratic nature of liturgies and also foreshadows his escape from
the Athenians.
λόγους ποιησάμενος: Thucydides here and elsewhere does not take
advantage of an opportunity to give a speech to an Athenian com-
mander explaining and justifying the Athenians’ presence in Sicily
(see also 6.50.4, 6.62.2). The first Athenian speech is thus Euphormos’s
forceful response to Hermokrates at Kamarina (6.76–80).
ὡς: “in as much as; since.” Alkibiades has now failed in the first element
of his plan (6.48). During the course of the Athenians’ intervention in
Sicily in 427–26, Messana had joined Athens’s side (see introduction
3.4), so its reluctance now bodes ill for the Athenians’ future pros-
pects.
οὐ δέξασθαι . . . παρέξειν: Infinitives in indirect discourse after
ἀπεκρίναντο. The understood subject is the Messanians.
Unproductive Athenian Voyaging

(Naxos, Katane, Syracuse) (6.50.2–6.52)
50.2 ἕνα σφῶν αὐτῶν: It is strange that Thucydides does not tell us who.
50.3 Ναξίων δὲ δεξαμένων: Temporal genitive absolute, “after the Nax-

ians . . .” (Sm. 2070).
ὡς: “in as much as, since.”

τὰ Συρακοσίων βουλόμενοι: Syracusan partisans.
50.4 τὰς ἄλλας ναῦς: Apart from those Thucydides is just about to tell us
about.
ἐς τὸν μέγαν λιμένα: The great harbor of Syracuse bounded by Ortygia
and Plemmyrion. See map 3 for Syracusan topography.
πλεῦσαί τε καὶ κατασκέψασθαι . . . κηρῦξαι: Unusual infinitives of pur-
pose after a verb meaning to send, go, or come, which usually take the
future participle for purpose (Sm. 2009).
κατοικιοῦντες κατὰ . . . ξυγγένειαν: Future participle for purpose (Sm.
2065). With the Rhegians’ response to the Athenians, Thucydides has
already shown his readers how much xyngeneia is likely to count for in
this war (see introduction 6.2).
τοὺς οὖν ὄντας . . . ἀπιέναι: Thucydides has switched his construction
from ὅτι + a finite verb to indirect discourse with the accusative and
infinitive after κηρῦξαι (Sm. 2017, 2579). These Leontinoi in Syracuse
are members of the upper class who had moved there after the
destruction of their own city during civil war (see introduction 3.4).
ὡς παρὰ φίλους καὶ εὐεργέτας Ἀθηναίους: The phrase explains that
the Athenians’ friendly presence will allow the Leontinoi to depart
without fear.
50.5 κατεσκέψαντο: The Athenians seem to have carried out a bold

reconnaissance, but they did not actually accomplish much of any-
thing.
ἐξ ἧς αὐτοῖς ὁρμωμένοις πολεμητέα ἦν: Literally, “from which [coun-
tryside] for them setting out the war must be fought,” i.e., from which
countryside they would have to fight. Verbal adjectives in -τέος, -τέα,
-τέον express necessity (Sm. 473) and take the dative of agent (Sm.
1488). Thucydides is fond of the neuter plural of such adjectives (Sm.
1052, 1003a; see introduction 2.3.4).
ἀπέπλευσαν . . . ἐς Κατάνην: Why, then, had they come? And what
would have been the outcome if they had followed Lamachos’s plan
and begun an attack on Syracuse on this day?
51.1 ἐκκλησίας γενομένης: Temporal genitive absolute, “after an assem-

bly . . .” (Sm. 2070).
λέγοντος τοῦ Ἀλκιβιάδου, καὶ τῶν . . . τετραμμένων: Temporal genitive
absolute, “while Alkibiades . . .” (Sm. 2070).
51.2 οἱ μὲν τὰ τῶν Συρακοσίων φρονοῦντες: Partisans of Syracuse.

ἐψηφίσαντό τε ξυμμαχίαν: Since Thucydides tells us that the Syracusan
partisans were not many, they could not have controlled the original
response of Katane to the Athenians. It would seem, then, that this
alliance was the result merely of the presence of Athenian soldiers in
the city, and thus not particularly firm.
52.1 ὡς οὐδὲν ηὗρον ναυτικόν πληρούμενον: A supplementary parti-

ciple after a verb of finding (Sm. 2113). These false reports contribute
to the sense that the Athenians are not in control of events.
σχόντες: “put in, land” (LSJ s.v. ἔχω A.II.8).
τὰ ὅρκια . . . δέχεσθαι: The infinitive gives the terms of the treaty. This
must refer to a bilateral agreement between Kamarina and Athens
concluded under Laches in 427/26 that prevented the Athenians
from sailing in with more than one ship unless the Kamarinaians
had asked for more. Thucydides only finally mentions this alliance at
6.75.3. That Kamarina did not immediately receive the Athenians is
again ominous for their future prospects because Kamarina was twice
depopulated by Syracuse (6.5.3) and was the only Dorian state in Sic-
ily that did not ally with Syracuse in 427. See introduction 3.2 and 3.4
for Athens’s relations with Sicily before the Sicilian expedition.
καταπλεόντων Ἀθηναίων: Conditional or temporal genitive absolute,
“if (or when) the Athenians . . .” (Sm. 2070).
52.2 τῶν Συρακοσίων ἱππέων . . . τινὰς . . . διαφθειράντων: Temporal

or causal genitive absolute, “after (or because) the Syracusan cavalry
. . .” (Sm. 2070). The first casualties that Thucydides reports from
the expedition come at the hands of the Syracusan cavalry. All in all,
Athenian success so far in the Sicilian expedition has been meager at
best, and the Athenians show no evidence of being able to rebuild a
coalition of cities against Syracuse: the Italian cities did not provide
markets, and some not even water or anchorage; Rhegion deemed
xyngeneia of little importance; the promised money did not exist in
Egesta; Alkibiades failed to bring over Messana, the first element in
the plan of attack the generals chose; and although Naxos received
them, the people of Katane joined them only under duress. Finally,
they were diverted into going to Kamarina for no purpose and, in a
pointless plundering raid in Syracusan territory, saw some of their
number killed by the Syracusan cavalry, the very element that Nikias
had said would be decisive against them (6.20.4). None of this bodes
well for the expedition.

Profanation of the Mysteries, Pt. 2 (6.53–6.61)
This long unit includes striking chronological shifts. It begins with the
arrival in Sicily of men summoning Alkibiades home for trial in the affair
of the herms and the mysteries. The incident prompts Thucydides to go
back in time and recount events in Athens since the departure of the fleet.
That description then prompts a further regression in time as Thucydides
describes the fall of the tyranny of the Peisistratids toward the end of the
sixth century. At the end of this account, Thucydides returns (almost)
to the narrative present and the decision to send to Sicily the men who
arrive here. Connor (1984, appendix 6) graphically demonstrates the ring
composition in the section.
53.1 καὶ καταλαμβάνουσι τὴν Σαλαμινίαν ναῦν: The Salaminia was one
of two state ships of Athens used on official business (the other being
the Paralos, whose sailors, Thucydides tells us, were staunch demo-
crats; 8.73.5). This is an example of what Rood calls a “find-passage,”
where actors in the history come upon something that allows
Thucydides to give an “explanation of a new situation.” Thucydides
uses such passages to make transitions and connections between parts
of his narrative (Rood 1998a, 114n23).
ὡς κελεύσοντας: Thucydides has switched from describing the ship

to describing the men on it in a future participle with ὡς denoting
purpose (Sm. 2065).
ὧν: Properly, “of those things which.” Thucydides has left out the ante-
cedent, as is common when it conveys a general idea (Sm. 2509), and
the relative has been attracted into its case (Sm. 2522).
περὶ τῶν μυστηρίων . . . τῶν δὲ καὶ περὶ τῶν Ἑρμῶν: Thucydides takes
care to remind us that there are two separate crimes.
53.2 πάντα ὑπόπτως ἀποδεχόμενοι: Because Thucydides has just told

us that the Athenians did not test witnesses, this must not mean that
they “received accusations with suspicion,” i.e., critically, but rather
that they were so suspicious that they accepted all charges, i.e., “found
everything grounds for suspicion” (Lattimore).
χρησιμώτερον ἡγούμενοι . . . βασανίσαι . . . ἢ . . τινὰ . . . διαφυγεῖν:
“thinking it to be better to test out the matter and discover [the truth]
than that someone who was charged (αἰτιαθέντα), even if he seemed
to be good (καὶ χρηστὸν δοκοῦντα εἶναι), should escape without
being investigated (ἀνέλεγκτον) because of the wickedness of the
informant.” Thucydides twice emphasizes the class and character
of informants and victims. βασανίσαι, εὑρεῖν, and διαφυγεῖν are all
infinitive subjects of χρησιμώτερον (Sm. 1985) in indirect discourse
after ἡγούμενοι (Sm. 2018).
53.3 τὴν . . . τυρρανίδα . . . γενομένην καὶ . . . καταλυθεῖσαν: Supple-
mentary participles with accusative subject in indirect discourse after
ἐπιστάμενος (Sm. 2106).
τελευτῶσαν: “to finish with, at the end, at last” (LSJ II.4). The word is
used like an adverb with either verbs or participles.
Tyranny and Historical Knowledge at Athens (6.54–6.59)

Peisistratos, tyrant of Athens, died in 528/27 b.c. He was succeeded by
his elder son, Hippias. In 514 the Athenians Harmodios and Aristogeiton
killed Hipparchos as Thucydides details here. Hippias continued as tyrant,
however, until the Spartans (with encouragement from the clan of the
exiled Alkmaionidai) expelled him in 510. Herodotus (5.55, 5.62–65) gives

an account of the end of the tyranny that agrees with Thucydides in the
essential points (i.e., Hippias, not Hipparchos, was tyrant and his tyranny
grew harsher after the death of Hipparchos). Herodotus, however, con-
tinues his account into the subsequent establishment of democracy by
the Alkmaionid Kleisthenes (5.66–73), which Thucydides does not cover.
Although they killed not the tyrant but the tyrant’s brother, and did not
end the tyranny, Harmodios and Aristogeiton were honored in Athens as if
they had. Statues of them were set up in the agora, and when Xerxes carried
these off, replacements were set up—the famous “tyrannicides” of Kritios
and Nesiotes—with an epigram honoring the heroes on the base (probably
repeated from the earlier monument; see Geagan 2011, 4–5 for these statues.)
Finally, drinking songs honored their memory, one of which (Page 1962,
#893) said that they “killed the tyrant and made Athens isonomous.” The
chorus of old men in Lysistrata (632) recite the first line of one of these songs.
The Athenians in the fifth century were not unaware of the true end of
the tyranny in Athens, as Thucydides himself says (6.53.3), but according
to him Athens preferred to tell itself a different story. That story celebrated
Harmodios and Aristogeiton and made the end of tyranny a homegrown
affair without the help of Spartans or of the Alkmaionidai, a clan that was
not only cursed because of actions related to putting down a tyranny in the
seventh century (1.126–127) but also accused after Marathon of betraying
Athens to Persia (Herodotus 6.121–23). But the false story about Harmodios
and Aristogeiton also obscured the role of radical popular action in the
transition from tyranny to Kleisthenes’s government (Herodotus 5.72.2).
Thucydides spends five chapters (6.54–59) demolishing elements of the
false story. As Rawlings notes, in Thucydides’s telling the so-called tyran-
nicide is “an audacious act (τόλμημα), plotted by a commoner crazed with
sexual jealousy and fear and perpetrated against one of Athens’ greatest
and most beneficent families” (1981, 105). Rawlings emphasizes that just as
Aristogeiton “by his jealous fear . . . drove Hippias to become the tyrant
he had not been before,” so also the demos “by its suspicious fear . . . drove
Alkibiades to seek refuge in Sparta and to form the conspiracy he had not
plotted before!” (111). Connor sees a connection not between the demos
and Aristogeiton, but between the demos and Hippias: “Athens comes to
resemble the tyrants, in their last stages, when fear and suspicion led them to
repression” (1984, 179–80). Many make a connection to the daring eros of the
Sicilian expedition itself, while Wohl (1999, 2002) and Vickers (1995) stress
the sexual element and its relation to Alkibiades and his paranomia (6.15.4).
Meyer (2008, anticipated by Kallet 2006) emphasizes that Thucydides’s
practice in these chapters is designed to be an example of his akribeia
and so to demonstrate how one should go about τὸ σαφὲς σκοπεῖν, which
Thucydides defines in his methodology as the goal of his work (1.22.4). The
false Harmodios and Aristogeiton story, then, seems to be an example of
the pleasant τὸ μυθῶδες that one seeking the truth must reject (1.22.4).
54.1 ἐπὶ πλέον: “more, further” (LSJ II.1). Adverbial accusative (Sm.
1609).
αὐτοὺς Ἀθηναίους . . . λέγοντας: Supplementary participle with subject
accusative in indirect discourse after ἀποφανῶ (Sm. 2106).
περὶ τοῦ γενομένου: “concerning this event.”
54.2 Πεισιστράτου . . . τελευτήσαντος: Temporal genitive absolute,

“after Peisistratos . . .” (Sm. 2070).
γενομένου . . . ὥρᾳ ἡλικίας λαμπροῦ: A temporal genitive absolute,
“when Harmodios was brilliantly good-looking,” in (dative of cause,
Sm. 1517) the “springtime of life, bloom of youth” (LSJ II). λαμπρός
echoes Alkibiades’s description of himself (6.16.3) and has class con-
notations (Wohl 1999, 358).
ἐραστὴς ὢν εἶχεν αὐτόν: “was his lover and possessed him” (Crawley).
As Classen-Steup note, this is almost the language of marriage. An
ἐραστής is the elder “lover” to a younger “beloved.” In elite Athenian
society, it was acceptable for men to have sexual relations with both
women and younger men and boys.
54.3 πειραθείς: “having had a pass made at him” (Hornblower 3:443; see
LSJ BII.2).
μὴ βίᾳ προσαγάγηται αὐτόν: Subjunctive in a fear clause (Sm. 2221). This

is a fear that something might happen. A fear that something might
not happen would have μή οὐ. It is a topos about tyrants that they force
themselves on people sexually (Herodotus 3.80.5; cf. the Lucretia
story in Rome).
ἐπιβουλεύει . . . κατάλυσιν τῇ τυραννίδι: Thucydides insists that the
original impulse was not political but sexual.
ὡς ἀπὸ τῆς ὑπαρχούσης ἀξιώσεως: “as far as his rank (LSJ 3) allowed.”
Class again. See Sm. 2993 for restrictive ὡς.
54.4 ἐν τούτῳ: “in the meantime” (LSJ C.VIII.6.b).

ὡς οὐ διὰ τοῦτο: “as if not for this reason.”
προπηλακιῶν: Future participle for purpose (Sm. 2065).
54.5 ἐπαχθὴς ἦν . . . κατεστήσατο: The singular here makes no sense.

Thucydides has just been talking about Hipparchos and gives no indi-
cation of a change of subject, so a reader naturally thinks he is talking
about Hipparchos in this sentence too. Yet that can not be correct
because it would make Hipparchos sound like the tyrant, when part of
Thucydides’s point is to insist that Hippias, and not Hipparchos, was
the tyrant. The link in thought between the prior sentence and this is
Thucydides’s prior note that Hipparchos did not use force.
ἀνεπιφθόνως: “so as not to create odium” (LSJ).
ἐπετήδευσαν . . . ἀρετὴν καὶ ξύνεσιν: A strong statement. The only other
person who had these qualities, according to Thucydides, is Brasidas
(4.81.2). For Brasidas see introduction 3.5.
πρασσόμενοι: “to exact payment” (LSJ VI), using a double accusative
construction for the amount of the payment and the people on whom
it was imposed.
τῶν γιγνομένων: “from their produce.”
54.6 πλὴν καθ᾿ ὅσον: “except so far as” (LSJ s.v. ὅσος, -η, -ον IV.1.VI).
Together with the prior comment, this implies that the tyrants vio-
lated the laws in some way to achieve this.
τινα . . . σφῶν αὐτῶν . . . εἶναι: Accusative and infinitive construction
after ἐπιμέλοντο. It seems that these men were not only relatives but
also nonrelated supporters; see following note.
ἦρξαν τὴν ἐνιαύσιον . . . ἀρχὴν καὶ Πεισίστρατος: “The” annual archon
in Athens was the eponymous archon who gave his name to the year.
We have a fragment of the archon list for Athens during these years
(Meiggs and Lewis 1988, #6). It lists, in order, Hippias, Kleisthenes,
Miltiades, Kalliades, and [. . .]istratos. Miltiades was archon in 524/23.
So Hippias was archon in 526/25, probably the earliest year that could
be arranged after his father died, and the Peisistratos Thucydides
mentions was archon in 522/21. It is particularly interesting to see
Kleisthenes—the father of Athenian democracy!—on this archon list,
which surely indicates that he was a supporter of the Peisistratids. His
presence serves to disprove Herodotus’s claim (no doubt taken from
Alkmaionid sources) that Kleisthenes’s clan of the Alkmaionidai was
in exile from Athens throughout the whole of the tyranny and impla-
cably opposed to it (1.64.3, 6.123.1). Alkibiades repeats this antityran-
nical claim about his ancestors in his speech at Sparta (6.89.4).
τῶν δώδεκα θεῶν βωμόν: The remains of this altar have been found in
the northwest corner of the agora at about the point where the Pana-
thenaic way begins its bend across the agora.
καὶ τῷ μὲν . . . τοῦ δ᾿ ἐν: Variatio (see introduction 2.3.6). Thucydides
composes his sentences so as to vary the case of the initial word.
ἀμυδροῖς γράμμασι: Part of this inscription is preserved (Meiggs and
Lewis 1988, #11), and the letters are not even now particularly “faint.”
Thucydides is presumably referring to the absence of the original
paint that Athenians put in the hollows of the carved-out letters.
ἧς ἀρχῆς: “his” archonship (Sm. 330).
55.1 ὡς ὅ τε βωμὸς σημαίνει: Of course, although the altar shows that

Hippias did have children, it hardly demonstrates that only he did.
ἡ στήλη . . . ἡ ἐν τῇ . . . ἀκροπόλει: The stele on the acropolis may have
been directed specifically against the Peisistratidai (and put up after
the expulsion of Hippias or after Marathon when Hippias allied him-
self with Darius), or it may have been a more general antityranny law
(like Meiggs and Lewis 1988, #43). Thucydides uses inscriptions in this
section in a “scientific” way (Smarczyk 2006, 509), as evidence for his
own argument.
Θεσσαλοῦ: Herodotus does not mention Thessalos but does mention
a Hegesistratos as a son of Peisistratos by an Argive wife (5.94.1).
Aristotle (Constitution of Athens 17.2) says that Thessalos is a by-name
of Hegesistratos. He also mentions an Iophon as a second son of the
Argive wife.
γῆμαι: The infinitive is subject of εἰκὸς γὰρ ἦν (Sm. 1985). Its accusative
subject is τὸν πρεσβύτατον.
55.2 οὐδὲ τοῦτο ἀπεοικότως: “and this not unreasonably.”
55.3 οὐ μὴν οὐδ: “and again not” (cf. Denniston GP, 339, μήν III.2.ii with
δοκεῖ).
ἂν κατασχεῖν: The infinitive + ἄν represents the aorist + ἄν in the
apodosis (the “then” clause) of a past contrary-to-fact condition (Sm.
1845). Thus, “he would have . . . ,” with εἰ . . . ἀπέθανεν, αὐτὸς . . .
καθίστατο as the protasis, “if . . . had died, and he was established. . . .”
The verb is infinitive after δοκεῖ. As is common, Thucydides uses a
personal construction, “Hippias seems. . . ,” rather than the imper-
sonal, “It seems to me that Hippias. . . ,” more common in English
(Sm. 1983).
τὸ παραχρῆμα: “on the spot, forthwith” (LSJ).
διὰ τὸ πρότερον ξύνηθες . . . φοβερόν . . . ἀκριβές: Two modified neuter
substantives. With the addition of the article, Thucydides makes a
noun out of two adjectives (τὸ φοβερόν, τὸ ἀκριβές) to create “the
fearsomeness, that causing fear” and “the precision, the strictness,”
then he modifies those nouns with adjectives and prepositional
phrases to create “on account of his earlier customary fearsomeness
in the eyes of the citizens and strictness toward mercenaries.” See
introduction 2.3.3.
πολλῷ τῷ περιόντι τοῦ ἀσφαλοῦς κατεκράτησε: “with a great surplus of
security.”
ἐν ᾧ: “in which position,” i.e., the hypothetical position of being the

younger brother of a tyrant.
55.4 ἐς τὰ ἔπειτα: “for the future, posterity” (LSJ I.2).

προσλαβεῖν: Infinitive subject of ξυνέβη (Sm. 1985) with ὀνομασθέντα
(“having become famous,” LSJ V), the accusative subject of the infini-
tive. Hipparchos is the subject of ὀνομασθέντα (despite also showing
up in the dative in the sentence). καί here = “also.” “It happened to
Hipparchos that he, having been made famous by (ὀνομασθέντα) . . .
took on also (προσλαβεῖν). . . .”
56.1 προυπηλάκισεν: The subject is Hipparchos, from the prior sentence.

ἀδελφὴν . . . ἥκειν: Accusative and infinitive in indirect discourse after
ἐπαγγείλαντες (Sm. 2016).
κανοῦν οἴσουσαν ἐν πομπῇ τινί: Future participle for purpose (Sm.
2065). To carry a basket in a religious procession was an honor for
aristocratic young girls and demonstrated their (and their families’)
devotion to the city and its gods. It would be one of the very few times
that a girl would be on public display. See Aristophanes (Lysistrata
638–47) on the various roles a girl could play in civic religion. The
festival is not the Panathenaia since the girl’s rejection occurs before
that festival.
λέγοντες οὐδὲ ἐπαγγεῖλαι τὴν ἀρχήν: “saying that they had not called
for her in the first place.” Infinitive in indirect discourse after λέγω
(Sm. 2017). The subject of the infinitive is not expressed because it is
the same as the subject of the leading verb (Sm. 1972). τὴν ἀρχήν is an
adverbial accusative (Sm. 1611).
διὰ τὸ μὴ ἀξίαν εἶναι: “on account of her (understood) not being. . . .”
The suggestion presumably was that she was not a virgin, a deadly
insult to the honor of the family.
56.2 χαλεπῶς δὲ ἐνεγκόντος τοῦ Ἁρμοδίου: Temporal genitive absolute,

“while Harmodios . . .” (Sm. 2070).
αὐτοῖς τὰ μὲν ἄλλα . . . ἐπέπρακτο: Dative of agent with pluperfect (Sm.
1488).
πρὸς τοὺς ξυνεπιθησομένους: “with reference to their coconspirators.”

Thucydides gives us no reason to believe that these men joined in the
plot for any reason other than family honor.
ἐν ὅπλοις . . . τοὺς . . . γενέσθαι: An infinitive subject (with its own accu-
sative subject) of οὐχ ὕποπτον ἐγίγνετο.
ἄρξαι . . . ξυνεπαμύνειν: Infinitive subjects of ἔδει (Sm. 1985), each with
its own accusative subject. αὐτούς is Harmodios and Aristogeiton.
πρὸς τοὺς δορυφόρους: It was common for tyrants to solidify their posi-
tion with bodyguards.
56.3 ἤλπιζον . . . τοὺς μὴ προειδότας . . . ἐθελήσειν . . . ξυνελευθεροῦν:

As Thucydides makes devastatingly clear, their hopes were not ful-
filled. Accusative and infinitive construction after ἤλπιζον (Sm. 2018).
καὶ ὁποσοιοῦν: “even how many so ever” (LSJ I.3), i.e., “even if only a
few.”
ἐκ τοῦ παραχρῆμα: “on the spot, forthwith.”
57.1 ἐν τῷ Κεραμεικῷ καλουμένῳ: The Kerameikos district lay in the

northwest of Athens half inside and half outside the city wall and the
Dipylon Gate. It was the potters’ quarter (hence the English word
“ceramic”) and the location of a large cemetery.
57.2 ἔδεισαν: The supposed heroes panicked.

μεμηνῦσθαι . . . ξυλληφθήσεσθαι: Infinitives in indirect discourse after
ἐνόμισαν (Sm. 2018), “and thought that they. . . .”
ὅσον οὐκ: “just not; all but” (LSJ IV.5).
57.3 καὶ δι᾿ ὅνπερ πάντα ἐκινδύνευον: Despite some semblance of politi-
cal purpose, Thucydides underscores that their action really sprang
from the personal event. They were close enough to see Hippias but
ran off to find Hipparchos instead (see introduction 6.3 on public/pri-
vate). As Thucydides said at the beginning, the event was a τόλμημα
δι᾿ ἐρωτικὴν ξυντυχίαν (6.54.1).
ὥσπερ εἶχον: “just as they were” (LSJ B.II.2).
ὡς ἂν μάλιστα δι᾿ ὀργῆς: “as [men would act] because of anger.”
ὁ μὲν ἐρωτικῆς, ὁ δὲ ὑβρισμένος: Thucydides here describes the anger

of Aristogeiton first, using an adjective (modifying ὀργῆς), and then,
instead of using a different adjective modifying ὀργῆς, with striking
variatio (see introduction 2.3.6), switches to a participle modifying
Harmodios.
57.4 τὸ αὐτίκα: “forthwith, at once, in a moment” (LSJ).

ξυνδραμόντος τοῦ ὄχλου: Causal genitive absolute, “because the crowd
. . .” (Sm. 2070). The crowd ran up not because they wanted to join in
winning their freedom but simply out of curiosity and excitement.
αὐτοῦ: “there.”
58.1 ἀγγελθέντος: A temporal genitive absolute, with “the event” under-

stood, “when the event was announced . . .” (Sm. 2070).
ἐπὶ τοὺς πομπέας τοὺς ὁπλίτας: Thucydides writes as if ὁπλίτας is an
adjective.
πρότερον ἢ αἰσθέσθαι αὐτοὺς ἄπωθεν ὄντας: αὐτούς = the Athenians
armed for the procession, as subject of the infinitive, “before they. . . .”
With their impulsive move, Harmodios and Aristogeiton have left
their fellow conspirators unaware of what is going on.
ἀδήλως τῇ ὄψει πλασάμενος πρὸς τῆν ξυμφοράν: Literally, “having
formed himself in face” (τῇ ὄψει, i.e., composed his countenance)
“unclearly with respect to the disaster,” i.e., in a way opposite to what
was actually occurring.
58.2 οἰόμενοί τι ἐρεῖν αὐτόν: “thinking that he was going to say some-
thing.” Infinitive with subject accusative in indirect discourse after
οἰόμενοι (Sm. 2018).
καὶ εἴ τις ηὑρέθη ἐγχειρίδιον ἔχων: The conspirators must have judged
daggers a better weapon for a close-in assassination than spears.
μετὰ γὰρ ἀσπίδος καὶ δόρατος: Thucydides here underscores that the
mass of Athenians would have been armed with shield and spear that
day and yet they did nothing. So, too, the Athenians made no armed
uprising against the imposition of the oligarchs in 411 and were also
easily disarmed (8.69). See introduction 7.2.
59.1 τοιούτῳ μὲν τρόπῳ . . . ἐγένετο: A devastating summary sentence,

emphasizing the elements of sex, passionate anger, irrational daring,
and sudden panic in the supposed great patriotic deed.
59.2 εἴ ποθεν ἀσφάλειάν τινα . . . ὑπάρχουσάν οἱ: “if he could see any
safety existing for him (οἱ; Sm. 325) from anywhere.”
μεταβολῆς γενομένης: Conditional genitive absolute, “if there was a
revolution” (Sm. 2070).
59.3 ἐφ᾿ ἑαὐτοῦ: “in his time” (LSJ s.v. ἐπί A.II).
59.4 ἐν τῷ τετάρτῳ: 511/10 b.c.

ὡς βασιλέα Δαρεῖον: ὡς = πρός when the object is a person (LSJ C.III).
Recall of Alkibiades (6.60–6.61)

60.1 χαλεπὸς ἦν τότε καὶ ὑπόπτης: The demos became like Hippias after
the murder of Hipparchos (6.59.2). With ὑπόπτης and the overall
thought, Thucydides also echoes 6.53.2–3. See Connor (1984, appen-
dix 6) for ring composition here.
αὐτοῖς: Dative of agent with πάντα . . . πεπρᾶχθαι (Sm.1488). The infini-
tive is subject of ἐδόκει (Sm. 1985).
60.2 ὡς: “when, as” (Sm. 3000).

αὐτῶν . . . ὀργιζομένων: Temporal genitive absolute, “while they . . .”
(Sm. 2070).
οὐκ ἐν παύλῃ ἐφαίνετο: “there seemed to be no end of it” (LSJ s.v.
παῦλα).
καθ᾿ ἡμέραν: “day by day” (LSJ s.v. κατά B.II.2).
ἐπεδίδοσαν: “increase; advance” (LSJ III).
ἐς το . . . ξυλλαμβάνειν: An articular infinitive after a preposition (Sm.
2034b) that explains a second way in which they increased.
ἐνταῦθα: “then, at that point,” with ὡς above.
εἷς τῶν δεδεμένων: Andokides. Thucydides does not name him, pre-
sumably because he did not believe him. See above introductory note
to 6.27.
ὑπὸ τῶν ξυνδεσμωτῶν τινός: His cousin Charmides, according to

Andokides (On the Mysteries, 48–50).
τὰ ὄντα: “the truth” (LSJ III).
εἰκάζεται: “it is conjectured.” Impersonal.
τὸ δὲ σαφές: Thucydides’s true account of the end of the tyranny, with
its careful logical argumentation, is his demonstration of what it takes
to get at τὸ σαφές of a matter (cf. 1.22.4 and Meyer 2008).
οὐδεὶς . . . ἔχει εἰπεῖν: ἔχω + infinitive = “I can X” (Sm. 2000a). With this
statement, Thucydides indicates that he does not believe Andokides
and is not sure that the Athenians got to the bottom of the business
(see n. 6.27–29).
60.3 λέγων: The subject is Andokides’s fellow prisoner, Charmides.

εἰ μὴ καὶ δέδρακεν: “if he has not actually done it” (Denniston GP, 304,
trans.).
αὑτόν . . . σῶσαι . . . παῦσαι: Infinitive subjects of χρή (Sm. 1985).
Andokides is the understood subject, modified by ποιησάμενον.
αὑτόν is the object. τὴν πόλιν is object of παῦσαι. Thus, “he persuaded
him that it was necessary that he, having made himself immune
(αὑτόν τε ἄδειαν ποιησάμενον), both save himself and stop the city
from. . . .”
βεβαιοτέραν . . . σωτηρίαν εἶναι: Infinitive and subject accusative in
implied indirect discourse (Sm. 2017, 2622). The two participles are
conditional. The speaker is still Charmides. Thus, “and he said that
there would be (εἶναι) more secure salvation for him if he. . . .”
ἢ ἀρνηθέντι διὰ δίκης ἐλθεῖν: “than if he denied the accusation and went
to trial.” The participle is dative to agree with αὐτῷ after βεβαιοτέραν
above.
60.4 καὶ ὁ μὲν αὐτός τε καθ᾿ ἑαυτοῦ . . . μηνύει: MacDowell concludes
that Andokides gave information regarding the mutilation of the
herms but actually confessed to a role only in the profanation of the
mysteries (1962, 175). MacDowell further argues that Thucydides,
knowing that Andokides gave information regarding the herms and
knowing that he got immunity by confessing guilt, wrongly assumed
that Andokides confessed to guilt with regard to the herms. We must

remember that Thucydides was not in Athens at this time.
δεινὸν ποιούμενοι πρότερον: A present participle showing prior action.
The “participle of the imperfect” (Sm. 1872a1). Translate as past. The
participle is plural because Thucydides has switched from thinking
about the demos to thinking about the Athenians.
εἴσονται: From *εἴδω.
ὅσων: “as many as,” “all those whom. . . .” καταγορέω takes a genitive of
the one accused (LSJ II).
τῶν δὲ διαφυγόντων: One lays an accusative penalty against a person in
the genitive.
ἐπανεῖπον: “offered publicly besides” (LSJ).
60.5 οἱ μὲν παθόντες: This phrase is pulled before εἰ for emphasis.
61.1 ἐναγόντων τῶν ἐχθρῶν: Causal genitive absolute, “since his

enemies . . .” (Sm. 2070).
ὧν ἐπαίτιος ἦν: According to Andokides, Alkibiades was accused of
profaning the mysteries by two informants: (1) a slave of the man at
whose house the ceremony was held, and (2) a woman (On the Myster-
ies 12, 16).
καὶ τῆς ξυνωμοσίας ἐπὶ τῷ δήμῳ: Explanatory καί (Sm. 2869a), translate
as “namely,” explaining the “same purpose” that this activity seemed
to have been done for.
61.2 πρὸς Βοιωτούς τι πράσσοντες: “negotiating something (τι) with the

Boiotians.” Thucydides has switched to the plural because he is now
thinking of the army as a group of individuals.
ἐδόκει . . . ἥκειν: “[the Spartan army] seemed to have come. . . .” The
infinitive is dependent on ἐδόκει (Sm. 1983).
ἐκείνου πράξαντος: Causal genitive absolute, “because he . . .” (Sm.
2070).
εἰ μὴ ἔφθασαν . . . προδοθῆναι ἂν ἡ πόλις: A past contrary-to-fact condi-
tion (“if they had not . . . the city would have . . .”). The aorist of the
apodosis (the “then” clause) has become an infinitive + ἄν after ἐδόκει
(Sm. 1983, 1845).
ἐν Θησείῳ: Τhis is the shrine of Theseus in which Kimon deposited the

bones he recovered from Skyros (Plutarch, Theseus 36.1–2). Its loca-
tion is unknown. It is not the temple in the Agora sometimes called
the Theseion.
61.3 ἐπιτίθεσθαι: The infinitive explains what they were suspected of.
τοὺς ὁμήρους τῶν Ἀργείων: In 416, after it revolted against its Spartan-
imposed oligarchy, Argos handed over three hundred pro-Spartan
citizens to Athens as hostages (5.84.1).
διαχρήσασθαι: Infinitive of purpose with παρέδοσαν (Sm. 2009).
61.4 περιειστήκει: From περιίστημι.

τὴν Σαλαμινίαν ναῦν: This closes the ring begun in 6.53.1, when
Thucydides announced the arrival of the Salaminia in Sicily.
ὧν πέρι ἄλλων ἐμεμήνυτο: = ἐπὶ τοὺς ἄλλους περὶ ὧν ἐμεμήνυτο. The
accusative antecedent has been attracted into the case of the relative
(Sm. 2533). The accent has shifted on περί because it is postpositive,
coming after its object (Sm. 175a).
61.5 εἴρητο: “it had been said” to the men on the Salaminia, i.e., “they
had been ordered to . . . ,” with the infinitives completing the thought.
ἀπολογησομένῳ ἀκολουθεῖν: “to follow them to answer charges.”
Future participle expressing purpose (Sm. 2065).
θεραπεύοντες: “taking care that . . .” (LSJ II.3). The subject is the
implied speakers of εἴρητο (as also for βουλόμενοι and νομίζοντες
below). The following articular infinitive indicates what they were
concerned about.
παραμεῖναι . . . πεισθῆναι: Infinitives in indirect discourse after
νομίζοντες. The subject of both is the Mantineians and Argives.
61.6 τὴν ἑαυτοῦ ναῦν: Literally his own (cf. n. 6.50.1b). The Athenians
seem remarkably naïve here, just like those duped by the Egestaians
(6.46).
ὡς ἐς τὰς Ἀθήνας: “as though” (Sm. 2996) going toward Athens.
ἐπὶ διαβολῇ: “in conditions of slander” (LSJ s.v. ἐπί B.I.1.i).
61.7 ἐς Πελοπόννησον: And so the demos effected what it feared, and

Alkibiades fled to the enemy, just as Hippias fled to Persia.
ἐρήμῃ δίκῃ: “in a judgment by default” (LSJ III). One of the preserved
fragments of the Poletai lists that record the sale of the property con-
fiscated from the men accused of profaning the mysteries and mutilat-
ing the herms records the sale of over four thousand drachmas of the
property of Alkibiades himself, including the sale of bronze pots and
of crops from Thria (Lalonde, Langdon, and Walbank 1991, P1; IG I3
421, available translated online at Attic Inscriptions Online).
αὐτοῦ: One lays a charge on a person in the genitive.
The Athenians Sail to Various Cities (6.62)

62.1 ἐπὶ Σελινοῦντος καὶ Ἐγέστης: “toward Selinous and Egesta.” Actu-
ally, only Nikias went to Egesta, and nobody went to Selinous. The
remaining generals basically continue with Alkibiades’s plan (6.48).
καὶ τὰ διάφορα μαθεῖν: That the generals do not know the issues at stake
between Selinous and Egesta strongly underscores that that conflict
was not really one of the main reasons for the expedition despite 6.8.2.
62.2 ἐν ἀριστερᾷ: That is, along the north coast of Sicily.

τὸν Τυρσηνικὸν κόλπον: This refers to the Tyrrhenian Sea between the
west coast of Italy and the north coast of Sicily.
ἔσχον ἐς: “they put in at” (LSJ A.II.8).
ἥπερ μόνη . . . Ἑλλὰς πόλις ἐστίν: Himera was destroyed in 409
(Diodoros 13.62). For this reason, some argue that this passage must
have been written before 409 and never revised. More recently,
scholars have been less interested in parsing out the various layers of
Thucydides’s composition (see introduction 1.5). The adjectival use
of Ἑλλάς, though well attested (cf. Herodotus 7.22.3), is unique for
Thucydides
62.3 τῷ μὲν πεζῷ: The “dative of military accompaniment” (Sm. 1526).

The troops go overland so that the slaves can go by ship and be in
good condition when they get to market. A fragmentary inscription
(IG I3 291) lists at least 251 talents contributed to Athens from cities in
Sicily. It is plausibly associated with this fundraising march (Meritt,
Woodhead, and Stamires 1957, 200), although it might also fit with
events in 414 described at 6.71.2 or in 427–424. If the inscription dates
to 415, as both Hornblower (3:458–61) and Dover agree, it would show
that the Athenians had at least 401 talents available to them (the 251
reconstructed on the inscription, the original 30 from Egesta, and 120
from the sale of these slaves). If Thucydides was not ignorant of these
contributions (if they do, indeed, relate to this march), it would show
that he deliberately painted a bleaker-than-accurate picture both of
the Athenian reception in Sicily and of their finances.
62.4 τἆλλα χρηματίσας: That is, looking into the differences between
Selinous and Egesta (62.1).
62.5 ἐς τοὺς τῶν Σικελῶν ξυμμάχους: The genitive is partitive (Sm.

1306), not possessive: “to their allies among the Sikels.”
τῇ τε ἡμισείᾳ τῆς: i.e., τῆς στρατιᾶς. Another “dative of military accom-
καὶ οὐχ εἷλον: Thucydides ends the summer with this failure. He does
not describe any effect on the Sicilians from the Athenians’ failure
here (although see 6.63.2), but he has already demonstrated that
the actors in his history watch what people do (or fail to do) in the
“didactic arenas” of the war and make judgments about later strategy
based on what they have seen (Rood 1998a, 64–69; see Davidson
1991, 14 for the term “didactic arena”). Since they arrived in Sicily, the
Athenians failed to win over Messana (6.50), were received at Naxos
but refused entrance at Katane (6.50.3), made a proclamation at Syra-
cuse (6.50.4–5), won entrance at Katane by chance (6.51), were tricked
into wrongly thinking Kamarina would go over to them (6.52), were
refused entrance to Himera (6.62.2), took tiny Hykkara (6.62.3), got 30
talents from Egesta and 120 talents from the sale of slaves (6.62.4), and
failed to take Hybla (6.62.5). This is not a particularly impressive list
for the summer of 415.
Athenian Victory at Syracuse (6.63–6.72.1a),

“Winter” 415–414
63.1 τοῦ δ᾿ ἐπιγιγνομένου χειμῶνος: Genitive of time within which (Sm.

1444). ἐπιγίγνομαι means “the following, the next” (LSJ). This is the
winter of 415/14, beginning in early November 415 and running until
spring 414. See introduction 1.6 for Thucydides’s dating system.
ὡς ἐπ ἐκείνους ἰόντες: That is, “and the Syracusans prepared how they
would. . . .”
63.2 πρὸς τὸν πρῶτον φόβον καί: “in accordance with . . .” (LSJ C.III.5).
οὐκ εὐθὺς ἐπέκειντο: Thucydides uses a similar phrase to describe
Demosthenes’s judgment about what Nikias should have done (7.42.3),
which is generally thought to be Thucydides’s judgment as well.
Thucydides’s stress in this paragraph on the Syracusans’ psychological
reaction supports Lamachos’s original (rejected) plan (6.49).
κατά τε τὴν ἡμέραν ἑκάστην προïοῦσαν: “day by day; each passing day”
(LSJ B.II.2).
τὰ ἐπ᾿ ἐκεῖνα: “toward the far side” (LSJ C.I.2).
κατεφρόνησαν: The Syracusans, that is, have recovered from their initial
fear, just as Lamachos said they would if the Athenians did not attack
immediately (6.49.2).
63.3 εἰ ξυνοικήσοντες . . . ἐν τῇ ἀλλοτρίᾳ . . . κατοικιοῦντες: Future

participles for purpose (Sm. 2065). The theme of the “near and the
far” and the city theme (see introduction 6.1, 6.6). The cavalry suggest
that the Athenians have abandoned Attica in favor of a colonial city
“in a foreign land” and do not understand attachments to “one’s home
territory.”
64.1 αὐτοὶ δὲ . . . παραπλεύσαντες . . . καταλαμβάνειν: This infinitive,

like ἄγειν, is dependent on βουλόμενοι above. That is, this is still a
description of the Athenians’ plan. αὐτοί and the participle are nomi-
native rather than accusative (the regular case for the subject of an
infinitive) because they agree with the subject of the main verb (Sm.
1973).
ἐν τοσούτῳ: “in the meantime” (LSJ II).
οὐκ ἂν ὁμοίως . . . καί εἰ: “not equally as if,” i.e., they would be less able if.
ἂν . . . δυνηθέντες: A participle in indirect discourse after ειδότες (Sm.
2106). It represents the apodosis (the “then” clause) of a future less
vivid or “should/would” condition, the protasis (or “if” clause) of
which is εἰ . . . ἐκβιβάζοιεν ἢ . . . γνωσθεῖεν. Thus, “knowing that they
would not be equally capable (ἂν . . . δυνηθέντες) if they should make
a landing . . . or should be detected (γνωσθεῖεν) if they came by land.”
τοὺς . . . ψιλοὺς . . . καὶ τὸν ὄχλον: The Athenians. Object of βλάπτειν
below, the subject of which is τῶν Συρακοσίων τοὺς ἱππέας. From
the participle, Thucydides has switched to the infinitive with subject
accusative in indirect discourse after εἰδότες (Sm. 2018). This is rare
(LSJ B.4). Thus, “knowing that the Syracusan cavalry . . . would
greatly harm (βλάπτειν ἂν μεγάλα). . . .”
σφίσι δ᾿ οὐ παρόντων ἱππέων: Causal genitive absolute, “since they
had no cavalry” (Sm. 2070), with the dative of possession (Sm. 1476).
Thucydides does not let us forget this deficiency.
οὕτω δέ: That is, by means of the plan proposed.
λήψεσθαι: The subject is the Athenians. This is still in indirect discourse
after εἰδότες above (Sm. 2018), i.e., “but knowing that with this plan
(οὕτω) they would capture. . . .”
ἄξια λόγου: “worth speaking of” (Crawley).
πρὸς τῷ Ὀλυμπιείῳ: Τhe Olympieion was a walled, inhabited area near
the temple of Olympian Zeus, the remains of which are at Le Colonne,
inland about one kilometer west of the approximate center of the
great harbor of Syracuse. See map 3. Thucydides’s failure to locate the
Olympieion for his readers demonstrates his general failure to give any
real geographical description of the area around Syracuse. This “reti-
cence about giving geographical information” is “characteristic,” but
“pronounced” in Sicily, according to Funke and Haake (2006, 381).
ὅπερ καὶ κατέλαβον: “which they later occupied.”

πρὸς ἅ: “in accordance with the things which.” Thucydides has left out the
antecedent, as is common when it refers to a general idea (Sm. 2509).
64.2 τῇ δοκήσει: “seemingly.”
64.3 ἔλεγε δὲ τοὺς Ἀθηναίους αὐλίζεσθαι: The infinitive, with accusa-

tive subject, is in indirect discourse after ἔλεγε (Sm. 2017). The Athe-
nians here cleverly trick the Syracusans. The Syracusans do not have
sufficient gnome to resist. In Birds of 414, Aristophanes has a character
say “You outshoot/outdo Nikias ταῖς μηχαναῖς,” which means either
“in engineering” or “in clever tricks” (line 363). If the latter, it is likely
Aristophanes refers to this clever trick, which “must have become
known at Athens before the end of winter 415/4” (Dunbar 1995, 276).
By the end of the campaign, however, the Athenians are the ones
deceived (7.73.3–4). This contrast fits with Thucydides’s theme empha-
sizing the Athenians’ loss of key characteristics over the course of the
campaign, and the way in which the Syracusans grow and learn over
time (see introduction 6.5).
αὐτοὶ μὲν ἀποκλῄσειν . . . ἐμπρήσειν: Infinitives in indirect discourse
after ἔλεγε (Sm. 2017). αὐτοί is nominative rather than accusative, the
regular case for the subject of an infinitive, because it includes also the
speaker of the main verb (Sm. 1973).
τοὺς παρὰ σφίσι: “those (Athenians) with them,” i.e., inside Katane.
ἐκείνους . . . αἱρήσειν: Infinitive in indirect discourse after ἔλεγε (Sm.
2017). The accusative subject here is the Syracusans.
εἶναι . . . ἡτοιμάσθαι . . . ἥκειν: “he said that there were many of the
Katanaians who would do these things with them (ξυνδράσοντας) . . .
from whom he himself came.” Infinitives in indirect discourse after
ἔλεγε (Sm. 2017). The subject of the last is nominative rather than
accusative, the regular case for the subject of an infinitive, because it
includes the subject of the leading verb (Sm. 1973).
65.1 μετὰ τοῦ . . . θαρσεῖν καὶ εἶναι ἐν διανοίᾳ . . . ἰέναι παρεσκευάσθαι:
“in accordance with being confident (τοῦ . . . θαρσεῖν) also in other
respects (καὶ ἐς τὰ ἄλλα) and having it in mind. . . .” A typically

Thucydidean complex articular infinitive after a preposition (Sm.
2032g); see introduction 2.3.5.
ἑτοῖμα . . . τὰ τῆς παρασκευῆς ἦν: This is “the first demonstrable show of
actual preparations by Syracuse” (Allison 1989, 43) and is ominous for
the future.
65.3 ὡς . . . καταληψόμενοι: Future participle for purpose (Sm. 2065).

ὡς gives the intention or opinion of the agent (Sm. 2086).
ἀνῆκται: From ἀνάγω.

καθ᾿ ἡσυχίαν . . . ἐς χωρίον ἐπιτήδειον: The repetition from 6.64.1
emphasizes how well the plan has worked. Dover (in HCT 4:482–84)
argues that the Athenians landed both south and north of the Anapos
River and fought the coming battle north of it. This is in part because
he believes that the river “even at the height of summer” (481) was a
real obstacle. Green (1970, 158–61) and Kagan (1981, 230–36) think the
beachhead was south of the river, but that the battle was north of it.
Lazenby (2004, 142) thinks the beachhead and battle were both south
of the Anapos.
καὶ ἐν τῷ ἔργῳ: “both during battle. . . .”
λυπήσειν: We must assume an understood optative of μέλλω (hence the
ἄν) to go with this future infinitive
τῇ μὲν . . . παρὰ δέ τό: “on one side . . . , on the other.” Variatio (see
introduction 2.3.6). Thucydides refuses to use the same construction
for a parallel idea.
66.2 παρά τε τὰς ναῦς σταύρωμα: Later both the Athenians and
Syracusans planted stockades in the sea to protect their ships (7.25.5;
7.38.2), but this is a stockade on land to allow safe reembarkation if the
Athenians failed to hold their beachhead. The Athenians, as yet, do
not fear attack from the sea.
καὶ ἐπὶ τῷ Δάσκωνι ἔρυμά τι: “and built a defensive position at Daskon.”
Dover (in HCT 4:480–81) conjectured that Daskon was the name
for the stretch of coast along the southern shore of the great harbor
between Punta Caderini and Punta Spinazza (see map 3). The identi-
fication is accepted with hesitation by Hornblower (3:468–69). Dover
urges acceptance of the mss. reading ἔρυμά τε here, which would
run “and they built a stockade both for the ships and as a defense
against Daskon and (τε) [built] a defensive position.” As Kagan notes,
however, Krüger’s emendation ἔρυμά τι (printed in the OCT) gives
perfectly good sense, with a less strained reading of ἐπὶ τῷ Δάσκωνι
as “at Daskon,” i.e., “and they built a stockade for the ships and a
defensive position at Daskon” (1981, 233n6). This would seem to make
Daskon = Punta Caderini itself. Such a point could also have given
the name Daskon to the whole section of the bay in front of it, which
Thucydides’s description of Eurymedon’s death (7.52.2) seems to
indicate was the case.
ᾗ: “where” (LSJ s.v. ὅς, ἥ, ὅ Ab.II).
λογάδην: “picked out.” Adverbial Accusative (Sm. 1608).
διὰ ταχέων: = ταχέως (LSJ B.2).
τοῦ Ἀνάπου: The Athenians probably landed south of the Anapos. The
approximate location is fixed by Thucydides’s statement that they
landed near the Olympieion, whose location is known (see n. 6.64.1).
It is puzzling that Thucydides does not otherwise mention the river in
his account of the landing or coming battle.
66.3 παρασκευαζομένων: Understand τῶν Ἀθηναίων. Temporal geni-

tive absolute, “while they were . . .” (Sm. 2070).
τὸ πρῶτον: Adverbial Accusative (Sm. 1611).
67.1 τὸ μὲν ἥμισυ: ca. 2,550 men (cf. 6.43).

τεταγμένον ἐπὶ ὀκτώ: “eight deep” (LSJ s.v. ἐπί A.Ι.2.d).
ἐν πλαισίῳ: A “hollow” rectangle, except that the baggage and baggage
handlers filled the hollow space formed by the hoplites.
ᾗ ἄν: “wherever” (LSJ s.v. ὅς, ἥ, ὅ Ab.II).
ἐφορῶντας παραγίγνεσθαι: The infinitive is dependent on εἴρητο
above. The accusative subject of the infinitive represents the same
men just referred to in οἷς, the men making the “hollow” square.
67.2 ἐφ᾿ ἑκκαίδεκα: “sixteen deep” (LSJ s.v. ἐπί A.Ι.2.d).

ὅσον εἴκοσι . . . ὡς πεντήκοντα: ὅσον and ὡς with numbers = “about.”
67.3 κατὰ τε ἔθνη . . . ἕκαστα: “nation by nation.”
Battlefield Speech of Nikias (6.68)

It is typical of the defeatist Nikias to speak as if the Athenians are in des-
perate straits when in fact events at Syracuse so far have gone just as they
planned. His speech begins with some reminders of the strengths of the
Athenian army and its elite status, but he does not think to congratulate
his men for securing an unopposed landing with their clever stratagem.
He then moves quickly to discuss the difficulty of fighting in a foreign land
and the dangers if they fail. There is no talk of the possible prizes to come,
of conquest, glory, or gain. One gets the impression that Nikias is not the
right man for this job.
68.1 παραινέσει: Dative with χρῆσθαι (Sm. 1509).

ἡ παρασκευή: See n. 6.1.1.
θάρσος παρασχεῖν: This epexegetical (explanatory) infinitive explains
the adjective ἱκανωτέρα (Sm. 2001).
68.2 ὅπου: “whereas” (LSJ II.2).

ἔχειν: Infinitive subject of χρή (Sm. 1985). The understood subject of the
infinitive is “us.”
διὰ τὸ τὴν ἐπιστήμην τῆς τόλμης ἥσσω ἔχειν: Articular infinitive after
a preposition (Sm. 2034b). The understood subject is the Syracusans.
τῆς τόλμης is genitive of comparison after ἥσσω (Sm. 1431). τὴν
ἐπιστήμην is the object of the infinitive. But the Sicilians will learn
and will gain experience.
68.3 παραστήτω: From παρίστημι. Thus, “let this be set before the mind
of everyone, that. . . .”
εἶναι: Understand ἡμᾶς, “that we are. . . .” Infinitive with subject accusa-
tive in indirect discourse after παραστήτω (Sm. 2018).
ἥντινα . . . κτήσεσθε: “which (friendly land) you will not possess if you
do not fight for it.” The μή shows that the participle is conditional (Sm.
2728).
εὖ οἶδ᾿ ὅτι: Parenthetical, “as I well know” (LSJ s.v. *εἴδω B.8).
οὐκ ἐν πατρίδι . . . ἀποχωρεῖν: “not in your fatherland [but in a land]
from which it is necessary to conquer or not easily to depart.” That
is, in a land that you must conquer; if you do not, you will not easily
depart from it.
68.4 τὴν παροῦσαν ἀνάγκην καὶ ἀπορίαν: Dwelling on these elements

seems unlikely to inspire.
τῶν πολεμίων: Genitive of comparison (Sm. 1431).
69.1 ἀπροσδόκητοι . . . ὡς: “not expecting; unaware (LSJ II) . . . that.”
ἐγγυς τῆς πόλεως οὔσης: Causal genitive absolute, “since the city . . .”
(Sm. 2070).
ὡς δὲ ἕκαστός πῃ τοῖς πλέοσι προσμείξειε: “as each man everywhere
joined in with the main force.”
οὔτ᾿ ἐν ταῖς ἄλλαις: In Thucydides’s paradigmatic style, he tells readers
here generalities that hold for all the battles to come.
οὐκ ἥσσους: Also with ἦσαν. ἥσσους is nominative masculine plural
(Sm. 293).
ἐς ὅσον: “as long as” (LSJ VI).
τῷ δὲ ἐλλείποντι αὐτῆς: “but (δὲ) because of the absence of this [i.e.,
ἐπιστήμη].”
ὅμως: “nevertheless” with ἀντεπῇσαν.
οὐκ ἂν οἰόμενοι . . . καὶ . . . ἀναγκαζόμενοι ἀμύνασθαι: “although not
thinking that the Athenians would attack (ἂν . . . ἐπελθεῖν) them
(σφίσι), and being compelled to . . . , nevertheless. . . .” A concessive
participial clause (Sm. 2066) setting up ὅμως and the clause that
follows. οἰόμενοι sets up accusative and infinitive indirect discourse
(Sm. 2018). The ἄν goes with the infinitive.
69.2 τροπὰς οἵας εἰκὸς ψιλοὺς ἀλλήλων ἐποίουν: “and made routs of
each other of the sort that (οἵας) it is likely for light-armed troops [to
make].” The understood infinitive (with its subject accusative) is the

subject of εἰκός.
σφάγια . . . τὰ νομιζόμενα: Marchant (at 6.71.1) notes how for this first
battle Thucydides includes details about elements common to all bat-
tles (the sacrifices, trumpeters, exchange of dead, burial, and trans-
port of ashes back to Athens). These are paradigmatic. Thucydides
expects us to imagine all these elements for subsequent battles even
though he will not repeat them. But Rahe points out that it is only
Nikias among Athenian commanders that Thucydides alludes to
as having conducted a sacrifice (2017, 429). This must connect to
Thucydides’s judgment that he was overly dependent on divination
and the like and to Nikias’s disastrous acceptance of the seers’ delay of
the Athenian retreat (7.50.3–4).
69.3 τὸ μὲν αὐτίκα: “immediate.” Adverbial accusative (Sm. 1611). In

contrast to τὸ δὲ μέλλον, meaning “for the future” (LSJ IV).
τῶν δ᾿ ἐναντίων: “and among their opponents, the Athenians. . . .” Parti-
tive genitive (Sm. 1306).
οἰκείαν σχεῖν: “to get it as their own homeland.” Like οἰκείαν μὴ βλάψαι
an infinitive of purpose (Sm. 2008) further explaining περί τε τῆς
ἀλλοτρίας [γῆς]. This resonates with the city/colonization theme (see
introduction 6.6). Thucydides depicts the Athenians as increasingly
unsure where their “home” land lies.
ἡσσώμενοι: “if they were defeated.” Conditional participle (Sm. 2067).
Like νικήσαντες below, “if they won.”
ξυγκτήσασθαί τε ἐκείνοις ἐφ᾿ ἃ ἧλθον: “to acquire with (ξυγ) them (the
Athenians) [the things] for which they came.” Another infinitive of
purpose (Sm. 2008) like ἐπιδεῖν. Thucydides has left out the anteced-
ent, as is common when it refers to a general idea (Sm. 2509).
τὸ δ᾿ ὑπήκοον τῶν ξυμμάχων: Neuter collective for “the subject allies.”
μέγιστον: “mostly; especially.” Adverbial accusative (Sm. 1609). Con-
trasted with ἔπειτα δὲ ἐν παρέργῳ below, meaning “as a secondary
[motive]” (LSJ II).
ἢν μὴ κρατῶσι: Explains ἀνελπίστου. Their preservation was “unhoped
for . . . if they did not win.”
εἴ τι ἄλλο ξυγκαταστρεψαμένοις ῥᾷον αὐτοῖς ὑπακούσεται: If the text

is correct, the verb must be an impersonal passive, meaning, with
ῥᾷον, “the service will be lighter” (LSJ IV) for them “having joined
in acquiring something together with the Athenians.” Dover prefers
a different text with nominative ξυγκαταστρεψάμενοι and plural
personal verb ὑπακούσονται, which he translates literally as “if having
joined in subduing something else they will be subject to them more
easily.” This is preferable.
70.1 γενομένης . . . τῆς μάχης: Temporal genitive absolute, “and when
the battle . . .” (Sm. 2070).
γενέσθαι: Infinitive subject of ξυνέβη with its own accusative subject
(Sm. 1985).
ὥστε . . . τοῦτο ξυνεπιλαβέσθαι τοῦ φόβου . . . τὰ μὲν γιγνόμενα . . .
περαίνεσθαι δοκεῖν: The first infinitive means “contribute to” and
takes the genitive. These are infinitives in a natural result clause (Sm.
2258) pertaining to two groups of men (see below). τὰ μὲν γιγνόμενα
is the accusative subject of the second (set of) infinitives.
τοῖς μὲν πρῶτον μαχομένοις καὶ ἐλάχιστα πολέμῳ ὡμιληκόσι . . . τοῖς
δ᾿ ἐμπειροτέροις: Hornblower resists thinking that Thucydides’s
contrast is between the whole of the Syracusan army and the whole
of the Athenian army because of “the absurdity and exaggeration” of
such a statement (3:479). Hermokrates, of course, makes a similarly
extravagant claim: the Syracusans were “amateurs” fighting against
“skilled craftsmen” (6.72.3). But that is an exaggeration in a speech, not
a statement by Thucydides himself. Hornblower, therefore, prefers to
understand the whole sentence (not just the second half) to be about
the Athenians and to distinguish more and less experienced men
within their ranks (3:480). This still allows a striking contrast between
the experienced men’s reaction to natural phenomena at this point
and later when seemingly all Athenians take some thunder and rain
to be bad omens (7.79.3). If the contrast is, in fact, between the Syra-
cusans and Athenians in general—which I tend to suspect because
Thucydides has earlier spoken of qualities of all the Syracusans, and so
a contrast between all the Syracusans and all the Athenians seems the
first reading here—it fits with Thucydides’s demonstration that in the

early days of the Sicilian expedition, the Syracusans were deficient in
gnome (cf. 6.64.3 and Syracusan debate).
τοὺς δὲ ἀνθεστῶτας . . . μὴ νικωμένους: “and those opposing them
provided [to the experienced men] . . . if they were not being beaten.”
Accusative subject of παρέχειν, itself either a subject of ξυνέβη above
(Sm. 1985) or a continuation of the natural result clause. The μή shows
that the participle is conditional (Sm. 2067, 2728).
70.2 ὠσαμένων δὲ τῶν Ἀργείων . . . τῶν Ἀθηναίων: Temporal genitive

absolute, “when the Argives . . . when the Athenians . . .” (Sm. 2070).
The participle is from ὠθέων.
παρερρήγνυτο: For survival, a hoplite army has to hold its position and
its line, since each man is partly protected by the shield of his comrade
to his right. Once the line is broken, a hoplite army cannot hold, and it
is very difficult to reform the line in the face of the enemy (see Hanson
1989, 177–78).
70.3 οἱ γὰρ ἱππῆς: The Syracusan superiority in cavalry proved crucial. It

caused the Athenians to delay any further attempt on Syracuse until
the following spring—a point Hermokrates will make the most of in
his speech (6.76–80)—and so the cavalry action here is one of the key
moments of the whole Sicilian expedition. Nikias’s gloom about cavalry
in his speech in Athens (6.20.4) is thus fully vindicated by the narrative.
τροπαῖον ἵστασαν: Connor points out that this comment and
Thucydides’s other remarks about trophies succinctly indicate the
morale of both sides (1984, 186n3). Thucydides records ten Athenian
trophies in this portion of the work (6.70.3, 6.94.2, 6.97.5, 6.98.4,
6.100.3, 6.103.1, 7.5.3, 7.23.4, 7.34.8, 7.54). Syracusan trophies start at
7.24.1 (also 7.41.4, 7.45.1, 7.54, 7.72.1).
70.4 ὡς ἐκ τῶν παρόντων: “as well as they could under present circum-
stances.”
δείσαντες μή . . . κινήσωσι: Subjunctive in a fear clause. This is a fear that
something may happen. Fears that something may not happen are
introduced by μή οὐ (Sm. 2221).
71.1 αὐτοῦ: “there.”

περὶ ἑξήκοντα καὶ διακοσίους: περί with numbers = “about” (LSJ
C.II.2).
ὡς πεντήκοντα: ὡς + numbers = “about” (Sm. 2995).
ἀπέπλευσαν ἐς Κατάνην: Rood notes that after a “sequence of formulaic
actions” that demonstrate victory (the setting up of a trophy, the
treatment of the dead, and the taking of spoils), the withdrawal is a
“surprise” (1998a, 170). One wonders what the point of the landing at
Syracuse was. Thucydides makes no comment, but his judgment can
be inferred from 7.42.3, where he indicates that Demosthenes thought
this withdrawal was a mistake. Most scholars take Demosthenes’s
judgment to coincide with Thucydides’s own (see n. 7.42.3). It is
especially ironic that Nikias does not follow his own advice that the
Athenians had to become master of the country on the first day they
landed (6.23.2). Kallet argues that Thucydides reached his analysis
of the outcome of the Trojan War (1.9–11) by comparison with the
Sicilian campaign (2001, 98–101). In both arenas, the invaders would
have done better if they had brought sufficient supplies and had not
had to waste time raising money. Aristophanes (Birds 639) coins the
word μελλονικιᾶν, which “probably means ‘to suffer from the Nikias-
dithers’ ” (Dunbar 1995, 414). Dunbar connects the word to Nikias’s
hesitation about sending the expedition. Kagan connects it directly to
this withdrawal (1981, 237).
71.2 πρὶν ἂν . . . μεταπέμψωσιν: After a negative clause, πρίν means

“until” and takes a subjunctive or optative for indefinite time
(Sm. 2432). It governs all the subjunctives in the sentence except
ἱπποκρατῶνται, which is governed by ὅπως μή.
ἱπποκρατῶνται: Thucydides seems to have coined this verb, which has
powerful negative echoes of the adjective ναυκράτορες, “masters of
the sea.” Τhe Athenians use that word twice in the Melian Dialogue
when explaining the reasons for Athenian imperialism (5.97, 5.109),
and Alkibiades uses it to predict safety in the Sicilian expedition
(6.18.5). ἱπποκρατῶνται also echoes the verb ναυκρατεῖν, “to have
mastery at sea.” Before the final terrible battle in the great harbor,
the Athenian generals realize that they have no hope if they do not
ναυκρατεῖν (7.60.2). Their failure to do so completes the reversal of
situation for the Athenians in Sicily (see introduction 6.5).
χρήματα: Is both object of ξυλλέξωνται and subject of ἔλθῃ.
ὅσων δέοι: “as many things as there might be need of.” Thucydides has
left out the antecedent, as is common when it refers to a general idea
(Sm. 2509). The verb παρασκευάσωνται here is “significant” since
“we had thought and had been told that the expedition was the great-
est paraskeue conceived by a Greek state.” “Why now at this early
stage is there need for further preparations?” asks Allison (1989, 69).
Allison goes on to note that after this instance, every use of the noun
or verb for “preparation” in book 6 is about Syracuse and its allies or
spoken by a Syracusan (6.72.4, 5; 6.79.3, 6.86.3, 6.93.3, 6.104.3). The
one exception is an utterance by Alkibiades (6.91.3). The word, that is,
helps us see the tables turn.
ὡς . . . ἐπιχειρήσοντες: ὡς + future participle for purpose (Sm. 2065).
The Aftermath of Battle and

Preparations on Both Sides (6.72.1b–6.73)
See above (n. 6.1.1–6.7.1a) for beginning a narrative unit within the tradi-
tional (but non-Thucydidean) paragraphing. Dewald notes that the very
fact that the Syracusans hold this assembly is “threatening,” and that the
scene shows that they have a “formidable leader” in Hermokrates (2005,
152). In addition, the Syracusans’ decision to take his advice demonstrates
that “in Syracuse the Athenians have unwittingly taken on an enemy equal
to themselves” (cf. n. 8.1.2).
72.2 ἀνὴρ καὶ ἐς τἆλλα ξύνεσιν οὐδενὸς λειπόμενος: ξύνεσιν is accusa-

tive of respect (Sm. 1600). It is striking that Thucydides introduces
Hermokrates here when we have seen him as recently as 6.32. To
scholars still in the grip of the “composition question” (see introduc-
tion 1.5), this seemed a possible indication of incompleteness (cf.
Andrewes in HCT 5:368). Rather, Thucydides gives Hermokrates
a formal introduction here and not earlier to signal his importance
at just this point. As M. Bakker notes, Thucydides introduces Her-

mokrates and focuses on his abilities at the point where “they are the
ultimate cause behind a crucial event which contributes to Athenian
defeat in Sicily” (2013, 32; cf. Westlake 1968, 10).
72.3 τὴν μὲν γὰρ γνώμην . . . οὐχ ἡσσῆσθαι: Infinitive with subject
accusative in implied indirect discourse after an assumed “he said”
(Sm. 2017).
οὐ μέντοι τοσοῦτόν . . . ὅσον: “and he said that they were not beaten so
much (οὐ τοσοῦτόν) as (ὅσον) was expected.” Adverbial accusative
(Sm. 1609) in another accusative/infinitive construction after an
assumed “he said.”
ἰδιώτας . . . ἀνταγωνισαμένους: These words modify “them,” the under-
stood accusative subject of λειφθῆναι. ὡς εἰπεῖν, “so to speak, almost”
(Sm. 2012a), is a limiting parenthetical phrase that restricts the power
of ἰδιώτας.
χειροτέχναις: The Athenians’ greater skill serves as an encouragement to
the Syracusans because they did not fare as badly as they might have.
Later Hermokrates will argue that the Syracusans have every likeli-
hood of besting the Athenians even in seamanship (7.21.3).
72.4 μέγα: Adverbial accusative (Sm. 1609).

βλάψαι . . . τὸ πλῆθος . . . καὶ τὴν πολυαρχίαν . . . τε . . . τὴν . . .
ἀναρχίαν: An infinitive with subject accusatives still in implied indi-
rect discourse after an understood “he said.”
ἢν . . . γένωνται . . . παρασκευάσωσι. . . . ἔφη . . . κρατήσειν: A future
more vivid condition where the verb of the apodosis (the “then”
clause) is infinitive in indirect discourse after ἔφη. ἤν = ἐάν.
οἷς: “to those for whom” (dative of possession; Sm. 1476). Thucydides has
left out the antecedent, as is common when it refers to a general idea
(Sm. 2509).
ὅπως ὡς πλεῖστοι ἔσονται: ὅπως + future indicative after a verb of effort
(Sm. 2211). ὡς + superlative = “as X as possible” (Sm. 1086).
κατὰ τὸ εἰκός: “in all likelihood” (LSJ 2).
ἀνδρείας . . . ὑπαρχούσης, εὐταξίας δ᾿ . . . προσγενομένης: Causal geni-

tive absolute, “since bravery . . .” (Sm. 2070). Hermokrates thus echoes
Thucydides’s own assessment in the narrative section (6.69).
ἐπιδώσειν: Intransitive, “increase, advance” (LSJ III). An infinitive with
subject accusative in indirect discourse, still after ἔφη (Sm. 2017).
τὴν δ᾿ εὐψυχίαν . . . ἑαυτῆς . . . θαρσαλεωτέραν ἔσεσθαι: “and that their
valor would be more courageous than it already is with the knowledge
of skill.” An infinitive with subject accusative in indirect discourse
after ἔφη (Sm. 2017). ἑαυτῆς (literally, “than itself”) is genitive of
comparison (Sm. 1431).
72.5 ἑλέσθαι . . . ὀμόσαι: The subject is an understood “Syracusans.”

Both infinitives are subject of χρῆναι (Sm. 1985), itself an infinitive in
indirect discourse (Sm. 2017) after ἔφη.
ἦ μήν: “in truth.” This combination of particles begins oaths (Sm. 2865;
Denniston GP, 350–51).
μᾶλλον ἂν στέγεσθαι . . . παρασκευασθῆναι: Infinitives in indirect
discourse (Sm. 2017). The subject of the first infinitive is the omitted
antecedent of ἅ, “the things which. . . .”
73.2 ἀπαγάγωσιν . . . ἐπιπέμπωσιν: The subject of the first verb is the
Lakedaimonians; that of the second, the Athenians. The switch is harsh.
ὠφελίαν ἄλλην: The Athenians do send reinforcements to Sicily despite
renewed war in Attica. It seems that Thucydides does not approve (cf.
7.27.2).
The Athenians at Katane,

Messana, and Naxos (6.74)
74.1 ὡς προδοθησομένην: “believing that it would be betrayed.” The ὡς
indicates the incorrect expectation of the Athenians, the subject of the
main verb (Sm. 2086).
ἃ μὲν ἐπράσσετο: “the things that were being negotiated.”
Ἀλκιβιάδης . . . μηνύει: And so we see the first consequence for the
Athenian war effort of the recall of Alkibiades.
ἐπεκράτουν μὴ δέχεσθαι: “they carried the point that they . . .” (LSJ s.v.
κρατέω II.2).
oἱ ταῦτα βουλόμενοι: Best understood as an epexegetical (explanatory)

apposition to οἱ δέ above. Some have bracketed as a marginal gloss,
that is, something written as a note in the margin of a manuscript that
a later scribe mistakenly copied into the text.
74.2 περὶ τρεῖς καὶ δέκα: περί with numbers = “about” (LSJ C.II.2).
Syracusan Activities,
Conference at Kamarina (6.75–6.88.2a)
75.1 ἐτείχιζον: With cognate accusative τεῖχος below. This is the “winter
wall.” Although Temenites is to the west of Syracuse, this wall prob-
ably did not run straight west from the city but, after swinging out
to enclose Temenites, ran due north. At 6.99.1 the Athenians build a
wall roughly parallel to the “winter wall” that runs north. See map 3.
The building of this wall is one of the consequences of the Athenians’
dilatoriness. If the Athenians had already begun the siege of Syracuse,
the Syracusans could never have built this wall, and the area that the
Athenians would have had to enclose would have been much smaller
(cf. Kagan 1981, 244).
παρὰ πᾶν τὸ πρὸς τὰς Ἐπιπολὰς ὁρῶν: “along all the [area] looking
toward Epipolai.” The participle is neuter (Sm. 310). Epipolai is the
name of the plateau north of Syracuse. If the “winter wall” ran north
from the city, Epipolai here must mean that part of the plateau west of
the area now newly enclosed. See map 3. De Romilly points out that
the unifying element of the text in all these chapters is “the attempt
to surround Syracuse with fortifications and its failure” (2012, 9).
If the Athenians could wall off the city, and blockade it also by sea,
they could prevent supplies from coming in and starve Syracuse into
submission, but they failed on both land and sea.
δι᾿ ἐλάσσονος: “at a smaller distance” (LSJ 3). The Syracusans’ goal is
to make larger the area that the Athenians would have to enclose in
order to wall off their city.
καὶ τὰ Μέγαρα φρούριον: “and they built up Megara [as] a fort.”
Another object for ἐτείχιζον. Lamachos had proposed making Megara
the Athenians’ base (6.49.4).
πανταχῇ ᾗ: “everywhere where. . . .” This must refer only to the area near
the Great Harbor because the Athenians later landed on the north side
of Epipolai without difficulty (6.97.1).
75.2 τοὺς Ἀθηναίους . . . χειμάζοντας: Accusative and supplementary

participle in indirect discourse after εἰδότες (Sm. 2106).
τῆς τε γῆς . . . ἔτεμον: “some of their land.” Partitive genitive (Sm. 1306).
75.3 τοὺς Ἀθηναίους . . . πρεσβεύεσθαι: Infinitive with subject accusa-

tive in indirect discourse after πυνθανόμενοι (Sm. 2018).
κατὰ τὴν ἐπὶ Λάχητος γενομένην ξυμμαχίαν: “in accordance with the
alliance that had been concluded under Laches.” This was in 427
during the Athenians’ earlier intervention in Sicily (see above n. 6.52.1
and introduction 3.4).
ὕποπτοι: “the Kamarinaians were suspected by them of not having sent
(μὴ . . . πέμψαι) . . . and that in future they might not be willing (μὴ
. . . βούλωνται ἀμύνειν) . . . but would (προσχωρῶσι). . . .” ὕποπτοι is
followed by μή + an infinitive indicating what they were suspected of
having done and then by two subjunctive verbs giving further suspi-
cions as if in a fear clause (Sm. 2220b).
Conference at Kamarina (6.75.4–6.88.2a)

According to Rawlings’s theory that Thucydides planned his work to be
ten books long, with the second five echoing the first in key ways, this
debate mirrors the debates before the main war, with Hermokrates’s speech
echoing that of the Korinthians (1.120–24), and Euphemos’s that of the
Athenians (1.73–78). Thucydides wrote up the conference in part because
of his interest in exploring how small states respond to pressure from more
powerful states (cf. Melos).
Thucydides ends his Sicilian Archaeology with the troubled history of

Kamarina, which was founded by Syracuse, then depopulated after a revolt,
refounded by Gela, depopulated again by Syracuse, and finally refounded
a second time by the Geloans (6.5.3; Herodotus 7.154, 156). Kamarina is,
then, a natural enemy of Syracuse and was the only Dorian state of Sicily
not allied with Sparta in 431 (3.86.2). In addition, Kamarina was the only
Dorian state to side with Athens and Leontinoi against Syracuse in 427–424,
at which time it made an alliance with Athens (6.75.3; see introduction
3.4). But Kamarina joined the common peace of 424 when it also made an
alliance with Syracuse (4.58, 4.65). It was still hostile enough, however, for
Phaiax to persuade it to join again with Athens and Leontinoi in a united
campaign against Syracuse in 422, though the effort went nowhere (5.4.6).
Kamarina, that is, is allied with both Athens and Syracuse, but the Athe-
nians have reason to hope that its history of hostility to Syracuse will make
it join with Athens now. On the other hand, the cities of Sicily united against
Athens in 424. Success for Athens now depends in large part on whether the
cities will unite against it again or will dissolve into the easily conquered rabble
Alkibiades predicted (6.17.2–3). Kamarina has to determine who will win so
that it does not end up on the losing side facing depopulation (or worse) again.
75.4 ἀφικομένων . . . ῾Ερμοκράτους . . . Εὐφήμου: Temporal genitive

absolute, “when Hermokrates . . .” (Sm. 2070). Nothing else is known
of Euphemos.
ξυλλόγου γενομένου: Temporal genitive absolute, “when a meeting . . .”
(Sm. 2070).
The Speech of Hermokrates (6.76–6.80)

Thucydides says that Hermokrates wanted to discredit the Athenians in
advance to prevent Kamarina from joining Athens or staying neutral. Thus
he needs to argue that the Athenians are not in Sicily for Leontinoi’s (or
Kamarina’s) good, and that their victory would be more dangerous for
Kamarina and Sicily than a Syracuse empowered after having defeated

the Athenians.
He does this, to begin with, with a series of Gorgianic antitheses (e.g.,
“pretexts” not “intentions”; “refounding Leontinoi” vs. “evicting us”;
“uprooting cities there” vs. “restoring them here,” etc.; see introduction
2.3.6). He also charges that the Athenians’ claim that Ionian kinship moti-
vates them is a lie because they subjugate Ionians in Greece. Antitheses
combine with breathless tricola when it comes to accusations against Athens.
Given the troubled history between Syracuse and Kamarina, Her-
mokrates cannot appeal to the colonial relationship or to Syracuse’s role
as a metropolis of Kamarina. He stresses, instead, Kamarina’s alliances
(6.78.4, 6.79.1). At the conference at Gela, Hermokrates had discounted
divisions among Sicilians based on Ionian or Dorian ethnicity, but his line
is different now. Although he still claims to urge a common cause with
common benefits, now he appeals to Kamarina’s Dorian heritage as a reason
why it should not join Athens but should help Syracuse against both Athens
and Leontinoi. With Ionian Leontinoi destroyed by Dorian Syracuse, a
“Sicily for all Sicilians” argument is harder to make (see introduction 3.4
on Leontinoi’s destruction).
Hermokrates emphasizes that neutrality will be no shield to Kamarina
if Athens fails and departs. Rather, Kamarinaian neutrality will be seen
as a betrayal of Dorians by Dorians. At the same time he warns that if the
Athenians win, with or without Kamarina’s help, Athens will swallow them.
The stakes are high for Kamarina.
76.1 οὐ . . . μὴ . . . δείσαντες ἐπρεσβευσάμεθα: The order of thought is οὐ

ἐπρεσβευσάμεθα δείσαντες μὴ αὐτὴν καταπλαγῆτε. . . . This concern
is a fear that something may happen. Fears that something may not
happen have μή οὐ (Sm. 2221).
μὴ ὑμᾶς πείσωσιν: The second half of Hermokrates’s fear. The subject is
the Athenians’ speeches.
76.2 προφάσει μὲν ᾗ πυνθάνεσθε: “with the intention with which you
know [they have come].”
κατοικίσαι . . . ἐξοικίσαι: The carefully contrasted verbs here are reminis-
cent of the style of Gorgias, the famous fifth-century sophist. Diony-
sius of Halicarnassus criticizes the wordplay as “frigid, conveying not
emotion but artificiality” (On Thucydides 48; trans. Usher). This jibe
of Hermokrates’s is reminiscent of the taunts of the Syracusan cavalry
(6.63.3) and echoes the city/colonization theme (see introduction 6.6).
πόλεις ἀναστάτους ποιεῖν: ποιεῖν, like κατοικίζειν, κήδεσθαι, and
ἔχειν, is an infinitive subject of εὔλογον (Sm. 1985). The Athenians
displaced, slaughtered, or enslaved the populations of several cities:
Hestiaia (1.114.3), Aigina (2.27.1), Poteidaia (2.70.3), Skione (5.32.1),
and, most notoriously, Melos (5.115.4). Apart from 8.24.3, the only
other use of ἀνάστατος is at 6.5.3 (twice) about Syracuse’s displace-
ment of Kamarina. As Hornblower notes, this is “clever irony: we are
thus verbally reminded of outrageous past Syracusan treatment of the
daughter city from whom it now asks favours” (3:495).
κατὰ τὸ ξυγγενές: Hermokrates questions the validity, for the Athe-
nians, of xyngeneia as an arbiter of policy. Euphemos will do the same
more emphatically (see introduction 6.2 on xyngeneia).
76.3 τῇ δὲ αὐτῇ ἰδέᾳ: “in the same way.”

ἡγεμόνες . . . γενόμενοι: Thucydides gives an account of these events at
1.94–96.
ἑκόντων τῶν τε Ἰώνων: Circumstantial genitive absolute, “with the
Ionians being . . .” (Sm. 2070).
τοὺς μὲν λιποστρατίαν, τοὺς δὲ ἐπ᾿ ἀλλήλους στρατεύειν, τοῖς δ᾿ ὡς
ἑκάστοις . . . ἐπενεγκόντες κατεστρέψαντο: τοὺς μέν and τοὺς
δέ are two accusative objects of κατεστρέψαντο. In typical lack
of parallelism, Thucydides employs first an accusative and then an
infinitive to describe the charge that the Athenians brought against
these two groups of “allies.” Understand αὐτοῖς with ἐπενεγκόντες
and the charge, i.e., “they subjugated some (τοὺς μέν) bringing
against them (ἐπενεγκόντες) a charge of desertion (λιποστρατίαν),
others (τοὺς δέ) a charge of campaigning against one another (ἐπ᾿
ἀλλήλους στρατεύειν).” Thucydides then eschews a third accusative
object and switches to the dative for the third group. The dative τοῖς
δ᾿ is explained also by attraction to ἑκάστοις. Translate as “bringing

against others (ἐπενεγκόντες) whatever plausible charge (τὶνα . . .
αἰτίαν εὐπρεπῆ) they had for each (ὡς ἑκάστοις).”
76.4 οὐ περὶ τῆς ἐλευθερίας ἄρα οὔτε οὗτοι τῶν Ἑλλήνων: “these ones
(the Athenians) not for the sake of the freedom of the Hellenes. . . .”
οὐθ οἱ Ἕλληνες τῆς ἑαυτῶν: i.e., περὶ τῆς ἐλευθερίας ἑαυτῶν. Thus,
“nor the Hellenes for the sake of their own [freedom].”
περὶ δὲ . . . καταδουλώσεως: Αn example of Thucydides’s penchant for
modifying nouns by adverbs and phrases (see introduction 2.3.3).
Translate as “for the sake of, with regard to the one group (οἱ μὲν), the
enslavement to them (σφίσιν) and not to him (ἀλλὰ μὴ ἐκείνῳ).”
οἱ δ᾿ ἐπὶ δεσπότου μεταβολῇ οὐκ ἀξυνετωτέρου, κακοξυνετωτέρου
δέ: “and the others for a change to (Greek “of”) a master not of lesser
understanding but more evil understanding.” Dionysius of Halicar-
nassus criticizes the “complicated structure” and “many convolutions”
of this whole passage (On Thucydides 48; trans. Usher).
77.1 ἐν εἰδόσιν: “among those who know.” (LSJ s.v. *εἴδω B).
ὅσα ἀδικεῖ: The subject of this relative clause is the ill-regarded city of
the earlier part of the sentence that Thucydides has pulled forward for
emphasis.
ἡμᾶς αὐτούς: All Sicilians.
αἰτιασόμενοι: Future participle for purpose (Sm. 2065). ὅτι = “because.”
παραδείγματα τῶν . . . Ἑλλήνων: Not “the Greeks as example,” which
would have the Greeks in the accusative, but “having examples fur-
nished by the Greeks. . .” (Dover).
κατοικίσεις καὶ . . . ἐπικουρίας: Explanatory apposition to σοφίσματα;
further objects for ἔχοντες.
ὅτι οὐκ Ἴωνες τάδε εἰσίν: “that this is not Ionians.” The neuter gives
special emphasis.
Δωριῆς ἐλεύθεροι: Δωριῆς is nominative plural (Sm. 275). Having
denied that the Athenians really care about ethnic distinctions, Her-
mokrates here asserts them by appealing to Dorian pride. This con-
trasts with his attempt at Gela in 424 to get Sicilians to band together
whatever their ethnicity (4.59–64), but that was before Syracuse

destroyed Ionian Leontinoi and before Ionian Naxos and Katane had
sided with Athens.
77.2 ἕως ἂν . . . ληφθῶμεν: “until” + subjunctive for the future (Sm.
2426).
κατὰ πόλεις: “city by city” (LSJ B.II).
εἶδος: “trick.” Hornblower adduces parallels for this translation (3:498;
8.56.2; 8.50.1).
ὥστε . . . κακουργεῖν: ὥστε governs the three infinitives διιστάναι,
ἐκπολεμοῦν (“involve in war”), and κακουργεῖν in a clause of natural
result (Sm. 2258). For his description of the third group, Thucydides
again avoids a second τοὺς δέ (see above 6.76.3). The analysis of τοῖς
δέ is “obscure” (Dover). Although it is “contorted,” Dover supports
the translation “and, saying something attractive (τι προσηνὲς
λέγοντες) to others (τοῖς δὲ), according as they are able [to say it] to
them separately (ἑκάστοις), damage [them]” (adapted).
τοῦ ἄπωθεν ξυνοίκου προαπολλυμένου: Temporal genitive absolute,
“when a distant neighbor . . .” (Sm. 2070).
οὐ καὶ ἐς αὐτόν τινα: “not also to oneself.”
ἥξειν τὸ δεινόν . . . τὸν πάσχοντα . . . δυστυχεῖν: Infinitives with subject
accusative in indirect statement after οἰόμεθα (Sm. 2018).
πρὸ δὲ αὐτοῦ: “before oneself.”
καθ᾿ ἑαυτόν: “himself alone.”
78.1 εἴ τῳ ἄρα παρέστηκε: “if it has occurred to anyone that” + accusative/

infinitive construction in indirect discourse (LSJ.B.IV). τῷ = τινί, the
indefinite pronoun (Sm. 334). There are two contrasting accusative sub-
jects for the infinitive πολέμιον εἶναι: τὸν μὲν Συρακόσιον and ἑαυτὸν
δ’ . . . , i.e., “that the Syracusan . . . but that not he himself. . . .” Diony-
sios reproves the “wearisome substitution of singular for plural and the
change from other persons to the speaker’s own person,” all of which he
calls “juvenile and overdone” (On Thucydides 48; trans. Usher).
ἡγεῖται . . . ἐνθυμηθήτω . . . ἀγωνιεῖται: The subject is the imagined
Kamarinaian from above.
ὑπέρ γε τῆς ἐμῆς . . . περὶ τῆς ἐμῆς: Understand πόλεως. Variatio (see
introduction 2.3.6). Thucydides changes the preposition and then
leaves it out altogether (καὶ τῆς ἑαυτοῦ).
ἐνθυμηθήτω . . . μαχούμενος: Supplementary participle. “Let him reflect
that he. . . .”
ἀσφαλέστερον: Adverbial accusative (Sm. 1608).
οὐ προδιεφθαρμένου ἐμοῦ: Causal genitive absolute, “because I . . .”
(Sm. 2070).
οὐκ ἐρῆμος: That is, not bereft of allies.
τὸν τε Ἀθηναῖον . . . βούλεσθαι: Governed by ἐνθυμηθήτω. Thucydides
has switched from a supplementary participle, μαχούμενος, to an
accusative and infinitive construction. βούλεσθαι itself then governs
μὴ . . . κολάσασθαι and βεβαιώσασθαι.
τῇ δ᾿ ἐμῇ προφάσει: “with me as a pretext” (Smith).
τὴν ἐκείνου φιλίαν: φιλία is a diplomatic term. ἐκείνου refers to the
indeterminate bystander, Kamarinaian or other Sicilian, that Her-
mokrates has been discussing here. As Dover notes, Hermokrates’s
words “have a sinister undertone; a state of whose φιλία the Athe-
nians ‘make sure’ loses its freedom of action.”
78.2 τὰ μείζω: “greatness.” Literally, “greater things.” Hermokrates

means great states, but expresses himself abstractly.
διὰ δὲ αὐτά: That is, on account of his envy or fear.
περιγενέσθαι: A second infinitive dependent on βούλεται. The subject is
again τὰς Συρακούσας.
οὐκ ἀνθρωπίνης δυνάμεως βούλησιν: “a wish not of human power,” i.e.,
beyond human power.
οὐ γὰρ οἷόν τε: οἷον + infinitive expresses possibility (LSJ III.b.2).
γενέσθαι is the infinitive subject of οἷον, with τὸν αὐτόν its accusative
subject and ταμίαν predicate (Sm. 1985).
78.3 ὀλοφυρθείς: This is passive (“lamented”).

ἀδύνατον δὲ προεμένῳ καὶ μὴ . . . ἐθελήσαντι: “it is impossible [for him]
having abandoned [me] not also to be willing to. . . .” The participle is
from προίημι.
λόγῳ . . . ἔργῳ: “nominally one might . . . , but in reality. . . .” Explains
οὐ περὶ τῶν ὀνομάτων, ἀλλὰ περὶ τῶν ἔργων above. Dionysius con-
demns this as “an utterance which one would not expect even from a
callow youth” (On Thucydides 48; trans. Usher).
78.4 εἰκὸς ἦν: The subjects are the infinitives προορᾶσθαι and
ξυμμαχεῖν, which have accusative subject ὑμᾶς (Sm. 1985). εἰκὸς ἦν
implies the failure properly to complete the action in the infinitive
(Goodwin 49.2 n. 3a).
αὐτοὺς . . . ἰόντας . . . ταῦτα . . . παρακελευομένους . . . φαίνεσθαι:
φαίνεσθαι is another infinitive subject (with its own accusative
subject) for εἰκὸς ἦν (Sm. 1985). The logical order is φαίνεσθαι
παρακελευομένους ταῦτα ἅπερ δεόμενοι ἂν ἐπεκαλεῖσθε. That is, “It
was reasonable (εἰκὸς ἦν) that you, coming to us of your own accord
(αὐτοὺς δὲ πρὸς ἡμᾶς μᾶλλον ἰόντας), appear/be manifest encourag-
ing us (παρακελευομένους φαίνεσθαι, i.e., openly encourage us) so
that we may not give way (ὅπως μηδὲν ἐνδώσομεν), exactly as (ἅπερ
ἄν) you would have appealed to us and called for our help (δεόμενοι
ἂν ἐπεκαλεῖσθε) if the Athenians had . . .” (trans. Marchant with
additions). The ἂν is repeated early in the clause to make its contrary-
to-fact nature clear.
ἐκ τοῦ ὁμοίου: “in like fashion; likewise” (LSJ 8).
79.1 δειλίᾳ: Causal dative (Sm. 1517).

ἥν: The alliance.
τῶν δὲ ἐχθρῶν: Partitive genitive with τις (Sm. 1306). One expects “but
against enemies,” but Thucydides characteristically unbalances the
structure.
τοῖς γε Ἀθηναίοις βοηθεῖν: The infinitive expresses another purpose of
the alliance (Sm. 2008).
ὅταν ὑπ᾿ ἄλλων: “whenever [they might be harmed] by others.” Supply
the sense from the rest of the sentence.
καὶ μὴ αὐτοὶ . . . ἀδικῶσιν: “and not when they wrong. . . .”
79.2 οὐδ᾿ οἱ Ῥηγῖνοι ὄντες Χαλκιδῆς Χαλκιδέας ὄντας Λεοντίνους: The

chiasmus emphasizes the weakness of ties of xyngeneia. The reader
knows of this refusal from the narrative (6.44.3) where Thucydides

showed that the Athenians made their appeal specifically on grounds
of xyngeneia (see introduction 6.2). If IG I3 291 dates to 415, then
Rhegion did contribute money to the effort, and no small sum (fifty
talents). See n. 6.62.3.
τὸ ἔργον τοῦ καλοῦ δικαιώματος: “the truth in the noble justification.”
ἀλόγως σωφρονοῦσιν: Rhegians would “act wisely without reason”
because they would act on suspicion rather than knowledge, and
because they would have a hard time explaining why they should not
help their ally Athens to aid their kinsmen.
εὐλόγῳ προφάσει: The “pretext” of the Kamarinaians would be “logi-
cal” because they can point to their alliance with the Athenians.
Causal dative (Sm. 1517).
79.3 ἀμύνειν δέ: “but [it is right] to. . . .” οὐ δίκαιον referred to the whole
prior thought. Now this infinitive and μὴ φοβεῖσθαι are new subjects
for δίκαιον.
oὐ γὰρ . . . δεινή ἐστιν: The subject is ἡ παρασκευὴ αὐτῶν.
οὐδὲ . . . ἔπραξαν . . . ἀπῆλθον δέ: Hermokrates uses against the Athe-
nians their failure to press on after the battle.
80.1 ἀθυμεῖν: Infinitive subject of οὐ . . . εἰκός (Sm. 1985). Its accusative
subject is ἁθρόους γε ὄντας, referring to the united Sicilians.
ἰέναι δὲ ἐς τὴν ξυμμαχίαν: Another infinitive subject of εἰκός (Sm. 1985).
Not “enter into an alliance,” since the Kamarinaians already have an
alliance with Syracuse, but rather “join in more heartily” or some-
thing to that effect.
παρεσομένης ὠφελίας: Causal genitive absolute, “since aid . . .” (Sm.
2070).
οἳ τῶνδε: The Peloponnesians, supplied by the reference to their help,
and then the Athenians in a genitive of comparison (Sm. 1431).
κρείσσους is nominative masculine plural (Sm. 293). τὰ πολέμια is
accusative of respect.
ἐκείνην τὴν προμηθίαν: Accusative subject of μὴ . . . δοκεῖν . . . εἶναι,
which is another infinitive subject of εἰκός above (Sm. 1985). ἴσην and
ἀσφαλῆ are predicate. τῷ = τινί, the indefinite pronoun (Sm. 334).

“That” προμηθίαν is explained in the following articular epexegetical
(explanatory) infinitive (Sm. 2001). Literally, “and it is right (εἰκός)
that that desire (ἐκείνην τὴν προμηθίαν) not seem to anyone (μὴ . . .
δοκεῖν τῳ) to be fair to us (ἡμῖν μὲν ἴσην εἶναι) and safe for you (ὑμῖν
δὲ ἀσφαλῆ) to. . . . (the articular infinitive τὸ . . . βοηθεῖν explains the
desire).”
80.2 ὥσπερ τῷ δικαιώματι: “as the plea of justice represents it” (March-
ant).
δι᾿ ὑμᾶς μὴ ξυμμαχήσαντας: “by reason of you not joining the alliance.”
The pronoun and participle “correspond” to an articular infinitive
(Sm. 2053).
ἠμύνατε σωθῆναι: The aorist (as, too, ἐκωλύσατε below) appears instead
of the future for vividness (Sm. 1934), as if the speaker is looking back
after the thing imagined has already occurred. σωθῆναι is either an
epexegetical (explanatory) infinitive (Sm. 2001) explaining the result
of the failure to defend or an infinitive of natural result without ὥστε
(Sm. 2011a).
προσθεμένους . . . φυλάξαι . . . ἐᾶσαι: Both infinitives are subjects of
κάλλιον (Sm. 1985). The accusative subject of the infinitives, modified
by προσθεμένους, is the understood Kamarinaians. The other accusa-
tives are objects of the infinitives.
80.3 ἐκδιδάσκειν . . . οὐδὲν ἔργον εἶναι: “it is not a task to X,” i.e., “there
is no need to X” (LSJ IV.1.b). εἶναι is an infinitive in indirect discourse
after λέγομεν (Sm. 2017).
περὶ ὧν: Properly, “concerning those things which.” Thucydides has left
out the antecedent, as is common when it expresses a general idea,
and the relative has been attracted into the case of the missing ante-
cedent (Sm. 2509, 2522).
80.4 εἰ καταστρέψονται: εἰ + future indicative in the protasis (the “if”

clause) of a future most vivid condition (Sm. 2328).
τὸν τὴν νίκην παρασχόντα: That is, Kamarina.
τῆς αἰτίας τῶν κινδύνων: Genitive of crime with τιμωρίαν ὑφέξετε

(Sm. 1375). If they do not side with Syracuse, that is, there is no good
outcome for Kamarina, according to Hermokrates.
80.5 τὴν αὐτίκα ἀκινδύνως δουλείαν: Thucydides treats the abstract

noun as if it were a verb and gives it adverbs (see introduction 2.3.3).
μὴ . . . λαβεῖν καὶ . . . διαφυγεῖν: Thucydides switches to an infinitive
construction with αἱρεῖσθε after the simple accusative in the prior
thought.
μὴ ἂν βραχεῖαν γενομένην: i.e., “which would not be slight.”
Euphemos’s Speech (6.82–6.87)

This speech is important because it is the only articulation of the Athenian
position in direct address to a Sicilian audience. It thus stands in for all the
other speeches that must have been made (at, e.g., Rhegion [6.44.3], where
we get only a brief indication of the kind of kinship arguments that were
made; at Messana [6.50.1b], see note there, etc.). Euphemos’s speech echoes
the speech of the Athenians at Sparta before the war (1.73–78), especially
in its justification of empire, to which, however, he adds a new, dark twist.
It also echoes Alkibiades’s speech in its argument that propping up the
enemies of Syracuse benefits Athens.
Euphemos needs to counter the attacks of Hermokrates and calm
Kamarina’s fear of Athens’s ambitions. To do so, he responds directly to
Hermokrates’s arguments and gives an account of Athens’s empire and
actions that makes these out to be based on fear. Euphemos presents that
empire as developed in a specific situation in response to the Athenians’
concern about their Dorian neighbors. Thus he argues that Athens’s imperial
activities in Greece have no relevance to Sicily and therefore that Kamarina
should not fear Athenian ambition. Everything Athens does, according to
Euphemos, is due to fear. It has subjugated Ionians back home because of fear
of the Peloponnesians, and it wishes to support and empower Ionians here
because of fear that if Syracuse conquers them it will be a stronger ally of the
Peloponnesians. Euphemos presents this as the very argument the Sicilians
used to call Athens in earlier to aid them against Syracuse (see introduction
3.2 and 3.4). “Athens is not your problem,” Euphemos insists, “Syracuse is.”
It seems possible that, clever as his speech is, Euphemos overdoes his
emphasis on the power and ambition of Syracuse and the vulnerability of
Athens. After all, Thucydides tells us that the Kamarinaians made their
decision about what to do because of fear of Syracuse. Perhaps Euphemos
should have tried to instill more fear of Athens.
Crane (1998, 288) notes that Euphemos’s speech is “bitterly ironic”
because it would have been much better for the Athenians if they really
had the limited aims that Euphemos claims.
82.1 τοῦ δὲ Συρακοσίου καθαψαμένου: Causal genitive absolute, “since

the Syracusan . . .” (Sm. 2070).
82.2 τὸ μὲν οὖν μέγιστον μαρτύριον αὐτὸς εἶπεν: That is, Hermokrates.
The Athenian speech at Sparta uses very similar language: τεκμήριον
δὲ μέγιστον αὐτὸς ἐποίησε (1.73.5), but αὐτός there refers to the Per-
sians (see introduction 6.4 on echoes of the Persian Wars).
ἔχει δὲ καὶ οὕτως: “so the case stands” (LSJ s.v. ἔχω B.II.2).
82.3 τῆς μὲν Λακεδαιμονίων ἀρχῆς: The Lakedaimonians would not

agree with this description.
οὐδὲν προσῆκον μᾶλλόν τι: “it being no more fitting that they. . . .”
Accusative absolute (Sm. 2076A), the subject of which is an infinitive
with its own accusative subjects.
αὐτοὶ δέ: “but we.”
οἰκοῦμεν: “we govern [them]” (LSJ A.II).
οὕτως εἶναι: In the way he is about to describe. εἶναι is infinitive in indi-
rect discourse after νομίσαντες (Sm. 2018). It refers to the understood
Athenians.
ἐς τὸ ἀκριβὲς εἰπεῖν: “to speak precisely.”
ἡμᾶς . . . δεδουλῶσθαι: Infinitive with subject accusative in indirect
discourse after φασίν (Sm. 2017).
82.4 ἐπὶ τὴν μητρόπολιν ἐφ᾿ ἡμᾶς: For the Ionians of the Aegean, that
is, their ethnicity compounds their betrayal and proves they deserved
what they got.
ἐκλιπόντες τὴν πόλιν: The Athenians’ great achievement of the Persian

Wars when they refused to surrender even when their physical city
was lost (cf. 1.74.2–4; see introduction 3.1). The Plataian debate
(3.52–68), however, showed that arguments from past action have no
countervailing weight to expediency in the present day. Furthermore,
the Athenians’ ability to abandon their homeland appears increasingly
as a weakness in the Sicilian expedition (see introduction 6.5 and 6.6).
δουλείαν . . . ἐβούλοντο: A bold expression, to follow ἐβούλοντο not
with an infinitive but with an abstract noun. Alternatively, we can
understand φέρειν in this section from ἐπενεγκεῖν in the second.
83.1 ἀνθ᾿ ὧν: The reasons he will give in the ὅτι clause.
τοῦτο δρῶντες οὗτοι: The Ionians, providing the same things to the
other side. The argument of this whole section is new and surprising:
the Ionians “asked for it” by joining Persia against their metropolis
(Hornblower 3:501). As Connor notes, the “novelty” of the argument
is especially striking because of the initial similarity to that of the
Athenian speech at Sparta, where the first two justifications made
here are the same: the Athenians provided the most ships and the
greatest zeal (1984, 183). The third point there, however, that they pro-
vided “the most intelligent commander” (1.74.1), has been replaced.
Connor adds that readers “realize how radically Athenian views of
their past have changed since the earlier debate” and sense that “Ath-
ens has crossed the boundaries of restraint and has embarked upon a
venture that is already profoundly changing her” (184).
83.2 πᾶσι δὲ ἀνεπίφθονον: Understand ἐστι, “it is no reproach to anyone

to. . . .” (LSJ). The subject is ἐκπορίζεσθαι. The Athenians use the
exact same words at 1.75.5.
ταὐτὰ ξυμφέροντα: A supplementary participle in indirect discourse
after ὁρῶμεν (Sm. 2110).
83.3 ἐξ ὧν: “from those things which.” Thucydides has left out the
antecedent, as is common when it expresses a general idea, and the
relative has been attracted into its case (Sm. 2509, 2522).
ἐπὶ τὸ φοβερώτερον: “with exaggerated fear” (Smith).

τερπομένους . . . πράσσοντας: Supplementary participles in indirect dis-
course after εἰδότες (Sm. 2106). The subject is τοὺς . . . ὑποπτεύοντας.
τῇ δ᾿ ἐγχειρήσει: “when it comes to action” (Smith).
83.4 ἔχειν . . . ἥκειν: Infinitives in indirect discourse after εἰρήκαμεν

(Sm. 2017). The subject is the understood Athenians. The participles
are nominative, not accusative, the regular case for the subject of an
infinitive, because they represent the subject of the main verb (Sm.
1973). The future participles express purpose (Sm. 2065).
μὴ παθεῖν: Dependent on κωλύσοντες. Thus, “but rather to prevent
(κωλύσοντες) you (understood) from suffering this (μὴ παθεῖν . . .
τοῦτο, that is, enslavement to Syracuse).” Verbs like “prevent,” “deny,”
and “hinder” often have a redundant μή that reinforces the negative
idea of the introductory verb (Sm. 2739).
84.1 ὑπολάβῃ δὲ μηδείς: Prohibitive subjunctive (Sm. 1840).

οὐδὲν προσῆκον: Literally, “without any connection”; more idiomati-
cally, “that it is none of our business” (Crawley). Accusative absolute
(LSJ III.4; Sm. 2076). See n. 6.84.2.
σῳζομένων ὑμῶν: Conditional genitive absolute, “if you . . .” (Sm. 2070).
διὰ τὸ . . . ἀντέχειν: “on account of you, being not weak, holding out
against the Syracusans.” Thucydides, with his hatred of parallelism,
refuses to just use another genitive absolute (see introduction 2.3.6).
ἧσσον ἄν: Goes with ἡμεῖς βλαπτοίμεθα.
τουτῶν πεμψάντων: Causal genitive absolute, “because of their sending
. . .” (Sm. 2070).
84.2 προσήκετε: The Melians, in their effort to avoid subjugation, argued

that they were “unconnected” to Athens (5.96), but the Athenians
countered that cities unconnected to Athens were in that condition
only because they had not yet been conquered. They also argued
that islands were particularly connected to the Athenian naukratores
(5.97).
τὰ μέγιστα: Adverbial accusative (Sm. 345, 1609).
εὔλογον: “it is reasonable to. . . .” Takes an infinitive subject (Sm. 1985).

The subject of that infinitive is the understood Athenians.
ὡς δυνατωτάτους: ὡς + superlative = “as X as possible” (Sm. 1086). This
describes the state into which the Athenians hope to establish Leonti-
noi, contrasted with μὴ ὑπηκόους above. See introduction 3.2 and 3.4
for the history of Leontinoi and Syracuse.
τοῖσδε: The Syracusans.
84.3 τὰ μὲν γὰρ ἐκεῖ: “with respect to things there,” i.e., in Greece.
ὃν . . . ἡμᾶς . . . ἐλευθεροῦν: “whom they say we illogically come to free
when we have enslaved the Chalkidians there.” Infinitive with subject
accusative in indirect discourse after φησί (Sm. 2017). This directly
answers Hermokrates’s point at 6.76.2 but adds the idea of “liberation”
from Syracuse, which does not figure either in the debate at Athens
over the Sicilian expedition or in Thucydides’s authorial comments
about it as an actual Athenian motive for the expedition. Liberation is
a Spartan slogan (cf. 2.8.4). Thucydides repeatedly compares Syracuse
to Athens in these books. Given that comparison, as Hornblower
notes, “there is a certain diabolical Athenian logic” in using the same
kind of liberation propaganda against the Syracusans that the Spar-
tans used against Athens (3:504; see introduction 6.5).
χρήματα μόνον φέρων: These descriptions are about the Chalkidian
“over there.” By this point in time only Chios and Methymna contrib-
uted ships as their tribute to Athens (see below 6.85.2). All the rest of
Athens’s subjects gave money and thereby contributed to their own
enslavement according to Thucydides by building up the Athenians’
navy at their own expense and by losing the opportunity for gaining
naval experience themselves (1.99).
ὅτι μάλιστα: ὅτι + superlative = “as X as possible” (Sm. 1086).
αὐτονομούμενοι: Understand ξύμφοροί εἰσιν.
85.1 ἀνδρὶ δὲ τυράννῳ ἢ πόλει ἀρχὴν ἐχούσῃ: Perikles said that the empire
was like a tyranny that it was now unsafe to give up (2.63.2). Kleon said
to an Athenian audience that the empire was a tyranny, with the Athe-
nians’ subjects “disaffected conspirators” (3.37.2; trans. Crawley).
οὐδὲν ἄλογον ὅτι ξυμφέρον οὐδ᾿ οἰκεῖον ὅτι μὴ πιστόν: “whatever is

expedient is in no way unreasonable nor kin whatever is not trustwor-
thy.” Understand ἐστι. ὅτι = the indefinite pronoun ὅ τι (“whatever”).
οὐδέν is adverbial (“in no way”). Euphemos suggests that Athens
judges “homey-ness” not by actual attachment. This fits with the
increasing suggestion, throughout the account of the Sicilian expedi-
tion, that the Athenians have abandoned the city in Attica and seek a
new home in Sicily (see introduction 6.6).
πρὸς ἕκαστα: “in every case” (Smith).
μετὰ καιροῦ: “in accord with circumstance.”
τοῦτο: Looks ahead.
85.2 ὡς ἕκαστοι χρήσιμοι: Euphemos’s point is that the Athenians treat

their “allies” differently even back in Greece proper, so it is not illogi-
cal that they might treat the Ionians here differently from the Ionians
there.
βιαιότερον: Adverbial accusative (Sm. 345, 1608).
85.3 καθίστασθαι: An infinitive subject of εἰκός [ἐστι] (Sm. 1985), with

an understood “us” as subject. τἀνθάδε is object.
ἐς Συρακοσίους δέος: Also with πρὸς τό. Probably “with regard to our
fear of Syracuse.”
ἀρχῆς . . . ὑμῶν: “rule over you.”
ἐπὶ τῷ ἡμετέρῳ . . . ὑπόπτῳ: “on the basis of your suspicion of us.” The
force of the possessive adjective is like that of an objective genitive
(Sm. 1197).
κατ᾿ ἐρημίαν: That is, when there is no one to help you after we have
gone away.
ἀπράκτων ἡμῶν ἀπελθόντων: Temporal genitive absolute, “once we
have . . .” (Sm. 2070).
πρὸς αὐτούς: “with them” (LSJ s.v. πρός C.I.6).
ἡμῶν μὴ παρόντων: Conditional genitive absolute, “if we are not . . .”
(Sm. 2070). The μή indicates the participle is conditional (Sm. 2728).
πρὸς ὑμᾶς: “in comparison with you” (LSJ s.v. πρός C.III.4).
86.1 ὅτῳ: Indefinite relative for ᾧτινι (Sm. 339). “To anyone who.”
αὐτὸ τὸ ἔργον: “the facts themselves.”
τὸ γὰρ πρότερον: Adverbial accusative (Sm. 1611). This refers to 427
when the Sicilians called in the Athenians against Syracuse (see
introduction 3.4).
86.2: ἀπιστεῖν: An infinitive subject of οὐ δίκαιον like ὑποπτεύεσθαι and

ἀπιστεῖν below (Sm. 1985). The accusative subject of the infinitive is
an understood ὑμᾶς. τῷ αὐτῷ = “the same [argument]” referring back
to ᾧπερ . . . λόγῳ in the prior clause.
δυνάμει μείζονι πρὸς τὴν τῶνδε ἰσχύν: As Dover (in HCT 4:347) notes,
this sounds like it means “with a force greater than is required to
meet their strength.” Because he finds this rhetorically problematic,
Dover counsels translating as “ ‘with a larger force’ (than in 427), ‘as
the strength of our enemy requires’ ” (for which one might cite 6.1.1).
But Euphemos may indeed simply be boasting about the excessive
size of the force, and it is likely that, just as in 427, the sheer size of the
Athenian fleet of 416 scared some of the western Greeks and explains
their reluctance to help (see introduction 3.4). This speech may nod to
that point.
ὑποπτεύεσθαι: Another infinitive subject of οὐ δίκαιον (Sm. 1985). The
subject of the infinitive is ἡμᾶς since this verb is nowhere middle in
Attic.
86.3 μὴ μεθ᾿ ὑμῶν: “if not with you.” Conditional (Sm. 2286).
ἀδύνατοι κατασχεῖν: Euphemos repeats Nikias’s arguments (6.11.1)
against the expedition to calm his listeners, but there is irony in the
Athenian so blithely listing these difficulties.
τῇ παρασκευῇ: This explains the way in which the cities are mainland-
ers.
οἵδε δέ: The Syracusans.
πόλει δὲ μείζονι τῆς ἡμετέρας παρουσίας: Despite Nikias’s urging that
the Athenians must plan as if they meant to found a city in Sicily
(6.23.2), Euphemos reveals that their “presence” is too small.
86.4 τὰ ἐς Λεοντίνους: In the mid 420s the Syracusans collaborated in

the destruction of Leontinoi (see introduction 3.4).
τολμῶσιν: With παρακαλεῖν ὑμᾶς . . . ἐπί (“against”).
ἀνέχοντας τὴν Σικελίαν μέχρι τοῦδε μὴ ὑπ᾿ αὐτοὺς εἶναι: “those keep-
ing Sicily from being (εἶναι) under their power (ὑπ᾿ αὐτούς) until
now.”
86.5 τὴν ὑπάρχουσαν: Understand σωτηρίαν.

ἀπ᾿ ἀλλήλων ἀμφοτέροις: “for both, from each other,” i.e., mutual.
μὴ προδιδόναι . . . νομίσαι: Dependent on δεόμενοι. The subject is an
understood ὑμᾶς.
τοῖσδε . . . ὑμῖν δ᾿: “for the Syracusans . . . , but for you. . . .”
ἑτοίμην . . . εἶναι ὁδόν: Ιnfinitive and subject accusative in indirect
discourse after νομίσαι (Sm. 2018).
παρασχήσειν: Impersonal with dative and infinitive; “to be in your
power to . . .” (LSJ A.III.2). It is also an infinitive in indirect discourse
after νομίσαι.
ἥν: That is, the Athenian aid.
τῷ ὑπόπτῳ: Causal dative (Sm. 1517).
ἢ καὶ σφαλεῖσαν: A surprising admission of the possibility of complete
defeat. Another instance of Thucydides’s favorite verb for failure (see
n. 6.10.2).
πολλοστὸν μόριον: The smallest fraction.
περανεῖ: From περαίνω.
87.1 περὶ ὧν ὑποπτευόμεθα: “about those things which.” Thucydides

leaves out the antecedent, as is common when it expresses a general
idea, and the relative has been attracted into its case (Sm. 2509, 2522).
87.2 ἄρχειν: Infinitive in indirect discourse after φαμέν (Sm. 2017).

There is no subject expressed because it is the same as that of the main
verb (Sm. 1972).
πολλὰ . . . πράσσειν: This infinitive phrase is dependent on ἀναγκάζεσθαι,
which is itself another infinitive in indirect discourse after φαμέν
(Sm. 2017). The subject is still the Athenians. The Athenians are often
accused of meddlesomeness (see πολυπραγμοσύνη at n. 6.87.3). The

Korinthians in their speech on Athenian character before the war
asserted that the Athenians never have any quiet themselves and never
allow anyone else to have it (1.70.9). In contrast, quiet (ἡσυχία) is often
presented as a Dorian virtue akin to σωφροσύνη.
ὑμῶν: Partitive genitive (Sm. 1306).
ἥκειν: Like ἀναγκάζεσθαι, still in indirect discourse after φαμέν above
(Sm. 2017).
87.3 ἡμῖν: An unusual use of the dative of agent outside the perfect sys-
tem (Sm. 1490). We would expect ὑπό + genitive.
καθ᾿ ὅσον δέ τι ὑμῖν τῆς . . . τὸ αὐτὸ ξυμφέρει: “in so far as any element
(τι) of . . . is at the same time (τὸ αὐτό) beneficial. . . .”
πολυπραγμοσύνης: This is the only use of this word in Thucydides. He is
more fond of using its opposite, ἀπραγμοσύνη (cf. 6.18.6), to delineate
by contrast the busy Athenian character.
τοῦτῳ: Whatever that element is. Dative with χρήσασθε (Sm. 1509).
αὐτά: Subject of βλάπτειν and ὠφελεῖν in indirect discourse after
νομίσατε (Sm. 2018). That is, the Athenians’ πολυπραγμοσύνη.
87.4 πᾶς: With ὅ τε οἰόμενος . . . and ὁ ἐπιβουλεύων.

τῷ μὲν ἀντιτυχεῖν . . . τῷ δὲ . . . μὴ ἀδεεῖ εἶναι κινδυνεύειν: These two
infinitive clauses more fully explain the ever ready expectation
referred to in the articular infinitive: “for the one (τῷ μέν, who fears
aggression) that he will obtain (ἀντιτυχεῖν) . . . for the other (τῷ δέ,
who plans aggression), that he will not be unafraid (μὴ ἀδεεῖ εἶναι)
to. . . .”
87.5 ἐξισώσαντες: This verb most often means “make X (accusative)

equal to Y (dative).” It does not easily mean “be similar to” Y (dative),
which, however, seems the most likely sense here. But that is the
meaning in Sophocles’s Elektra 1194 (μητρὶ δ᾿ οὐδὲν ἐξισοῖ—“she acts
in no way like a mother”), and so this clause probably means “be like
the others and join us against the Syracusans.”
ἀντεπιβουλεῦσαι: An object infinitive after μεταλάβετε, in contrast to
ἀντὶ τοῦ . . . φυλάσσεσθαι. “instead of . . . take. . . .”
88.1 πλὴν καθ᾿ ὅσον: “except in so far as they. . . .”

αὐτοὺς δουλώσεσθαι: Accusative and infinitive in indirect discourse
after ᾤοντο (Sm. 2018).
δεδιότες . . . μὴ . . . περιγένωνται: The subject of the subjunctive verb in
the fear clause is the Syracusans. Α fear that something may happen
is introduced by μή, that something may not happen by μή οὐ (Sm.
2221).
τὸ λοιπόν: “henceforward; hereafter.” Adverbial accusative (Sm. 1611).
ἐδόκει . . . ὑπουργεῖν: The infinitive is subject of ἐδόκει (Sm. 1985). Its
understood subject is the Kamarinaians.
ἔργῳ: Contrasts the Kamarinaians’ real intention with their diplomatic
reply (λόγῳ) below.
ὡς ἂν δύνωνται μετριώτατα: “as sparingly as possible.” ὡς + superla-
tive, sometimes with the addition, as here, of a form of δύναμαι = “as
X as possible” (Sm. 1086).
ἐπικρατέστεροι τῇ μάχῃ ἐγένοντο: According to Thucydides the
Kamarinaians were at this point impressed by the Athenians’ victory,
not their failure to follow it up.
ἀποκρίνασθαι: A second subject of ἐδόκει above (Sm. 1985). The (under-
stood) subject is again the Kamarinaians.
88.2a εὔορκον δοκεῖν εἶναι . . . ἀμύνειν: ἀμύνειν is infinitive subject

of εὔορκον δοκεῖν εἶναι, which is itself in accusative and infinitive
indirect discourse after ἀπεκρίναντο (Sm. 2017).
Athenian Preparations for

War in Spring (6.88.2b–6.88.6)
See above (n. 6.1.1—6.7.1a) for beginning a narrative unit within the tradi-
tional (but non-Thucydidean) paragraphing.
88.3 αὐτοῖς: = σφῖσιν here.
88.4 οἱ πολλοὶ ἀφειστήκεσαν: We must emend οἱ to οὐ to create the

necessary contrast with the peoples of the interior.
εἰσὶν οἵ: A fixed phrase without antecedent meaning “there are those
who . . . ,” or just “some” (Sm. 2513).
88.5 τοὺς δέ: There is no verb for this object. We must understand “and
others, they were prevented [from compelling] by. . . .”
88.6 Τυρσηνίαν: Etruria. The Syracusans defeated the Karthaginians

and Etruscans at the battle of Himera in 480. Some Etruscans are
listed as fighting on the Athenian side at 7.57.11, “because of differ-
ences with the Syracusans” (κατὰ διαφορὰν Συρακοσίων).
ἔστιν ὧν . . . ἐπαγγελλομένων: Causal genitive absolute, “since some
cities . . .” (Sm. 2070). The genitive, dative, and accusative of εἰσὶν οἵ,
a fixed phrase without antecendent meaning “there are those who” or
“some,” are formed by ἔστιν ὧν, ἔστιν οἷς, and ἔστιν οὗς (Sm. 2514).
ὡς πλείστους: ὡς + superlative = “as X as possible” (Sm. 1086).
πλινθία: It would be burdensome to carry the actual bricks from Katane,
and so we should emend to πλινθεῖα, brick-making equipment, the
reading of the Patmos scholiast.
σίδηρον: Iron for dowels and clamps to hold the elements of a wall
together.
ἑξόμενοι: “to be zealous for” + genitive (LSJ C.2).
The Conference at Sparta (6.88.7–6.93.3)

88.7 ὡς . . . ἐπιβουλευόμενα: “since the actions were. . . .” This participial
phrase, modifying τὰ γιγνόμενα, gives the substance of the ambas-
sadors’ appeal.
κατὰ τὸ ξυγγενές: Because Syracuse was a colony of Korinth (6.3.2).
88.8 ψηφισάμενοι αὐτοὶ πρῶτοι ὥστε πάσῃ προθυμίᾳ ἀμύνειν: αὐτοὶ

πρῶτοι indicates that they acted before anyone else in the Pelopon-
nesian League and without talking to anyone else. The Korinthians
were also instrumental in bringing on the Archidamian War (see
introduction 3.3).
τὸν τε αὐτοῦ πόλεμον: This echoes Nikias’s remarks about the need to
focus on the war against Sparta (6.10) and foreshadows Demosthenes’s
later comments about the Athenians’ misdirected priorities (7.47.4).
88.9 τῶν Λακεδαιμονίων μεταπεμψάντων: Temporal or causal genitive

absolute, “after (or since) the Lakedaimonians . . .” (Sm. 2070).
περὶ τῶν Μαντινικῶν: This sentence explains (γάρ) why Alkibiades
asked for safe passage (ὑπόσπονδος) and refers both to Alkibiades’s
opposition to the Spartans in the late 420s and teens and to his orga-
nization of a coalition that opposed Sparta at the battle of Mantineia
(cf. n. 6.16.6; see introduction 3.6).
88.10 διανοουμένων τῶν τε ἐφόρων . . . οὐ προθύμων ὄντων: Temporal

genitive absolute, “when the ephors . . .” (Sm. 2070).
κωλύοντας μὴ ξυμβαίνειν: Verbs like “prevent,” “deny,” and “hinder”
often have a redundant μή that reinforces the negative idea of the
introductory verb (Sm. 2739). The subject of ξυμβαίνειν is the under-
stood Syracusans.
Alkibiades’s Speech (6.89–6.92)

Thucydides says that Alkibiades was afraid of the Spartans. This is not
evident from his speech, which is arrogantly self-confidant—an approach
that Thucydides says “inflamed” the Spartans.
The speech is divided into four parts. In the first, Alkibiades charges that
Sparta has no right to be angry with him because of his actions related to
Mantineia (see introduction 3.6). They “justifiably” suffered at his hands.
It is striking to see an individual placing himself in competitive equality
with a state. Next, Alkibiades defends himself against the charge of being
a democrat, which he blames on the city he found himself in and on the
Athenians’ fear of the Spartans, which prevented him from moving Athens
to oligarchy.
In the third section, Alkibiades urges the Spartans to learn from his
expert knowledge about the magnitude of Athens’s ambitions. Here he
exaggerates even beyond the Athenians’ supposed delusional ambition
to rule all Sicily and claims that they aim to conquer Carthage, Italy, and
ultimately all Greece. Having terrified the Spartans with this bogeyman
image of an insatiable Athens, he gives them specific advice on how to
counter his countrymen that picks up Nikias’s warnings from his first speech
opposing the Sicilian expedition.
Alkibiades leaves to the end the element he pretends he does not even
have to talk about—that he is a turncoat. Here Alkibiades employs an
ingeniously twisted variation of the Athenian redefinition of the city in a
defense whose syntax is as convoluted as its reasoning. Throughout, Alkibi-
ades speaks to the Spartans like they are Athenians and tries to fire them
with Athenian spirit and energy (Debnar 2001, 215). Alkibiades’s confident
presentation of Athenian strength helps prepare the reader for the switch
in the narrative from an ironic perspective that focuses on failure to a nar-
rative that increasingly showcases the growing strength of the Athenians
(Connor 1984, 185).
89.1 περὶ τῆς ἐμῆς διαβολῆς: “about the slander against me.” The pos-
sessive adjective has the force of an objective genitive (Sm. 1197). As
Debnar notes, Alkibiades’s “emphasis on himself” is “extraordinary,”
with eight first person pronouns or possessive adjectives in the first
eight lines of the speech (2001, 205n13).
εἰπεῖν: Infinitive subject of ἀναγχαῖον (Sm. 1985).
χεῖρον: Adverbial accusative (Sm. 1608).
τὰ κοινά: “public affairs” (LSJ II.2). This first sentence encapsulates the
problems with Alkibiades: that his private self overshadows the public
realm (cf. 6.15).
89.2 τῶν δ᾿ἐμῶν προγόνων . . . ἀπειπόντων: Temporal genitive absolute,

“after my ancestors . . .” (Sm. 2070).
τὴν προξενίαν . . . κατά τι ἔγκλημα: A proxenos, who held a proxeny,
looked after the interests of a foreign state within his own commu-
nity. Alkibiades’s grandfather (Ἀλκιβιάδες ΙΙ, #597, in Davies 1971)
probably renounced the proxeny around 462 as a consequence of the
anti-Spartan feeling in Athens after Kimon’s humiliating mission to
aid Sparta with the revolt of their helots (1.102).
τὴν ἐκ Πύλου ξυμφοράν: See introduction 3.5 for Pylos.
διατελοῦντος μου προθύμου: Concessive genitive absolute, “although I
. . .” (Sm. 2070).
καταλλασσόμενοι: “when you were reconciled . . . ,” that is, made the
Peace of Nikias of 421. See introduction 3.6.
89.3 τῷ δήμῳ προσεκείμην μᾶλλον: That is, did not disparage democ-
racy or advocate a pro-Spartan policy.
χείρω: Accusative singular masculine (Sm. 293).
ἄχθεσθαι: Infinitive in indirect discourse after ἡγήσηται (Sm. 2018). The
subject is unexpressed because it is the same as that of the main verb
(Sm. 1972). Thus, “nor for this reason (οὕτως) will he conclude that
he. . . .”
89.4 τοῖς γὰρ τυράννοις αἰεί ποτε διάφοροί ἐσμεν: Although Isokrates
(16, 25–26) says that Alkibiades’s ancestor Alkibiades (Ἀλκιβιάδες I,
#600.111, in Davies 1971) helped the Alkmaionid Kleisthenes expel the
Peisistratid tyrants from Athens, the Alkmaionidai were not always
enemies of tyrants, and Kleisthenes himself served as archon under
the tyranny (Meiggs and Lewis 1988, #6; see n. 6.54.6). But Spartans
were traditionally tyrant hating, and so Alkibiades’s little lie here and
the “we” he uses can link him to Sparta (Debnar 2001, 206).
πᾶν δὲ τὸ ἐναντιούμενον τῷ δυναστεύοντι δῆμος ὠνόμασται: This
description would be shocking to an Athenian democrat who looked
on oligarchy and tyranny as much the same thing.
τῆς πόλεως δημοκρατουμένης: Causal genitive absolute, “since the city
. . .” (Sm. 2070).
τὰ πολλά: “for the most part.” Adverbial. τῆς δὲ ὑπαρχούσης ἀκολασίας,
a genitive of comparison (Sm. 1431), states the exception.
τοῖς παροῦσιν: “present circumstances” (LSJ II).
ἕπεσθαι: Infinitive subject of ἀνάγκη (Sm. 1985).
89.5 μετριώτεροι: “as if what troubled the Athenians about him was that
he was somehow too moderate!” (Palmer 1992, 98).
89.6 ἐν ᾧ σχήματι: “in the form in which. . . .” Thucydides has combined

relative and antecedent (Sm. 2536).
ἐλευθερωτάτη: A state is often judged “most free” when it rules the

most. On this reasoning, the growth of the Athenian Empire makes it
ever more free.
τοῦτο ξυνδιασῴζειν: τοῦτο is “that form in which. . . .” ξυνδιασῴζειν is
dependent on δικαιοῦντες. Alkibiades presents himself as conserva-
tive and committed to political stability, both Spartan traits (Debnar
2001, 206).
ἐγιγνώσκομεν οἱ φρονοῦντες: Alkibiades “implies that he and the Spar-
tans are of one mind” (Debnar 2001, 207).
αὐτὸς οὐδενὸς ἂν χεῖρον, ὅσῳ καὶ λοιδορήσαιμι: The given text must
mean “and I (αὐτός) would (ἄν) [know what it was] less than no-one,
by as much as (ὅσῳ) I abused it.” This seems possible as a truncation
of the thought “and I would be seen to know what it was . . . by as much
as I abused it,” but Dover (in HCT 4:362–63) advocates accepting
a text indicated by a paraphrase of a scholiast and Valla’s fifteenth-
century Latin translation, which runs αὐτὸς οὐδενὸς ἂν χεῖρον, ὅσῳ
καὶ μέγιστα ἠδίκημαι, λοιδορήσαιμι, meaning “and I myself could
abuse it less than no-one, in so far as (ὅσῳ) I have been wronged [by
it] the most (μέγιστα).”
τὸ μεθιστάναι: Infinitive subject of ἐδόκει (Sm. 1985).
ἀσφαλές: This is a predicate adjective for τὸ μεθιστάναι. With this,
Alkibiades would seem to admit that he would change the govern-
ment if he could, and that the reason he did not try to do so was only
the hostility of the Spartans, thus confirming the Athenians’ fears
about his ambitions (for tyranny or oligarchy).
ὑμῶν πολεμίων προσκαθημένων: Temporal genitive absolute, “while
you . . .” (Sm. 2070).
90.1 περὶ δὲ ὧν: “concerning those things which.” Thucydides has left
out the antecedent, as is common when it expresses a general idea,
and the relative has been attracted into its case (Sm. 2509, 2522).
ὑμῖν τε βουλευτέον . . . ἐμοί, . . . ἐσηγητέον: Verbal adjectives in -τέος,
-τέα, -τέον convey necessity and use the dative of agent to express the
person(s) upon whom the necessity falls: “it must be considered by
you,” i.e., “you must . . .” and “I must . . .” (Sm. 473, 1488).
90.2 καταστρεψόμενοι . . . ἀποπειράσοντες: Future participles for

purpose (Sm. 2065).
αὐτῶν: The Karthaginians themselves, in addition to their subjects.
90.3 ἤδη: “forthwith; immediately” (LSJ 2).

ἐχούσης τῆς Ἰταλίας: Causal genitive absolute, “since Italy . . .” (Sm.
2070).
αἷς τὴν Πελοπόννησον πέριξ πολιορκοῦντες . . . ἠλπίζομεν
καταπολεμήσειν: At the very beginning of the war, Thucydides
reported that the Athenians sent embassies to Kerkyra, Kephallenia,
Akarnania, and Zakynthos, thinking that if they were allies, they
could carry on the war “right around the Peloponnesos” (πέριξ τὴν
Πελοπόννησον καταπολεμήσoντες, 2.7.3). This echo gives weight
to Alkibiades’s claims (both the specific one here and, by extension,
those in the rest of the speech).
τῶν πόλεων: Partitive genitive with τὰς μὲν . . . τὰς δ᾿ (Sm. 1306).
90.4 ὥστε εὐπορώτερον γίγνεσθαί τι αὐτῶν: τι αὐτῶν = any of these

projects.
διαρκῆ: Modifies χρήματα δὲ καὶ σῖτον as object of ἔμελλε . . . παρέξειν.
91.1 τὰ ἀκριβέστατα: Superlative adverbial accusative (Sm. 1608).

ὁμοίως αὐτὰ πράξουσιν: The dissension among the generals (6.47)
shows this is an exaggeration, but Alkibiades presents to his Spartan
audience “a city of men like himself” (Debnar 2001, 208).
ὡς δέ: The following words, εἰ μὴ . . . τἀκεῖ, explain what the Spartans
must learn.
91.2 καὶ νῦν: “even now.”

ναυσὶν . . . κατειργόμενοι: This claim is false because the Athenians have
not properly used their fleet. It has been “moved around like a threat-
ening, but impotent, chess piece” (Allison 1989, 94).
τῇ . . . Ἀθηναίων . . . παρασκευῇ: A false exaggeration. 6.71.2 gives the
true state of Athenian paraskeue.
91.3 διὰ μακροῦ: Temporal (LSJ II).

91.4 εἰ μὴ ποιήσετε . . . πέμψετε: The protasis (the “if” clause) of a future
most vivid condition (Sm. 2328) with the imperative μὴ . . . τις οἰέσθω
. . . βουλεύειν in the apodosis (the “then” clause).
οἵτινες: Explains στρατιάν . . . τοιαύτην. Thucydides thinks here of the
men rather than the abstract collective.
ὅ: “that thing which. . . .” Thucydides has left out the antecedent, as
is common when it expresses a general idea (Sm. 2509). Subject of
χρησιμώτερον εἶναι in indirect discourse after νομίζω.
Σπαρτιάτην: A Spartiate was a full Spartan citizen (one of the homoioi).
ὡς ἂν . . . ξυντάξῃ: ὡς ἄν + subjunctive is very rare for purpose clauses
in prose (Sm. 2201a).
ἀδεέστερον: “more fearlessly.” Adverbial accusative (Sm. 345, 1608).
91.5 τὰ ἐνθάδε: The theme of the two wars again. Echoes of Nikias
(6.9.1), as well as of the comments of Demosthenes to come (7.47.3–4)
and of Thucydides himself (7.27–29).
φανερώτερον ἐκπολεμεῖν: Infinitive subject of χρή (Sm. 1985).
ἧσσον ἄλλην ἐπικουρίαν πέμπωσιν: But, to their detriment, the Athe-
nians did send reinforcements, even though the Spartans followed
Alkibiades’s advice.
91.6 τειχίζειν τε χρὴ Δεκέλειαν τῆς Ἀττικῆς: τειχίζειν is infinitive subject

of χρή (Sm. 1985). Dekeleia was a deme in the northeast of Attica.
Thucydides gives out details about it only bit by bit. Readers do not
even know where it is yet, though Alkibiades’s Spartan audience
could be expected to know, since they spared Dekeleia during the
Archidamian War because of the inhabitants’ good deeds to the
Dioskouroi when they came seeking to reclaim Helen from Theseus
(Herodotus 9.73). Alkibiades here “answers” Perikles’s (ultimately
false) claim about the ineffectiveness of building fortifications in
Attica (ἐπιτείχισις, 1.142.2).
μόνου αὐτοῦ: Genitive with οὐ διαπεπειρᾶσθαι. The infinitive is in indi-
rect discourse after νομίζουσι (Sm. 2018). The subject is unexpressed
because it is the same as that of the leading verb (Sm. 1972). Both
Perikles (1.142.2) and the Spartans (5.17.2) had earlier entertained the
possibility of an enemy fortification in Attica. The Spartans finally did

fortify Dekeleia in spring 413 (7.19.1).
βεβαιότατα: Adverbial accusative (Sm. 345, 1608).
αὐτοὺς . . . ἑκάστους . . . ἐπισταμένους φοβεῖσθαι: φοβεῖσθαι is
infinitive subject of εἰκός (Sm. 1985), with its own accusative subject
αὐτοὺς . . . ἑκάστους. τὰ σφέτερα αὐτῶν δεινά is object both of
ἐπισταμένους and φοβεῖσθαι. ἀκριβέστατα is adverbial accusative
(Sm. 345, 1608).
91.7 ἅ: “the ways in which you will. . . .” Accusative of respect (Sm.

1600). Thucydides has left out the antecedent, as is common when it
expresses a general idea (Sm. 2509).
παρείς: From παρίημι.
οἷς: “those things with which.” Thucydides has left out the antecedent, as
is common when it expresses a general idea (Sm. 2509). This includes
all the ways of employing and benefitting from the land (farms, live-
stock, equipment, slaves, etc.)
αὐτόματα: That is, by the escape of slaves to the Spartans.
τοῦ Λαυρείου: Laurion, the hilly area in southern Attica near Sounion,
contained a silver-mining district; although it was state property
worked by slaves, the mines were leased to private citizens.
τῆς . . . προσόδου ἧσσον διαφορουμένης: Genitive after ἀποστερήσονται.
οἵ: The antecedent is understood from ἀπὸ τῶν ξυμμάχων.
πολεμεῖσθαι: Infinitive with subject accusative τὰ παρ᾿ ὑμῶν in indirect
discourse after νομίσαντες.
92.1 ἐν ὑμῖν ἐστίν: “it depends on you” (LSJ s.v. ἐν A.I.6), that is, whether
γίγνεσθαι τι αὐτῶν.
ὥς γε δυνατά: “that it is doable,” i.e., τι αὐτῶν.
ἁμαρτήσεσθαι: Infinitive in indirect discourse after οἶμαι (Sm. 2018).
The subject is not expressed because it is the same as that of the lead-
ing verb (Sm. 1972).
92.2 χείρων: Predicate adjective with δοκεῖν . . . εἶναι after ἀξιῶ. It is
nominative because it refers to the speaker of the main verb, Alkibi-
ades (Sm. 1973).
τῇ ἐμαυτοῦ: Understand πόλει. Dative after ἐπέρχομαι.

φιλόπολις: The only other time this word appears in Thucydides (in
addition to Alkibiades’s second use below) is in a speech of Perikles
about himself (2.60.5). The echo asks us to compare Perikles and
Alkibiades. Most think this comparison is to the benefit of Perikles.
However, like Alkibiades, who redefines his city below, Perikles also
had a very particular city as his love object—the walled imperial island
city that looked on Attica as nothing more than a bauble and ceded
its homeland to the enemy (2.62.2–3). This similarity invites us to ask
how much Perikles’s vision of the city, no less than Alkibiades’s, led to
division and faction (Taylor 2010, 275–76; see introduction 6.6).
ὑποπτεύεσθαι: Also dependent on ἀξιῶ. The subject of the infinitive is
τὸν λόγον.
ἐς τὴν φυγαδικὴν προθυμίαν: That is, do not be suspicious of my argu-
ments as being based only on the zeal of a fugitive.
92.3 οὐ τῆς ὑμετέρας . . . ὠφελίας: “but not from the power of aiding
you” (Marchant). The force of the possessive adjective is like that of an
objective genitive (Sm. 1197).
οἱ . . . ἀναγκάσαντες πολεμίους γενέσθαι: That is, it’s all the Athenians’
fault that he is in Sparta, and their actions make them more hostile
than the Spartans.
92.4 ἐν ᾧ: “where.”
οὐδ᾿ ἐπὶ πατρίδα οὖσαν ἔτι ἡγοῦμαι νῦν ἰέναι, . . . δὲ . . . τὴν οὐκ οὖσαν
ἀνακτᾶσθαι: ἰέναι and ἀνακτᾶσθαι are dependent on ἡγοῦμαι.
Their unexpressed subject is Alkibiades. Alkibiades here echoes the
description that the Athenians at Sparta gave of their courage during
the Persian Wars when they (and they alone) were willing to abandon
their city and, “rising up from a city that no longer existed (ἀπό τε τῆς
οὐκ οὔσης ἔτι ὁρμώμενοι), and taking the risk on behalf of a city of
which there was only little hope of it existing (καὶ ὑπὲρ τῆς ἐν βραχείᾳ
ἐλπίδι οὔσης κινδυεύοντες), joined together in saving both you and
ourselves” (1.74.3). The great difference in the situations is that in
480–479, Athens really had been abandoned. The Athens that Alkibi-
ades claims no longer exists, on the other hand, still remains in Attica,
inhabited by (so they would think) Athenians. As Debnar notes, “by
asserting that his recovery of his country will restore it politically,
[Alkibiades] implies that it is not the Athenians, but he himself who
makes the city” (2001, 212). Alkibiades thus spectacularly confuses
public and private (see introduction 6.3).
φιλόπολις οὗτος ὀρθῶς: Alkibiades’s comments are a primer for faction.
τὴν ἑαυτοῦ: Understand πόλιν.
ὃς ἂν . . . μὴ ἐπίῃ, . . . ὃς ἂν . . . πειραθῇ: Conditional relative clause (Sm.
2560) in the protasis (the “if” clause) of a present general condition
(Sm. 2337).
ἀπολέσας: From ἀπόλλυμι.
92.5 ἐμοί: Dative with χρῆσθαι, infinitive after ἀξιῶ. The subject of the
infinitive is ὑμᾶς.
γνόντας: Modifies ὑμᾶς.
ὅσῳ . . . ᾔκαζον: Alkibiades here expresses how much he could “suf-
ficiently” help the Spartans: as much as the difference between his
present knowledge about Athenian plans and his past mere conjecture
about Spartan ones.
μὴ ἀποκνεῖν: Governed by ἀξιῶ at the beginning of 6.92.5. The subject is
αὐτοὺς . . . νομίσαντας, that is, the Spartans. βουλεύεσθαι is infinitive
in indirect discourse after νομίσαντας (Sm. 2018).
καθέλητε: From καθαιρέω.
93.1 καὶ αὐτοὶ πρότερον: “themselves, even before. . . .”

μέλλοντες: A key Spartan characteristic. See the Korinthian speech
before the war (1.68–71).
διδάξαντος . . . αὐτοῦ: Temporal or causal genitive absolute, “once (or
because) he . . .” (Sm. 2070). The subject is Alkibiades.
εἰδότος: The subject is also Alkibiades, but here it is a genitive after a
preposition.
93.2 προσεῖχον ἤδη τὸν νοῦν: And yet they still did not fortify Dekeleia
for a year. This delay (and Thucydides’s explanation for it at 7.18.2–4)
underscores the Spartans’ traditional hesitation and religiosity. How-

ever, the fact that they did eventually fortify Dekeleia marks a change
in behavior since religious scruples had kept them off Dekeleia in the
past (see n. 6.91.6).
τὸ παραυτίκα: “immediately; straightaway” (LSJ).
πέμπειν: Also dependent on προσεῖχον . . . τὸν νοῦν. In his typical
unparallel style, Thucydides has switched from the regular dative (τῇ
ἐπιτειχίσει) to an infinitive.
Γύλιππον τὸν Κλεανδρίδου: The significance of the patronymic
becomes apparent at 6.104.2, when Thucydides picks up Gylippos’s
story. Given his importance to the Sicilian expedition, it is surprising
that Thucydides gives no introductory remarks for him. As de Romilly
notes, Thucydides does not follow Gylippos’s progress to Sicily in one
connected narrative but “knits” it together with simultaneous actions
in Sicily in order to place his arrival “in the context of the progress of
walls” (2012, 30, 13).
ποιεῖν ὅπῃ . . . τις ὠφελία ἥξει: “to devise how some aid . . .” (Marchant,
adapted).
ἐκ τῶν παρόντων: “according to present circumstances” (LSJ II).
93.3 οἱ: “to him.” Dative singular masculine pronoun (Sm. 325).
93.4 ὅν . . . ξυνέγραψεν: See n. 6.7.4.
EIGHTEENTH YEAR OF THE WAR (414–413)
Athenian Activity in Sicily (6.94), “Summer” 414

94.1 τοῦ ἐπιγιγνομένου θέρους: This is the “summer” of 414, beginning
in early to mid-March 414 and running until the end of October. See
introduction 1.6 for Thucydides’s dating system.
ἐπὶ Γέλωνος τοῦ τυράννου: In 483/82 plus or minus one year (see note
6.4.2). As he notes, Thucydides explained this at 6.4.2.
94.4 ὡς . . . ἵππων πορισθησομένων: Temporal genitive absolute, “on

the assumption that the horses would . . .” (Sm. 2070). The ὡς indi-
cates that this is the thought of the senders.
τάλαντα ἀργυρίου τριακόσια: An inscription records this sum (Meiggs

and Lewis 1988, #77.73–74 available translated online at Attic Inscrip-
tions Online). An additional four talents and two thousand drachmas
were voted seventeen days later. The payments date to the end of
March and the beginning of April 414. The ships probably arrived in
Sicily in mid-April (Dover in HCT 4:266). Jordan (2000, 75) points
to the “startling insufficiency” of the sum when compared to the two
thousand talents that Athens spent on the siege of Poteidaia (2.70.2),
and the two thousand talents that Syracuse spent on its defense by the
summer of 413, in addition to incurring a large debt (7.48.5). The com-
parison is part of Jordan’s claim that the expedition was a “potemkin
fleet.”
Activity in Argos and Lakedaimon (6.95.1)

This is one of only three scenes in the narrative of years seventeen through
nineteen (415/14–413/12) that do not relate to the main account of the Athe-
nian attempt to conquer Sicily. The others are 6.95.2 and 7.9 (Dewald 2012,
150n15). Dewald counts five such scenes, but 6.105.1 and 7.34 do relate to
the main story (even if not at first sight; see notes there).
95.1 σεισμοῦ δὲ γενομένου ἀπεχώρησαν: Temporal genitive absolute,

“but when an earthquake . . .” (Sm. 2070). This stands in contrast to
the rationality of (either all or some of) the Athenians confronted
with the rainstorm above (6.70).
ἐπράθη: From πιπράσκω followed by the genitive of value (Sm. 1336).
Activity in Thespiai (6.95.2)

Like 6.95.1, this scene, too, is one of only three in years seventeen to nineteen
that do not relate directly to the larger narrative of the Athenian attempt
to conquer Sicily (see n. 6.95.1). The other is 7.9.
95.2 οὐ κατέσχεν: “did not achieve its object” (LSJ II.8).

βοηθησάντων Θηβαίων: Temporal genitive absolute, “but when the

Thebans . . .” (Sm. 2070).
Seige Operations at Syracuse (6.96–6.103)

96.1 ὡς ἐπύθοντο: Thucydides emphasizes “the swiftness and efficiency”
of the Athenians’ renewed attack because readers “learn of it at the
same time as the Syracusans, and hear nothing of prior planning”
(Rood 1998a, 171). The verb sets up indirect statement with two parti-
ciples, ἥκοντας and μέλλοντας, with different subjects (Sm. 2110).
τῶν Ἐπιπολῶν: This is the plateau looming all along the north and
northwest of the city of Syracuse. See map 3. Thucydides mentions
Epipolai at 6.75.1 but postpones any details about it until now. This is
similar to his slow parceling out of information about Dekeleia (6.91.6,
7.19.1–2, 7.27–28).
οὐκ ἂν ῥᾳδίως σφᾶς . . . ἀποτειχισθῆναι: Accusative and infinitive in
indirect discourse after νομισάντες (Sm. 2018) in the apodosis (the
“then” clause) of a future less vivid or “should/would” condition. The
subject of the infinitive is the Syracusans. The condition has two pro-
tases (the “if” clause), both referring to the Athenians. The first, ἐὰν
μὴ . . . κρατήσωσιν, more properly fits a future more vivid condition.
The second is εἰ κρατοῖντο. Representing the subject of the infinitive
in the accusative when it is the same as the subject of the main verb is
emphatic (Sm. 1974). The Syracusans correctly surmise that the strat-
egy of the Athenians is circumvallation. They intend to wall Syracuse
off from the countryside and, together with control by sea, besiege
it into submission. The Syracusans aim to prevent this. Thucydides
notes the Syracusans’ success at 7.6.4 with a phrase that neatly echoes
this reported intention here (de Romilly 2012, 16).
τὰς προσβάσεις αὐτῶν: That is, of Epipolai. The edge of the plateau is very
sheer in some places but less so in others, where it is possible to ascend.
φυλάσσειν: Infinitive in indirect statement after διενοοῦντο (Sm. 2018).
Here, as is usual, the subject of the infinitive is not expressed because
it is the same as the main verb (Sm. 1972).
ἂν . . . αὐτοὺς δυνηθῆναι: “they would not be able to. . . .” Also in indi-
rect discourse after νομίσαντες above (Sm. 2018). The ἂν shows that
the idea is potential.
ἄλλῃ: “elsewhere.”
96.2 ἐξήρτηται γὰρ τὸ ἄλλο χωρίον: “is elevated” (LSJ s.v. ἑξαρτάω 4).
ἐπιφανὲς πᾶν ἔσω: This is not true about sight lines either from Ortygia
or the older city, but it is true of views from the area inside the new
north wall (the “winter wall”) of 6.75.1 (Dover in HCT 4:473; see map 3).
διὰ τὸ . . . εἶναι: Articular infinitive after a preposition (Sm. 2034b).
ἐπιπολῆς: Preposition governing τοῦ ἄλλου.
96.3 παρειληφότες: From παραλαμβάνω.

λογάδας: “picked troops.”
ὅπως . . . εἶεν φύλακες, καὶ . . . παραγίγνωνται: Subjunctive and
optative in the same purpose clause (Sm. 2199). An example of
Thucydides’s insistence on varied constructions. Smyth calls the
retained subjunctive “vivid” (2197), but Thucydides is quite fond of it,
and Dover denies there is any special “vividness.”
97.1 οἱ δὲ Ἀθηναῖοι ταύτης τῆς νυκτὸς <ᾗ > τῇ ἐπιγιγνομένῃ ἡμέρᾳ

ἐξητάζοντο ἐκεῖνοι: The OCT text (without the ᾗ and with καί
instead of ἐκεῖνοι) would mean that “the Athenians, on the day fol-
lowing this night (i.e., the night at the end of which the Syracusans
mustered at dawn, ἅμα τῇ ἡμέρᾳ; 6.96.3), mustered for review,” and
also sailed from Katane, and landed at Leon without the Syracusans
noticing. Since the Syracusans were still at their dawn muster when
the Athenians landed, this activity seems too much to cram in before
the day fully started. The small emendations accepted by Hornblower
(3:525) and Alberti should be translated as “during the night on which
following day (i.e., during the night before the day on which) they
(the Syracusans) held their review. . . .” The changes thus give the
whole night to the Athenians’ activity and keep them from needing to
muster as well.
κατὰ τὸν Λέοντα καλούμενον: Leon is generally placed on the north

side of the large peninsula to the north of Syracuse (i.e., on the north
side of Epipolai), somewhere to the west of Santa Panagia/Trogilos
(see n. 6.99.1), but nothing more can be said. See map 3.
ἐς τὴν Θάψον: Thapsos is the low-lying peninsula in the middle of the
bay of Megara Hyblaea.
οὔτε πλοῦν οὔτε ὁδόν: Accusative of extent of space (Sm. 1581).
97.2 κατὰ τὸν Εὐρύηλον: Here the Athenians ascend Epipolai at Eury-
elos from the north. At 7.43.3 they do the same from the south. This
places Euryelos in the location of the waist of the plateau of Epipolai.
Livy describes a hill and fort named Euryelos (25.25.2) that corre-
spond to the remains of a fort just to the east of the waist. See map 3.
ἐκ τοῦ λειμῶνος καὶ τῆς ἐξετάσεως: “from the meadow and the review.”
This is an excellent example of Thucydides’s love for concision and his
fondness for mixing concrete ideas (“they came from the meadow”)
with more abstract ones (“they came from the review”). Far be it from
him to write “from the meadow in which the generals were conduct-
ing a review.”
97.3 ὡς ἕκαστος τάχους εἶχε: “as fast as each could.” ἔχω here indicates
ability (LSJ A.III) with a partitive genitive (Sm. 1441).
97.4 ἀτακτότερον: Adverbial accusative (Sm. 345, 1608). Which

side is more disordered is a key point in this section. First it is the
Syracusans, then the Athenians, and then the Syracusans again. The
disorder theme will return in book 7 about the Athenians.
ὡς τριακόσιοι: ὡς + numbers = “approximately” (LSJ E).
97.5 ἐπὶ τῷ Λαβδάλῳ: We know nothing more of this place. It must be

on the north edge of Epipolai somewhere. See map 3.
98.1 οὐ πολλῷ: Dative of degree of difference after ὕστερον (Sm. 1513).

ξύμπαντες πεντήκοντα καὶ ἑξακόσιοι ἱππῆς ξυνελέγησαν: This number
sounds large. Only by comparing it with 6.67.2 does the reader see
that the Athenians have less than half the cavalry of Syracuse.
98.2 πρὸς τὴν Συκῆν: This is presumably a real fig tree used as a location
marker. As Dover notes, here and elsewhere, by using the definite
article, Thucydides writes as if his readers are familiar with this
topography.
ἵναπερ: “where; in which place.”
τὸν κύκλον: “The” circle because, as Dover notes, Thucydides expects
his readers to understand that some fortification like this was neces-
sary. The “circle” was not necessarily circular. It probably lay toward
the south edge of the plateau because 6.101.1 makes it sound like the
edge of the plateau was very close to it. See map 3.
ἔκπληζιν . . . παρέσχον τῷ τάχει τῆς οἰκοδομίας: The contrast with the
Athenians’ prior dilatoriness is marked.
ἐπεξελθόντες . . . διενοοῦντο: The subject has switched to the Syra-
cusans.
98.3 ἀντιπαρατασσομένων: Temporal genitive absolute, “when the forces

were . . .” (Sm. 2070), with the subject understood as the two sides.
ὡς: “when” (Sm. 3000).
ἀνήγαγον πάλιν: Contrast 7.3.3 and Gylippos’s response to disordered
troops.
λιθοφορεῖν: Scavenging blocks for their circumvallation walls.
98.4 φυλὴ μία: In an Athenian army, men were mustered for war in ten
tribal regiments, one from each of the ten Attic tribes. There are 1,500
Athenian hoplites in the present force, so if this refers only to Athe-
nians, and all tribes were equally represented in the force, it ought to
mean 150 men. However, the band may be a mixture of Athenians and
allies, or the tribes might not have been equally represented. In short,
we do not know how many men this represents.
99.1 τὸ πρὸς βορέαν τοῦ κύκλου τεῖχος: This wall extended north from
the circle across the plateau but was never completed. It was stopped
by the third Syracusan counter wall (7.6.4). See map 3.
ἐπὶ τὸν Τρωγίλον καλούμενον: Trogilos is on the north side of Epipolai
(since “the other sea” should mean the sea leading to Thapsos, not
the area north of the little harbor where Green [1970, 195] puts it). It is
probably the gully and cove of Santa Pangia. See map 3.
ᾗπερ: “where” (LSJ s.v. ὅς, ἥ, ὅ Ab.II).
τοῦ μεγάλου λιμένος: The “Great Harbor” of Syracuse. See map 3.
99.2 Ἑρμοκράτους . . . ἐσηγησαμένου: Causal genitive absolute, “since

especially Hermokrates . . .” (Sm. 2070).
πανδημεί: This refusal to fight “in full force” seems like failure, but the
choice to focus on wall building turns out to be decisive. See next
note.
ὑποτειχίζειν: Infinitive subject of ἐδόκει (Sm. 1985). That is, to build a
counter wall that would prevent the Athenians from building their
wall where they wanted. Thucydides coined this verb. Here begins
Thucydides’s account of the “dueling walls and counterwalls” (de
Romilly 2012, 29).
εἰ φθάσειαν, ἀποκλῄσεις γίγνεσθαι: φθάνειν αὐτοί below is definitely
about the Syracusans, and that makes it seem like εἰ φθάσειαν here
ought to be about the Athenians. But if the reference here is to the
Athenians, the sense of this passage is much less clear. We should
therefore take εἰ φθάσειαν to be about the Syracusans. γίγνεσθαι,
with accusative subject, is another subject for ἐδόκει (Sm. 1985), and
as usual, it serves as the passive of ποιεῖν. Thus, “it seemed that enclo-
sure would occur if they (the Syracusans) should act first.” Note the
typically Thucydidean usage of an abstract noun instead of a personal
verb (“they would enclose . . .”).
εἰ ἐπιβοηθοῖεν: The subject is the Athenians. The phrase means, “if they
come to aid against” (LSJ 2), i.e., intervene. The multiple points of
view Thucydides gives in this section make understanding difficult.
Thucydides does not add to clarity by using vague words for the two
sides throughout rather than employing “the Syracusans” and “the
Athenians” at key points. Translate as “and if they (the Athenians)
came against them (ἐπιβοηθοῖεν) it seemed good (ἐδόκει above) to
send (ἀντιπέμπειν) part of their army against them (the Athenians)
and for them (the Syracusans, αὐτοί) to act first in occupying

(φθάνειν . . . προκαταλαμβάνοντες) the access points with stockades
and (δέ) it seemed (ἐδόκει above) that they (ἐκείνους) pausing from
their activity would (ἄν) all turn against them (σφᾶς, the Syracusans
and, it is implied, away from the work of walling in Syracuse).”
99.3 κάτωθεν τοῦ κύκλου τῶν Ἀθηναίων: This probably refers not to
the area between the circle and the edge of the plateau but to the area
below the plateau where there is firm ground. Thucydides does not
seem to know of this firm ground between the marsh and the plateau.
Dover takes this as the best evidence that Thucydides had not seen
Syracuse (in HCT 4:475).
ἐγκάρσιον: “athwart; oblique” (LSJ), that is, to the Athenian wall.
τὰς τε ἐλάας ἐκκόπτοντες τοῦ τεμένους: The sanctuary is that of Apollo
Temenites (6.75). The cutting of sacred olive trees would be a sacri-
lege.
99.4 ἐτὶ οἱ Συρακόσιοι ἐκράτουν τῶν περὶ τὴν θάλασσαν: Perikles

claimed that the Athenians were “absolute masters of half the world”
(2.62.2). At Melos, the Athenians twice claimed to be ναυκράτορες
(5.97, 109), and Alkibiades claimed that the Athenians would have
absolute safety in Sicily because they were naukratores (6.18.5).
Thucydides is surely ironically echoing all these false claims. It is not
until 6.102.3 that the Athenians finally move their fleet toward the
great harbor.
100.1 This first paragraph is a “monster” sentence of 137 words. Yaginuma

argues that this is because the action, all virtually simultaneous but
independent action by the Athenians, must be presented paratacti-
cally (1995, 136). Yaginuma judges that Thucydides seems to have
had a “ ‘one sentence for one action’ . . . principle of composition”
(1990, 283). Because the style is paratactic, without many subordinate
clauses (i.e., “the Syracusans . . . but then the Athenians . . . and they
. . .”), it is not difficult to read.
ἀρκούντως: = ἀρκεόντως “enough, abundantly” (LSJ).
ἐσταυρώθη: The Syracusans protected the most obvious approaches to

their counterwall from Epipolai and the plain with a wooden stockade.
φοβούμενοι μή: A fear that something may happen is introduced by μή;
that something may not happen, by μή οὐ (Sm. 2221).
τούς τε ὀχετούς: Because Syracuse had an unquenchable spring, Are-
thusa, destruction of the water channels into the city could only do so
much toward besieging Syracuse into submission.
ποτοῦ ὕδατος: This genitive phrase modifies τούς τε ὀχετούς. It is part
of Thucydides’s style to displace modifiers like this (see introduction
2.3.7).
ἠγμένοι ἦσαν: A pluperfect middle/passive periphrastic form from ἄγω,
made from the perfect passive participle and the imperfect of εἰμί
(Sm. 599d).
λογάδας: “picked men” (LSJ).
εἰ ἐπιβοηθοῖεν: The subject is the Syracusans.
ἐχώρουν: Thucydides uses a plural verb because he is thinking of the
army now as its men.
τὸ παρὰ τὴν πυλίδα: The definite article does not distinguish this stock-
ade from another, for there is only one. Rather it distinguishes this
part of the stockade from the rest.
100.2 ἐς τὸ προτείχισμα τὸ περὶ τὸν Τεμενίτην: This is the portion of

the “winter wall” (6.75) that enclosed the sanctuary of Temenites. See
map 3.
101.1 ἐτείχιζον . . . τὸν κρημνὸν τὸν ὑπὲρ τοῦ ἕλους: This does not mean
the Athenians built a wall along the edge of the cliff of Epipolai, or
else Thucydides would not describe this wall as τὸ πρὸς τὸν κρημνὸν
[τεῖχος] below (6.101.3). We should probably insert a πρός here as well,
in which case this construction is a wall or walls running from the
circle toward the cliff, or we might understand this building activity
to be the beginnings, on Epipolai, of the two walls that the Athenians
later extended down the cliff toward the great harbor. Thucydides
might describe either of those activities as “they fortified the cliff from
the circle.” See map 3.
τοῦ ἕλους: This marsh lay to the west of Temenites, to the south of the
firmer ground below Epipolai on which the Syracusans built their first
cross-wall. That the Syracusans dug a ditch alongside their stockade
(6.101.2) demonstrates that the marsh was not all standing water but
contained some muddy tracks. However, that the Athenians needed
boards to cross it at its firmest shows that it must have been very wet
in parts. See map 3.
ταύτῃ: “on this spot” (LSJ C.VIII.4.a).
ᾗπερ: “where” (LSJ s.v. ὅς, ἥ, ὅ Ab.II).
101.2 ὅπως μὴ οἷόν τε ᾖ τοῖς Ἀθηναίοις . . . ἀποτειχίσαι: οἷος + εἰμι = “to
be able.” Here it is an impersonal expression + dative, that is, “would
not be possible for X to Y (infinitive)” (LSJ III.B.2).
101.3 τὸ πρὸς τὸν κρημνόν: Understand τεῖχος.

περὶ ὄρθρον: “the time just before or about daybreak” (LSJ).
αἱροῦσιν: Historical present (Sm. 1883). Thucydides marks important
moments with this tense. See also introduction 2.3.9 on the “immedi-
ate mode” of narration.
101.4 παρὰ τὸν ποταμόν: The Syracusans were presumably stationed

roughly north-south, and the Syracusan left was afraid of being
enveloped by the Athenian left, which was to their north and poten-
tially able to get between them and the city. The Syracusans thus fled
south. It makes most sense for the battle to have occurred close to
the city (rather than close to the river), and so παρά is inappropriate.
Thucydides really needs πρός.
τῆς διαβάσεως: Genitive with ἀποκλῄσασθαι.
λογάδες: “picked men” (LSJ). This is a small detachment from the Athe-
nian right wing.
101.5 ὁμόσε χωροῦσι: “ran to meet at close quarters” (LSJ s.v. ὁμόσε).
Historical present (Sm. 1883) like αἱροῦσι above and the following
verbs τρέπουσι and ἐσβάλλουσιν. Thucydides is in the “immediate
mode” (see introduction 2.3.9).
προσπεσόντων αὐτῶν: Temporal genitive absolute, “and when they . . .”

(Sm. 2070).
101.6 ὁ Λάμαχος . . . ἀποθνῄσκει: Thucydides has not named Lamachos

since 6.50.1. It is shocking for him to appear only to be killed. It is only
the historical present that marks the long-term significance of Lama-
chos’s death (cf. Klug 1992, 52). The battle itself is barely affected since
the Syracusans have to retreat anyway.
καὶ τοὺς Ἀργείους παραλαβών: In characteristically unparallel style,
Thucydides employs a full participial clause instead of simply another
genitive after μετά.
ἐπιόντος . . . τοῦ ἄλλου στρατεύματος: Temporal or causal genitive
absolute, “when (or because) the rest . . .” (Sm. 2070).

τὸ πρῶτον: Adverbial accusative (Sm. 1611).
ὡς: “when” (Sm. 3000).
κατὰ σφᾶς: “in front of them.” These are the men of the Athenian left
wing.
πέμπουσιν: Historical present (Sm. 1883).
102.2 τὸ . . . δεκάπλεθρον προτείχισμα: Thucydides has not mentioned

this outerwork before. We do not really know where it was. See map 3.
Νικίας διεκώλυσεν: Understand αὐτοὺς μὴ ἑλεῖν (with a redundant μή;
Sm. 2739).
δι᾿ ἀσθένειαν: This is the first mention of Nikias’s illness. Readers
now know that of the three original generals, one is dead, one has
decamped to Sparta, and one is so ill he is missing planned battles.
ὡς: “since” (Sm. 3000).
ἀδυνάτους ἐσομένους . . . περιγενέσθαι: Supplementary participle in
indirect discourse after ἔγνω (Sm. 2106). The infinitive explains the
enemy’s inability (Sm. 2001).
102.3 τῶν Ἀθηναίων ἀποδιωξάντων: Causal genitive absolute, “since

the Athenians . . .” (Sm. 2070).
ἐπανῄει: From ἐπάνειμι.
αἱ νῆες ἅμα αὐτῶν: Thucydides does not ask, but invites his readers to
ask, why they have waited so long.
102.4 ἱκανοὶ γενέσθαι: An infinitive in indirect discourse after

νομίσαντες (Sm. 2018). The predicate adjective is nominative because
the subject, the Syracusans, is the same as that of the leading verb
(Sm. 1973). The ἄν indicates that the original thought was potential.
The infinitive explains what they would not be sufficient to do (Sm.
2001).
103.1 παρόντος . . . τοῦ στρατεύματος . . . τοῦ ναυτικοῦ . . . τοῦ πεζοῦ:
Temporal or causal genitive absolute, “since (or now that) the army
. . .” (Sm. 2070).
τείχει διπλῷ: These two walls need not have run parallel. This term can
be used for two walls that start in generally the same place but then
diverge by a considerable distance. See map 3.
103.3 οὐκέτι ἐνόμιζον ἂν περιγενέσθαι: Infinitive in indirect statement

after ἐνόμιζον (Sm. 2018). The subject is not expressed because it is the
same as that of the main verb, the Syracusans (Sm. 1972).
ὡς: “since” (Sm. 3000).
οὐδὲ . . . ὠφελία οὐδεμία: The compound negative merely reinforces the
first (Sm. 2761).
τοὺς δὲ λόγους . . . ἐποιοῦντο ξυμβατικούς: Once they finally got
started, the Athenians’ aggressive activity has quickly had a huge
effect. After only a short campaign they have caused the Syracusans
to consider surrendering. This is the high point of Athenian success.
103.4 οἷα: “as, just as” (LSJ V.2).

ἀνθρώπων ἀπορούντων . . . πολιορκουμένων: Circumstantial genitive
absolute, “when men are . . .” (Sm. 2070).
κατὰ τὴν πόλιν: “throughout the city” (LSJ B.I.2).
ἐφ ὧν: “in whose time,” i.e., in whose time in office (LSJ A.II).
ὡς . . . βλαπτόμενοι: “on the grounds that they were being harmed
by. . . .” This gives the Syracusan thinking behind the dismissal (Sm.
2086).
The Coming of Gylippos (6.104)

104.1 ἐν δὲ τούτῳ: “meanwhile” (LSJ C.VIII.6.b).
περὶ Λευκάδα: In the northwest of Greece. See map 1.
ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτό: That is, to the same effect, explained in the following ὡς
clause.
ὡς ἤδη παντελῶς ἀποτετειχισμέναι . . . εἰσι: Α perfect middle/passive
periphrastic form, made from the perfect passive participle and εἰμί
(Sm. 599d). These words are repeated at 7.1, linking books 6 and 7
closely together. See n. 6.1.1 on Thucydides’s book divisions.
ναυσὶ δυοῖν μὲν Λακωνικαῖν, δυοῖν δὲ Κορινθίαιν: Dative duals (Sm.
287). This force is almost laughably small, and even the later fleet
includes only an additional fifteen ships.
τὸν Ιόνιαν: Understand κόλπον. The stretch of open sea between
Bound 840).
πρὸς ταῖς σφετέραις: “in addition to . . .” (LSJ B.III).
104.2 πρῶτον: Adverbial accusative (Sm. 1611).

τὴν τοῦ πατρὸς ἀνανεωσάμενος πολιτείαν: Gylippos’s father Kleandri-
das—Thucydides gives readers the patronymic at 6.93.2—was exiled
from Sparta in 446/45 as a consequence of the scandal surrounding
the Spartan king Pleistoanax’s aborted invasion of Attica (1.114.2;
Plutarch, Perikles 22.3; see introduction 3.1). He became a citizen of
Thourioi and served as a general there. We do not know enough about
citizenship rules in a place like Thourioi to understand what “renew-
ing” one’s father’s citizenship might mean. Gylippos’s father’s connec-
tion with this part of the Greek world is presumably partly why he was
chosen for this command.
ἄρας: From αἴρω (ἀείρω): “get underway; sail” (LSJ I.5).
κατὰ τὸν Τεριναῖον κόλπον: “opposite the Terinaian Gulf.” This gulf is
on the north side of the toe of Italy, making it unlikely that Gylippos
sailed back to Taras, which is on the instep, from there. Thucydides
has probably confused a gulf on the south or east coast of the toe with
the Terinaian Gulf. See map 2.
ὅς ἐκπνεῖ . . . κατὰ βορέαν: De Romilly notes, “when everything rests on
chance, Thucydides, for once, gives all the concrete details” (2012, 30).
ταύτῃ: “there” (LSJ C.VIII.4.a).
μέγας: Adverbial accusative (Sm. 1608).
ἐς τὰ μάλιστα: “in the highest degree” (LSJ s.v. μάλα III.2).
104.3 αὐτὸν προσπλέοντα: Supplementary participle in indirect dis-

course after πυθόμενος (Sm. 2110).
λῃστικώτερον: “on a piratic venture.” Adverbial accusative (Sm. 1608).
ἔδοξε: Impersonal. Understand “to Nikias.” The infinitive subject is
πλεῖν (Sm. 1985), with accusative subject περεσκευασμένους refer-
ring to Gylippos and his men.
οὐδεμίαν φυλακήν πω ἐποιεῖτο: Thucydides need not make any judg-
ment about this carelessness. The bald statement is damning enough.
Activity in the Peloponnesos (6.105)

105.1 This brilliant chapter, filled with narrator interventions, disrupts
the narrative of Gylippos’s journey to Syracuse (resumed at 7.1) at the
dramatic point where the reader knows there is still a chance he can
save it. By its turning away, this chapter leaves Thucydides’s comment
that Nikias took no precautions against Gylippos as his last word
in this book on Athenian activity in Sicily. Furthermore, although
the contents of this chapter at first seem entirely independent of the
events Thucydides has just been narrating, they will profoundly affect
them because the Athenian breach of the treaty here described will
lead to the two-front war that Nikias and the Syracusans foresaw
(6.10.1, 6.34.3, 6.36.4) and that so harmed both the Sicilian expedition
and Athens (see de Romilly 2012, 39–41). Dewald classes this as one of
only five scenes in the narrative of years seventeen through nineteen
that “do not relate” directly to the main “plot” of the Athenian attempt
to conquer Sicily (2005, 150n15). The others are 6.95.1, 6.95.2, 7.9, and
7.34. But this scene, like 7.34, does relate (even if not at first sight).
τὰς σπονδάς: That is, the Peace of Nikias (see introduction 3.6).
Thucydides says that during the years of the Peace of Nikias, the
combatants refrained from invading eachothers’ territory for six years
and ten months (5.25.3). However, Thucydides does not give his end
points for this span of time, and the most obvious points, the signing
of the Peace of Nikias and this Athenian invasion, which ought to
date to late July or August 414, are not six years and ten months apart
(Gomme and Andrewes in HCT 4:6–9).
105.2 λῃστείαις ἐκ Πύλου: See introduction 3.5 for Pylos.

Ἀργείων κελευόντων: Concessive genitive absolute, “although the
Argives . . .” (Sm. 2070).
ὅσον σχόντας μόνον: ὅσον . . . μόνον = “only sο far as” (LSJ s.v. ὅσος
IV.2). σχόντας = “having landed” (LSJ s.v. ἔχω A.II.8). The subject
is the Athenians (in the Argives’ exhortation), the accusative subject
(with δῃώσαντας) of ἀπελθεῖν after κελευόντων (Sm. 1992), i.e.,
“although the Argives were repeatedly urging that they, after having
just put in (ὅσον σχόντας μόνον) to Lakonia and having devastated
(δῃώσαντας) with them the smallest part (τὸ ἐλάχιστον), depart.”
Πυθοδώρου . . . Λαισποδίου . . . Δημαράτου ἀρχόντων: Circumstantial
genitive absolute, “under the command of . . .” (Sm. 2070).
εὐπροφάσιστον . . . αἰτίαν . . . τοῦ ἀμύνεσθαι: “the most plausible case
for warding them off,” that is, gave them a good argument, and made
them believe, that they would not be breaking the treaty by going to
war again.
105.3 ἀναχωρησάντων . . . τῶν Ἀθηναίων . . . τῶν Λακεδαιμονίων: Tem-

poral genitive absolute, “after the Athenians . . .” (Sm. 2070).
καὶ ἀπῆλθον ἐπ᾿ οἴκου: The scholiast to book 6 writes at this point,
ἐνταῦθα ἡ τῶν Συρακοσίων ἄρχεται νίκη καὶ τῶν Ἀθηναίων ἦττα,
or “Here begins the victory of the Syracusans and the defeat of the
Athenians.”
Sicilian Expedition, Book 7
The book divisions of Thucydides are not his own (Hornblower 2004, 329;
Dover xvii). Book 7, for example, begins in the middle of the summer of 414
rather than at the start of the season, as one would expect if a new book were
supposed to begin at this point. Furthermore, at 7.1.1 Thucydides repeats
from 6.104.1 the idea that Syracuse has not been completely walled in and
so links our books 6 and 7 closely together.
EIGHTEENTH YEAR OF THE WAR (414–413)

The Arrival of Gylippos (7.1–7.2), “Summer” 414
The “summer” of 414 begins in Thucydides’s text at 6.94 in early to mid-
March 414 in our chronology. (See introduction 1.6 for Thucydides’s dating
methodology.) Quite a bit has happened since 6.94, and it is hard to know
exactly where we are now in time because Thucydides’s time markers are
so vague, that is, “during this summer” (6.96.1) or “around the same part
of this summer” (6.105.1).
The first eight chapters of book 7 are made up of six scenes with time
formulas that “tie the series together rather than divide it” (as formulas do
in earlier books; see n. 6.1.1–6.7.1a). The topics of those six scenes “form the
substance” of Nikias’s letter at 7.11–15 (Dewald 2005, 150n4).
263
1.1 ὅτι οὐ παντελῶς πω ἀποτετειχισμέναι . . . εἰσιν: The verb is perfect

middle/passive periphrastic, formed from the perfect passive par-
ticiple and εἰμί (Sm. 406). This comment echoes a similar phrase at
6.104.1 and so links books 6 and 7 together and underscores Nikias’s
failure.
οἷόν τε [ἦν]: “It was possible” (LSJ III.B.2). The infinitive ἐσελθεῖν with
accusative subject ἀφικομένους is subject of οἷον.
στρατίᾳ: The “dative of military accompaniment” (Sm. 1526).
ἐβουλεύοντο εἴτ᾿ . . . διακινδυνεύσωσιν . . . εἴτ᾿ . . . ἔλθωσιν: Delibera-
tive subjunctives retained after a past tense (Sm. 2677). Why mention
this deliberation? It probably represents an actual discussion. It also
focuses our attention on the what-ifs? What if Gylippos had gone by
sea? What if Nikias’s naval guard had done a better job? What if Nikias
had guarded the approach to Epipolai?
ἐν δεξιᾷ . . . ἐν ἀριστερᾷ: That is, sailing south from Messana or continu-
ing west to Himera.
αὐτούς τε ἐκείνους: The Himeraians.
οὓς ἂν πείθωσι: “whomever they could persuade.” A general relative
conditional protasis (or “if” clause; Sm. 2561). The antecedent for the
plural relative is the collective στρατιάν.
1.2 ἄλλως τε καί: “both otherwise and . . . , i.e., especially, above all” (LSJ 3).
τῶν Ἀττικῶν τεσσάρων . . . οὔπω παρουσῶν: Causal genitive absolute,
“since the four . . .” (Sm. 2070).
ὅμως . . . ἀπέστειλεν: The “nevertheless” refers back to 6.104.3 where
Thucydides tells us that Nikias was scornful of Gylippos’s few ships.
As we learn here, Nikias did set a naval guard, but it was ineffective.
αὐτοὺς . . . εἶναι: Accusative and infinitive in indirect statement after
πυνθανόμενος (Sm. 2110).
φθάσαντες δὲ τὴν φυλακήν: Thucydides continues to catalogue Nikias’s
and the Athenians’ failures.
σχόντες: “put in to land,” from ἔχω. (LSJ A.II.8).
1.3 ξυμπολεμεῖν: Like ἕπεσθαι and παρασχεῖν, dependent on ἔπεισαν.

πανστρατιᾷ: The “dative of military accompaniment” (Sm. 1526).
1.4 προθυμότερον: A comparative adverbial accusative (Sm. 345, 1608).

Ἀρχωνίδου . . . τεθνηκότος: Causal genitive absolute, “since Archonides
. . .” (Sm. 2070). Archonides was almost certainly a proxenos of
Athens. (A proxenos looked after the interests of a foreign state within
his own community.) Thucydides does not tell his readers that Athens
had such ties with Sicily in the beginning of book 6 when he paints
the Sicilian expedition as a rash leap into the unknown. See introduc-
tion 3.2 and 3.4 for Athens’s contacts with Sicily.
ταύτῃ: “there” (LSJ C.VIII.4a).
τοῦ Γυλίππου . . . δοκοῦντος ἥκειν: Causal genitive absolute, “and
because Gylippos . . .” (Sm. 2070), a second reason why the Sikels
were eager.
1.5 ἐπιβατῶν: “marines.” Each trireme held ca. ten men who were fitted
out as hoplites. The following comment refers to Gylippos’s sailors
since it would be redundant about his epibatai.
τοὺς ὡπλισμένους ἑπτακοσίους μάλιστα: μάλιστα with numbers =
“about” (LSJ s.v. μάλα III.5). Gylippos had four ships (6.104) that
would have held around eight hundred men. Since he now has seven
hundred armed sailors and marines, it seems that he largely followed
Alkibiades’s advice to sail with men who could both row themselves
and fight (6.91.4).
ἐς χιλίους τοὺς πάντας: ἐς + numbers = “about” (LSJ III.2).
2.1 ταῖς τε ἄλλαις ναυσίν: The “dative of military accompaniment” (Sm.

1526).
ὡς εἶχον τάχους: “as fast as they could”; ἕχω here indicates ability (LSJ
A.III) with a partitive genitive (Sm. 1441).
μιᾷ νηί: Another “dative of military accompaniment” (Sm. 1526).
τελευταῖος . . . πρῶτος: And the last was first. The Korinthian was faster
than the Spartan (cf. Korinthian complaints about Sparta’s delay and
hesitation before the war, 1.70.4). If it had been up to Gylippos, Syra-
cuse would have fallen (see n. 2.4 below).
ὀλίγον: Adverbial accusative (Sm. 1609).
αὐτοὺς . . . μέλλοντας ἐκκλησιάσειν: Supplementary participle in indi-
rect discourse after καταλαβών (Sm. 2113).
περὶ ἀπαλλαγῆς: So, according to Thucydides, the Athenians almost

succeeded.
Λακεδαιμονίων ἀποστειλάντων: Circumstantial genitive absolute,
literally, “with the Lakedaimonians . . .” (Sm. 2070). This is meant to
convey that Gylippos is there officially.
ἄρχων: Thucydides never explains exactly how Gylippos was expected
to work with the Syracusan generals. He seems like a supreme com-
mander at the beginning, but as time passes, as the Syracusans gain
confidence, and the naval war takes on more importance, Gylippos’s
role is diminished.
2.2 πανστρατιᾷ: Another “dative of military accompaniment” (Sm. 1526).

ὡς ἀπαντησόμενοι ἐξῆλθον: ὡς + future participle for purpose (Sm.
2065). Green explains what this means: “a large body of troops left
Syracuse; no one, it seems, either heard or saw them go. They joined
forces, in open country, with an attacking army of some three thousand
men that had advanced at least five miles without a scrap of cover. Yet
the very existence of this army does not appear to have been known to
Nicias or his men” (1970, 215). Green wonders if Nikias “was so sure of
the city’s surrender that he no longer regarded it as under siege” (216).
ἐγγὺς ὄντα . . . αὐτόν: Supplementary participle in indirect discourse
after ᾐσθάνοντο (Sm. 2110).
2.3 ὁ δέ: Gylippos.

Εὐρύηλον: The “waist” of Epipolai, where it could most easily be
approached. See map 3 and n. 6.97.2
ᾗπερ: “in the place where” (LSJ II.4); see 6.97.2. Since this was the best
place to ascend, one wonders (and Thucydides intends us to wonder)
why Nikias had not placed a guard there.
2.4 κατὰ τοῦτο τοῦ καιροῦ . . . ἐν ᾧ: “at that decisive moment when”
(Lattimore).
ἑπτὰ μὲν ἢ ὀκτὼ σταδίων: Genitive of measure (Sm. 1325) with
ἀπετετέλεστο . . . διπλοῦν τεῖχος. This “double wall” was really two
walls running a considerable distance apart, south from the Athenian
“circle” and down to the great harbor. See map 3 for the rough location
of these walls and the “circle.” The stade was an imprecise unit of
measure. When used by Thucydides for distances that can be checked
today, it ranges from 130–170 meters.
τοῦ κύκλου: At 6.98.2 and 6.101.1, Thucydides uses κύκλος to indicate
a fortified position of the Athenians, not the entire circuit wall with
which they hoped to circumvallate Syracuse. Thus, the passage here
must be corrupt and τοῦ κύκλου should be deleted, leaving τῷ τε
ἄλλῳ with an understood τείχει.
Τρωγίλον: This is probably the gully and cove of Santa Panagia on the
north side of Epipolai. See map 3.
ἐπὶ τὴν ἑτέραν θάλασσαν: This indicates the sea to the north of Epipolai,
to distinguish it from the great harbor that Thucydides has just called
“the sea.”
ἔστιν ἅ: A fixed phrase without antecedent, meaning “there are those
which” or “some” (Sm. 2513). Translate, “and there were some parts
that had been left half-finished, while others. . . .”
παρὰ τοσοῦτον . . . κινδύνου: “= παρῆλθον τοσοῦτον κινδύνου, passed
over so much ground within the sphere of danger, i.e., incurred such
imminent peril” (LSJ s.v. πάρα C.III.5). This phrase here is almost
identical to the one that Thucydides uses at the end of the Mytilene
episode in 427. After the Athenians decided to condemn all the male
citizens of Mytilene to death for their failed revolt, the Athenians
reconsidered their judgment and decided instead to put to death only
“the guilty”—about one thousand men. The ship with the notice of
the reprieve reached Mytilene just as the Athenian commander was
reading out the original blanket death sentence. Thucydides remarks,
παρὰ τοσοῦτον μὲν ἡ Μυτιλήνη ἦλθε κινδύνου (3.49.4). At Mytilene
this is a phrase of real closure. In Syracuse, however, Thucydides’s
new narrative technique for the Sicilian expedition (see n. 6.8–26)
means that “the judgment . . . allows the reader no sense of finality;
he is already in the middle of a new situation” (Dewald 2005, 150n14),
and the phrase returns readers to the viewpoint of the beginning of
book 6, the “ironic recognition” that Athens will fail (Connor 1984,
188). Although the focus is on the Syracusans’ escape from destruc-
tion, what this moment really signals is destruction for the Athenians.
The Response of the Athenians (7.3)

3.1 τοῦ τε Γυλίππου καὶ τῶν Συρακοσίων . . . ἐπιόντων: Temporal geni-
tive absolute, “when Gylippos” (Sm. 2070).
ὁ δέ: Gylippos.
θέμενος τὰ ὅπλα: “coming to a halt with arms at the ready” (cf. LSJ
A.10.a).
πέντε ἡμερῶν: Genitive of time within which (Sm. 1444).
ἑτοῖμος εἶναι: Infinitive in indirect discourse after λέγοντα (Sm. 2017).
The adjective is nominative, not accusative, the regular case for the
subject of infinitives, because although the herald is actually speak-
ing, Gylippos, the subject of the main verb, is the nominal speaker, as
if Thucydides had written κήρυκα προσπέμψας λέγει (Sm. 1973).
3.2 ἐν ὀλιγωρίᾳ τε ἐποιοῦντο: “= ὀλιγωρεῖν” (LSJ).
3.3 ταρασσομένους καὶ οὐ ῥᾳδίως ξυντασσομένους: Compare 6.98.3,

where Thucydides uses very similar language. The similarity in lan-
guage underscores the different responses of the Syracusan generals
earlier and Gylippos now. Faced with the same situation, the Syra-
cusans retreated while Gylippos merely changes his position (see de
Romilly 2012, 17). Alkibiades, we recall, said that a Spartan would “set
in order (ξυντάξῃ)” the troops (6.91.4; Rood 1998a, 179n75).
ἐς τὸ εὐρυχωρίαν μᾶλλον: That is, toward the north and northwest, to
have more room to his right. See map 3.
καὶ ὁ Νικίας οὐκ ἐπῆγε . . . ἀλλ᾿ ἡσύχαζε: As Grote remarks, this is
“tantamount to a confession of inferiority in the field. It was a virtual
abandonment of the capture of Syracuse” (1881, 3:368). That Nikias
“kept quiet” instead of attacking is an indication of how un-Athenian
he is, if we recall the Korinthians’ judgment from before the war that
the Athenians were least likely to have any quiet themselves or to give
any to others (1.70.9).
ὡς: “when” (LSJ Ad).
οὐ προσιόντας αὐτούς: Supplementary participle in indirect discourse
after ἔγνω (Sm. 2106).
ἐπὶ τὴν ἄκραν τὴν Τεμενῖτιν καλουμένην: Temenites was an area to the
west of Syracuse that included an area sacred to Apollo. The Syra-
cusans enclosed it with the “winter wall” (6.75). See map 3.
αὐτοῦ: “just there” (LSJ).
3.4 ἄλλοσε: “in other places.”

τὸ Λάβδαλον αἱρεῖ: The Athenians built this fortification on the north
edge of Epipolai right after their arrival from Katane (6.97.5; see map
3). Gylippos’s quick and effective action in taking it is as surprising to
the reader as it must have been demoralizing to the Athenians.
3.5 τριήρης . . . ἁλίσκεται τῶν Ἀθηναίων: A small event—the capture

of one ship—but ominous for the future. After Gylippos’s success on
land, this loss at sea suggests the growing weakness of the Athenians
and the increasing boldness and success of the Syracusans (see intro-
duction 6.5 for the theme of the transformation of the Athenians).
τῷ λιμένι: Sometimes Thucydides distinguishes the greater from the
lesser harbor of the Syracusans, but sometimes he uses only “the
harbor” to indicate either of those places. This is probably the lesser
harbor, and it is slightly less shocking if a lone Athenian ship off
patrolling that harbor was captured than if a ship was captured right
under the noses of the whole Athenian fleet in the great harbor.
Syracusan Wall-Building (7.4.1–7.4.3)

4.1 ἀπὸ τῆς πόλεως ἀρξάμενοι: Beginning north of the city and heading
due west across Epipolai. See map 3.
πρὸς τὸ ἐγκάρσιον: “athwart, oblique” (LSJ).
ὅπως . . . οἷοί τε ὦσιν ἀποτειχίσαι: οἷος + εἰμί and infinitive = “fit or able
to” (LSJ III.B.2). That the subjunctive, not optative, is used after a
secondary tense is common in Thucydides. Smyth sees special “vivid-
ness” in the usage (Sm. 2197N), whereas Dover (at 6.96.3) denies it.
4.2 τὸ ἐπὶ θαλάσσῃ τεῖχος ἐπιτελέσαντες: Once Gylippos arrived in

Syracuse, the Athenians should have turned all their attention to com-
pleting the circumvallation. Completing this double wall to protect
their ships and camp when they were not under any pressure from the
Syracusan navy was much less important (cf. Kagan 1981, 273).
νυκτός: Genitive of time within which (Sm. 1444).
4.3 ὡς: “when” (LSJ Ad).

ὁ δέ: Gylippos. The rapid change of subject in paratactic style without
subordinate clauses (“the Athenians . . . then Gylippos . . . then they
. . .”) contributes to vividness.
ὑψηλότερον: Adverbial accusative (Sm. 345, 1609).
ταύτῃ: “there” (LSJ C.VIII.4).
ᾗπερ: “in which place” (LSJ II.4).
Nikias Fortifies Plemmyrion (7.4.4–7.4.7)

Hunt stresses Thucydides’s interest in all military matters and emphasizes
that he wrote for men who were themselves interested in military decision
making. Thucydides gives specific reasons for why Nikias decided to fortify
Plemmyrion and also explains why it damaged the Athenian position. The
decision was important and, as Hunt notes, “Thucydides wants to be sure
that his reader understands Nicias’ reasoning as well as its failure” (2006,
396). Lazenby criticizes both the decision to stop building the wall north
of the “circle” in order to fortify Plemmyrion and the decision to fortify
Plemmyrion itself (2004, 151). As he notes, it would have made much more
sense just to station a few ships at Plemmyrion to protect the entrance to the
Great Harbor. Alternately he suggests (167) that the Athenians would have
done best to block off the Great Harbor themselves (contrast 7.59.3) and keep
a watch on the smaller harbor from a force stationed at Plemmyrion. This
might well have prevented naval reinforcements to Syracuse. Once Nikias
fortified Plemmyrion and moved the fleet there, he had no overland connec-
tion with his land forces, which remained camped toward the north end of
the harbor where the double walls came down from the “circle” (see map 3).
4.4 τὸ Πλημμύριον: See map 3 for the location of this promontory. It

does not really make the harbor mouth “narrow” since the shortest
distance from Plemmyrion to the city is still about one kilometer.
τειχίσαι: Infinitive subject of ἐδόκει (Sm. 1985).

δι᾿ ἐλάσσονος: “at less distance” (LSJ 3).
τῷ λιμένι τῷ τῶν Συρακοσίων: Among the expressions that Thucydides
uses for the harbors of Syracuse, this is unusual. He probably means
the little harbor because that was entirely in Syracusan control and
because Plemmyrion is better located to watch movement into and
out of that harbor.
ἐφορμήσειν σφᾶς . . . ποιήσεσθαι: Infinitive with subject accusative
after αὐτῷ ἐφαίνετο (Sm. 2143). Thucydides has switched from the
personal construction (ῥᾴων . . . ἐφαίνετο ἡ ἐσκομιδὴ . . . ἔσεσθαι,
“import seemed to him to be easier”) to the impersonal (“it seemed to
him that they would . . .”).
ἤν τι ναυτικῷ κινῶνται: The subject of this verb is unclear, as is whether
it is middle or passive. It could mean either “if they (the Athenians)
were attacked at sea” or “if they (the Syracusans) made a move by
sea.”
τὰ ἐκ τῆς γῆς . . . ἀνελπιστότερα ὄντα: Here we see most forcefully the
effect on Nikias of Gylippos’s arrival. He is ready to cede the situation
on land.
4.5 αἱ ταχεῖαι νῆες: See n. 6.31.3 for “fast triremes.”
4.6 τῶν πληρωμάτων . . . κάκωσις: Another example of Thucydides’s

love for abstract nouns (i.e., instead of saying “the crews began to
deteriorate”); see introduction 2.3.1.
τῷ τε γὰρ ὕδατι σπανίῳ χρώμενοι: This was, of course, not a choice, and
really explains why they had to go far afield from camp: i.e., “because
water was scarce and not available nearby.”
τῶν ἱππέων . . . κρατούντων τῆς γῆς: Causal genitive absolute, “since
the cavalry . . .” (Sm. 2070). Gylippos mattered, but so did the cavalry,
as Thucydides continues to insist (see n. 6.20.4, 6.31.2, 6.43, 6.52.2,
6.70.3).
τοῖς Συρακοσίοις: Dative of possession (Sm. 1476).
κακουργήσοντες: Future participle for purpose (Sm. 2065).
ἐν τῷ Ὀλυμπιείῳ πολίχνῃ: This walled region near the temple of
Olympian Zeus (the remains of which are at Le Colonne) lay about

one kilometer west of the approximate center of the great harbor of
Syracuse. See map 3.
4.7 τὰς λοιπὰς τῶν Κορινθίων ναῦς προσπλεούσας: Supplementary

participle in indirect discourse after ἐπυνθάνετο (Sm. 2110). These are
the ships of 6.104.1 and 7.2.1 that were sailing from Leukas.
Gylippos Wins the “Race of Walls” (7.5–7.6)

5.1 τὸ διὰ τῶν Ἐπιπολῶν τεῖχος: This is the wall of 7.4.1. See map 3 for its
location.
τοῖς λίθοις χρώμενος: It underscores the ineptitude and waste of the
Athenians’ effort, and the extent of their evacuation of Epipolai, that
Gylippos used for his wall the stones the Athenians had themselves
gathered and never managed to build into their own wall.
5.2 μεταξὺ τῶν τειχισμάτων: The two walls likely ran at about a
90-degree angle to each other. The closer to the junction that Gylip-
pos stationed his troops, the less area for movement the cavalry would
have had. See map 3.
τῆς ἵππου . . . οὐδεμία χρῆσις: Thucydides uses such -σις words more and
more frequently in book 7. Note again Thucydides’s use of an imper-
sonal expression rather than, say, “where Gylippos could make no use
of his cavalry.” See introduction 2.3.1.
5.3 νικηθέντων τῶν Συρακοσίων . . . καὶ τῶν Ἀθηναίων τροπαῖον

στησάντων: Temporal genitive absolute, “after the Syracusans . . .”
(Sm. 2070). This victory seems to have had no impact on Nikias’s
defeatism. See n. 6.70.3 for the way trophies on either side help the
reader to chart the shifting fortunes in the Sicilian expedition.
οὐκ ἔφη τὸ ἁμάρτημα . . . γενέσθαι: “denied the fault was theirs, but
[said it was] his own.” Infinitive with subject accusative in indirect
discourse after ἔφη (Sm. 2017).
τῇ τάξει: “by his line of battle.” Instrumental dative (Sm. 1503). Further
explained by ἐντὸς . . . ποιήσας, for which we should understand
αὐτὴν τὴν τάξιν as object.
ἀφελέσθαι . . . ἐπάξειν: The first verb is from ἀφαιρέω. They are infini-
tives in indirect discourse after ἔφη (Sm. 2017). The unexpressed
subject is Gylippos, the subject of the main verb (Sm. 1972).
5.4 ὡς τῇ μὲν παρασκευῇ οὐκ ἔλασσον ἕξοντας: “and he urged them to

consider that they would not be marching forth (ἕξοντας) deficient in
preparation.” Although διανοέω does not usually take a participle in
indirect discourse, when it occasionally does, ὡς is employed (Good-
win 113n10c). The participle modifies αὐτούς, the soldiers, the subject
of the infinitive. τῇ μὲν παρασκευῇ means “in point of preparation,”
i.e., their equipment, position, etc., all of which depended on Gylip-
pos. It more fully explains the adverb ἔλασσον.
τῇ δὲ γνώμῃ οὐκ ἀνεκτὸν ἐσόμενον: “and as regards their determina-
tion (τῇ δὲ γνώμῃ), bid them to consider (διανοεῖσθαι . . . ἐκέλευεν
αὐτούς) that it would be intolerable (οὐκ ἀνεκτὸν ἐσόμενον).”
Another participle in indirect discourse after διανοεῖσθαι. What is
intolerable is explained in the “if” clause.
Δωριῆς Ἰώνων: Δωριῆς is nominative plural (Sm. 275). Ἰώνων and the
rest are genitive after κρατήσαντες. Thucydides manipulates the word
order so as to juxtapose the two ethnicities. See introduction 6.2 for
more on enthnicity in the Sicilian expedition.
ξυγκλύδων ἀνθρώπων: Gylippos here uses the same reproach about the
Athenian forces that Alkibiades had used about the Sicilians (6.17.2).
6.1 μετὰ ταῦτα: Nikias indicates in his letter (11.2) that this was on the
following day.
ἀναγκαῖον εἶναι: Infinitive in indirect discourse after νομίζοντες (Sm.
2018). μὴ περιορᾶν is then infinitive subject of ἀναγκαῖον (Sm. 1985).
ὅσον οὐ: “just not, all but” (LSJ IV.5).
τείχισις: Another -σις word (see above n. 7.5.2 and introduction 2.3.1).
Thucydides seems to have coined this one. Again Thucydides uses the
impersonal construction rather than “the Syracusans had already all
but. . . .”
ταὐτὸν . . . ἐποίει . . . νικᾶν . . . καὶ μηδὲ μάχεσθαι: The infinitives are
subject of ἐποίει. “It [the completion of the τείχισις] made it the same
(ταὐτόν) for them [the Athenians] fighting continually (μαχομένοις
διὰ παντός) to win and to not fight.” That is, whether they fought or
not would no longer matter.
ἀντεπῇσαν: From ἀντέπειμι (ibo).
6.2 ἔξω . . . ἢ πρότερον: Gylippos kept his troops further away from the
angle where the two walls almost joined, giving them more room to
maneuver. See map 3.
ἐκ πλαγίου . . . κατὰ τὴν εὐρυχωρίαν: “on the flank . . . in the open area.”
This fight was crucial to the Athenians, yet they let Gylippos choose
the time and place.
6.3 κατ᾿ αὐτούς: “opposite them” (LSJ B.Ι.3).
6.4 τῇ ἐπιούσῃ νυκτί: The participle is from ἔπειμι (ibo), meaning “fol-
lowing, succeeding” (LSJ II).
παροικοδομήσαντες καὶ παρελθόντες: Here we have the Syracusans’
victory in the multichapter “race of the walls” (Connor 1984, 186)
begun at 6.99. Hornblower points to the “unusual piling up of heavy
‘building’-words” and argues its purpose is to signal the “solemn
moment” when the Athenians no longer have any hope of completing
their siegeworks (3:552). In “a fine piece of stylistic enactment” (for
which idea he cites Silk 2007, 184) “Th. presents the wall as snaking
across the landscape, with long compound verbs and participles,
which are made up of the verbal equivalent of the headers and stretch-
ers of the physical wall” (3:552–53).
ὥστε . . . αὐτοὶ κωλύεσθαι . . . ἀπεστερηκέναι: “so that they (αὐτοί,
the Syracusans) were no longer hemmed in (μηκέτι . . . κωλύεσθαι)
by them (ὑπ᾿ αὐτῶν, the Athenians) and had absolutely deprived
(ἀπεστερηκέναι) them (ἐκείνους, the Athenians) . . . of still wall-
ing them (σφᾶς, the Syracusans) off.” Infinitives in a natural result
clause (Sm. 2258). αὐτοί are the Syracusans, and the subject of both
infinitives. αὐτοί is nominative, and not accusative, the regular case
for the subject of infinitives, because the Syracusans are also the
subject of the main verb (Sm. 1973). μήτε is redundant. μὴ ἂν ἔτι σφᾶς
ἀποτειχίσαι explains what the Syracusans have robbed the Athenians
of the power to do. The ἄν emphasizes the lost potential. The nega-
tive μή merely strengthens the negating idea of the leading infinitive
(ἀπεστερηκέναι). (Sm. 2038; 2739).
Syracusan Reinforcements and Practice (7.7)

7.1 λαθοῦσαι: These are the ships that had accompanied Gylippos as far
as Leukas (6.104.1). Their arrival represents another important failure.
Even though Thucydides said that Nikias was now focusing on the
war at sea and specifically posted guards to intercept these very ships,
they still got through.
μέχρι τοῦ ἐγκαρσίου τείχους: μέχρι makes no sense. Either Thucydides
specified a place, which has been lost, or intended later to add a place
name, which he never did. Alternately, μέχρι may be part of a scribe’s
marginal note specifying a place that some later scribe mistakenly
copied into the text. Ignore it.
7.2 ἐπὶ στρατιάν: “after” or “for” it, i.e., to raise further troops (LSJ
C.III.I).
7.3 ὅπως ἄν: This is redundant with τρόπῳ ᾧ ἄν. Ignore it.
ὡς καὶ τῶν Ἀθηναίων ἐπιμεταπεμπομένων: Causal genitive absolute,
“since . . .” (Sm. 2070).
7.4 ὡς καὶ τούτῳ ἐπιχειρήσοντες: Future participle for purpose (Sm.

2065). The Syracusans, Thucydides tells us here, intend to challenge
the Athenians at sea.
ἐπέρρωντο: From ἐπιρρώνυμι.
Nikias Writes a Letter (7.8)

There are other examples of generals writing messages. For example, Minda-
ros writes for instructions after the battle of Kyzikos, as do the Athenian
generals after the battle of Arginousai (Xenophon, Hellenika 1.1.23, 1.7.4),
but it appears that this practice was still uncommon. Nikias seems to think
writing will make his message more trustworthy and persuasive, so there
is irony here in that Nikias’s letter fails at its task no less than his speeches
in the assembly (cf. Griffiths 2007, 289–90). Thucydides may have himself
written letters to Athens about his commands (and so gained early practice
in narrative prose).
8.1 ἐπιδιδοῦσαν τήν . . . ἰσχύν: Supplementary participle in indirect

discourse after ὁρῶν (Sm. 2110).
ἐν δεινοῖς τε εἶναι καὶ . . . οὐδεμίαν εἶναι σωτηρίαν: Infinitives in indi-
rect discourse after νομίζων (Sm. 2018). The subject is unexpressed
because it includes that of the main verb (Sm. 1972).
ὡς τάχιστα: “as fast as possible.” ὡς + superlative = “as X as possible”
(Sm. 1086).
8.2 φοβούμενος δὲ μή: This is a fear that something may happen; fears
that something may not happen have μή οὐ with the subjunctive or
optative (Sm. 2221).
μνήμης ἐλλιπεῖς γιγνόμενοι: The subject is οἱ πεμπόμενοι. In typically
unbalanced style, Thucydides switches from a prepositional phrase to
a participial phrase modifying the messengers. Most manuscripts read
γνώμης, but μνήμης, the reading of one, makes more sense because
the messengers were not required to give their opinion. Furthermore,
Nikias’s real letter (as opposed to the version of it Thucydides gives
here) might have included details that would be hard to recall exactly.
Even the letter Thucydides presents here might be hard to recite from
memory.
ἔγραψεν ἐπιστολήν: Nikias indicates he has sent other epistolai to Ath-
ens (7.11.1), and so the word must mean “report” or “message” here as
well. The emphasis is on the verb: he wrote a report.
τὴν αὑτοῦ γνώμην μηδὲν . . . ἀφανισθεῖσαν: Object of μαθόντας τοὺς
Ἀθηναίους, which is the subject of the infinitive βουλεύσασθαι in indi-
rect discourse after νομίζων (Sm. 2018). μηδέν is adverbial, “not at all.”
Actions in Thrace (7.9)

As often, Thucydides places action unrelated to the material in the sur-
rounding narrative at the end of the campaigning season. This is one of only
three scenes in the narrative of years seventeen through nineteen that “do
not relate” to the main narrative of the Athenian attempt to conquer Sicily.
The others are 6.95.1 and 6.95.2. (Dewald 2005, 150n15). Dewald counts five
such scenes, but 6.105 and 7.34 do relate (see notes there).
μετὰ Περδίκκου: Early in 415, Thucydides reported that Perdikkas was

under attack by the Athenians (6.7.3). He does not explain when, or
why, he changed sides.
ἐπ᾿ Ἀμφίπολιν: Amphipolis, an Athenian colony in Thrace, was induced
to revolt from Athens by the Spartan Brasidas in 424 and was never
recovered. Thucydides was exiled for failing to prevent its loss. Nikias
used the fact that Athens had still not recovered its holdings in Thrace
as an argument against the Sicilian expedition (6.10). This incident
quickly reminds readers of the wider world (and wider war) that the
expedition diverted the Athenians from. See introduction 3.5, and 3.6.
Θρᾳξὶ πολλοῖς: The “dative of military accompaniment” (Sm. 1526).
Nikias’s Letter and Athenian Reactions (7.10–7.17),

“Winter” 414–413
The narrative has not prepared the reader for the hopeless tone of Nikias’s
letter. He relates only problems and failures, seems to have no expectation
that any effort on the part of the Athenians already in Sicily could improve
his situation, and can ask only for recall or reinforcement. The abrupt and
unexpected nature of the letter both reinforces Nikias’s defeatism and gives
the reader some sense of how surprising it would have been to the Athenians
back home. We can also imagine what effect Nikias’s negative attitude
would have had on his troops in Sicily. The “substance” of the letter covers
the six separate scenes in 7.1–8 (Dewald 2005, 150n14). The reading of the
letter itself is the first of six scenes that make up the winter of 414/413, all
of which are linked together in ways not seen in the earlier books (Dewald
2005, 145–47; see n. 6.8–6.26).
Thucydides records no debate or discussion of Nikias’s letter. This gives
the impression that the Athenians did not deliberate at all about this momen-
tous decision (cf. Hornblower 3:568). Kagan argues that the Athenians’
response may reflect their outrage that they had been “thwarted by an
opponent that had been despised as weak and easily defeated” (1981, 283).
That is, the Athenians’ hasty aggressive reaction is understandable, given
Alkibiades’s speech and Nikias’s second speech before the war, both of
which had seemed to promise victory.
10.1 τοῦ δ᾿ ἐπιγιγνομένου χειμῶνος: Genitive of time within which (Sm.

1444). ἐπιγίγνομαι means “the following, the next” (LSJ). This is the
winter of 414/13, beginning in early November 414 and running until
March 413. See introduction 1.6 for Thucydides’s dating system.
καὶ εἴ τίς τι ἐπηρώτα: This questioning occurs before the secretary reads
the letter “to the Athenians.” That event should indicate a meeting of
the assembly. The prior session, therefore, where Nikias’s messengers
recounted the things that he told them to say and responded to ques-
tions, should represent a meeting of the boule. Thucydides has elided
that meeting. The effect is to focus on the masses in assembly rather
than on the more deliberative executive body. See introduction 4.
ὁ δὲ γραμματεύς: The Aristotelian Constitution of Athens (54.5) men-
tions a secretary whose sole job it was to read documents to the
assembly and boule.
11.1 ἐν ἄλλαις πολλαῖς ἐπιστολαῖς: An ἐπιστολή need not have been

written.
μαθόντας ὑμᾶς . . . βουλεύσεσθαι: “it is no less fitting that you. . . .” The
infinitive (with subject accusative) is subject of καιρός (Sm. 1985). οὐχ
ἧσσον modifies καιρός.
11.2 κρατησάντων . . . ἡμῶν . . . καὶ . . . οἰκοδομησαμένων: Concessive

genitive absolute, “although we . . .” (Sm. 2070).
ἐφ᾿ οὓς ἐπέμφθημεν: In the council of the generals, Nikias had claimed
that the expedition was sent against Selinous (6.47). Writing to the
assembly, he has to admit the truth—that they were sent against
Syracuse.
ἔστιν ὧν: “some” (Sm. 2514). This is the genitive form of the phrase εἰσὶν
οἵ, “there are those who” or “some.” ἔστιν οἷς and ἔστιν οὕς are the
dative and accusative.
11.3 ἀπανηλωκυίας: From ἀπαναλίσκω. Causal genitive absolute (Sm.

2070) with τῆς φυλακῆς τῶν τειχῶν, “since. . . .”
ὥστε μὴ εἶναι: εἶναι here means “to be possible” (LSJ A.VI). An infini-
tive in a natural result clause (Sm. 2258).
τις: Nikias seems unable to imagine himself carrying out such an attack.
11.4 πολιορκεῖν δοκοῦντας ἡμᾶς ἄλλους αὐτοὺς μᾶλλον . . . τοῦτο

πάσχειν: “it has happened that we who thought (δοκοῦντας) we were
besieging others (πολιορκεῖν, dependent on δοκοῦντας) are suffering
this (τοῦτο πάσχειν).” Infinitive subjects of ξυμβέβηκε (Sm. 1985)
with their own accusative subjects. Is this really Nikias’s thought or
Thucydides’s? It echoes Thucydides’s comment on the Athenians at
Sphakteria (4.29.2) and so may be Thucydides’s own. In any case,
if it is Nikias’s, Thucydides did not have to include it and thus did
so deliberately. Thucydides here begins the powerful metaphorical
transformation of the invading army into a besieged and defeated city
that will culminate at 7.75.5 (see n. there, n. 7.14.3, and also introduc-
tion 6.6). Nikias here alludes to the Athenians’ reputation for siege
warfare (cf. 1.102.2 where the Spartans call the Athenians in to help
them against the rebels holed up on Mt. Ithome because they are so
“good at siege warfare”). Being “good at siege warfare” is only one of
a number of characteristics that Sicily reveals the Athenians have lost
ὅσα γε: Restrictive (LSJ IV.1), “at least so far as.”
12.1 πείσων . . . ἄξων: Future participles for purpose (Sm. 2065).
12.2 ὡς ἐγὼ πυνθάνομαι: Nikias seems to have been in communication

with elements inside Syracuse (see n. 7.48.2).
12.3 δεινὸν . . . δόξῃ: Prohibitive subjunctive (Sm. 1840cN).

ὅπερ κἀκεῖνοι πυνθάνονται: The desertions described below (7.13.2)
would have given the Syracusans ample opportunity to learn of the
state of the Athenians’ ships, men, and morale.
τὸ μὲν πρῶτον: Adverbial accusative (Sm. 1611).
τῇ ξηρότητι . . . τῇ σωτηρίᾳ: Datives of respect (Sm. 1516).
διάβροχοι: To keep the wood from rotting, triremes were regularly

hauled out of the water and dried during a maintenance procedure
that included careening and caulking of seams and probably the
application of a coat of pitch (Morrison, Coates, and Rankov 2000,
151–52). As Kagan notes, Nikias manages to make the deterioration of
the ships “seem inevitable, something over which Nikias had no con-
trol” (1981, 281). However, the situation begs the question of what the
Athenians expected to happen. How did they expect to service their
triremes? Why were they so unprepared for their situation?
12.4 οὐκ ἔστιν: “it is not possible” (LSJ A.VI).

ἀνελκύσαντας: Understand ὑμᾶς, subject of διαψύξαι.
διὰ τὸ ἀντιπάλους . . . τὰς . . . οὔσας . . . προσδοκίαν παρέχειν: “on
account of the ships of the enemy which are equal in number and even
more numerous constantly offering the expectation.” A typically com-
plex Thucydidean articular infinitive after a preposition (Sm. 2034b),
the subject of which is the (understood) ships (i.e., the fleet) of the
enemy (see introduction 2.3.5). The expectation they offer is explained
in the following ὡς clause.
12.5 ἐπ᾿ ἐκείνοις: “in their power” (LSJ B.I.1g), i.e., “belong to them.”
13.1 ἡμῖν . . . ἂν . . . μόλις τοῦτο ὑπῆρχε: Apodosis (the “then” clause)
of a present contrary-to-fact condition (“this would hardly . . .” [Sm.
2304]). The protasis (or “if” clause) is conveyed in ἐκ πολλῆς . . .
περιουσίας . . . καὶ μὴ ἀναγκαζομένοις, i.e., “even if there were . . . and
we were not compelled . . .” (literally, “for an us not compelled”).
13.2 τῶν ναυτῶν [τῶν] . . . ἀπολλυμένων: Causal genitive absolute,

“since the sailors . . .” (Sm. 2070). Editors have deleted the second τῶν
because with it, the θεράποντες below are grammatically grouped as
part of τῶν ναυτῶν, and scholars were reluctant to believe that slaves
served as rowers on Athenian warships before the battle of Arginousai
in 406/5 when we hear explicitly of slave rowers during a manpower
crisis (Xenophon, Hellenika 1.6.24; see introduction 7.4). However,
an undated inscription (IG I3 1032; available translated online at Attic
Inscriptions Online), divides up the rowers of the fleet into the same
three categories Thucydides uses here—citizens, foreigners, and
slaves—and there is no reason other than preconceived notions about
the use of slaves to date the text at or after Arginousai rather than
before. Hunt argues that Thucydides deliberately hides the participa-
tion of slaves in the fleet (1998, 87–101). See also Graham 1992 and 1998.
ἀναγκαστοί: Not press-ganged individuals, as in the British navy, but
contingents compelled from subordinate allies.
χρηματιεῖσθαι . . . ἢ μαχεῖσθαι: “thinking that they would. . . .” Infini-
tives in indirect discourse after οἰόμενοι (Sm. 2018). The subject is not
expressed because it is the same as that of the main verb (Sm. 1972).
ἀνθεστῶτα: From ἀνθίστημι. A supplementary participle in indirect
discourse after ὁρῶσιν (Sm. 2110).
ἐπ᾿ αὐτομολίας προφάσει: This phrase has puzzled scholars because it
sounds like it says that the foreigners disappeared “on the pretext of
deserting,” which makes no sense. Once we admit that there were
slaves among the rowers (belonging to both Athenians and foreign-
ers), the phrase makes more sense. The pretended desertion is not
that of the foreigners themselves but of their slaves, so that it means
“the foreigners disappeared on the pretext of the desertion [of their
slaves],” that is, they said that their slaves had deserted and that they
had to go and find them.
εἰσὶ δ᾿ οἵ: A fixed phrase without antecedent meaning “there are those
who” or “some” (Sm. 2513).
14.2 τό τε μὴ οἷόν τε εἷναι: “and the inability for me, the general, to pre-
vent . . . is the most. . . .” οἷον indicates fitness or ability (LSJ III.B.2).
Articular infinitive subject of ἀπορώτατον [ἐστι] (Sm. 1985). The
infinitive κωλῦσαι explains the inability.
χαλεπαὶ . . . αἱ . . . φύσεις ἄρξαι: The infinitive further defines the
adjective (Sm. 2001). Nikias has not described any way in which the
Athenians’ nature has made their situation worse. The characteristic
nature of the Athenians is a theme with Nikias, however, having come
up in his first speech in Athens (6.9.3). Nikias blames his failure on his
men. Contrast Gylippos, who was quick to blame himself and not his
troops for a failure (7.5.3).
καὶ ὅτι: Variatio (see introduction 2.3.6). Refusing to repeat a construc-
tion, Thucydides switches from an articular infinitive to a causal
clause to report a second difficulty.
ἀφ᾿ ὧν: “from those things which.” Thucydides leaves out the anteced-
ent, as is common when it conveys a general idea, and the relative has
been attracted into its case (Sm. 2509, 2532).
τά τε ὄντα: Here this means the equipment they still have and are using.
γίγνεσθαι: Subject of ἀνάγκη with accusative subject for the infinitive
(Sm. 1985b).
14.3 ὥστε τὰ τρέφοντα . . . χωρία . . . χωρῆσαι: Natural result (Sm. 2258),
explaining the “one thing” of the previous clause.
ὁρῶντα ἐν ᾧ τ᾿ ἐσμὲν καὶ ὑμῶν μὴ ἐπιβοηθούντων: Thucydides follows
the relative clause with a genitive absolute (“and that you are not . . .”
[Sm. 2070]) for variation.
ἐκπολιορκηθέντων ἡμῶν: Temporal genitive absolute, “once we . . .”
(Sm. 2070). A further premonition of Thucydides’s image of the
invading army as a city defeated through siege (see above n. 7.11.4 and
7.75.5).
14.4 ἡδίω μὲν ἂν εἶχον . . . ἐπιστέλλειν: “I could have. . . .” ἔχω + infini-
tive = ability (LSJ A.III). The construction is past potential (Sm.
1784). ἡδίω is neuter plural (Sm. 293), with τοῦτων, a genitive of
comparison, after it (Sm. 1431).
βουλεύσασθαι: The infinitive, with subject accusative, is subject of δεῖ
(Sm. 1985).
τὰς φύσεις ἐπιστάμενος ὑμῶν: Nikias claims to know the Athenians
very well (see above 7.14.2, 6.9.3), but it does him and his army no
good, especially when he later uses the Athenians’ nature as an excuse
not to withdraw the army (7.48.4).
ἀσφαλέστερον: At the bitter end, Nikias makes an argument based on
his own personal safety (7.48.4).
15.1 ὡς . . . τῶν στρατιωτῶν . . . τῶν ἡγεμόνων . . . μὴ μεμπτῶν

γεγενημένων, . . . τὴν γνώμην ἔχετε: The genitive absolute (“that the
soldiers . . .” [Sm. 2070]) indicates the judgment that Nikias urges the
Athenians to hold (Goodwin 113n10b, c).
ἐφ᾿ ἃ μὲν ἤλθομεν: Literally, “on (or after) which we came,” i.e., in
respect to those things for which we came, meaning a war with Syra-
cuse alone (in contrast to what has occurred).
ὡς τῶν . . . μηδὲ τοῖς παροῦσιν ἀνταρκούντων: Causal genitive absolute,
“since the forces here are unable to hold out against the existing situa-
tion” (Sm. 2070).
ἢ τούτους μεταμέμπειν δέον ἢ ἄλλην στρατιὰν . . . ἐπιπέμπειν: “it being
necessary either to . . . or to. . . .” δέον is accusative absolute (Sm.
2076); the two infinitives serve as its subject (Sm. 1985). The variation
in the prefixes of the infinitives recalls the rhetoric of Gorgias (intro-
duction 2.3.6). As Nichols points out, Nikias “flatters” the Athenians
here by suggesting they still have the power to choose rather than
telling them the truth: that the cause is lost and they have no choice
but to recall the expedition (2017, 470).
15.2 ὅτι: = ὁ τι, the indefinite pronoun (Sm. 339).

τῶν πολεμίων . . . ποριουμένων: Causal genitive absolute, “since the
enemy . . .” (Sm. 2070).
δι᾿ ὀλίγου: “within a short time” (LSJ IV.2).
τὰ δ᾿ ἐκ Πελοποννήσου σχολαίτερον: Also after ποριουμένων. Another
source of reinforcements for the enemy. σχολαίτερον is adverbial
accusative (Sm. 345, 1608). ὅμως δ᾿ . . . λήσουσιν . . . φθήσονται
follows σχολαίτερον in thought, i.e., “slower, perhaps, but if you do
not pay attention they will do it without your noticing (λήσουσιν) or
will act before you (φθήσονται).” It is a bit much for Nikias to warn
the Athenians not to let the Peloponnesians make provisions without
detection, given his failure to stop either Gylippos or the Korinthian
ships from reaching Syracuse.
16.1 Μένανδρον καὶ Εὐθύδημον: These men were probably chosen only
as temporary commanders because the regular elections took place
later in the year.
στρατιὰν δὲ ἄλλην ἐψηφίσαντο πέμπειν: Of this decision, Nichols

remarks, “it is almost as if Alcibiades were still in Athens, influencing
its decisions, and Nicias were the one in exile” (2017, 470).
ἐκ καταλόγου: Athens mustered for war using lists drawn up in the
demes. See n. 6.31.3.
16.2 Δημοσθένη τε . . . καὶ Εὐρυμέδοντα: Demosthenes was the general

who originally suggested fortifying a headland at Pylos in 424 (see
introduction 3.5). Roisman remarks that almost all the operations of
Demosthenes’s career were “attempts at breaking military stalemates”
and speculates that his election probably raised “great expectations”
(1993, 53). Eurymedon was one of the generals sent to Sicily in 425 (see
n. 6.1.1 and introduction 3.4) and was presumably chosen partly for his
local knowledge. The two were either preelected for 413/12 or already
generals in 414/13 and appointed now to Sicily with the assumption
that they would be kept on as generals in 413/12.
περὶ ἡλίου τροπὰς τὰς χειμερινάς: The winter solstice (LSJ s.v. τροπή
I.b), so late December 414.
<καὶ ἑκατόν>: Not all manuscripts include these words, but they are
implied by Valla’s fifteenth-century Latin translation. Diodoros 13.8.7
says 140 talents.
ἐπιμέλεια αὐτῶν ἔσται: A cold and impersonal way of saying this rather
than something like “the Athenians would take care of them” or “they
would be looked after.”
17.1 ὡς ἅμα τῷ ἦρι ποιησόμενος: ὡς + future participle for purpose (Sm.

2086). Demosthenes will not depart in the early spring (see n. 7.27.2
and contrast 7.19.1).
17.2 εἴκοσι ναῦς: These ships were commanded by Konon and headed to
Naupaktos. See n. 7.17.4, 7.19.5, and 7.31.4.
ὅπως . . . μηδένα . . . περαιοῦσθαι: The infinitive with accusative subject
is an object clause after φυλάσσοιεν (Sm. 2210b), explaining what
they are guarding against.
17.3 βελτιώ: Neuter accusative plural (Sm. 293).

ποιήσασθαι: Infinitive subject of ἄκαιρον [εἶναι] (Sm. 1985) in indirect

discourse after νομισάντες (Sm. 2018). Its object is πέμψιν τῶν νεῶν,
another abstract impersonal -σις word instead of saying “they had
sent . . .” (see introduction 2.3.1).
17.4 ὅπως . . . ἀποπειράσωσι . . . καὶ . . . ἧσσον . . . κωλύοιεν ἀπαίρειν:
Subjunctive and then optative in the same purpose clause, an example
of Thucydides’s insistence on varied constructions (Sm. 2199). Dover
(at 6.96.3) denies that there is any difference in “vividness” here.
ἧσσον is adverbial accusative (Sm. 1608). The infinitive ἀπαίρειν, with
an accusative subject, represents what the Athenians might (or might
not) prevent.
ἐν τῇ Ναυπάκτῳ: This is a small bay on the north coast of the Gulf of
Korinth near its narrowest point. It thus commands entrances and
exits from the gulf. The Athenians settled Messenian refugees there
in about 460 after their revolt from Sparta and kept a naval garrison
there (1.103.1–3).
Spartan Preparations for Invasion (7.18)

This interesting chapter—which details Spartan preparations for resuming
the war but is not directly connected to the surrounding narrative—appears
at the end of the campaigning season, as we’ve seen Thucydides do before
(see above n. 7.9). In these paragraphs, Thucydides revisits events from much
earlier in the war, but this time he does so from a different point of view.
18.1 ὣσπερ τε προυδέδοκτο: Thucydides told us that the Spartans turned

their attention to the fortification of Dekeleia a year ago (winter
415/14, 6.93.2). They are, then, still the “delayers” that the Korinthians
complained about at the beginning of the war (1.70).
τῶν Συρακοσίων καὶ Κορινθίων ἐναγόντων: Circumstantial genitive
absolute, “as the Syracusans and Korinthians were . . .” (Sm. 2070).
Just as at the beginning of the war (1.66–71), the Korinthians urge the
Spartans on.
ὅπως . . . διακωλυθῇ: That the subjunctive, not optative, is used after a
secondary tense in a purpose clause is common in Thucydides. Smyth
sees special “vividness” in the usage (Sm. 2197N), whereas Dover (at
6.96.3) denies it. The subject is the Athenian aid to Sicily. The Spartans
had similarly hoped that their invasion of Attica in 427 would prevent
the Athenians from dealing with the Spartan ships sent to aid Myt-
ilene in its revolt (3.26). The Athenians, however, ignored the invasion
that year (as they had earlier ones) and were not diverted by it or by
the Spartan fleet from their goal of capturing Mytilene. Just as in the
past, the Athenians also paid no attention to this invasion and did not
deviate from their plan to send massive reinforcements to Sicily. This
time, however, the Spartans’ invasion was different because of the for-
tification of Dekeleia. Furthermore, in his comments on the “double
war,” Thucydides strongly suggests that this time (and perhaps in
the past?) the Athenians erred by focusing their attention away from
Attica (see below n. 7.27–30 and introduction 6.6).
ἐσβολῆς γενομένης: Temporal genitive absolute, “when an invasion . . .”
(Sm. 2070).
προσκείμενος: “with zeal.”
τὴν Δεκέλειαν: Dekeleia was a deme in northwest Attica. See map 3 and
n. 6.91.6.
τειχίζειν καὶ μὴ ἀνιέναι: Infinitives in indirect discourse after ἐδίδασκε
(Sm. 2017). The understood subjects are the Spartans.
18.2 τοὺς Ἀθηναίους . . . εὐκαθαιρετωτέρους ἔσεσθαι: Infinitive with

accusative subject in indirect discourse after ἐνόμιζον (Sm. 2018).
διπλοῦν τὸν πόλεμον: See n. 7.27–30.
τὰς σπονδὰς προτέρους: The Peace of Nikias of 421 (see introduction
3.6).
λελυκέναι . . . αὐτούς: Infinitive with accusative subject in indirect
discourse after ἡγοῦντο (Sm. 2018).
ἐν γὰρ τῷ προτέρῳ πολέμῳ: The so-called (by moderns) Archidamian
War from 431–421 b.c. Thucydides famously judged that there was just
one war from 431–404 (5.26.2). See introduction 3.3, 3.5, and 3.6.
σφέτερον τὸ παρανόμημα μᾶλλον γενέσθαι: Accusative and infinitive

in indirect discourse after ἡγοῦντο (Sm. 2018). This judgment is in
contrast to the view at the time, when, according to Thucydides, the
Spartans judged that the Athenians had broken the Thirty Years Peace
(1.87.2, 1.88; see introduction 3.1).
ἐς Πλάταιαν ἦλθον Θηβαῖοι: In 431 (2.2–6; see introduction 3.2). This
passage shows how long the Thebans’ impiety was remembered.
εἰρημένον: “it being said that.” Accusative absolute (Sm. 2076B). ὅπλα
μὴ ἐπιφέρειν gives the terms of the treaty under discussion.
δίκας . . . διδόναι: To submit to arbitration (LSJ s.v. δίκη IV.3). Perikles
accused the Spartans of refusing to go to arbitration (1.140.2), but this
is the first clear indication of the truth of the charge.
προκαλουμένων τῶν Ἀθηναίων: Concessive or temporal genitive abso-
lute, “although (or when) the Athenians . . .” (Sm. 2070).
εἰκότως δυστυχεῖν: Infinitive in indirect discourse after ἐνόμιζον (Sm.
2018). The subject is not expressed because it is the Spartans, and so
the same as the subject of the main verb (Sm. 1972). Thucydides rep-
resents the Spartans as considering it reasonable that the gods would
punish them for breaking their oaths. The Spartans were famously
pious.
τήν τε περὶ Πύλον ξυμφοράν: See introduction 3.5 for the Spartan loss at
Pylos.
18.3 ταῖς τριάκοντα ναυσίν: The “dative of military accompaniment”

(Sm. 1526). This attack occurred in the summer of 414 (6.105). Only
now do we hear how consequential it really was.
περί του: του = τινος, the indefinite pronoun (Sm. 334). With the parti-
tive genitive τῶν . . . ἀμφισβητουμένων.
προκαλουμένων τῶν Λακεδαιμονίων: Temporal or concessive genitive
absolute, “when (or although) the Lakedaimonians . . .” (Sm. 2070).
τὸ παρανόμημα . . . περιεστάναι: Infinitive with subject accusative in
indirect discourse after νομίσαντες (Sm. 2018). The repetition of
παρανόμημα from 7.18.2 emphasizes the ring composition of this sec-
tion, which begins with an increase in the Spartans’ morale, explains
their earlier dejection by reference to their belief that they had trans-
gressed the gods’ law, and returns to their revived spirits because they
believed the Athenians were now the transgressors.
18.4 σίδηρόν τε: Iron for clamps and dowels to hold the blocks of a wall
together.
ὅν Θουκυδίδης ξυνέγραψεν: Another year-ending note focusing on
Thucydides’s act of writing up the war (see. n. 6.7.4).
NINETEENTH YEAR OF THE WAR (413–412)
The Fortification of Dekeleia (7.19.1–7.19.3a),

“Summer” 413
See n. 6.1.1–6.7.1a for ending a narrative unit within the traditional (but
non-Thucydidean) paragraphing.
19.1 τοῦ δ᾿ ἐπιγιγνομένου ἦρος εὐθὺς ἀρχομένου πρωίτατα δή: Tempo-

ral genitive absolute, “when the following year . . .” (Sm. 2070). With
all these time words, Thucydides emphasizes that the slow, sluggish
Spartans are finally on the move (see introduction 6.5). Contrast
the roundabout, slow progress of Demosthenes (7.20.2, 7.26.2). This
is the spring of 413, starting in early to mid-March and beginning
Thucydides’s “summer.” It is the nineteenth year of the war. See intro-
duction 1.6 for Thucydides’s dating system.
Ἆγις ὁ Ἀρχιδάμου: Agis’s father Archidamos led the first invasion of
Attica in 431 (see introduction 3.1). In his speech before the war,
in which he detailed the many reasons why the Athenians would
win, Perikles included the Peloponnesians’ limited funds, which
he said would hurt them, especially if, as was likely, the war lasted
longer “for them” than they expected (ἄλλως τε κἂν παρὰ δόξαν,
ὅπερ εἰκός, ὁ πόλεμος αὐτοῖς μηκύνηται, 1.141.5). With αὐτοῖς (“for
them”), Perikles suggests that this kind of chronological miscalcula-
tion was possible only for the enemy. But it is exceedingly unlikely
that Perikles in 431, for all his vaunted “foresight,” envisioned a
twenty-seven-year-long war. It was, in fact, one of the enemy, Agis’s

father Archidamos, foreseeing the very thing now occurring, who
in his speech before the war said he feared that the Spartans, so far
from winning the war quickly, would in fact leave it to their children
(1.81.6). Thucydides revisits the combatants’ expectations about
the war in 7.27–28 below. Even Thucydides’s phraseology in this
sentence reminds readers of the Archidamian War. He uses a formular
introductory sentence (with a new personal subject, active verb, time
formula, and location marker) of a type that is ubiquitous in books
2–5.24 to mark out the beginning of a new “sense unit” but that virtu-
ally disappears from his narrative style in books 6 and 7 (see Dewald
2005, 26, and n. 6.8–26).
Δεκέλειαν ἐτείχιζον: Dekeleia was a deme in the northeast of Attica (see
map 1). Alkibiades encouraged the Spartans to fortify it in his speech
at Sparta in winter 415/14 (6.91.6). Before the war, Perikles argued
that the Athenians should not fear a fortified outpost of the Pelopon-
nesians because “it is hard even in peacetime to construct a rival city,
and surely no less for them to do so in a hostile land when we are
building counter-fortifications” (1.142.3). The narrative and Nikias’s
letter make clear the grave difficulties the Athenians had in construct-
ing their “rival city” against Syracuse, but Thucydides does not indi-
cate the Spartans had any trouble fortifying Dekeleia. Furthermore,
Perikles noted that if the enemy did manage to build a “small fort”
(φρούριον), it would not prevent the Athenians from sailing against
their land and “building forts there and warding them off with our
ships, where our strength lies” (1.142.4). However, the expedition to
Sicily now prevented that response. The Spartans expected that their
invasion would divert the Athenians from their Sicilian folly (7.18.1).
They were wrong, but these passages suggest that the Spartans’ judg-
ment of what should have mattered to the Athenians was right.
19.2 ἀπέχει . . . καὶ ἀπὸ τῆς Βοιωτίας: Dekeleia is not really roughly equi-
distant from Athens and Boiotia. As the crow flies over Mt. Parnes
it is actually closer to the Boiotian plain, but Thucydides is probably
thinking of the road connection through Oropos (see map 1). A stade
is an imprecise unit of measurement in Thucydides. When used for

distances that can be checked today, it ranges from about 130 to 170
meters.
οὐ πολλῷ πλέον: πολλῷ is dative of degree of difference (Sm. 1513).
ἐπὶ δὲ τῷ πεδίῳ καὶ . . . τοῖς κρατίστοις: ἐπί + dative of hostile intent
(Sm. 1689.2c). κρατίστοις is here superlative of ἀγαθός (LSJ 2).
ἐς τὸ κακουργεῖν: Expresses purpose (Sm. 1686d).
Lakedaimonian and Other Reinforcements

to Sicily (7.19.3b–7.19.5)
See n. 6.1.1–6.7.1a for beginning a narrative unit within the traditional (but
non-Thucydidean) paragraphing—here (as currently punctuated, at least)
even within a single sentence.
19.3b Εἱλώτων: Helots were the serfs of the Spartans who farmed the
land of Lakonia and Messenia so the Spartan “Equals” could spend
their time on war. When Brasidas marched north in 425, he led a
wholly helot army (see introduction 3.5).
νεοδαμώδων: Neodamodes were Spartan helots freed by the state either
before or after their enrollment for war. Their citizen status remains
uncertain.
ἐς ἑξακοσίους: ἐς + round numbers = “about” (LSJ III.2).
19.4 ἐν τοῖς πρῶτοι: ἐν τοῖς is a fixed expression used in prose to empha-

size superlatives (LSJ ὁ, ἡ, τὸ A.VIII.6).
ἐς τὸ πέλαγος: That is, straight out, not stopping at Kerkyra.
οὐ πολλῷ: Dative of degree of difference (Sm. 1513).
19.5 αἱ τοῦ χειμῶνος πληρωθεῖσαι: Genitive of time within which (Sm.

1444). See 17.4 for these ships.
αὐτοῖς: Dative of interest (Sm. 1474).
ὅπως μὴ . . . ἔχωσιν: That the subjunctive, not optative, is used after a
secondary tense in a purpose clause is common in Thucydides. Smyth
sees special “vividness” in the usage (Sm. 2197N), whereas Dover (at
6.96.3) denies it.
The Athenians Send Demosthenes to Sicily (7.20)

As de Romilly notes, “the natural way of proceeding” would have been for
Thucydides to tell the whole story of Demosthenes’s progress to Sicily either
at the beginning, when he set out, or at the end, when he arrived in Syracuse,
but he does neither (2012, 31–32). Instead he breaks up Demosthenes’s
journey with four passages, three of which discuss events in Sicily. His
technique, similar to the one he used for Gylippos’s journey to Sicily (see
above n. 6.93.2), allows his narrative to “follow the progress, independently,
of each of the two forces whose confrontation will be decisive.”
20.1 τοῦ ἦρος εὐθὺς ἀρχομένου: Temporal genitive absolute, “immedi-

ately when spring . . .” (Sm. 2070).
κατὰ τὸ ξυμμαχικόν: According to the alliance made in 417 (5.82.5).
20.2 τὸν Δημοσθένη: See IG I3 371.11–12 for an inscription recording the

payment to Demosthenes at this time from the treasurers of Athena
(with Meritt 1932, 92; translated online at Attic Inscriptions Online).
ἑξήκοντα μὲν ναυσὶν . . . καὶ πέντε: The “dative of military accompani-
ment” (Sm. 1526). Readers will recall that Nikias asked for reinforce-
ments as great as the original expedition (134 triremes in all, 6.43.1),
but the Athenians sent only these 65 ships from Athens. Demosthenes
and Eurymedon gave 10 ships to Konon (7.31.5) and added 18 from
various sources (Eurymedon’s ship, 7.31.3; 15 from Kerkyra, 7.31.5; 2
from Metapontion 7.33.5) for a total of 73 (7.42.1).
ἐκ καταλόγου: Athens mustered for war using lists compiled in the
demes (see n. 6.31.3). Finally in this chapter Thucydides gives numbers
for the reinforcements sent to Sicily. It is only now that the reader
realizes the scale of the new gamble Athens is making.
ὅσοις . . . οἷόν τ᾿ ἦν πλείστοις χρήσασθαι: οἷόν τε ἐστίν = “it is possible”
(LSJ III.2) and strengthens a superlative, hence “as many of the island-
ers as it was possible to put into service.”
εἴρητο δ᾿ αὐτῷ: The Athenians sent Demosthenes out at the very begin-
ning of spring, when the Spartans invaded Attica (7.19.1), but we learn
here that he was not dispatched directly to Sicily. Furthermore, by the

end of the chapter we see him still just waiting at Aigina.
περιπλέοντα ξυστρατεύεσθαι: Infinitive in indirect discourse after
εἴρητο, meaning “he was ordered to” (LSJ II.2). Demosthenes is the
subject of περιπλέοντα despite just appearing in the dative (αὐτῷ).
The First Naval Battles and

the Fall of Plemmyrion (7.21–7.24)
21.1 ὅσην . . . πλείστην ἐδύνατο: ὅσος, -η, -ον is used with superlatives
to indicate “as X as possible” (LSJ 7) and can be further strengthened
with a form of δύναμαι (Sm. 1086a). This phrase echoes Thucydides’s
description of the Athenians’ preparations and so equates Syracuse
and Athens and underscores the frantic moves on both sides for the
battles they know are coming.
21.2 πληροῦν . . . λαμβάνειν: Infinitive subjects of χρῆναι (Sm. 1985),

itself infinitive in indirect discourse after ἔφη (Sm. 2017).
ὡς δύνανται πλείστας: ὡς + superlative indicates “as X as possible” and
can be further strengthened with a form of δύναμαι (Sm. 1086a).
ἐλπίζειν: Infinitive in indirect discourse after ἔφη (Sm. 2017). The
subject is not expressed because it is the same as that of the main verb,
namely, Gylippos. Huart argues that this is the only instance in the
history in which the “language of hope” is used and shown to prove
true (1968, 141–42; cited by Griffiths 2007, 287). Contrast a more com-
mon negative view of hope as part of the theme of “the near and the
far” (see introduction 6.1).
ἀπ᾿ αὐτοῦ: That is, from the attempt.
κατεργάσεσθαι: Infinitive dependent on ἐλπίζειν (Sm. 1868), itself in
indirect discourse after ἔφη (Sm. 2017).
21.3 ξυνανέπειθε δὲ καὶ ὁ Ἑρμοκράτης: Ηermokrates was removed from

the generalship toward the end of the prior year (6.103.4). It is not
clear if he was now back in office or simply a man with influence.
τοῦ . . . μὴ ἀθυμεῖν ἐπιχειρῆσαι: This articular infinitive represents the
purpose of Hermokrates’s persuasion (Goodwin 95.1; Sm. 2032e), i.e.,
“he persuaded them in order that they not despair of. . . .” ἐπιχειρῆσαι
explains what the Syracusans should not despair of doing.
οὐδ᾿ ἐκείνους πάτριον τὴν ἐμπειρίαν οὐδ᾿ ἀίδιον . . . ἔχειν: Infinitive
with subject accusative in indirect discourse after λέγων, still talking
about the Athenians (Sm. 2017).
ἀλλ᾿ ἠπειρώτας μᾶλλον τῶν Συρακοσίων . . . ναυτικοὺς γενέσθαι:
Infinitive with subject accusative in indirect discourse after λέγων
(Sm. 2017). τῶν Συρακοσίων is genitive of comparison (Sm. 1431).
Hermokrates strikes here at the heart of Athenian identity and directly
challenges Perikles’s vision of Athens. Central to Perikles’s vision for
victory in the war was the invincible nature of islanders, and he urged
the Athenians to “think as nearly like this as possible” as they fought
their defensive war (1.143.5). Hermokrates replies that despite what they
may think and hope, the Athenians are still just mainlanders under-
neath a nautical veneer—indeed, “even more mainlanders than the
Syracusans.” Furthermore, Hermokrates puts a decidedly negative spin
on the Athenians’ brave deeds at Salamis. Earlier, in the Athenians’
presentation of those events at Sparta (1.74.2–4 ), “becoming nautical”
served as an example of the unique and daring Athenian character.
Here Hermokrates uses the Athenians’ transformation as encouraging
evidence for the Athenians’ enemies that both daring and seamanship
are not the exclusive prerogatives of the Athenians. Anyone can acquire
this skill. And those who have acquired it previously can lose it (see
introduction 6.5). Finally, Hermokrates’s reference to the Athenians’
acquisition of naval skill in the Persian Wars fits with Thucydides’s the-
matic comparison of the Athenians to their former enemies, the Per-
sians (and, therefore, of their current enemies, the Syracusans, to the
Athenians), and his presentation of the Sicilian expedition as a reverse
echo of the Persian Wars (see introduction 6.4). Hermokrates already
implicitly made the comparison when he argued that the Athenians’
campaign was an opportunity for the Sicilians to win glory, just as the
Athenians did when attacked by the Medes (6.33.6). The Syracusans,
similar to the Athenians in so many ways (8.96.5), can learn naval skill
and find an opportunity for glory in this attack by the Athenians.
oἵους καὶ Ἀθηναίους: For οἷοι καὶ Ἀθηναῖοί εἰσι. The relative and the fol-
lowing nominative have been attracted into the case of the antecedent
(Sm. 2532).
τοὺς ἀντιτολμῶντας χαλεπωτάτους . . . φαίνεσθαι: Still accusative and
infinitive in indirect discourse after λέγων above (Sm. 2017).
ᾧ γὰρ ἐκεῖνοι τοὺς πέλας . . . καταφοβοῦσι: “with that thing with which
they (i.e., bold men) frighten their neighbors.”
ἔστιν ὅτε: “there are times when, sometimes, now and then” (LSJ s.v. ὅτε
IV.2), so “sometimes not being superior in power” (contrasted with τῷ
δὲ θράσει ἐπιχειροῦντες).
σφᾶς ἂν . . . ὑποσχεῖν: “he said that they (σφᾶς, the Syracusans)
would. . . .” Accusative and infinitive in indirect discourse after λέγων
above, now referring to the Syracusans (Sm. 2017). The ἄν indicates
that the infinitive represents an original potential optative of direct
speech (Sm. 1845).
τὸ αὐτό: “the same quality” (as that represented by ᾧ above).
21.4 Συρακοσίους εὖ εἰδέναι . . . ἐκπλαγέντων αὐτῶν περιγενησομένους

ἢ Ἀθηναίους . . . βλάψοντας: “he said that he knew well that the
Syracusans would prevail (περιγενησομένους) in some way more
(πλέον τι) on account of this (διὰ τὸ τοιοῦτον) over the Athenians
who would have been disconcerted (ἐκπλαγέντων αὐτῶν, geni-
tive after περιγενησομένους) than that the Athenians would harm
(βλάψοντας). . . .” εὖ εἰδέναι is infinitive in indirect discourse after
ἔφη (Sm. 2017). It refers to Hermokrates, the speaker of the main verb,
and so no subject is expressed (Sm. 1972). It is followed by supplemen-
tary participles in indirect discourse after εἰδέναι (Sm. 2106).
τῷ τολμῆσαι . . . ἀντιστῆναι: “by daring unexpectedly to stand up to the
nautical element of the Athenians.” A typically complex Thucydidean
articular infinitive as instrumental dative (Sm. 1503; see introduction
2.3.5). Note how he “pairs” this, in unbalanced fashion, with a simple
dative of instrument, τῇ ἐπιστήμῃ (see introduction 2.3.6).
21.5 τοῦ τε Γυλίππου . . . πειθόντων: Circumstantial genitive absolute,

“with Gylippos . . .” (Sm. 2070).
εἴ του ἄλλου: This ought to have been εἴ τις ἄλλος ἔπειθε, but τις ἄλλος
has been attracted into the case of the other subjects of πειθόντων.
22.1 ἀγαγών: Gylippos marched his army across Epipolai, descended

at Euryelos, came back toward the coast, crossed the river, and still
seems to have surprised the Athenians when he suddenly appeared at
Plemmyrion.
ὑπὸ νύκτα: “toward nightfall” (LSJ s.v. νύξ 2).
οὗ: “where” (LSJ s.v. ὅς, ἥ, ὅ Ab.I.1).
22.2 ταῖς μὲν πέντε καὶ εἴκοσι . . . ἐναυμάχουν: The Athenians began the
fight with the first twenty-five ships they could fill.

τῶν . . . Ἀθηναίων . . . ἐπικαταβάντων καὶ . . . προσεχόντων: Causal
genitive absolute, “since the Athenians . . .” (Sm. 2070).
οὐχ ὑπομεινάντων τῶν φυλάκων: Causal genitive absolute, “since the
guards . . .” (Sm. 2070).
τὸ μέγιστον ῥᾳδίως ληφθέν: Supplementary participle in indirect dis-
course after εἷδον (Sm. 2106).
23.2 ἐς τὸ στρατόπεδον: The Athenian camp was on the shore below

Epipolai, protected by the two walls built south from that plateau (see
map 3).
τῶν γὰρ Συρακοσίων . . . κρατούντων: Causal genitive absolute, “since
the Syracusans . . .” (Sm. 2070).
ἐν τούτῳ: This means more “at that point” here.
οἱ Συρακόσιοι ἐτύγχανον . . . νικώμενοι: Note here Thucydides’s refusal
to use a second genitive absolute to give the same kind of information
(see introduction 2.3.6).
23.3 οὐδενὶ κόσμῳ ἐσέπλεον: We have seen the Syracusans disordered

before on land (6.98.3, 7.3.3). Now that characteristic appears at sea.
ὑφ᾿ ὧν: “those by whom,” i.e., the other set of ships that had fought
inside the harbor. Thucydides has left out the antecedent, as is com-
mon when it refers to a general idea (Sm. 2509).
23.4 πλὴν ὅσον: “except or save so far as.”
24.1 κατὰ μὲν τὴν ναυμαχίαν: “in relation to the naval battle” (LSJ
B.IV.2).
τὰ δ᾿ ἐν τῷ Πλημμυρίῳ τείχη εἶχον: The loss of Plemmyrion will have
made Nikias’s difficulties in maintaining his ships all the more severe.
τοῖν δυοῖν τειχοῖν τοῖν . . . ληφθέντοιν: Genitive duals (Sm. 231).
24.2 ἐν . . . τῇ ἁλώσει: Thucydides again uses an abstract -σις noun

rather than writing out “when the forts were captured” (see introduc-
tion 2.3.1).
ἑάλω: From ἁλίσκομαι.
χρωμένων τῶν Ἀθηναίων: Causal genitive absolute, “since the Athe-
nians . . .” (Sm. 2070).
24.3 μέγιστόν τε καὶ ἐν τοῖς πρῶτον: Adverbial accusative (Sm. 345,

1609, 1611). ἐν τοῖς, a fixed phrase, is frequently used to emphasize
superlatives in prose (LSJ ὁ, ἡ, τό Α.VIII.6).
ἐκάκωσε τὸ στράτευμα . . . ἡ τοῦ Πλημμυρίου λῆψις: The verb helps
make a parallel to the situation in Attica, for which Thucydides also
uses it (7.27.3). As Hornblower points out, Thucydides “has it both
ways” (3:583). He said the occupation of Plemmyrion was a mistake,
but its loss is also a disaster.
οὐ γὰρ ἔτι οὐδ᾿: These two negatives do not cancel each other out but
rather reinforce each other (Sm. 2761).
καὶ διὰ μάχης ἤδη ἐγίγνοντο αἱ ἐσκομιδαί: In his letter, Nikias noted
that the besiegers had become the besieged “at least on land” (7.11.4).
Now the Athenians were essentially besieged by sea as well.
Aftereffects of Battle;
Naval Skirmishing in Sicily (7.25)
25.1 τά τε σφέτερα: That is, their situation in Sicily.
τὸν ἐκεῖ πόλεμον ἔτι μᾶλλον . . . γίγνεσθαι: γίγνεσθαι here has the force
of the passive of ποιέω and so (with μᾶλλον) means “be carried on
more widely or forcefully.” It is an infinitive in indirect discourse after
ἐποτρυνοῦσι (Sm. 2017).
πλοῖα . . . προσπλεῖν: Accusative and infinitive in indirect discourse

after πυνθανόμεναι (Sm. 2018a).
γέμοντα χρημάτων: χρήματα in such a context need not mean money
but rather various kinds of supplies and goods.
25.3 ὁρμουσῶν αὐτῶν: Temporal genitive absolute, “while they . . .” (Sm.
2070).
μία τῶν ὁλκάδων: Thucydides mentioned these merchant transport
ships above (7.19.3).
ἄγουσα Θεσπιῶν ὁπλίτας: A seemingly minor detail. But “for want of a
shoe. . . .” These Thespians matter (see 7.43.7 and Green 1970, 288).
25.4 αὐτοῖς ἀνδράσι: “together with its crew.” Dative of accompaniment

with αὐτός (Sm. 1525) to describe the destruction of a person or thing.
25.5 πρὸ τῶν παλαιῶν νεωσοίκων: Since we know from 7.22.1 that the
“dockyard” was in the lesser harbor, we can expect that the “old
docks” were near the city in the great harbor, where the Syracusan
ships would need extra protection from the Athenians.
25.6 ναῦν μυριοφόρον: A ship carrying ten thousand measures, but ten
thousand measures of what? Amphoras? Or medimnoi of grain? In any
case, this is clearly a very large ship.
αὐτοῖς: The pilings.
ἐκ τε τῶν ἄκατων: In 7.59.3 ἀκάτοι seem to be light boats, not some part
of a large ship. The latter meaning, however, would make much better
sense here; for why would you winch something up from a light boat
when there was a big heavy ship available? Lattimore translates, “and
from small boats they attached them to winches,” which though not
literal perhaps gets at the sense. Dover (in HCT 4:399) thinks that the
ἀκάτοι hold oarsmen who somehow provided a counterforce to allow
the winches on the large ship to pull up the stakes rather than just
move the large ship closer to the stakes, as one would expect would
have happened if the large ship was not held steady in some way. In
short, we do not understand the procedure described.
τέλος: Adverbial accusative (Sm. 1607).
25.7 τῆς σταυρώσεως: A new coinage for this new situation (see intro-
duction 2.3.1).
ἡ κρύφιος: That is, the hidden part.
οὕς: “those which.” Thucydides has left out the antecedent, as is com-
mon when it conveys a general idea (Sm. 2509).
ὥστε δεινὸν ἦν προσπλεῦσαι, μὴ οὐ προϊδών . . . περιβάλῃ: The infini-
tive is subject of δεινὸν ἦν (Sm. 1985), which sets up a fear clause.
Fears that something may occur use μή. Fears that something may not
occur have μή οὐ (Sm. 2221). This is a fear that something may happen,
since the οὐ goes only with προϊδών.
μισθοῦ: “for hire” (LSJ).
25.8 τῶν στρατοπέδων . . . ἀντιτεταγμένων: Causal genitive absolute,

“since the camps . . .” (Sm. 2070).
25.9 ὡς . . . ἡσσηθεῖεν: ὡς + optative in indirect discourse after ἔπεμψαν

. . . πρέσβεις . . . ἀγγέλλοντας (Sm. 2579).
ξυμβοηθεῖν ἐπ᾿ αὐτούς: Infinitive in indirect discourse after ἀξιώσοντας
(Sm. 2018), referring to the ambassadors. The understood subject of
the infinitive is the men of the cities to whom they sent ambassadors.
ἐπ᾿ αὐτούς = “against the Athenians.”
τῶν Ἀθηναίων προσδοκίμων ὄντων: Causal genitive absolute, “since the
Athenians . . .” (Sm. 2070).
διαπεπολεμησόμενον: Understand τὸν πόλεμον εἶναι in indirect dis-
course after an understood λέγοντας. Nikias used this same verb and
idea in his letter (7.14.3).
Demosthenes on His Way to Sicily (7.26)

De Romilly notes how Thucydides “chop[s] up” Demosthenes’s voyage “into
a whole series of interrelated episodes” interrupted by four passages, three of
which concern what’s going on in Sicily (compare his treatment of Gylippos’s
journey to Sicily). The effect is to allow the reader to keep both situations
in mind simultaneously and to “follow the progress, independently, of each
of the two forces” (2012, 32).
26.1 ἔχοντα . . βοηθεῖν: The infinitive (with accusative subject, referring

to Demosthenes, despite his just appearing in the dative in αὐτῷ) is
subject of ἔδει (Sm. 1985b).
ἔπλεον ἐς τὴν Λακωνικήν: Given the severity of the situation described
by Nikias in his letter, it is surprising to find Demosthenes wasting
time on this unimportant side project that has little practical effect
on the war. Green notes the comparison of the position to Pylos (see
introduction 3.5) and remarks, “some anonymous noodle had got it
into his head that if you put Demosthenes ashore in a deserted part
of the Peloponnese and encouraged him to play bricks, remarkable
results were guaranteed to follow” (1970, 250–51). Roisman suggests
the anonymous noodle was Demosthenes himself, happy to revive
memories of Pylos (1993, 54).

σχόντες: “having put in to land” (LSJ s.v. ἔχω A.II.8).
Κυθήρων: This is a small island off the south coast of the Peloponnesos
(see map 1). The Athenians occupied Kythera in 424 (4.54). They were
required to evacuate it according to the Peace of Nikias (5.18.7; see
introduction 3.6), but there are Κυθήριοι listed among the forces on
the Athenian side at Syracuse (7.57.6), so it seems that either it was not
evacuated or was at some point reoccupied. The Athenians abandoned
the position for good in the winter of 413/12 (8.4). Herodotus has the
exiled Spartan king Demaratos say that Kythera was so dangerous
a base for potential raids on Lakonia that it would be best if it sank
beneath the ocean (Herodotus 7.235). The Athenians’ experience here
either gives the lie to Demaratos’s judgment or demonstrates that they
did not pursue the “Kythera policy” wholeheartedly enough.
ἔστιν ἅ: A fixed phrase without antecedent meaning “there are those
which” or “some” (Sm. 2513).
ἵνα . . . αὐτομολῶσι: Subjunctive retained in a purpose clause after a
secondary tense. Smyth (2197N) sees special “vividness” in the sub-
junctive, but Dover (at 6.96.3) denies it.
Εἵλωτες: See n. 7.19.3.

αὐτόσε: “to that place.”
ἐκ τῆς Πύλου: See introduction 3.5 for Pylos.
26.3 ὅπως . . . ποιῆται: Subjunctive retained in a purpose clause after a

past tense. Smyth (2197) sees special “vividness” in the subjunctive,
but Dover (at 6.96.3) denies it. Kythera, like Pylos, is far from Sparta
and, furthermore, in the opposite direction from Pylos, and so this
landing would cause the Spartans to need to divide their forces to
defend against the two outposts.
τῶν ἐκεῖθεν ξυμμάχων: Partitive genitive (Sm. 1306). The object of the
verb is an understood “troops.”
ταῖς τριάκοντα ναυσίν: The “dative of military accompaniment” (Sm.
1526).
Thracians, Dekeleia, Mykalessos,

and the Value of Attica (7.27–7.30)
This passage, with its “startling temporal shifts” (Rood 1998a, 125), includes
numerous ironic reflections on earlier points in the war and, while begin-
ning with a focus on a particular point in time in the summer of 413, soon
widens its view to look at the longer-term effects of the fortification of
Dekeleia and larger issues. It is a sign of the change in Thucydidean studies
that these elements caused Dover (in HCT 4:400–404) to investigate the
possibility that the passage or parts of it were an un-Thucydidean interpola-
tion. He ultimately (4:404) decided against this view, not least because of
the “syntactical audacity” of portions of the passage, which went “further
than anything to guarantee its authenticity.” But Dover was still far from
recognizing the artistry now seen in the passage, and he seemed to approve
Gomme’s judgment that Thucydides would have revised it if he had finished
his work.
The section encourages reflections on Perikles’s original strategy that call
into question both his vaunted “foresight” (2.65.6) and the wisdom of the
redefinition of Athens that the war required (see introduction 3.1). With his
focus here on the cost of the loss of Attica, Thucydides undercuts Perikles’s
judgment. However, a later passage in Xenophon (Hellenika 1.1.35) describes
King Agis watching from Dekeleia as ships sail their goods into the Peiraieus.
The vignette demonstrates that however painful it might have been to lose
Attica, the occupation of Dekeleia was insufficient actually to blockade
naval, imperial Athens (just as Perikles had said). Whether (potentially)
winning the war to preserve that vision of the city was worth the cost to
the more traditional, landed vision of Athens, however, remains unclear.
As usual, Thucydides presents his reader with one compelling point of view
at one time but then offers up an alternative view at another. As Connor
notes, Thucydides’s purpose seems often to be to “prevent premature and
facile judgments” (1984, 75). The narrative, he writes, “frequently seems at
first to accept or justify one assessment . . . then new considerations emerge
and new responses are evoked” (240). Rood argues that “by reaching back
into the past and looking ahead, Thucydides could portray Athens’s will to
resist as splendid yet imprudent,” and he concludes that “the ambivalent
response to Athens that the History as a whole encourages is here encap-
sulated” (1998a, 126). Kallet, in an important discussion, emphasizes how
Thucydides uses medical vocabulary to present the Athenians as diseased,
victims of their financial troubles, and in a state in which they necessarily
act excessively (2001, 121–46).
27.1 οὓς . . . ξυμπλεῖν: Infinitive (with subject accusative) subject of ἔδει
(Sm. 1985).
27.2 ὕστεροι: “too late” (LSJ A.II.2).

ἀποπέμπειν: Infinitive in indirect discourse after διενοοῦντο (Sm. 2018).
τὸ γὰρ ἔχειν . . . αὐτούς: Articular infinitive subject of πολυτελὲς
ἐφαίνετο. With this sentence, Thucydides begins his critique of the
judgment of the Athenians (and of Perikles) with regard to the com-
parative value of Attica and Sicily, of the city here and the imagined
city there. The Athenians had been perfectly happy, apparently, to
bear the cost of sending these peltasts to fight in Sicily, and yet it
appeared too costly to keep them for the war from Dekeleia, that is,
to defend Attica. Hornblower objects that πρὸς τὸν ἐκ τῆς Δεκελείας

πόλεμον means “in view of the war from Dekeleia” (3:589, citing
Classen-Steup and LSJ C.III.2) and insists that Thucydides is “not
stating a contemplated alternative use to which the Thracians might
have been put.” However, even if we grant Hornblower’s reading
of πρός, Thucydides does clearly indicate the alternate purpose to
which the Thracians might have been put. “To keep them” seemed toο
costly. Since they were now too late for Sicily, the only purpose for
which the Athenians might have “kept them” was to protect Attica.
But that purpose seemed “too expensive” to them. Perikles was
content to abandon Attica in order to defend “the sea and the city,”
by which he meant Athens, the walled corridor down to the Peiraieus
and the empire (1.143.5). He called Attica nothing more than a little
garden or a bauble of wealth that the Athenians were foolish to grieve
over (2.62.3). In these paragraphs, Thucydides encourages the reader
to find the Athenians’ and Perikles’s judgment wanting. As Kallet
remarks, “to continue to fight the war in Sicily was extravagant; to
deal with the Spartans at home was essential” (2001, 125). This all
furthers the theme of “the near and the far” and the city theme (see
introduction 6.1 and 6.6).
27.3 ἡ Δεκέλεια . . . πολλὰ ἔβλαπτε τοὺς Ἀθηναίους: Kallet notes that
βλάπτω is a “common medical verb” meaning to injure or disable
(2001, 129). πολλά is adverbial accusative (Sm. 1609). In his confident
speech before the war, Perikles claimed that “neither the Pelopon-
nesians’ fortification-building nor their navy is worth worrying about”
(1.142.2) because “if they invade our country by land, we will sail
against theirs, and it will not be a similar thing for some portion of the
Peloponnesos to be cut off and the whole of Attica” to be so (1.143.4).
In his discussion of the Dekeleia fortification, Thucydides is careful to
show that Perikles was wrong.
τὸ μὲν πρῶτον . . . τειχισθεῖσα, ὕστερον δὲ . . . ἐπῳκεῖτο: τὸ μὲν πρῶτον
and ὕστερον are adverbial accusatives (Sm. 1611). The coordination of
a participle and a main verb by μέν/δέ is very unusual. φρουραῖς . . .
ἐπιούσαις is dative of agent in the perfect system (Sm. 1488).
κατὰ διαδοχὴν χρόνου: “at successive times.”

ἐν τοῖς πρῶτον: “primarily.” ἐν τοῖς, a fixed phrase, is frequently used to
emphasize superlatives in prose (LSJ ὁ, ἡ, τό A.VIII.6).
χρημάτων τ᾿ ὀλέθρῳ: Kallet stresses this “remarkable and unprecedented
phrase” and the use for money of the epic and medical ὀλέθρος, which
is normally reserved for human destruction (2001, 131).
ἐκάκωσε τὰ πράγματα: This verb already appeared at 7.24.3 on the
capture of Plemmyrion and helps link the situations in Attica and
Sicily. Thucydides also used this verb to describe the second outbreak
of the plague (3.87.2), so his language suggests that the fortification
of Dekeleia, and the Athenians’ response to it is a kind of disease (cf.
Kallet 2001, 121–46).
27.4 τὸν ἄλλον χρόνον: Accusative of extent of time (Sm. 1582).

ἀπολαύειν: Expresses what the brief excursions did not prevent. The
subject of the infinitive is the Athenians.
ξυνεχῶς ἐπικαθημένων: Understand τῶν πολεμίων. Causal genitive
absolute, “since [the enemy] was . . .” (Sm. 2070).
πλεόνων ἐπιόντων: Circumstantial genitive absolute, “sometimes with
more . . .” (Sm. 2070).
ὁτὲ δ᾿ ἐξ ἀνάγκης τῆς ἴσης φρουρᾶς καταθεούσης . . . ποιουμένης:
Circumstantial genitive absolute, “sometimes with . . .” (Sm. 2070).
“The equal garrison” is odd and unique for “the normal (or regular)
garrison,” which is what we seem to need. Lattimore takes ἴσης to
mean “equal to” the Athenian forces, in contrast to the times when the
Spartans had more (ὁτὲ μὲν καὶ πλεόνων ἐπιόντων). This may be right.
βασιλέως τε παρόντος: Causal genitive absolute, “since the king . . .”
(Sm. 2070).
oὐκ ἐκ παρέργου: There were five invasions earlier in the war. The first,
in 430, was the longest and lasted about forty days (2.57.2). The fifth,
in 425, lasted fifteen (4.6.2). The length of the other invasions in
428 and 427 is not clear (3.1, 3.26). The invasion of 426 turned back
because of an earthquake (3.89). In 429 the Spartans marched to
Plataia instead (2.71–75).
μεγάλα: Adverbial accusative (Sm. 1609).
27.5 χειροτέχναι: Slaves were often skilled workmen. The Poletai records
that list the property of the men condemned in the scandal of the
herms and mysteries (see above n. 6.61.7) include slaves named as table
makers, nail makers, and goldsmiths (see Lalonde, Langdon, and
Walbank 1991, P1, and IG I3 421–30). Given the location of Dekeleia,
some of these escaped slaves will have been skilled agricultural work-
ers, and some will have been from the silver mines in southern Attica
around Laurion. Alkibiades had mentioned the disruption of the
mines (and the consequent loss of silver revenue) as a main goal when
he urged the Spartans to fortify Dekeleia (6.91.7).
ἐξελαυνόντων τῶν ἱππέων . . . ποιουμένων καὶ . . . φυλασσόντων:
Causal genitive absolute, “since the cavalry . . .” (Sm. 2070).
28.1 ἡ . . . παρακομιδὴ ἐκ τῆς Εὐβοίας: At the beginning of the war,

when the Athenians abandoned Attica and moved the rural popula-
tion into Perikles’s island city, they transported their livestock to the
island of Euboia for safekeeping (2.14). The eventual loss of Euboia
was a serious blow to Athens (8.96.2). See n. 8.1 and introduction 7.2.
ἐκ τοῦ Ὠρωποῦ: Athens controlled Oropos, a town in northeastern
Attica, from (probably) sometime after Kleisthenes’s reforms (since it
is not part of the political deme system). The Boiotians captured it in
411 (8.60.1).
πολυτελής: Thucydides repeats his focus on monetary expense before
moving on to other, greater costs.
τῶν τε πάντων ὁμοίως ἐπακτῶν ἐδεῖτο: In his second speech on the
Sicilian expedition, Nikias pointed to Syracuse’s great advantage over
Athens in that it used “homegrown and not imported” grain (6.20.4).
Perikles, in contrast, in his Funeral Oration over the dead from the
first year of the war, saw imports as a sign of strength and boasted
that “because of the greatness of the city everything from every land
comes in to us and it is our luck to enjoy the goods from here with
no more homegrown and familiar a pleasure than the goods of other
men” (2.38.2). Here we see his city, having severed its connection to
the land, reduced to a complete reliance on imports.
φρούριον κατέστη: Before the war, Perikles denied any danger would
come to Athens if the Spartans built a φρούριον in Attica (1.142.2–5).
Perikles’s disparagement of Attica and the war he waged to pursue
a particular naval and imperial vision of the city transformed the
Athenian army and fleet into a rival city in Sicily. And now we see that
it destroyed the real city in Attica. The Spartans’ fort, far from being
a minor nuisance, transformed the Athenians’ city into a φρούριον
itself.
28.2 πρὸς γὰρ τῇ ἐπάλξει: Thucydides is probably thinking generally,

indicating not just the men actually on the walls but also those in
reserve at various points around the city.
τὴν μὲν ἡμέραν . . . τὴν δὲ νύκτα: “during the day . . . during the night.”
Accusative of extent of time (Sm. 1582).
κατὰ διαδοχήν: “successively,” “in relays.”
οἱ μὲν ἐφ᾿ ὅπλοις †ποιούμενοι†: ποιούμενοι makes no sense. Perhaps
Thucydides wrote που (“some in arms somewhere”) and a manuscript
copyist somehow conflated it into ποιούμενοι.
θέρους καὶ χειμῶνος: This phrase shows that although the initial fortifi-
cation of Dekeleia in spring 413 is the catalyst for the passage, with its
effects used to explain the decision to send back the Thracians at that
time, Thucydides widens his focus to the longer term effects of the
occupation.
28.3 ἐς φιλονικίαν καθέστασαν τοιαύτην: Τhe language here is medical.

Thucydides uses the verb he employs in this sentence, πιέζω, four
times to describe the plague (2.52, 2.54, 2.58.2, 3.87.2), so that the
φιλονικία is like a disease. Furthermore, readers are surely meant
to think back to Thucydides’s description of the Athenians’ initial
enthusiasm for the Sicilian expedition, when ἔρως ἐνέπεσε τοῖς πᾶσιν
(6.24.3), and to his description of the excessive delusional confidence
that their victory at Pylos bred in them, all of which prepare for this
further outbreak of irrationality (4.65.4; see introduction 3.5, 6.1).
πρὶν γενέσθαι: πρίν + infinitive, meaning “before” even after a negative
leading clause (Sm. 2453).
ἠπίστησεν ἄν: “if anyone had heard of it, he would not have. . . .” Apodosis
(the “then” clause) of a past contrary-to-fact condition (with ἀκούσας
as protasis or “if” clause) (Sm. 2305).
τὸ γὰρ αὐτους . . . μηδ᾿ ὣς ἀποστῆναι . . . , ἀλλ᾿ . . . ἀντιπολιορκεῖν
. . . καὶ . . . ποιῆσαι: The whole rest of this section (7.28.3) is a giant
articular infinitive (with various other clauses appended) that stands
in apposition to the idea in ἐς φιλονικίαν καθέστασαν. The γάρ sig-
nals this, meaning something like “that is.” The basic structure of the
sentence is as follows: “the them being besieged by . . .” (τὸ . . . αὐτοὺς
πολιορκουμένους, accusative subject of the following three infini-
tives) (1) “neither to depart from . . .” (μὴδ᾿ . . . ἀποστῆναι) (2) “but to
besiege in return . . .” (ἀλλ᾿ . . . ἀντιπολιορκεῖν; object: Συρακούσας
. . . , πόλιν . . . ) (3) “and enacted so great an unexpectedness of power
and daring . . .” (καὶ . . . ποιῆσαι; object: τὸν παράλογον τοσοῦτον
. . . ) “so that . . . they came . . . although worn out by (ὥστε . . . ἦλθον
. . . τετρυχωμένοι, καὶ . . . ; actual result) and prosecuted a war no
less . . .” (προσανείλοντο; object: πόλεμον οὐδεν ἐλάσσω . . . τοῦ . . .).
τοσοῦτον is coordinated not with the following ὅσον as one might
expect (i.e., “so great . . . as”), but in an actual result clause with ὥστε
expressing the result of the Athenians’ startling φιλονικία (Sm. 2257).
To the third infinitive clause, καὶ . . . ποιῆσαι . . . ὅσον, Thucydides
appends a parenthetical condition with an embedded indirect state-
ment: “in as much as (ὅσον) . . . while some (οἱ δὲ) . . . no one thought
(οὐδεὶς . . . ἐνόμιζον) that they would hold out (περιοίσειν αὐτούς,
accusative and infinitive after ἐνόμιζον) longer (πλείω χρόνον) if the
Peloponnesians should invade their territory.” See below for further
details. Dover (in HCT, 4:404) speaks of Thucydides’s “syntactical
audacity” here, while Kallet remarks that “clause after clause tumbles
forth as [Thucydides] describes the Athenians taking on more and
more” (2001, 125), and so Thucydides emphasizes “the breathtaking
audacity of the Athenians.” That is, the syntax contributes to the
point Thucydides is making. In addition, Kallet asks what the Greeks
miscalculate and answers that the Greeks were ignorant of “the
nature, reality, and potential of sea power” and “the new, intimate and
inextricable connection between money and power” (126).
πόλιν . . . αὐτὴν γε καθ᾿ αὑτήν: “it by itself,” meaning one city compared
to the other, not including allies.
τῆς τῶν Ἀθηναίων: Understand πόλεως. Genitive of comparison after
ἐλάσσω (Sm. 1431).
οἱ δὲ τριῶν γε ἐτῶν οὐδεὶς πλείω χρόνον: τριῶν γε ἐτῶν is genitive of
comparison after πλείω (Sm. 1431). Thucydides has conflated into one
expression the ideas “and a third group [a period of] three years” and
“no-one more than three years.” He might have written τῶν δὲ . . .
οὐδείς (“and of the rest . . . no one”), which would have had the ben-
efit of avoiding οἱ μὲν . . . οἱ δὲ . . . οἱ δέ, which he evidently disliked,
but Thucydides also avoids placing genitives that refer to two different
things next to each other, as would have occurred had he written τῶν
δὲ τῶν τριῶν. As for the claim that no one thought the war would
last more than three years, the reader thinks “but Perikles did.” In
his speech before the war, Perikles predicted that the war would be
longer “for them” than the Peloponnesians expected (1.141.5). So this
passage, on the one hand, is a testament to the remarkable resilience
of Athens and is, in one sense, a validation of Perikles’s confidence.
On the other hand, the text requires a second “but”—“but Perikles,
even though he saw that Athens could last longer than two or three
years, never envisioned this, and may not have had a strategy to deal
with it.” Indeed, the whole tenor of the passage is one of madness.
τοῦ πρότερον ὑπάρχοντος: Genitive of comparison after οὐδὲν ἐλάσσω
(Sm. 1431).
28.4 τῶν ἄλλων . . . προσπιπτόντων: Causal genitive absolute, “since the
other expenses were . . .” (Sm. 2070). Kallet shows that προσπίπτω
here is a metaphor “linked closely” with illness, so that the Athenians’
expenses are “attacking” or “striking” them (2001, 130).
ἀδύνατοι ἐγένοντο τοῖς χρήμασιν: Another reflection on Perikles, who
argued that Athens would win the war in part because of its superior
financial resources (1.141.5). Kallet, again, urges reading ἀδύνατοι “in
a medical sense” as “incapacitated” or “disabled” (2001, 131). Now, she

writes, the Athenians are victims, “weakened—ill—in money”(135).
τὴν εἰκοστὴν . . . ἀντὶ τοῦ φόρου . . . ἐποίησαν: A 5 percent tax (literally
“a twentieth”). A regular reassessment of tribute was due in 414 if
the process set up in 425/24 was followed. The first payments from
that reassessment would have been due in spring 413 (Dover in HCT
4:402). The Athenians presumably made the switch to a tax because
they decided it would bring in more revenue. We are not certain,
but it seems that tribute was never reinstituted. There is a reference
to an eikostologos or “eikoste-official” on Aigina in the Frogs of 405
(363). Thucydides’s presentation of the diseased state of the Athenians
argues he expects readers to wonder whether this shift from tribute
was wise.
πλείω . . . χρήματα . . . προσιέναι: Infinitive with subject accusative in
indirect discourse after νομίζοντες (Sm. 2018). The ἄν shows that the
thought is potential.
πολλῷ μείζους: πολλῷ is dative of degree of difference (Sm. 1513).
μείζους is nominative plural (Sm. 293).
The Attack on Mykalessos (7.29–7.30)

The Thracian attack on Mykalessos has no strategic importance whatsoever,
so why does Thucydides include it? In part, it serves to indicate how the
Peloponnesian War had become a “world war.” No one was safe, not even
tiny Mykalessos. Thucydides chose to write up his war and judged it the
greatest kinesis of his time in part because of the scale of the suffering that
it entailed (1.23.2). Thucydides’s practice is often to pick one paradigmatic
example of a common phenomenon to describe. As Kerkyra (3.82–84) is
the paradigm of stasis, so Mykalessos is the paradigm of indiscriminate
slaughter. Doubtless there were others.
As Greenwood points out, paradoxically, this focus on the experience
of Mykalessos “highlight[s]” that the different experiences of “different
peoples drawn into the conflict go largely undocumented.” This digression
points up “the wars that Thucydides did not write” (2017, 165).
The slaughter at Mykalessos occurs because of the Athenians’ diseased

thinking about money and power described in 7.27–28. The philonikia that
struck the Athenians made them “behave as they do, with horrendous,
violent, consequences” (Kallet 2001, 135). See Connor 1984 (appendix 7) for
ring composition that creates “a close and deliberate parallelism” between
Dekeleia and Mykalessos, for the use of financial metaphors for death, and
for the use for finance of words that more usually describe death. Further-
more, this section shows the damage that Athens brought to Greece. In his
Funeral Oration, Perikles claimed that Athens was an “education for Hellas”
(2.41.1), implying that Athens enlightened the rest of Greece. In Mykalessos,
however, all Athens brought was death to every living thing, including the
boys of the town in their school. Finally, the destruction in Mykalessos,
which is the first action in Greece narrated for the renewed war, echoes the
Theban raid on Plataia, the first action narrated for the first part of the war.
That raid, with its unheroic night attack, fighting in the streets, and charges
of oath breaking, gave notice that there was likely to be little glory won in
this war (see introduction 3.3). Mykalessos sounds the same warning for
the renewed war but in even grimmer fashion. According to Hornblower
(3:588), Thucydides’s comments at the end of the passage are a “rebuke”
to “those modern neo-realists who think that Thucydides saw warfare as
governed by no principles. Here ‘total’ warfare, in which non-combatant
women and children are targets, is rejected.”
29.1 Διειτρέφει: Probably the same man who commanded in Thrace in

411 (8.64.2), so he seems to have suffered no loss of reputation over
the episode in Mykalessos. Sears’s (2013) study argues that certain
Athenian “Thrace-haunters” built up special expertise in the area
(and with the light-armed troop tactics that service there involved)
through repeated commands there.
δι᾿ Εὐρίπου: The narrow waterway between the mainland and Euboia.
See map 1.
ἀπ᾿ αὐτῶν βλάψαι: “to do injury by means of them” (Sm. 1684.1c4,
trans.). A rare use of ἀπό + genitive about a person to indicate the
means or instrument. The infinitive is in indirect discourse after

εἰπόντες. This is another use of the medical verb “to disable.”
29.2 ἔς τε τὴν Τάναγραν: The territory, not the city, which is too far
inland for Thucydides to mean it.
διὰ τάχους: “in haste.”
ἀφ᾿ ἑσπέρας: “at nightfall.”
29.3 αἱρεῖ: Although when he describes the massacre proper the subject
is the Thracians, Thucydides uses the third singular, referring to
Diitrephes, right up to the taking of the city itself. Once the city
is entered, however, Thucydides makes no more mention of him.
Quinn reads Thucydides’s silence about Diitrephes’s actions as moral
condemnation and compares it to his silence about Eurymedon’s
failure to intervene during the slaughter at Kerkyra in 427 (3.81.4)
(1995, 571–72). Connor has a good discussion of Thucydides’s liter-
ary technique here and how “the story comes at us fast, ferociously,
repeatedly, as the attack did to the people who lived—and died—in
Mycalessus” (2017, 219–20).
ἀπροσδοκήτοις μὴ ἄν . . . τινας . . . ἐπιθέσθαι: Active sense, “not expect-
ing that” with dependent infinitive (and an accusative subject for the
infinitive). The μή is redundant; it strengthens the negative implied in
the main verb (Goodwin 95.2n1a).
τοῦ τείχους . . . ὄντος . . . πεπτωκότος: Causal genitive absolute, “since
their wall . . .” (Sm. 2070).
ἔστιν ᾗ: A fixed expression without antecedent, akin to εἴσιν οἵ, “there
are those who” or “some”; and so “in some way” (Sm. 2515).
τοῦ δὲ . . . ᾠκοδομημένου: Causal genitive absolute, “since the wall . . .”
(Sm. 2070).
πυλῶν . . . ἀνεῳγμένων: Causal genitive absolute, “since the gates . . .”
(Sm. 2070).
29.4 ὅτῳ: Dative of ὅστις (Sm. 339).

τὸ γὰρ γένος τὸ τῶν Θρᾳκῶν . . . φονικώτατόν ἐστιν: Thucydides was
probably connected to Thrace through family ties. In addition, he
served in Thrace in 424 and probably knew Thracians well (see intro-
duction 1.1). Thucydides’s comment here, remarking on the Thracians’
known ferocity, implies that Diitrephes ought to have realized what
would happen when they captured a town (cf. Kallet 2001, 145).
ὁμοῖα τοῖς μάλιστα: “similarly to those most [murderous].”
ἐν ᾧ ἄν: “whenever” (LSJ s.v. ἐν A.IV).
29.5 ξυμφορὰ . . . οὐδεμιᾶς ἥσσων μᾶλλον ἑτέρας ἀδόκητός τε . . . αὕτη
καὶ δεινή: Literally, “this [being] a disaster for the whole city less
than none, fell upon [it] as unexpected and terrible more than another
one.” That is, “this disaster that fell on the whole city was greater and
worse than all others in being especially unexpected and terrible.”
οὐδεμιᾶς and ἑτέρας are genitives of comparison (Sm. 1431).
30.1 οὗ: “where” (LSJ Ab.I.1).
30.2 τῶν . . ὁρμισάντων: Causal genitive absolute, “since the men in the
boats . . .” (Sm. 2070).
ἐπεί: With this, Thucydides goes on to explain why fewer died at other
points of the retreat.
30.3 ἐς εἴκοσι μάλιστα: ἐς with round numbers = “about” (LSJ III.2), as

does μάλιστα (LSJ s.v. μάλα III.5).
πάθει . . . ἧσσον ὀλοφύρασθαι ἀξίῳ: The infinitive explains what the
πάθος is deserving of (LSJ s.v. ἄξιος II.3). οὐδενός is genitive of com-
parison (Sm. 1431) after ἧσσον.
ὡς ἐπὶ μεγέθει: Literally, “as in regard to size,” i.e., “relative to the size
of the city.” Rood argues that this and other such “pathos statements”
“recall the summaries found in tragic messenger speeches” (2006,
248).
Demosthenes Continues His Voyage (7.31)

This and the following few chapters are a “race of walls” (Connor 1984, 186)
as the Syracusans and the Athenians both try to bring additional troops
to bear in Sicily.
31.1 ὕστερον: Adverbial accusative (Sm. 1611).
31.2 Ζάκυνθον καὶ Κεφαλληνίαν: These islands, to the northwest of the

Peloponnesos, were Athenian allies and part of the Athenian plan to
carry on the war right round the Peloponnesos (2.7; see map 1).
ἐκ τῆς Ναυπάκτου: See n. 7.17.4.
31.3 ὄντι δ᾿ αὐτῷ περὶ ταῦτα: “him, while he was engaged with these
affairs.” Dative after ἀπαντᾷ.
τοῦ χειμῶνος: Genitive of time within which (Sm. 1444).
ἀγγέλλει . . . ὅτι πύθοιτο . . . τὸ Πλημμύριον . . . ἑαλωκός: Indirect
discourse first with ὅτι + the optative after ἀγγέλλει (Sm. 2579), then
with the supplementary participle after πύθοιτο (Sm. 2110). ἑαλωκός
is from ἁλίσκομαι. As Roisman notes, if Demosthenes “could be
excused” before this for not heading more swiftly to Sicily, he should
have wasted no more time once he learned of this (1995, 54).
κατὰ πλοῦν ἤδη: “when he was already at sea.”
31.4 ἀφικνεῖται δὲ καὶ Κόνων: The first appearance of this great Athe-
nian general. Thucydides introduces him without patronymic or any
indication of his importance (see introduction 7.4).
οὔτε καταλύουσι τὸν πόλεμον: Judging that this can hardly mean, as it
needs to, “so far from going home without a fight,” Dover follows an
earlier editor in counseling the deletion of τὸν πόλεμον and reading
καταλύουσι as intransitive, “cease hostilities.”
ὡς οὐχ ἱκανὰς οὔσας . . . τὰς ἑαυτῶν: “since his eighteen were not suf-
ficient. . . .” ὡς + accusative absolute (Goodwin 110.2.N1). δυοῖν is
genitive dual after δεούσας. In 429 in these same waters, the Athenian
general Phormion handily defeated forty-seven Korinthian and allied
ships with only twenty ships of his own. He even managed to capture
twelve enemy ships (2.83–84). Now, Konon is afraid to face twenty-
five enemy ships with eighteen. It is true that the best crews and ships
were probably in Sicily, but still, Thucydides surely expects the reader
to remember the earlier battle and to conclude, with Hermokrates,
that the Athenians’ skill at sea was neither inborn nor permanent (n.
7.21.3).
31.5 ἁφ᾿ ὧν: “from those which.” Thucydides has left out the antecedent,
as is common when it refers to a general idea (Sm. 2509), and the rela-
tive has been attracted into its case (Sm. 2522).
ᾑρέθη: From αἱρέω. That is, had been chosen as general for this year.
Sikel Ambush of Reinforcements for Syracuse

(7.32)
This Sikel ambush of Greeks parallels the Thracian attack on the Greeks of
Mykalessos (cf. Hornblower 3:607).
32.1 οἱ δ᾿ . . . πρέσβεις: Subject of the ἐπειδή clause, pulled forward for
emphasis.
ὅπως μὴ διαφρήσωσι . . . ἀλλὰ . . . κωλύσωσι διελθεῖν: That the subjunc-
tive, not optative, is used after a secondary tense (the historical pres-
ent, Sm. 1883, 1858a) in a purpose clause is common in Thucydides.
Smyth sees special “vividness” in the usage (Sm. 2197N), whereas
Dover (at 6.96.3) denies it. The infinitive represents what the Sikels
will try to prevent.
ἄλλῃ: “elsewhere.”
αὐτοὺς . . . πειράσειν: Infinitive (with subject accusative) in implied indi-
rect discourse after πέμπει (Sm. 2017), i.e., “sent them [and told them
that. . . ].” The subject is the men of the army bound for Syracuse.
Ἀκραγαντῖνοι: This is the first mention of the position of Akragas. As we
learn below (7.33.2), they were not on the Athenians’ side, but neutral.
διὰ τῆς: γῆς is understood.
32.2 πορευομένων . . . τῶν Σικελιωτῶν: Temporal genitive absolute,

“and when the Sikeliotes (i.e., the Greeks of Sicily) . . .” (Sm. 2070).
ἀφυλάκτοις: That is, the Sikeliots. Dative after ἐπιγενόμενοι.
Thucydides also used this adjective to describe the people of Mykales-
sos (7.29.3).
ἐς ὀκτακοσίους μάλιστα: ἐς with round numbers = “about” (LSJ III.2),

as does μάλιστα (LSJ s.v. μάλα III.5).
Reinforcements for Syracuse (7.33.1–7.33.2)

33.1 οἱ Καμαριναῖοι: Their attitude is proof of Thucydides’s claim below
that almost all who had previously been watching on the sidelines
now joined Syracuse. Even after the persuasive speeches of Euphemos
and Athenagoras the prior year, the Kamarinaians remained neutral
(6.88.2), but they have abandoned their wait-and-see attitude. Pre-
sumably the capture of Plemmyrion is what tipped the scales.
ἐς πέντε: ἐς + numbers = “about” (LSJ III.2).
33.2 σχεδὸν γάρ τι ἤδη πᾶσα: “nearly all.” Naxos and Katane were still
waiting on the sidelines, as was Messana, which did not help the
Athenians in 415/14 (6.74.1) but is also not recorded in the states aiding
Syracuse (7.58). Hermokrates (6.33.4) predicted that the consternation
of the Sikeliots would cause them to join Syracuse, and Athenagoras
(6.37.2) predicted that all Sicily would eventually be at war with Ath-
ens. We see their predictions fulfilled here.
Demosthenes Continues His Voyage (7.33.3–7.33.6)

33.3 πάθος: Thucydides uses this word to describe the sufferings of
Mykalessos (7.30.3) and so makes a parallel between the Greek and
Sicilian situations. As Hornblower notes, barbarians killed two groups
of Greeks, and the Athenians caused both events (3:607).
τὸ εὐθέως . . . ἐπιχειρεῖν: Articular infinitive object of ἐπέσχον.
ἑτοίμης . . . οὔσης: Causal genitive absolute, “since the fleet . . .” (Sm.
2070).
ξυμπάσῃ τῇ στρατιᾷ: The “dative of military accompaniment” (Sm.
1526).
τὸν Ἰόνιον: Understand κόλπον—the stretch of open sea between
Bound 840).
ἐπ᾿ ἄκραν Ἰαπυγίαν: The headland of Iapygia is at the tip of the bootheel
of Italy.
33.4 κατίσχουσιν: Here κατέχω = “bring a ship to land” (LSJ B.2).

ἀκοντιστάς τέ τινας . . . πεντήκνοτα: With numerals, τινας = “or so”
(LSJ A.II.8).
τῷ Ἄρτᾳ: Dative of interest (Sm. 1474). Artas was a proxenos of Athens,
a man who took care of the interests of Athens in his native city.
This is another example of diplomatic or other ties that Thucydides
seemingly suppresses as long as possible in order to increase the sense
that the Sicilian expedition was a “foolish leap into the unknown”
(Hornblower 3:608; cf. n. 7.1.4).
33.5 καταλαμβάνουσι: = “find on arrival that” (LSJ II.2), followed by the

explanatory supplementary participle ἐκπεπτωκότας (from ἐκπίπτω),
meaning “to fall out of” and so “to be banished from” (LSJ 3).
33.6 ὡς προθυμότατα: Adverbial accusative (Sm. 345, 1608); ὡς + super-

lative = “as X as possible” (Sm. 1086).
ἐπειδήπερ ἐν τούτῳ τύχης εἰσί: That is, because the anti-Athenian party
was in exile.
τοὺς αὐτοὺς ἐχθροὺς καὶ φίλους . . . νομίζειν: Dependent on βουλόμενοι
. . . πεῖσαι. This phrasing represents a full offensive and defensive
alliance where the two states are obliged to help each other not only if
one is attacked by a third party but also if one of them wants to attack
a third party. The Athenians made only a defensive alliance with
Kerkyra before the war because they did not want to be obliged to
help Kerkyra if it attacked Korinth (1.44.1; see introduction 3.1).
περιέμενον: Combined with the description of the activity in Sicily and
the Syracusans’ plans to attack the Athenians, this notation again
urges the reader to suspect that Demosthenes and Eurymedon should
have shown more haste.
Naval Battle at Naupaktos (7.34)

Dewald (2005, 150n15) counts this as one of five scenes in the narrative of
years seventeen through nineteen that “do not relate” to the main account
of the Athenian attempt to conquer Sicily (the others she notes are 6.95.1,
6.95.2, 6.105, and 7.9). However, this scene, like 6.105, does relate to that
main narrative because the naval tactics used here are instrumental to the
Syracusans’ later naval victories.
34.1 τῶν ὁλκάδων ἕνεκα τῆς . . . κομιδῆς: As at 1.57.4, Thucydides puts
ἕνεκα between two genitives. It goes with the second. We first heard
of these reinforcements at 7.19.3. One of the merchant ships, carrying
Thespians, already reached Lokroi (7.25.3). Those Thespians will mat-
ter (7.43.7).
ὥστε . . . εἶναι: Infinitive of natural result (Sm. 2258).
τῶν Ἀττικῶν νεῶν: Genitive of comparison after ἐλάσσους (Sm. 1431).
ὀλίγῳ is dative of degree of difference (Sm. 1513). To the reader
thinking, from 7.31.4–5, that the Athenians have only twenty-eight
ships, twenty-five ships do seem “only a little fewer than the Athenian
ships.” However, readers learn below that the Athenians have thirty-
three ships (7.34.3). Presumably Diphilos brought the extras with him
when (it seems) he replaced Konon.
κατὰ Ἐρινεόν: Erineon is twenty-six kilometers (about sixteen miles)
east of Patrai (modern Patras) on the south shore of the Gulf of
Korinth.
34.2 τοῦ χωρίου μηνοειδοῦς: Causal genitive absolute, “because the ter-
ritory was . . .” (Sm. 2070).
34.3 τριάκοντα ναυσὶ καὶ τρισίν: The “dative of military accompani-

ment” (Sm. 1526).
34.4 τὸ μὲν πρῶτον: Adverbial accusative (Sm. 1611).

ἀρθέντος: From αἴρω = ἀείρω, in a temporal genitive absolute with τοῦ
σημείου, “after the signal . . .” (Sm. 2070).
34.5 ἁπλῶς: “simply, absolutely.”

ἑπτὰ δέ τινες: With numbers, τινες = “or so” (LSJ A.II.8).
ἀναρραγεῖσαι: From ἀναρρήγνυμι.
τὰς παρεξειρεσίας: Accusative of respect (Sm. 1600). These outriggers
ran lengthwise along the side of a trireme. The oars for the highest
level of oarsmen were pulled through them (see Morrison, Coates,

and Rankov 2000, fig. 45).
ἐπ᾿ αὐτὸ τοῦτο: “for this very purpose.”
παχυτέρας τὰς ἐπωτίδας: The “ear timbers” of a trireme projected later-
ally out from the bow, at the level of the outrigger, in order to protect
it (see Morrison, Coates, and Rankov 2000, fig. 46). They were called
“ear timbers” because the bow of a ship, which often had eyes painted
on either side and ended in the “beak” of the ram, was conceived
of as the head of an animal. The Korinthians strengthened the “ear
timbers” before the battle, in expectation of a battle in a confined
space, where there would be many bow-to-bow collisions. In such col-
lisions, after the initial blow, the sides of the two ships slide alongside
one another, and the strengthened ear timbers of a Korinthian ship
were designed to smash into and break the weaker timbers of the
opposing ship. This would almost inevitably break or dislocate the
outrigger, making the top-level of oarsmen unable to pull their oars
properly and so disabling the ship (see Morrison, Coates, and Rankov
2000, 163–65). This is an extremely ominous development because
the Korinthians here controlled both the location (and so the type)
of battle and also made important structural changes to their ships
ahead of time that made them formidable in that type of battle. Read-
ers recall, perhaps, that Thucydides notes that Korinth was the first to
develop almost-modern ships and the first to build triremes (1.13.2).
They seem to have rediscovered their naval ingenuity. The contrast
between this battle and Phormion’s victory at Naupaktos in summer
429 (2.83–86) is strong. Then, the Athenian was in complete control
of the battle, able, in the wide space, to employ the encircling move-
ments that the Athenians’ light triremes excelled at, and using even
the wind in his battle plan. Now the Athenians were outmaneuvered
and out-thought. This battle proved the truth of Hermokrates’s claims
that the Athenians’ skill at sea was neither inborn nor permanent,
and that others could learn nautical skill just like the Athenians had
(cf. 7.21.3; see introduction 6.5). Hunt (2006, 407–8) underscores
Thucydides’s general interest in naval technology, and Stroud (1994,
303) offers us the picture of Thucydides “peering at warships” in the

shipsheds of Korinth in order to keep abreast of the innovations.
34.6 ἀντίπαλα: Adverbial accusative (Sm. 1608).

ὡς . . . ἀξιοῦν νικᾶν: ὡς = ὥστε. Infinitive with subject accusative in a
natural result clause (Sm. 2258; Goodwin 98.2n1) explaining how even
the battle was.
τῶν ναυαγίων: Object of κρατησάντων τῶν Ἀθηναίων, a circumstantial
genitive absolute, “with the Athenians . . .” (Sm. 2070).
διά τε τὴν . . . ἄπωσιν . . . καὶ διὰ τὴν . . . οὐκέτι ἐπαναγωγήν . . . καὶ δίωξις
οὐδεμία ἐγένετο: Three excellent examples of Thucydides’s penchant
for abstract expressions. Thucydides writes “on account of the wind’s
driving of them into the open sea . . . and . . . because of no subsequent
attack from the Korinthians . . . there was no pursuit.” English (and
other Greek writers) would tend to express this idea with subordinate
clauses, personal subjects, and verbs, i.e., “because the wind blew them
. . . because the Korinthians did not attack again . . . they did not pur-
sue. . . .” Thucydides prefers abstract nouns (see introduction 2.3.1).
αὐτῶν: The wrecks.
ἑάλωσαν: From ἁλίσκομαι.
34.7 ἀποπλευσάντων δὲ τῶν Ἀθηναίων: Temporal genitive absolute,

“after the Athenians . . .” (Sm. 2070).
δι᾿ ὅπερ οὐδ᾿ οἱ ἕτεροι νικᾶν: “on account of the very thing [according
to] which the enemy (that is, the Athenians) thought they had not
won.” Understand ἐνόμισαν. The next sentence explains the thing in
question.
κρατεῖν . . . ἡσσᾶσθαι: Infinitives in indirect discourse after ἡγήσαντο
and ἐνόμιζον (Sm. 2018). No subject is expressed since it is also the
subject of the main verb (Sm. 1972).
ὅτι οὐ πολὺ ἐνίκων: In their speech before the war, the Korinthians
warned the Spartans that if the Athenians “conquer their enemies
they advance the farthest and when they are beaten they fall back the
least” (1.70.5; Lattimore), and that if they fail to accomplish something
they have set their minds on, the Athenians “consider themselves
to have been robbed of their household property” (1.70.7). Before

the war, this Athenian attitude (and the Korinthians’ perception
of it) seemed a great part of Athens’s strength. Here, however, the
Athenians’ failure to conquer seems to them equivalent to an actual
loss and so is likely to increase the lack of confidence they already dis-
played in fearing to fight the Korinthian ships without clear superior-
ity in numbers (see n. 7.31.4). Even more importantly, the Korinthians’
exaggerated perception of the Athenians’ abilities actually increases
their morale because they have not been utterly beaten.
34.8 ἀποπλεσάντων δὲ τῶν Πελοποννησίων: Temporal genitive abso-

lute, “when the Peloponnesians . . .” (Sm. 2070).
τοῦ πεζοῦ διαλυθέντος: Temporal genitive absolute, “when the infantry
. . .” (Sm. 2070).
ἀπέχον: Participle modifying τροπαῖον. See n. 6.70.3 for a discussion
of the way trophies on either side help the reader chart the shifting
fortunes in the Sicilian expedition.
ὡς εἴκοσι σταδίους: ὡς with numbers indicates “about” (LSJ E). A stade
is an imprecise unit of measurement in Thucydides. When used for
meters.
Demosthenes and Eurymedon in South Italy (7.35)

35.1 ἑπτακοσίοις μὲν ὁπλίταις: The “dative of military accompaniment”
(Sm. 1526).
πρῶτον: Adverbial accusative (Sm. 1611).
35.2 εἶπον οὐκ ἂν σφίσι βουλομένοις εἶναι . . . τὸν στρατὸν ἰέναι: The
dative participial phrase with a form of εἰμί serves as an alternate for
the verb of the participle: literally, “would not be with them wishing,”
i.e., “that they did not want . . .” (Goodwin 112.2 n.8). λέγω with the
infinitive usually means “command” (Sm. 1997), but here it must
mean “say” (Sm. 2017N). The second infinitive, ἰέναι (with subject τὸν
στρατὸν), is in indirect discourse after εἶπον (Sm. 2017).
ἴσχοντες: Here = “to put into shore at” (LSJ s.v. ἴσχω 2).
Syracusan Naval Victory (7.36–7.41)

Thucydides in this chapter lets us know that the Syracusans must have been
in communication with the Korinthians about the battle at Naupaktos (7.34)
so as to learn how successful their naval innovations were there. Hornblower
sees this as “perhaps” the “most important manifestation” of the Korinthian-
Syracusan mother-daughter colonial relationship (3:609). Ominously, the
Syracusans are not just passive learners. In addition to thickening the ear
timbers, the Syracusans also made further improvements to their ships.
They shortened the bows of their triremes and attached long braces to the
ear timbers that ran through the sides of the ships (and were, presumably,
braced against one of the ribs of the hull) in order to further strengthen the
ear timbers for prow-to-prow ramming. The Athenians, we notice, made
no changes to their ships in response to the Naupaktos battle. Did they not
notice the Korinthians’ innovations? Were they too complacent? Too slow to
make changes? In any case, these are hardly the daring, innovative Athenians
of the Korinthians’ description at the beginning of the war, where they were
said to be “quick both to contrive things and to put them into effect” and
where their institutions were specifically called “more innovative” (1.70.2; see
introduction 6.5). All three naval battles at Syracuse (7.36–41, 51–54, 59–71)
have as their foil the Athenians’ control of weapons, tactics, and conditions
at Phormion’s victory at Naupaktos (2.83–84; see de Romilly 2012, 87–94).
36.1 ἐπ᾿ αὐτὸ τοῦτο . . . ξυνέλεγον: That is, to attempt a battle before the
Athenians arrived.
φθάσαι: φθάνω is sometimes combined with πρίν + infinitive to mean
“to anticipate them before they . . .” (Sm. 2440a; 2431).
36.2 ὡς . . . ἐνεῖδον: With accusative (τι πλέον) and future participle
(σχήσοντες, from ἔχω), this verb means “to see that something would
happen.” Here, “as they saw would make them have some advantage.”
The Syracusans are learning from their mistakes in the earlier battle
(7.25).
ἐπωτίδας: See n. 7.34.5.
ἀντηρίδας: These are beams added to brace the ear timbers.

ὡς ἐπὶ ἓξ πήχεις: ὡς = “about” (LSJ s.v. ὡς E). A πῆχυς is a cubit, the
length from the point of the elbow to the tip of the middle finger.
36.3 πρὸς τὰς . . . ναῦς . . . ἀντινεναυπηγημένας, ἀλλὰ . . . ἐχούσας: A
very long prepositional phrase.
διὰ τὸ μὴ ἀντιπρῴροις μᾶλλον αὐτοὺς ἢ . . . χρῆσθαι: “on account of
them (αὐτούς, the Athenians) not so much (μὴ . . . μᾶλλον) using
(χρῆσθαι) prow-to-prow attacks (ἀντιπρῴροις . . . ταῖς ἐμβολαῖς)
than attacks from sailing round (ἐκ περίπλου).” A typically long and
complex articular infinitive (with subject accusative) after a preposi-
tion (Sm. 2034b; see introduction 2.3.5). “Sailing around” was one
of the two main naval techniques perfected by Athenians (the other
was the diekplous). In a periplous the more skilled and nimble fleet
outflanked the enemy in order to approach and ram ships from the
side. In this way they confined the enemy’s ships into a smaller space
to prevent them from maneuvering well and to cause their ships to
foul each other (see Morrison, Coates, and Rankov 2000, 43, 78–79).
oὐκ ἔλασσον σχήσειν: “they thought that they would not be at a disad-
vantage.” Infinitive in indirect discourse after ἐνόμισον (Sm. 2018).
The subject is the Syracusans, unexpressed because it is the same as
that of the main verb (Sm. 1972). σχήσειν is future (from ἔχω).
τὴν . . . ναυμαχίαν . . . ἔσεσθαι: Infinitive with subject accusative in
indirect discourse after ἐνόμισαν (Sm. 2018). πρὸς ἑαυτῶν = “in their
favor” (LSJ A.III.2).
χρώμενοι ἀναρρήξειν: Infinitive from ἀναρρήγνυμι, in indirect
discourse after ἐνόμισαν (Sm. 2018). The participle is nominative,
rather than accusative, the regular case for the subject of an infinitive,
because its subject and that of the infinitive are the same as that of the
leading verb (Sm. 1973).
36.4 οὐκ ἔσεσθαι: = “not to be possible” (LSJ VI). Infinitive in indirect

discourse after ἐνόμισαν (Sm. 2018). The accusative subject is οὔτε
περίπλουν οὔτε διέκπλουν. σφῶν is objective genitive, “neither sail-
ing round nor breaking through of them (the Syracusans).”
ἐν στενοχωρίᾳ: The Athenians would have had the sterns of their ships
all lined up along the shore by their camp while the Syracusans
patrolled the rest of the bay. This word makes a reference to the battle
of Salamis, which occurred in the confined waters between the island
of Salamis and the coast of Athens and Megara. In a speech before
the war, Thucydides has the Athenians themselves describe it as ἐν
τῷ στενῷ, and they credit Themistokles with having made the battle
take place there; that time, they benefitted from the confined space
(1.74.1). This detail serves to further both Thucydides’s presentation of
the Sicilian expedition as a perverse echo of the Persian Wars and his
demonstration of the changed character of the Athenians, who this
time are harmed by the confined waters and, more important, seem
only to react to circumstances of their enemies’ design.
διέκπλουν: Together with the periplous (see above n. 7.36.3), this was the
main tactic of experienced naval crews. In a diekplous the superior
navy sailed through breaks in the opposing line of ships in order to
ram the triremes amidships and sink them (see Morrison, Coates, and
Rankov 2000, 43, 59–60).
ἐπίστευον: The subject is suddenly the Athenians.
κατὰ τὸ δuνατόν: “as far as they were able.”
τὸ μὲν οὐ δώσειν διεκπλεῖν, τὸ δὲ τὴν στενοχωρίαν κωλύσειν: “they
thought that they (αὐτοί, themselves) would not give them the one (τὸ
μέν), that is, to perform the diekplous and the narrow waters would
prevent the other (τὸ δέ) so that they not sail through.” Two infini-
tives still in indirect discourse after ἐνόμισον above. The subject of the
first is nominative (αὐτοί) because it is the same as the subject of the
main verb. διεκπλεῖν is an epexegetical (explanatory) infinitive for τὸ
μέν. ὥστε + infinitive after κωλύσειν is typical for Thucydides. The μή
is redundant after a verb of hindering (Sm. 2759b).
36.5 τὸ ἀντίπρῳρον ξυγκροῦσαι: Epexegetical (explanatory) articular

infinitive explaining what the seeming ignorance of the helmsmen (τῇ
. . . ἀμαθίᾳ . . . δοκούσῃ εἶναι) consisted of (cf. 7.67.1; Sm. 2001).
αὐτοὶ χρήσασθαι: Infinitive in indirect discourse after ἐνόμισαν above

(Sm. 2018). The pronoun is nominative because it refers to the Syra-
cusans, subject of the main verb (Sm. 1973).
πλεῖστον . . . σχήσειν: Infinitive (from ἔχω) in indirect discourse after
ἐνόμισαν above (Sm. 2018). The subject is still the Syracusans.
πλεῖστον ἔχειν = “to have the most advantage” (LSJ II.I).
τὴν γὰρ ἀνάκρουσιν οὐκ ἔσεσθαι: οὐκ ἔσεσθαι = “would not be pos-
sible” (LSJ A.VI). Infinitive in indirect discourse after ἐνόμισαν above
(Sm. 2018). ἀνάκρουσις, or “backing water” under oar, was essential
after ramming a ship or when attempting to make a safe retreat during
an engagement. It required careful discipline and long training to
do well (see Morrison, Coates, and Rankov 2000, 69, 78–79 and n.
7.40.1).
καὶ ταύτην: That is, the one ἀνάκρουσις that would be available to them,
toward the shore.
δι᾿ ὀλιγοῦ καὶ ἐς ὀλίγον: “at a short distance” (LSJ IV.2), i.e., giving
limited room for evasive action and “to a small part (of the coast)”
(Smith), i.e., that part protected by the walls and stockade of the
Athenian camp. The rest was under the control of the Syracusans.
αὐτοὶ κρατήσειν: Infinitive in indirect discourse after ἐνόμισαν above
(Sm. 2018). The pronoun is nominative because its subject is the same
as that of the main verb (Sm. 1973).
36.6 ξυμφερομένους αὐτούς . . . ταράξεσθαι: “and that they (αὐτούς,

the Athenians), if they were forced back anywhere (πῃ), all gathered
together into the same small area . . . would be thrown into disorder.”
Infinitive in indirect discourse after ἐνόμισαν (Sm. 2018).
ὅπερ καὶ ἔβλαπτε . . . ἐν ἁπάσαις ταῖς ναυμαχίαις: As Hornblower notes,
this is a clear sign that Thucydides’s account is “paradigmatic” (3:614).
His tendency is to describe something only once and to leave it up to
the reader of later battles to fill in the details that he has learned about
from all the prior accounts.
οὐκ οὔσης . . . τῆς ἀνακρούσεως: Causal genitive absolute, “since back-
ing water . . .” (Sm. 2070).
περιπλεῦσαι . . . οὐ δυνήσεσθαι αὐτούς: Infinitive with subject accusa-

tive in indirect discourse after ἐνόμισαν (Sm. 2018).
σφῶν ἐχόντων: Causal genitive absolute, “since they held . . .” (Sm. 2070).
τοῦ Πλημμυρίου πολεμίου τε . . . ἐσομένου: Causal genitive absolute,
“since Plemmyrion . . .” (Sm. 2070).
τοῦ στόματος οὐ μεγάλου ὄντος: Causal genitive absolute, “and because
the mouth . . .” (Sm. 2070).
37.2 ὀλίγῳ: Dative of degree of difference (Sm. 1513).

τῷ τείχει: This is the easternmost of the two walls coming down from
the “circle” on Epipolai that guarded the Athenians’ camp. The other
wall is the one described next. The Athenians were attacked from all
sides (see map 3).
καθ᾿ ὅσον . . . ἑώρα: This refers to the wall. αὐτοῦ = “here,” i.e., in that
area.
ἐκ τοῦ ἐπὶ θάτερα: “from the other side” (LSJ s.v. ἕτερος IV.2.a).
37.3 τὸ πρῶτον: Adverbial accusative (Sm. 1611).

αὐτοὺς . . . πειράσειν: Ιnfinitive with subject accusative in indirect dis-
course after οἰόμενοι (Sm. 2018).
ὁρῶντες . . . τὰς ναῦς ἐπιφερομένας: Accusative and supplementary
participle after ὁρῶντες (Sm. 2110, 2112a).
τῶν ἔξω: Other areas outside the city.
ὀγδοήκοντα μάλιστα: μάλιστα with numbers = “about.”
38.1 τῆς δὲ ἡμέρας: Genitive of time within which (Sm. 1444)
38.2 τὸ μέλλον: “next” (LSJ IV). Adverbial accusative (Sm. 1611).

ἀντίπαλα τὰ . . . γενόμενα: Accusative and supplementary participle in
indirect discourse after ἰδών (Sm. 2110).
αὐτοὺς . . . ἐπιχειρήσειν: Infinitive and subject accusative in indirect
discourse after ἐλπίζων (Sm. 2018), which here means “expecting,”
not “hoping.”
πρὸ τοῦ σφετέρου σταυρώματος: Just as the Syracusans had erected a
stockade in front of their harbor (7.25.5), so too had the Athenians,
though (as is his wont) Thucydides tells us about it only now, when
it comes into play. The stockade must have continued the line of the
land walls into the sea in order to make a protected space for the ships
(see map 3).
38.3 ὅσον δύο πλέθρα: ὅσον with numbers = “about” (LSJ IV.3). A
plethron is a measure of length of about one hundred Greek feet, so
about thirty meters (LSJ). The Athenians’ stockade must have had
several large exits. Nikias placed the merchantmen at these open-
ings. There was probably one merchantman per opening, and so the
openings themselves were about two hundred Greek feet (or sixty
meters) apart. Thucydides will tell us more about the purpose of these
merchantmen below.
κατάφευξις . . . ἔκπλους: As usual, Thucydides uses abstract nouns for
actions rather than writing (less concisely) “it would be possible for
the ships to escape safely and to . . .” (see introduction 2.3.1).
39.1 πρωίτερον: “earlier.” Adverbial accusative (Sm. 1611).

τῇ δ᾿ἐπιχειρήσει τῇ αὐτῃ: “with the same type of assault.”
39.2 προσέμισγον . . . πρὶν . . . πείθει: Here πρίν after an affirmative
clause means “until” and takes the indicative, one of only three
instances in prose where the leading verb is affirmative (another
example is at 7.71.5; the third is at Aeschines 1.64). In all three cases,
the leading verb is imperfect, emphasizing “the continuation of the
action up to the point of time expressed by the πρίν clause” (Sm.
2441c).
ἐπὶ πολύ: “for a long time” (LSJ IV.4.b).
Ἀρίστων ὁ Πυρρίχου: Thucydides likes to give credit where credit is due.
Did Ariston also have a hand in the modifications of the Syracusan
ships?
πέμψαντας . . . κελεύειν: The infinitive (with subject accusative) is an
object infinitive after πείθει, which means here not “convince” but
“urge” (Sm. 1992N). The organization of the sentence is as follows:
Ἀρίστων . . . πείθει . . . τοὺς . . . ἄρχοντας . . . κελεύειν (κελεύειν is
object infinitive after πείθει, with accusative subject the fleet captains)
τοὺς . . . ἐπιμελομένους . . . μεταστῆσαι κομισάντας τὴν ἀγορὰν
(μεταστῆσαι is object infinitive after κελεύειν, with accusative subject
“the men in charge in the city”; τὴν ἀγοράν is the object of the infini-
tive) καὶ . . . πάντας . . . ἀναγκάσαι πωλεῖν (ἀναγκάσαι is another
object infinitive after κελεύειν, with subject again “the men in charge
of the city” and object “all”). In brief, “Ariston persuaded the leaders
. . . , having sent to the men in charge . . . to urge them . . . to move
the marketplace . . . and to compel everyone to sell. . . .” This series
of orders and instructions all goes off without a hitch, underscoring
Syracusan organization and planning.
ὅτι τάχιστα: “as quickly as possible.” ὅτι + superlative = “as X as pos-
sible” (Sm. 1086).
ὅπως . . . ἐκβιβάσαντες . . . ἀριστοποιήσωνται . . . ἐπιχειρῶσιν: Retained
subjunctive in a purpose clause after a historical present (Sm. 1858a,
2197). Smyth sees special “vividness” in the subjunctive, whereas
Dover (at 6.96.3) denies it. The subject is all the generals, with the
sailors themselves tacitly included in the breakfasting.
αὐτοῖς: The people selling food.
δι᾿ ὀλίγου: “after a short time” (LSJ IV.2).
ἀπροσδοκήτοις: First it was the people of Mykalessos who were
unsuspecting (7.29.3). Now it is the Athenians themselves. They were
tricked by another food stratagem later in the war (8.95.4). They did
not learn from their mistakes.
40.1 πρύμναν κρουσάμενοι: Backing water. See above n. 7.36.5. Mor-

rison, Coates, and Rankov determine that to do this effectively, sailors
would have had to have straps holding their feet to the foot stretchers
(2000, 212). Alternatively, they propose that sailors might have actu-
ally turned around on their seats and rowed with the oar of the oars-
man behind them when backing water (247).
αὐτοῦ: “there” (LSJ).
40.2 αὐτοὺς . . . ἀνακρούσασθαι: Infinitive (with accusative subject) in

indirect discourse after νομίσαντες (Sm. 2018).
ὡς ἡσσημένους σφῶν: “because of being inferior to them (the Athe-

nians).” This reflects what the Athenians thought the Syracusans were
thinking (Sm. 2086).
τῆς γε ἡμέρας ταύτης: Genitive of time within which (Sm. 1444).
ἂν ναυμαχῆσαι: Infinitive in indirect discourse after οἰόμενοι (Sm. 2018).
The subject is not expressed because it is the same as that of the leading
verb (Sm. 1972). The ἂν indicates that the direct thought was potential.
40.3 ἐξαίφνης . . . ἐπέπλεον αὖθις: According to Xenophon (Hellenika

2.1.22–28), Lysandros used a similar stratagem at Aigospotamoi, the
final battle of the war (see introduction 7.5).
οἱ πλείους: Nominative plural (Sm. 293).
οὐδενὶ κόσμῳ: The parallel to the Syracusans’ earlier disarray (7.23.3)
underscores their improvement and the Athenians’ diminishment (cf.
Connor 1984, 190n14).
40.4 χρόνον μέν τινα: Accusative of extent of time (Sm. 1582).

ὑπὸ σφῶν αὐτῶν . . . κόπῳ: “by fatigue by themselves,” i.e., of their own
making if they chose simply to row about watching the Syracusans.
This expresses what the Athenians, if they delay (διαμέλλοντας),
would be captured by.
ἁλίσκεσθαι, ἀλλ᾿ ἐπιχειρεῖν: Infinitive subjects of ἐδόκει (Sm. 1985) with
accusative subject διαμέλλοντας (= the Athenians) for the first infini-
tive, despite the Athenians’ appearance in the sentence in the dative.
40.5 ὥσπερ διενοήθησαν: See above 7.36.3.

ἐπὶ πολὺ τῆς παρεξειρεσίας: That is, damaged or ripped off a long stretch
of the parexeiresias (on which, see n. 7.34.5).
ἐς τε τοὺς ταρσοὺς ὑποπίπτοντες: That is, going up under the rows of
the oars. The Syracusans show remarkable ingenuity. Thucydides’s
interest in it is palpable. Thucydides had commanded naval battles
and seems to have continued his interest in the craft even in exile (cf.
Hunt 2006). As Hunt notes, “It was an exciting time to be a general—
or even to be a former general turned historian” (405).
ἐς τὰ πλάγια: Moving toward the sides of the ships.
41.1 τέλος: Adverbial accusative (Sm. 1607).
41.2 κεραῖαι: Projecting beams or cranes. Presumably something similar

to what was used to try to winch up the Syracusans’ stockade posts
(see 7.25.6).
δελφινοφόροι ἠρμέναι: The verb is from αἴρω (ἀείρω). It is only now
that Thucydides explains the purpose of the merchantmen stationed
at the entrances to the Athenians’ stockaded “harbor” (7.38.2–3). They
carried lead “dolphins” on cranes, which they could drop down onto
a pursuing ship in order to crash a hole in the deck and punch right
through the ship in order to sink it. Some speculate that the two ends
of the weight, which was presumably curved like a leaping dolphin,
were sharpened in order to more easily cut through timber. These
dolphins are mentioned twice in comedy (Aristophanes, Knights 762;
Pherekrates fr. 12).
41.3 ἐπαιρόμεναι τῇ νίκῃ: The ships are personified (as also by

κατατραυματίσαντες at 41.4 below). But this is not surprising, given
that the ships looked like creatures because of the eyes painted on
them and their “beaks” and “ears.”
ἡ ἑτέρα: “the other one,” i.e., one of the two; so the other ship must have
been sunk, and the men must have either been lost or escaped.
αὐτοῖς ἀνδράσιν: “with its crew.” Dative of accompaniment with αὐτός
(Sm. 1525) to describe the destruction of a person or thing.
ἑάλω: From ἁλίσκωμαι.
41.4 πολὺ κρείσσους εἶναι: “that they were far stronger.” Infinitive in
indirect discourse after ἐλπίδα . . . εἶχον (Sm. 2018). The subject is the
Syracusans. κρείσσους is nominative plural (Sm. 293). It is nominative
because its subject is the same as that of the leading verb (Sm. 1973).
χειρώσεσθαι: “and they seemed (to themselves) that they would also
master.” An infinitive dependent on ἐδόκουν (Sm. 1983) with τὸν
πεζόν (the Athenians’ land forces) as its object. The unexpressed
subject is the Syracusans.
Arrival of Demosthenes and

Night Attack on Epipolai (7.42–7.45)
One important question in this section is whether Demosthenes’s assess-
ment of the situation at 7.42.3 expresses his judgment or that of Thucydides.
Dover (in HCT 4:419–21) argued that it represents Thucydides’s judgment.
This conclusion leads to some difficulty, according to Dover, because the
whole passage suggests that Lamachos’s initial plan at the conference of
the generals (6.47–49) was right and Alkibiades’s strategy wrong, and yet
the “epitaph” of Perikles (at 2.65.11) seems to attribute the failure of the
Sicilian expedition to the recall of Alkibiades. Thus, the two passages seem
to contradict each other. (See appendix for different assessments of the
meaning of 2.65.11). Dover solves his own proposed problem by arguing
that Thucydides can simultaneously believe that Alkibiades’s initial plan
was wrong and yet also believe that things would have gone much better
for the Athenians in Sicily had he not been recalled. Hornblower argues
that there is a “slide” between two points of view in 7.42.3 (3:622). We begin
with what sounds like a simple presentation of Demosthenes’s thinking, but
as the passage goes on and gets more complicated and detailed, it begins
to sound like Thucydides’s thinking. But how straightforward is the pas-
sage? Kagan underscores that Demosthenes bases his criticism of Nikias
on “psychological considerations” and notes that such speculations are
“never certain” (1981, 240). Even Perikles “planned his strategy to achieve
the psychological exhaustion of the enemy” and was “badly disappointed.”
It seems likely that Thucydides means Demosthenes’s counterfactual mus-
ings to appear compelling at first, but that he also expects astute readers to
hesitate to be as sure as Demosthenes.
Another important question relates to topography and the location
of the various walls and towers on Epipolai. We do not know where the
Syracusan cross-wall ended. It seems that the Athenians attacked it frontally
from their own position on Epipolai near the “circle” when they attacked
it with siege engines (7.43.1). However, the Athenians’ position seems to
be very restricted. Did the Syracusans’ wall turn southward once it passed
the Athenians’ wall in order to hem them in to a smaller area? In addition,
over the course of Thucydides’s description of the night attack on Epipolai,
he reveals that the Athenians had evacuated the majority of the plateau, so
much so that the Syracusans had fortified a position guarding the approach
at Euryalos (7.43.3) and had built three forts somewhere (7.43.4). The loca-
tion of those forts is vexed and unclear. They were probably in front of the
Syracusans’ wall somewhere (see below and map 3).
42.1 ὡς ἐπιθησόμενοι: ὡς + future participle for purpose (Sm. 2065).

Dependent on παρεσκευάζοντο.
ἐν τούτῳ δὲ Δημοσθένης . . . παραγίγνονται: ἐν τούτῳ means “mean-
while.” Thucydides makes it seem like Demosthenes arrived almost
immediately after the battle (cf. Roisman 1995, 55–56). One then
wonders, what if he had taken less time on his way and had arrived
before it? Gylippos arrived just in time. Demosthenes arrived just
too late. As Hunt notes, “Thucydides’ frequent consideration of what
could have been gives his whole history, and especially his military
narratives, a greater sense of the possibilities that lay open than some
of his interpreters acknowledge” (2006, 399).
ναῦς τε τρεῖς καὶ ἐβδομήκοντα μάλιστα: μάλιστα means here not so
much “about” but “as I calculate” based on the numbers Thucydides
has given earlier (cf. Dover in HCT 4:419). The calculation is cor-
rect. Demosthenes began with sixty-five ships (7.20.2). Eurymedon
returned from Sicily on one ship, making sixty-six (7.31.3). Demos-
thenes ordered fifteen from Kerkyra (7.31.5) and gave ten to Konon
(7.31.5), making seventy-one. Then Eurymedon and Demosthenes
acquired two from Metapontion (7.33.5), making seventy-three. Note
how, as in 415, Thucydides delays giving the total. Then, he waited
until the departure of the fleet from Kerkyra (6.43); now, he waits until
Demosthenes’s dramatic arrival. Note, furthermore, that these ships
include only about forty ships useful for battle (see n. 7.52.1). See Horn-
blower (appendix 2, 1061–66) for Athenian troop and fleet numbers.
περὶ πεντακισχιλίους: περί + numbers = “about” (LSJ C.II.2).
42.2 εἰ πέρας μηδὲν . . . τοῦ ἀπαλλαγῆναι: The clause explains the Syra-
cusans’ κατάπληξις, i.e., “[as they wondered] if there would be no end
for them of warding off the danger.” The last is an articular infinitive
in the genitive of explanation (Sm. 1322).
ὁρῶντες οὔτε . . . οὐδὲν ἧσσον: The participle stands as if “the
Syracusans and their allies” at the start of the sentence were in the
nominative rather than the dative. The two negatives intensify each
other (Sm. 2761). Translate as “no less on account of the fortification of
Dekeleia,” i.e., “Dekeleia not withstanding” (Lattimore).
στρατὸν . . . ἐπεληλυθότα: A supplementary participle from ἐπέρχομαι
in indirect discourse after ὁρῶντες (Sm. 2110).
τὴν τε . . . δύναμιν . . . πολλὴν φαινομένην: Another supplementary
participle in indirect discourse after ὁρῶντες (Sm. 2110). But although
the Athenians have ships and men, they lack wisdom and leadership.
ὡς ἐκ κακῶν: Limiting, i.e., “so far as it was possible after their misfor-
tunes” (Smith).
42.3 οὐχ οἷόν τε εἶναι: “that it was not possible to.” That is, “out of the
question” (Lattimore). οἷος τε + ειμί = fit or able to do (LSJ s.v. οἷος
III.2). Here the verb is impersonal and an infinitive in indirect dis-
course after νομίσας (Sm. 2018). διατρίβειν and παθεῖν are infinitive
subjects of οἷόν τε εἶναι (Sm. 2001).
ὡς: “when.”
ἀλλ᾿ ἐν Κατάνῃ διεχείμαζεν: Dover (in HCT 4:419–20) complains that
this passage makes it sound like there was no attack on Syracuse at all
until 414. But that is not quite fair. The charge is that Nikias οὐκ εὐθὺς
προσέκειτο ταῖς Συρακούσαις. This need not mean that he did not
make any attack at all, but (as is in fact true) that he did not make any
effective or continuous attack. Thucydides here seems to be deliber-
ately underscoring how ineffectual Nikias’s initial landing was.
ὑπερώφθη: From ὐπεροράω.
στρατίᾳ: The “dative of military accompaniment” (Sm. 1526).
ἣν οὐδ᾿ ἂν μετέπεμψαν . . . εἰ . . . ἐπέκειτο: A past contrary-to-fact
condition (“which they would not have . . . if . . .” [Sm. 2305]) with the
imperfect in the protasis (or “if” clause), emphasizing the continuous
nature of the past action (Sm. 2304). As Hunt notes, counterfactuals
pervade Thucydides’s history (2006, 396–400). The narrative often

presents “a world and course of history that is profoundly undeter-
mined. A general’s energy, his bad timing or intelligent planning,
a pilot’s trick or a different trireme design could have changed the
course of history” (400).
αὐτοί: That is, themselves alone.
ἥσσους ὄντες: Nominative masculine plural (Sm. 293) with supplemen-
tary participle in indirect discourse after ἂν ἔμαθον, a verb of percep-
tion (Sm. 2110).
ἀποτετειχισμένοι ἂν ἦσαν: “would have learned . . . at the same time
they had been walled in.” The apodosis (the “then” clause) of a past
contrary-to-fact condition (Sm. 2306), together with ἅμα τ’ ἂν
ἔμαθον. The verb is a periphrastic pluperfect, formed from the perfect
passive participle and a form of εἰμί (Sm. 599d). The protasis (or “if”
clause), “if they had not sent . . . ,” is understood.
ὥστε μηδ᾿ . . . ἂν αὐτοὺς ὠφελεῖν: “so that . . . it would not have benefit-
ted them.” A natural result clause with the infinitive (Sm. 2258). The
ἄν indicates possibility (Sm. 2270). The subject of ὠφελεῖν is “sending
for help.”
ταῦτα οὖν ἀνασκοπῶν ὁ Δημοσθένης: This phrase brings the reader back
to the narrative present after the long interruption (cf. Nagy 2005).
ἐν τῷ παρόντι: In the present situation.
ὅτι τάχος: “as quickly as possible.” Thucydides usually uses a superlative
with ὅτι to indicate “as X as possible” (Sm. 1086).
42.4 τὸ παρατείχισμα: The Syracusans’ cross-wall (see map 3).

περιτειχίσαι: The subject is τοὺς Ἀθηναίους. σφᾶς is the object.
ἁπλοῦν ὂν καί . . . ῥᾳδίως ἂν αὐτὸ ληφθέν: Supplementary participles
in indirect discourse after ὁρῶν (Sm. 2110), the ἄν shows the second
represents an original potential optative (Sm. 1845).
εἰ κρατήσειέ τις τῶν τε Ἐπιπολῶν τῆς ἀναβάσεως: This is our first
indication that the Athenians had utterly lost control of Epipolai.
Presumably they still held the “circle” (since that is where their camp
walls began), but seemingly nothing else.
ἐν αὐταῖς: On Epipolai.
οὐδὲ . . . ὑπομεῖναι ἄν: Thucydides has switched to an infinitive with

subject accusative in indirect discourse after an understood verb like
νομίσας (Sm. 2018). The infinitive + ἄν represents an original poten-
tial optative (Sm. 1845). The subject is οὐδένα. The negatives reinforce
each other (Sm. 2761).
42.5 οἱ: “for him” (Sm. 325) with understood εἶναι. Understand “it,” i.e.,
an immediate attack, as the subject: “and thought [it] the shortest
completion of the war for him.” Roisman argues that Demosthenes
had 4 choices: (1) attack the Syracusan cross-wall, (2) retake Plem-
myrion, (3) seek a naval battle, (4) retreat (1995, 56–58). Of these, (4)
was politically impossible, but (2) and (3) held promise of success. It
would make sense to recapture Plemmyrion and reassert control at
sea before trying to capture the Syracusans’ wall. But Demosthenes
chose to try to do the latter first. As Roisman notes, Demosthenes,
“impatient for results . . . set out to achieve in one blow a goal that his
predecessors had failed to accomplish in almost two years” (58).
κατορθώσας ἕξειν . . . ἢ ἀπάξειν . . . καὶ οὐ τρίψεσθαι: Infinitives in
indirect discourse after ἡγεῖτο (Sm. 2018). κατορθώσας, a conditional
participle (“if he . . .”), is nominative because its subject is the same
as that of the leading verb (Sm. 1973). The disjunction is “ironic” and
“specious,” for despite Demosthenes’s expectation, failure will not
lead immediately to safe withdrawal (Connor 1984, 192).
ἄλλως: “in vain” (LSJ II.3).

ἀντεπεξῇσαν: From ἀντεπεξείμι (ibo).
ὅτι μή: “except for” (LSJ II s.v. ὅ τι).
43.1 μηχαναῖς . . . ἀποπειρᾶσαι: Infinitive subject of ἔδοξε (Sm. 1985).

These are probably some kind of battering rams (cf. the rams used at
the siege of Plataia, 2.76.4). Greek armies did not use artillery or larger-
scale siege engines until the fourth century. This attack sounds like
it comes from the south and the “circle,” and that Demosthenes used
fewer men than in the next attack, counting on the work of the rams.
ὡς: “when.”
αὐτῷ προσαγαγόντι: Dative of interest (Sm. 1474).
προσβάλλοντες ἀπεκρούοντο: Suddenly the understood Athenians are
subject.
διατρίβειν: Infinitive subject of οὐκέτι ἐδόκει (Sm. 1985).
ἐπιχείρησιν τῶν Ἐπιπολῶν: The attack on the wall from the “circle” that
has just occurred does not, apparently, count as an attack on Epipolai.
As we shall see, by “an attack on Epipolai” Thucydides means a full-
scale attack from Euryalos and the west meant to retake the entire
plateau.
43.2 ἡμέρας: “during the day;” accusative of extent of time (Sm. 1582).
In this delicate way Thucydides first indicates that the battle will be at
night.
ἀδύνατα ἐδόκει εἶναι: Thucydides is fond of the plural in this kind of
expression (see introduction 2.3.4). The subject of the infinitive phrase
ἀδύνατα . . . εἶναι is λαθεῖν (with the Athenians the accusative sub-
jects in προσελθόντας and ἀναβάντας). In English, we would express
the participles as infinitives, with the Greek infinitive as an adverb:
“to approach and to ascend secretly.”
πέντε ἡμερῶν: “five-days worth.” Genitive of time within which (Sm.
1444).
ὅσα ἔδει . . . τειχίζοντας ἔχειν: “as much as was necessary for them to
have while building a wall.” ἔχειν is subject of ἔδει (Sm. 1985), with
τειχίζοντας its accusative subject.
ἐν τοῖς τείχεσιν: This must mean the walls that protected the camp by
the ships.
43.3 πρὸς αὐταῖς: “on it,” i.e., Epipolai.

ᾗπερ: “in the very place where” (LSJ s.v. ὅσπερ II.4).
τὸ τείχισμα: Just as Thucydides has not told his readers that the
Athenians had evacuated Epipolai, so he has not told them that the
Syracusans had built this fort to guard Euryalos.
43.4 οἱ δὲ πλείους: Nominative plural masculine (Sm. 293).

τρία ἐν προτειχίσμασιν: Thucydides does not locate these forward
fortifications for us. They must be at some distance from Euryalos
because, as readers have just learned, there were guards stationed
right at the approach to Euryalos and also a separate group of six hun-
dred Syracusans described below as an advance guard for “this part
of Epipolai.” “This part” must mean a part of Epipolai further east
from the area guarded by the detachment right at Euryalos. Thus the
προτειχίσματα should be even further away from Euryalos. They were
probably relatively close to the “winter wall” since they are called
“outerworks” of it (see map 3).
43.5. ἀμυνομένους: The Syracusan six hundred, most recently seen

in the dative (αὐτοῖς), now suddenly in the accusative as object of
ἔτρεψαν.
ὅπως . . . τοῦ περαίνεσθαι . . . μὴ βραδεῖς γένωνται: Retained subjunc-
tive in a purpose clause after a past tense. Smyth sees special “vivid-
ness” in the usage (Sm. 2197N), whereas Dover (at 6.96.3) denies it.
If the text is correct, βραδεῖς γένωνται takes a genitive on analogy
with ὕστερος, ὑστερεῖν. That genitive is an articular infinitive (τοῦ
περαίνεσθαι), the object of which is the omitted antecedent of ὧν,
i.e., “those things on account of which.” Translate (literally) as “that
they might not be slow with regard to accomplishing in their present
impulse those things on account of which they had come,” i.e., “that
they not fail to accomplish. . . .”
ἀπὸ τῆς πρώτης: “at first” (LSJ s.v. πρότερος B.III.2). Adverbial. This
expression seems originally to have presupposed the idea of a road
(Sm. 1029).
οὐχ ὑπομενόντων τῶν φυλάκων: Causal genitive absolute, “since the
guards . . .” (Sm. 2070).
43.6 ἀδοκήτου . . . γενομένου: Causal genitive absolute, “since the dar-
ing attack . . .” (Sm. 2070).
43.7 προϊόντων δὲ τῶν Ἀθηναίων ἐν ἀταξίᾳ: Temporal or causal geni-

tive absolute, “but when (or since) the Athenians . . .” (Sm. 2070). And
now things start to go wrong. It used to be the Syracusans who were
in disarray (cf. 6.72.3). Lazenby stresses that the Athenians who were
assigned to confront the main mass of enemy on Epipolai should have
been ordered to go only so far in attack and then stop and hold on the
defensive (2004, 158). This would have kept the Athenian troops more
together and lessened the confusion.
βουλομὲνων: Another participle in genitive absolute construction with
the Athenians (Sm. 2070). Translate with διελθεῖν.
διὰ παντὸς τοῦ μήπω μεμαχημένου τῶν ἐναντίων: “through all of the
not-yet-engaged [part of] the enemy.”
ὡς τάχιστα: ὡς + superlative = “as X as possible” (Sm. 1086).
ἵνα μὴ . . . ξυστραφῶσιν: Subjunctive, rather than optative, after a
secondary tense in a purpose clause. Smyth sees special “vividness” in
the usage (Sm. 2197N), whereas Dover (at 6.96.3) denies it. The subject
is the Syracusans who have not yet engaged.
ἀνέντων σφῶν: A conditional genitive absolute, “if they themselves . . .”
(Sm. 2070). The participle is from ἀνίημι, “give way; slacken” (LSJ
II.8). The subject is the Athenians.
οἱ Βοιωτοί: As Green notes, these are Hegesandros and the men from
Thespiae who just happened to be picked up by the Syracusans in
Lokri (1970, 288; see 7.25.3).
44.1 ἣν . . . πυθέσθαι: The infinitive is subject of οὐδὲ . . . ῥᾴδιον ἦν (Sm.
1985). The antecedent of ἥν is πολλῇ ταραχῇ, i.e., “in great disarray,
the details of which. . . .”
ὅτῷ τρόπῳ ἕκαστα ξυνηνέχθη: Added by way of explanation to ἥν,
fleshing out what was difficult to understand. Rood compares
Thucydides’s “stress on difficulties” in his methodological passage
(1.22.3) with “the fact that he lays so little stress on these difficulties
in the narrative proper” (2006, 237). This is one of the few places in
which he explicitly presents his hard work to the reader.
σαφέστερα: Αdverbial accusative (Sm. 345, 1608), with an understood
“one knows,” i.e., “for in the daytime, one knows more clearly.”
ὅμως δὲ . . . οἶδεν: “nevertheless neither do those present [know] those

things [in the battle] completely (πάντα) except that each man knows
with difficulty the part of events near him (τὸ καθ᾿ ἑαυτόν).” πάντα is
adverbial accusative (Sm. 1608). Thucydides here expresses his famil-
iarity, as a general, with the fog of war.
ἐν δὲ νυκτομαχίᾳ: Roisman notes that no Greek is known to have tried a
full-scale night battle before this (1995, 59). Hoplite battles stop at dusk.
πῶς ἄν τις σαφῶς τι ᾔδει;: “how could anyone . . . ?” This is one of only
two authorial rhetorical questions in Thucydides. The other is 8.96.2.
Thucydides’s expression of astonishment is meant to engage the
reader. Note, too, that Thucydides did manage to learn enough to
give a lucid account of chaos. We owe it to him to imagine the excited
conversations he had with informants, and all the insistent questions
that led to this description.
44.2 ὡς . . . εἰκὸς . . . προορᾶν . . . ἀπιστεῖσθαι: The infinitives are subject
of εἰκός (Sm. 1985). Translate thus: “as it is customary in moonlight to
see beforehand the outline of a body but to distrust the recognition
of one’s own,” that is, to distrust that the outline one sees belongs to a
member of one’s own army.
ἐν στενοχωρίᾳ: As Hornblower notes, it is not clear why this word is
appropriate to the situation, given that the Syracusan cross-wall was
probably at some distance from the edge of the plateau, and yet that is
the area in which the fighting probably occurred (3:627). Hornblower
suggests that Thucydides has been “tempted into implausibility of
detail” by the attractive symmetry with 7.36.4, and with having both
land and sea battles fought in the same kind of area.
ἀνεστρέφοντο: Literally “were turned back” i.e., “were milling around”
(Lattimore).
44.3 ὥστ᾿ οὐκ ἠπίσταντο: Actual result clause (Sm. 2257). Thucydides
has switched from the abstract collective, “a large part of the rest of
the army,” to thinking in terms of the individual men.
ὅτι: = ὁ τι. “what” so “toward what.”
τὰ πρόσθεν: Subject of ἐτετάρακτο.
τῆς τροπῆς γεγενημένης: Causal genitive absolute, “because of the rout

. . .” (Sm. 2070).
πάντα: Adverbial accusative (Sm. 1608) with ἐτετάρακτο.
χαλεπὰ ἦν . . . διαγνῶναι: χαλεπά modifies τὰ πρόσθεν, with an epex-
egetical (explanatory) infinitive expressing what was difficult (Sm.
2001).
44.4 ἀδύνατον ὄν . . . σημῆναι: “since it was impossible to. . . .” Accusa-

tive absolute + epexegetical (explanatory) infinitive (Sm. 2001, 2076c).
πᾶν τὸ ἐξ ἐναντίας . . . πολέμιον ἐνόμιζον: “they considered everything
[coming] from opposite as hostile.” ἐξ ἐναντίας = from the opposite
direction (LSJ II.d.2). Lazenby remarks that it was not really “beyond
the wit of even ancient commanders” to figure out some way of dif-
ferentiating their troops from the enemy at night (2004, 158–59). He
notes that Herodotus says that the Phokians once used white gypsum
to distinguish men assigned to make a night attack (8.27.3).
διὰ τὸ μὴ εἶναι . . . γνωρίσαι: “because it was not possible to. . . .” Articu-
lar infinitive after a preposition (Sm. 2034b). εἶναι here means “be
possible” (LSJ A.VI) and takes an infinitive.
αὐτό: The password.
44.5 τὸ δ᾿ ἐκείνων: The Syracusans’ password.

διὰ τὸ . . . ἧσσον ἀγνοεῖσθαι: “on account of them (the Syracusans) being
less ignorant (of each other) since they were winning (κρατοῦντας
αὐτούς) and not scattered (μὴ διεσπασμένους).” A typically long
and complex articular infinitive after a preposition (Sm. 2034b; see
introduction 2.3.5).
ὥστ᾿ . . . διέφευγον . . . διεφθείροντο: Actual result (Sm. 2257). The sub-
ject of the first verb is the enemy, suddenly nominative. The subject of
the second is the Athenians. The conditions discussed below explain
the different outcomes.
εἰ μὲν ἐντύχοιεν . . . κρείσσους ὄντες: The Athenians. κρείσσους is nom-
inative masculine plural (Sm. 293). The participial phrase is conces-
sive, “although they (the Athenians) were stronger,” nevertheless “the
enemy escaped (διέφευγον) them since they knew their (ἐκείνων, the
Athenians’) password.”
εἰ δ᾿ αὐτοὶ μὴ ἀποκρίνοιντο: “but if they themselves (the Athenians)
should not answer [when challenged], they were destroyed
(διεφθείροντο).”
44.6 μέγιστον δὲ καὶ οὐχ ἥκιστα: Grant notes Thucydides’s “predilection

for the superlative” and argues that superlatives help him engage the
reader and convince him of the importance of the Peloponnesian War
and so give him “a life-enhancing experience” (1974, 83).
ὁ παιανισμός: The paean was a victory song to Apollo associated with
the Dorians.
ὅσον Δωρικὸν μετ᾿ Ἀθηναίων ἦν: For those who argue that xyngeneia
rules, there ought to be no Doric element with the Athenians (see
introduction 6.2). This foreshadows the shocking alignments fully
revealed in Thucydides’s Catalogue of Allies below (7.57–58).
ὁπότε παιανίσειαν: Lazenby notes that Demosthenes himself once used
Doric speakers in his army to confuse some enemy guards and so
“should have told” the Dorians among the Athenians “to keep their
mouths shut” (2004, 159).

ἐπεὶ ἅπαξ: “when once they.”
μόλις ἀπελύοντο: That is, “were separated with difficulty.”
44.8 στενῆς ὄυσης τῆς . . . καταβάσεως: Causal genitive absolute, “since
the descent . . .” (Sm. 2070).
εἰσὶν οἵ: A fixed phrase without antecedent meaning “there are those
who” or “some” (Sm. 2513).
45.1 ᾗ: “where” (LSJ s.v. ὅς, ἥ, ὅ Ab.II).
45.2 ἔτι πλείω ἢ κατὰ τοὺς νεκρούς: “still more than corresponded to
the numbers of the dead.”
ἄνευ τῶν ἀσπίδων: This must be an intrusive gloss on ψιλοί. We here
learn that in addition to losing many men, the Athenians were also left
with many who had no weapons.
Syracusan Actions after Their Victory (7.46)

46 ὥσπερ καὶ πρότερον: This echoes ὥσπερ τὸ πρῶτον at 7.42.6 and
underscores how quickly events have reversed the advantage that
Demosthenes’s appearance gave the Athenians.
πέντε καὶ δέκα ναυσί: The “dative of military accompaniment” (Sm. 1526).
ὅπως ὑπαγάγοιτο: A purpose clause (Sm. 2196).
ἄξων: Future participle for purpose (Sm. 2065).
τὰ τείχη τῶν Ἀθηναίων: That is, those running south from the “circle”
and protecting their camp by the ships (see map 3).
αἱρήσειν: Epexegetical (explanatory) infinitive explaining Gylippos’s
hope (Sm. 2001).
The Conference of the Generals (7.47–7.49)

This conference corresponds deliberately to the generals’ conference in
book 6 (6.47–49). However, there is a new emphasis here on the opinions of
both the soldiers and the Athenians back home. Hornblower suggests that
failure led to a weakening of the authority of the officers and generals (3:631).

οὐ κατορθοῦντες καὶ τοὺς στρατιώτας ἀχθομένους: Participles in indi-
rect discourse after ἑώρων (Sm. 2110). The first is nominative because
its subject is the same as that of the main verb (Sm. 2089a).
τῇ μονῇ: A pregnant word, since the delay will only get worse, and
because of the Athenians’ prior characterization as a quick, active
people (see introduction 6.5).
47.2 κατ᾿ ἀμφότερα: For the two reasons given next, one a genitive abso-
lute, the second a full clause, in Thucydides’s typically unbalanced style.
τῆς τε ὥρας . . . ὄυσης: Causal genitive absolute, “since this was . . .” (Sm.
2070).
47.3 χρῆναι μένειν: The infinitives are subject of οὐκ ἐδόκει (Sm. 1985).
ἔσφαλτο: Οne of Thucydides’s favorite words for failure in the Sicilian
books. See n. 6.10.2.
οἷόν τε περαιοῦσθαι . . . κρατεῖν: οἷόν τε [ἐστι] + infinitive = “it is pos-

sible to. . . .” κρατεῖν is used absolutely, “to have mastery.” What made
it impossible to cross the sea was the storms of winter, and Dover (in
HCT 4:425) is shocked that Demosthenes is thinking of this in August
(see n. 7.50.4 for the date). He argues that Demosthenes “had formed
a strong impression of Nikias’ capacity for delay” and may well have
thought that if he did not get him to withdraw now, they might well
linger until winter.
ταῖς γοῦν ἐπελθούσαις ναυσί: “with the additional ships.”
47.4 τῇ πόλει ὠφελιμώτερον . . . εἶναι . . . πόλεμον ποιεῖσθαι: “and he

said it was more beneficial . . . to. . . .” εἶναι is an infinitive in indirect
discourse after ἔφη (Sm. 2017). ποιεῖσθαι is an infinitive subject of
ὠφελιμώτερον (Sm. 1985). Especially after Nikias’s repeated charac-
terizations of the army in Sicily as a city (e.g., 6.23.2), Demosthenes’s
judgment about what is better for “the city” is deliberate and pointed.
For Demosthenes, there was only one city, and no doubt about the rel-
ative values of Attica and Sicily. The Athenians, he says, should fight
“in” and, implicitly, for “their own land.” And he implies, in direct
contradiction to Perikles, that Attica and the city there could not be
replaced by imperial conquests (see introduction 3.1, 6.6). Thus, of the
“two wars” that Thucydides mentions in 7.28, Demosthenes urges the
Athenians to focus on the one in Attica.
ἢ Συρακοσίους: That is, πρός τοὺς Συρακοσίους.
χειρώσασθαι: “whom [he said] it was no longer easy to. . . .” Subject of
ῥᾴδιον εἶναι, which is itself an infinitive in indirect discourse after
ἔφη (Sm. 2017).
ἄλλως: “in vain” (LSJ II.3).
προσκαθῆσθαι: “and he said it was not reasonable (εἰκὸς εἶναι) that they,
spending . . . besiege. . . .” The infinitive is subject of εἰκὸς εἶναι, which
is an infinitive with subject accusative in indirect discourse after ἔφη
(Sm. 2017). The subject of προσκαθῆσθαι is the understood Athenians
represented in δαπανῶντας.
48.1 καὶ ὁ μὲν Δημοσθένης τοιαῦτα ἐγίγνωσκεν: Roisman notes that

Demosthenes called for retreat from his own failure “with the same
decisiveness” as he had called for the failed attack on Epipolai (1995,
63). It is not surprising that his audience decided not to act hastily.
πόνηρα . . . τὰ πράγματα εἶναι: Infinitive and subject accusative in indi-
rect discourse after ἐνόμιζε (Sm. 2018).
αὐτὰ ἀσθενῆ ἀποδεικνύναι: “he did not want to show their situation
forth as weak.” ἀσθενῆ is predicate. Nikias seems to think that the
Athenians’ situation is not crystal clear to the Syracusans.
σφᾶς . . . καταγγέλτους γίγνεσθαι: “nor did he want them to be reported
(καταγγέλτους γίγνεσθαι) as. . . .” Infinitive and subject accusative as
object after ἐβούλετο (Sm. 1991).
ψηφιζομένους μετὰ πολλῶν: With these words, Nikias seems to
envision the whole army, both Athenians and foreigners, voting on
whether to withdraw or not. Throughout the Sicilian books, both
Thucydides and the actors in events repeatedly present the Athenian
force as a city (starting when Nikias urged the Athenians to imagine
that they were going to found a city in a foreign land, 6.23.2). Here
we seem to see Nikias imagining putting that metaphor into practice
and allowing the “citizens” of the city in Sicily to vote on whether to
depart or not. It is as if he imagines the army really is a demos. (In a
later speech Nikias will again seem to envision the city in Sicily as
being made up of both Athenians and foreigners; see 7.63.3.) In book
8, during the stasis that engulfed Athens under the oligarchy of the
Four Hundred, the fleet on Samos essentially constituted itself a city
(see introduction 7.2). This passage foreshadows those events and
underscores how damaging empire and Perikles’s war were to Athe-
nian unity. See introduction 6.6.
λαθεῖν γὰρ ἄν . . . πολλῷ ἧσσον: “he said that they would escape notice
much less.” Infinitive in indirect discourse after an understood ἔφη
(Sm. 2017), representing the apodosis (the “then” clause) of a future
less vivid temporal condition (Sm. 2329). τοῦτο ποιοῦντες is either
a conditional participle, representing the protasis (or “if” clause) of
the future less vivid condition, i.e., “if they voted openly,” or it is a
supplementary participle with λαθεῖν explaining what the Athenians

would be less able to do secretly, i.e., “they would escape the notice
doing this much less,” meaning “they would do this (retreat) much
less secretly.” In the latter case, the “if” clause (“if they voted openly”)
is understood. I agree with Marchant that the first possibility is prefer-
able. The participle is nominative because it includes the subject of the
main verb (Nikias) (Sm. 1973).
48.2 τὸ δέ τι: “ ‘and this, a certain thing,’ i.e., ‘and, for another thing’ ”
(Dover).
ἀφ᾿ ὧν . . . ᾐσθάνετο αὐτῶν: “from those things that he knew of them
still more than the rest.” Thucydides has left out the antecedent, as is
common when it conveys a general idea (Sm. 2509), and the relative
pronoun has been attracted into its case (Sm. 2522).
ἐλπίδος τι . . . παρεῖχε: “the situation of the enemy gave a certain
amount of hope that it would become. . . .” The construction governs
the future infinitive ἔσεσθαι. The subject of the infinitive is τὰ τῶν
πολεμίων. πονηρότερα is predicate.
ἐκτρυχώσειν: “he said that they (the Athenians) would wear them
down.” Infinitive in indirect discourse after an understood ἔφη (Sm.
2017). The unexpressed subject is the Athenians. αὐτούς is the Syra-
cusans.
θαλασσοκρατούντων: Causal genitive absolute with understood “they,”
“since they were . . .” (Sm. 2070). This word and the sentiment recall
Alkibiades, who claimed that because the Athenians were (and would,
he assumed, always be) naukratores, their ships would always provide
the means to depart from Sicily if things went badly (6.18.5; Alkibi-
ades here also echoed the Athenians in the Melian Dialogue, 5.97,
109). Nikias seems blindly sure, despite the results of the last battle in
Syracuse (and the battle at Naupaktos that he ought to know about),
that the Athenians will always be thalassokratores. He also seems to
put his trust in mere numbers when the most recent battle, as well as
the Athenians’ victory over the vast fleet of the Persians at Salamis,
ought to indicate to him that skill is more important.
ἦν γάρ τι . . . βουλόμενον: We have no idea who these men were, but
Thucydides seems to confirm their existence at 7.49.1. Thucydides also
speaks of men in Syracuse communicating with Nikias at 7.73.3 and
7.86.4, and someone gave Nikias the two-thousand-talent cost of the
siege so far (7.48.5). Perhaps they were former inhabitants of Leon-
tinoi who were now citizens of Syracuse but hoped, with Athenian
help, to reconstitute Leontinoi (see into. 3.2 for Leontinoi).
ὡς αὐτὸν . . . ἀπανίστασθαι: ὡς = “to” (LSJ C.III). The infinitive (with
understood “him” as accusative subject) is dependent on οὐκ ἔια
(“forbid him” i.e., “urged him not to . . .”).
48.3 τῷ μὲν ἔργῳ: Corresponds to τῷ δὲ λόγῳ in 7.48.1 above and to

τῷ δ᾿ ἐμφανεῖ τότε λόγῳ to come. Nikias spoke more firmly against
withdrawal than he really felt. Once again he dissembles, just as in his
second speech to the assembly before the war (6.20–23).
ἐπ᾿ ἀμφότερα ἔχων: This must mean something like “was inclined in
both directions” and seems to be constructed on the analogy of ἔχω +
adverb (LSJ B.II.2). It is further explained by διασκόπων.
ἀνεῖχε: “kept on” with the two participles.
ἀπάξειν: Infinitive in indirect discourse after οὐκ ἔφη (Sm. 2017). The
subject is unexpressed because it is the same as the speaker of the
main verb (Sm. 1972).
εὖ γὰρ εἰδέναι: Still in indirect discourse after an understood ἔφη (Sm.
2017). The subject is still Nikias.
ἀποδέξονται: This verb takes the accusative of the thing (ταῦτα) and the
genitive of the person (σφῶν).
ὥστε μὴ αὐτῶν ψηφισαμένων ἀπελθεῖν: This clause explains ταῦτα,
that is, “to go away without them having voted” (Goodwin 98.2n2; cf.
6.88.8). μὴ αὐτῶν ψηφισαμένων is genitive absolute (Sm. 2070).
καὶ γὰρ οὐ τοὺς αὐτοὺς ψηφιεῖσθαί τε . . . καὶ τὰ πράγματα . . . ὁρῶντας
. . . γνώσεσθαι: Infinitive with subject accusative in indirect discourse
after the understood ἔφη (Sm. 2017). “He said that it would not be the
same men (τοὺς αὐτούς) who would vote about them and who would
form their opinion (γνώσεσθαι) by seeing the situation (ὁρῶντας)
like they do,” i.e., “the men who judged them would not form their
opinion based on the situation on the ground in Sicily.” αὐτῶν is

properly deleted because σφῶν αὐτῶν could refer only to the subject
of ψηφιεῖσθαι.
καὶ οὐκ ἄλλων ἐπιτιμήσει ἀκούσαντας: “rather than hearing [about it] by
means of the censure of others.” This is the contrast to τὰ πράγματα
ὥσπερ καὶ αὐτοὶ ὁρῶντας.
ἀλλ᾿ ἐξ ὧν ἄν τις εὖ λέγων διαβάλλοι: “but from those things with
which someone speaking well might vilify them.” Thucydides has left
out the antecedent, as is common when it conveys a general idea (Sm.
2509) and the relative pronoun has been attracted into its case (Sm.
2522).
αὐτοὺς πείσεσθαι: Infinitive with subject accusative in indirect
discourse after an understood ἔφη (Sm. 2017). The subject is the
Athenians at home.
48.4 βοήσεσθαι: Infinitive with subject accusative in indirect discourse

after ἔφη (Sm. 2017), which is repeated here to remind readers of the
construction (Sm. 2634a).
ὡς ὑπὸ χρημάτων καταπροδόντες οἱ στρατηγοὶ ἀπῆλθον: Hornblower
stresses “the dual status of the troops themselves” (2011b, 242).
Although they are subordinate to their commanders while in Sicily,
they “may end up sitting in judgement” on them once returned to
Athens. Nikias’s argument is a powerful one to make to Eurymedon,
who was fined upon his return from the first expedition to Sicily in
424 because, when it was possible for him and his colleagues to take
over the whole of Sicily (so the Athenians believed), they took bribes
instead and withdrew (4.65.3; see introduction 3.4). Demosthenes,
too, we are told, was afraid to return to Athens for a time after his
defeat in Aitolia because he “feared the Athenians” (3.98.5). We do
not know whether the same charge of bribery was made against
Thucydides for his failure to keep Amphipolis from Brasidas, but the
failure led to his exile (see introduction 1.1). To blame treachery for
failure may have been particularly tempting to Athenians, who were
so successful and so confident for so long. What else could defeat the
mighty Athenians? Surely not the enemy! I wonder, then, whether

this is what Hornblower might call a “seed” that looks forward to
events in Athens after Aigospotamoi when, according to Xenophon,
Adeimantos was accused of betraying the fleet to Lysandros (Hel-
lenika 2.1.32). Lysias 14.38 recounts the treachery of Adeimantos,
together with Alkibiades, as fact. See also Thucydides’s own explana-
tion for Athens’s loss of the war (2.65.11 and appendix).
βούλεσθαι αὐτός . . . ἀπολέσθαι . . . παθεῖν: Infinitive in indirect dis-
course after ἔφη (Sm. 2017). The subject of the infinitive is nominative
because Nikias is also the subject of the leading verb (Sm. 1973).
ἐπιστάμενος τὰς Ἀθηναίων φύσεις: Nikias prides himself on his supe-
rior knowledge of the Athenians’ character (cf. n. 7.14.2).
ἰδίᾳ: “ ‘on his own initiative,’ ‘at a time, and in a manner, of his own
choosing’ ” (Dover in HCT 4:426), in contrast to δημοσίᾳ. The idea
seems to be an individual private death as a man rather than a public
death imposed by the state for his conduct as a public official. Dover
condemns him: “Nikias’ pride and consequent cowardice in the
face of personal disgrace lead him to put forward as disgraceful a
proposition as any general in history: rather than risk execution, he
will throw away the fleet and many thousands of other people’s lives,
and put his country in mortal peril.” Rood defends Nikias by noting
that this is a report, in a passage giving what Nikias openly said (τῷ δὲ
ἐμφανεῖ), rather than what he necessarily really thought (1998a, 187).
But Thucydides does not say that the report is false. Furthermore, to
be effective as a smokescreen, what Nikias said had to be plausible to
his hearers and so not out of character. If anything, then, this com-
ment seems to implicate all the generals in this kind of thinking. None
of them were mad to fear for themselves the consequences of failure
in Sicily. But each would be wrong to think he could somehow have a
private death at this juncture. Alkibiades has seemed up to this point
to be alone in focusing on himself over and against his city (cf. 6.15,
6.92.4). Nikias’s comment here charges all the generals with insuf-
ficient care for the common good (see introduction 6.3 on the public/
private theme in the Sicilian expedition).
48.5 τὰ τε Συρακοσίων . . . εἶναι: “the Syracusans’ situation.” Infinitive

with subject accusative in indirect discourse after ἔφη (Sm. 2017).
ἥσσω: Accusative plural neuter (Sm. 293). Predicate.
αὐτοὺς ξενοτροφοῦντας . . . ἀναλίσκοντας . . . βόσκοντας . . . ἀπορεῖν
. . . ἀμηχανήσειν: Infinitives with subject accusative in indirect dis-
course after ἔφη (Sm. 2017). The subject is the Syracusans.
δισχίλιά τε γὰρ τάλαντα: That Nikias has a figure makes his information
seem credible.
ἀνηλωκέναι . . . προσοφείλειν . . . : Infinitives in indirect discourse after
ἔφη (Sm. 2017). The first is from ἀναλίσκω. The Syracusans are the
understood subject.
ἤν τε . . . ἐκλίπωσι . . . φθερεῖσθαι: A future more vivid condition (Sm.
2323). The verb of the apodosis (the “then” clause) is infinitive (with sub-
ject accusative, τὰ πράγματα) in indirect discourse after ἔφη (Sm. 2017).
τῷ μὴ διδόναι τροφήν: An articular infinitive as dative of cause (Sm.
1517), expressing how the Syracusans might lose part of their forces.
ἐπικουρικὰ . . . ὄντα: Describes αὐτῶν τὰ πράγματα.
48.6 τρίβειν . . . χρῆναι: Infinitives in indirect discourse after ἔφη (Sm.
2017). The accusative subject is the Athenians. The meaning is to wear
Syracuse down. See n. 7.49.2.
μὴ χρήμασιν . . . νικηθέντας ἀπιέναι: Infinitive with subject accusative
in indirect discourse after ἔφη (Sm. 2017). Nikias sums up his remarks
as if all Demosthenes’s points were about money. He does not address
Demosthenes’s comments about their battlefield failures, the sickness
in the army, the poor position of their camp, and the need to depart
while they still could. Nor does Nikias address Demosthenes’s claim
that the war in Sicily was a dangerous diversion when Peloponnesian
troops were in Attica.
ὧν πολὺ κρείσσους εἰσί: κρείσσους is nominative masculine plural (Sm.
293).
49.1 αἰσθόμενος τὰ ἐν ταῖς Συρακούσαις ἀκριβῶς: Τhis certainly seems

like Thucydides thought Nikias had a true understanding of the situa-
tion in Syracuse.
ὥστε μὴ ἀπανίστασθαι: Epexegetical (explanatory) infinitive after ὥστε

explaining the message communicated. The ὥστε has no real force
(Goodwin 98.2n2; see above n. 6.88.8 and n. 7.48.3).
49.2 περὶ μὲν τοῦ προσκαθῆσθαι: Articular infinitive after a preposition

(Sm. 2032g).
μὴ ἀπάγειν . . . ἀλλὰ τρίβειν αὐτοῦ: The infinitives (with subject accusa-
tives) are subjects of δεῖ (Sm. 1985). We should reject the emendation
αὐτοῦ and return to the manuscript text of αὐτούς because τρίβειν is
usually transitive and needs a direct object, thus “wear them down”
(Dover in HCT 4:426–27).
χρῆναι . . . τοῦτο ποιεῖν: That is, continue the siege. Infinitive in indirect
discourse after ἔφη (Sm. 2017). The subject is the Athenians, repre-
sented in ἀναστάντας.
πρὸς τῶν πολεμίων: “in the enemy’s favor” (LSJ A.III.2).
τά τε τῆς ἐμπειρίας χρήσιμα σφῶν: “the advantages of skill will be
theirs” (Smith).
καὶ ἀναχωρήσεις καὶ ἐπίπλους οὐκ ἐκ βραχέος καὶ περιγραπτοῦ . . .
ἕξουσιν: More abstract nouns (see introduction 2.3.1). Literally,
“and will have retreats and attacks both not setting out from a small
constricted area and also putting in.” That is, will employ attacks and
retreats that do not consist merely in setting out from and retreating
back to the same constricted area.
49.3 τό τε ξύμπαν εἰπεῖν: “to sum up.” An infinitive used absolutely

(Goodwin 100).
οἱ: “to him” (Sm. 325).
ἀρέσκειν: “he said to remain . . . was in no way acceptable . . . but [it
was acceptable] to. . . .” Infinitive in indirect discourse after ἔφη (Sm.
2017). The other infinitives are subjects of ἀρέσκειν.
49.4 ἀντιλέγοντος δὲ τοῦ Νικίου: Temporal or causal genitive absolute,

“when (or since) Nikias . . .” (Sm. 2070).
ὄκνος τις καὶ μέλλησις ἐνεγένετο: Again, the contrast to the Korinthi-
ans’ picture of the Athenians at the start of the war is powerful. These
do not seem to be the same people. See introduction 6.5.
ὑπόνοια μή: Similar to a fear clause, this is a suspicion that something
exists. A suspicion that it does not would be conveyed with μή οὐ (Sm.
2221, 2224a).
Gylippos Arrives with Reinforcements

(7.50.1–7.50.2)
50.1 ὄντος αὐτοῦ: Temporal genitive absolute, “when he was . . .” (Sm.
2070).
ἡ . . . στάσις: here = “the faction,” with φιλία as adjective, i.e., “the fac-
tion favorable to Syracuse.” ἐς is rightly excised.
ἐξεπεπτώκει: ἐκπίπτω = “to be driven out, banished” (LSJ 3).
τοὺς ἐκ τῆς Πελοποννήσου . . . ἐν ταῖς ὁλκάσιν ὁπλίτας: These are the
troops that the Athenian ships stationed at Naupaktos were supposed
to prevent from getting to Sicily (7.19.3, 7.34).
50.2 ἀπενεχθέντες: From ἀποφέρω.

δόντων Κυρηναίων: Temporal or causal genitive absolute, “after (or
since) the Kyrenaians . . .” (Sm. 2070). Kyrene, a city on the north
coast of Africa between Karthage and Egypt, was founded from
Thera, which was itself founded from Sparta. Traditional understand-
ings of xyngeneia would cause them to be helpful to Peloponnesians
and Spartans.
Εὐεσπερίταις . . . ξυμμαχήσαντες: Fragoulaki calls this event “one of
the most powerful demonstrations in the History that still in the fifth
century xyngeneia could be a valid reason for a military initiative”
(2013, 187).
ἐλάχιστον: Adverbial accusative (Sm. 345, 1608).
δυοῖν ἡμερῶν καὶ νυκτὸς πλοῦν ἀπέχει: πλοῦν is an accusative of extent
of space after ἀπέχω (Sm. 1581; LSJ s.v. ἀπέχω III). δυοῖν . . . νυκτός
are genitive of measure (Sm. 1325). δυοῖν is genitive dual.
ἀπ᾿ αὐτοῦ: “from there.”
The Athenians Delay Retreat and

the Syracusans Win Again at Sea (7.50.3–7.54)
Connor notes the “enormous ‘ring’ ” that begins with this sea battle and
ends with the great battle at 7.71, with the catalogue of allies (7.57–58) at
the center (1984, appendix 9).
50.3 αὐτῶν ἐλθόντων: Temporal genitive absolute, “after they . . .” (Sm.
2070).
χαλεπώτερον: Adverbial accusative (Sm. 345, 1608).
μετεμέλοντό τε . . . οὐκ ἀναστάντες: The verb takes a participle explain-
ing what one regrets
ἀλλ᾿ ἤ: “except” (cf. 3.71.4, 5.60.5, etc.).
ὡς ἐδύναντο ἀδηλότατα: “as secretly as they were able.” A superlative
strengthened with ὡς and a form of δύναμαι (Sm. 1086a).
50.4 μέλλοντων αὐτῶν: Temporal genitive absolute, “when they were

about to . . .” (Sm. 2070).
ἡ σελήνη ἐκλείπει: Τhe lunar eclipse occurred on August 27, 413 (Horn-
blower 3:642).
οἵ τε πλείους: Nominative masculine plural (Sm. 293).
ἦν γάρ τι καὶ ἄγαν θειασμῷ . . . προσκείμενος: Thucydides’s implication
is that Nikias should have at least attempted to control the men’s
response to the eclipse. But we have rarely, if ever, seen Nikias do
anything but be ruled by the tempers he claimed to know so well.
Hornblower might argue that this is also an example of the growing
assertiveness of the soldiers in the face of the incompetence of the
generals (see above n. 7.47–49). Perhaps it is also an example of the
growing assertiveness of the demos of the Sicilian expedition (see
above n. 7.48.1). One wonders what effect might have come from the
presence of Alkibiades, who seems both not to have concerned him-
self much with the niceties of traditional religion (cf. Rood 1998a, 179)
and who also later showed himself well able to control unruly troops
(8.86.4).
οὐδ᾿ ἂν διαβουλεύσασθαι: Infinitive in indirect discourse after ἔφη

(Sm. 2017).
πρίν . . . μεῖναι: After a negative verb, πρίν + infinitive usually means
“before,” but “until” is also possible (Sm. 2455).
ὡς οἱ μάντεις ἐξηγοῦντο: Thucydides does not tell us how the manteis
reasoned, or why they decided that the eclipse was a bad omen for
the Athenians. Plutarch (Nikias 23.5) quotes Philochoros (a later
fourth-century historian) as claiming that the eclipse was wrongly
interpreted because eclipses are actually propitious for fugitives, who
need the concealment of darkness. This whole event echoes another
famous eclipse on campaign, this one of the sun, which Xerxes’s man-
teis wrongly interpreted as indicating the abandonment of the cities
of the Greeks (Herodotus 7.37.3–4). One theme in Herodotus’s work is
the correct interpretation of signs from the gods. Kroisos fails at this
(1.53–56), as do Xerxes and Artabanos (7.12–18). Themistokles, how-
ever, famously correctly interpreted the “wooden wall” oracle that
predicted a naval victory at Salamis (7.140–44). The misinterpretation
of this omen, that is, helps further Thucydides’s presentation of utterly
changed Athenians playing out a perverse echo of the Persian Wars
τρὶς ἐννέα ἡμέρας: Accusative of extent of time (Sm. 1582). That is, for
one orbit of the moon around the earth. The decision to stay this long
seems even more remarkable when we remember that the Athenians
had told Katane to stop sending supplies (7.60.2; cf. Kagan 1981, 329).
ὅπως ἂν πρότερον κινηθείη: “he said he would not take counsel how a
move might be made earlier until. . . .” An original potential question
in an indirect question (Sm. 2663) after διαβουλεύσασθαι. πρότερον
is redundant.
μελλήσασι . . . ἡ μονὴ ἐγεγένητο: μέλλω can mean “to delay” or “to be
about to.” If the text is correct, the participle μελλήσασι refers to the
delay that had begun immediately after the eclipse, and ἡ μονή refers
to the additional delay of twenty-seven days (Marchant). Alterna-
tively, Steup (in Classen-Steup) advocated reading some word like
ἀποπλεῖν after μελλήσασι (as in 7.50.3) and translating “when they
were about to sail away, the delay happened.” Thucydides’s stress on

delay at 7.49.4, however, argues we should read “delay” in the parti-
ciple here as well.
51.1 οἱ δὲ Συρακόσιοι . . . πολλῷ μᾶλλον ἐπηρμένοι ἦσαν: The verb is

a periphrastic pluperfect middle of ἐπαίρω formed from the perfect
passive participle and εἰμί (Sm. 599d). Observe that the Syracusans do
not appear to have been panicked by the eclipse (contrast their earlier
response to a rainstorm, 6.70.1). Steup notes the poor chapter division
here, with a μέν clause immediately answered by this δέ clause in a
different chapter.
αὐτῶν κατεγνωκότων . . . μηκέτι κρεισσόνων: Causal genitive absolute,
“since they . . .” (Sm. 2070). The subject is the Athenians.
σφῶν: The Syracusans. Genitive of comparison (Sm. 1431).
oὐ γὰρ ἂν . . . ἐπιβουλεῦσαι: Infinitive in implied indirect discourse (cf.
Sm. 2017). The ἄν indicates that the infinitive represents an original
potential optative (Sm. 1845). The understood subject is still “they,”
i.e., the Athenians.
τῆς Σικελίας: Partitive genitive (Sm. 1306) with ἄλλοσε.
καθεζομένους χαλεπωτέρους εἶναι προσπολεμεῖν: “not wishing that
they . . . be more difficult to fight against.” Infinitive with subject
accusative as object after βουλόμενοι (Sm. 1991). προσπολεμεῖν
is an epexegetical (explanatory) infinitive limiting the meaning of
χαλεπωτέρους (Sm. 2001). The reference to the expedition settling
itself somewhere in Sicily picks up the earlier images of the expedition
as a city (cf. 6.23.2) and prepares for the powerful renewal of this idea
in subsequent sections (7.73.1, 7.77.4; see introduction 6.6).
αὐτοῦ: “here.”
ὡς τάχιστα: ὡς + superlative = “as X as possible” (Sm. 1086).
ἐν ᾧ . . . ξυμφέρει: “in circumstances which were beneficial.” Thucydides
has left out the antecedent, as is common when it conveys a general
idea, and the relative has been attracted into its case (Sm. 2509, 2522).
ἀναγκάσαι αὐτοὺς ναυμαχεῖν: A further infinitive as object after
βουλόμενοι (Sm. 1991).
51.2 ἀνεπειρῶντο: In his speech urging the Athenians to war, Perikles

underscored the importance of practice to good seamanship
(1.142.6ff) and boldly predicted that the Peloponnesians would
never be able to master the skill. Hermokrates, however, challenged
Perikles’s assumptions when he predicted that the Syracusans could
learn seamanship, just as the Athenians did (see n. 7.21.3). And here
we see them hard at work, practicing.
τῇ μὲν προτέρᾳ: Understand ἡμέρᾳ. That is, on the day before they
planned their naval action.
πρὸς τὰ τείχη: That is, the walls of their camp, coming down from the
“circle.” See map 3.
ἐπεξελθόντος μέρους τινὸς οὐ πολλοῦ: Temporal genitive absolute,
“while a not large portion . . .” (Sm. 2070).
οὔσης δὲ στενῆς τῆς ἐσόδου: Causal genitive absolute, “because the
entrance . . .” (Sm. 2070).
52.1 ταῖς τε ναυσίν: The “dative of military accompaniment” (Sm. 1526).

ἓξ καὶ ὀγδοήκοντα: This may represent all of the Athenians’ ships,
even though Demosthenes sailed in a little over a month earlier with
reinforcements of 73 ships. Before his arrival, the Athenians put 75
ships to sea (7.37.3), of which one or two were sunk on the first day
(7.38.1). Seven more were sunk “and many damaged” on the second
day (7.41.4). I do not agree with Hornblower (3:615) that the one or
two ships sunk at 7.38.1 are “surely . . . included in the 7 at the summa-
tive 41.4.” That summation seems to me more likely to be only about
that second day (so Dover in HCT 4:429). Luckily the disagreement
does not affect the total much, and the Athenians must have been left
with perhaps 46 ships before Demosthenes’s arrival (if 20 or so were
damaged on the second day at 7.41.4 in addition to the eight or nine
sunk on the first and second days). Not all of Demosthenes’s 73 ships
would have been useful in battle, however. Demosthenes also carried
on his 73 ships “about” five thousand hoplites. Because Thucydides
says nothing about troop transports (in addition to triremes) in his
description of the reinforcements (7.42.1), we can only assume that
the 73 triremes were carrying the troops. In 415, out of a fleet of 100
Athenian triremes and 140 total ships, 40 troop-transport triremes
were required for the five thousand hoplites (6.43). Should we assume
a similar ratio of triremes to troop-transports in this fleet? Perhaps,
since Thucydides hates repeating himself. But it is frustrating not to
be sure. If the same proportions do hold, we must conclude that a sub-
stantial portion of Demosthenes’s 73 ships—perhaps 40 ships?—were
not “fast triremes” (6.43) but were, in fact, triremes filled largely by
hoplites. These ships could serve as replacements for ships damaged
or sunk in battle, but since Demosthenes did not also bring full crews
to man them once the hoplites filed off, they could not contribute to
the total number of ships the Athenians could man in a naval battle.
Although hoplites could row triremes if need be—Gylippos’s original
band of hoplites seems to have rowed his four ships to Sicily as
Alkibiades recommended (6.91.4; Lazenby 2004, 149)—they were not
trained Athenian naval crews. Demosthenes’s 73 ships, that is, do not
represent 73 ships that the Athenians could actually put into battle.
That the Athenians manned only 86 ships here suggests that Demos-
thenes added only about 40 ships to those that survived the battles
before he arrived. See Hornblower (appendix 2, 1061–66) on Athenian
troop and fleet numbers.
52.2 Εὐρυμέδοντα: Pulled forward for emphasis. He is the object

(repeated in κἀκεῖνον below) of ἀπολαμβάνουσι below.
πρῶτον: Adverbial accusative (Sm. 1611).
ἐν τῷ κοίλῳ καὶ μυχῷ: Both Dover (in HCT 4:480) and Hornblower
(3:646) locate this in the northern end of the harbor, but it is not
clear that the northern part of the harbor is more “innermost” than
the southern. Furthermore, putting this event in the north assumes
that Eurymedon completed a great part of the circling movement
he was attempting since he held the right wing (cf. Lazenby 2004,
160n13). More likely, he sailed too close to the southern shore (or was
cut off by Plemmyrion) and so was killed somewhere in (or near)
the southern part of the harbor. Diodoros calls the bay in which
Eurymedon was killed Daskon (13.13.3). Despite putting Eurymedon’s

death in the north of the harbor by Ortygia, Dover locates Daskon in
the south, between Punta Caderini and Punta Spinazza. The little bay
between these two points might well be described as μυχός. Perhaps
it was considered to run as far as Plemmyrion. Green (1970, 302) and
Lazenby (2004, 160 and n13) put both Daskon and Eurymedon’s death
in the south (see map 3 and n. 6.66.2).
καὶ αὐτόν τε διαφθείρουσι: Like Lamachos (and, soon, Demosthenes),
Eurymedon gets no obituary. Only the historical present gives his
death weight (cf. Klug 1992, 52).
53.1 καὶ ἔξω . . . καταφερομένας: This time the Athenians do not even
have dolphins to protect them in their defeat, which sounds utterly
undisciplined. Contrast 7.41.
βουλόμενος . . . ῥᾷον τοὺς Συρακοσίους ἀφέλκειν: “and wishing for it to
be easier for the Syracusans to drag. . . .” ἀφέλκειν (with its accusative
subject) is subject of ῥᾷον [εἶναι] (Sm. 1985), which is comparative of
ῥᾳδίως (Sm. 319, 345).
τῆς γῆς φιλίας οὔσης: “because the area was friendly to them.” Causal
genitive absolute (Sm. 2070). It was to make it friendly that Gylippos
marched out his troops.
53.2 οἱ Τυρσηνοί . . . τρέπουσι καὶ ἐσβάλλουσιν: This Etruscan success

makes no real difference to things, but as Hornblower notes, it keeps
the account from being “a tedious catalogue of Syracusan victories”
(3:647). Note the historical presents (Sm. 1883). Thucydides is in the
“immediate mode” (see introduction 2.3.9).
ταύτῃ: “in that place.”
ἀτάκτως: Even at this late date, even with Gylippos personally in com-
mand, the Syracusan troops were undisciplined.
53.3 ὕστερον: Adverbial accusative (Sm. 1611).

πλέονος . . . παρόντος: Temporal genitive absolute, “after more . . .” (Sm.
2070).
δυοῖν δὲ δεούσας εἴκοσιν: “twenty [ships] lacking two.”
πάντας ἀπέκτειναν: On a calculation of two hundred men per trireme

(Morrison, Coates, and Rankov, 2000, 107–8), this was thirty-six
hundred men.
53.4 ἀφεῖσαν: From ἀφίημι.

παύσαντες . . . τὸ μὴ προσελθεῖν ἐγγὺς τὴν ὁλκάδα: “stopping the ship
from coming near.” παύω with an articular infinitive (with subject
accusative) indicating what the Athenians prevented. παύω, like a
verb of hindering or preventing, takes a redundant negative (Sm.
2739).
54 καὶ τῆς ἄνω τῆς . . . ἀπολήψεως: “and [a trophy] for (Greek “of”) the
cutting off of the hoplites above at the wall” at 7.51.2.
Ἀθηναῖοι δὲ ἧς τε οἱ Τυρσηνοὶ τροπῆς: “and the Athenians [set up a
trophy] for (Greek “of”) the rout that. . . .” Thucydides has written “of
which rout the Etruscans effected.” He has pulled the antecedent into
the relative clause, and the relative pronoun has been attracted into
the case of its antecedent (Sm. 2522, 2536).
καὶ ἧς αὐτοὶ . . . : “and [they set up a trophy] for (Greek “of”) [the rout]
which [they effected] at the other camp.” Thucydides has left out the
antecedent, and the relative pronoun has been attracted into its case
(Sm. 2509, 2522). This is a fine example of his concision (see introduc-
tion 2.3.10).
Syracusan and Athenian Morale; Syracusan

Plans to Close the Harbor (7.55–7.56.3)
55.1 γεγενημένης δὲ τῆς νίκης: Causal genitive absolute, “since this bril-
liant victory . . .” (Sm. 2070).
καὶ τοῦ ναυτικοῦ: The Syracusans had formerly had a brilliant victory on
land on Epipolai.
ἐν παντὶ δὴ ἀθυμίας ἦσαν: “were in every [kind] of athumia.”
55.2 πόλεσι . . . ὁμοιοτρόποις: Despite the plural here, it is clear as the
passage goes on that Thucydides means a single city, Syracuse. See
also 8.96.5, a passage that is about Syracuse alone.
δημοκρατουμέναις: See introduction 5 on democracy in Syracuse.
οὐ δυνάμενοι . . . κρείσσονος: In Dover’s interpretation, which makes the

most sense, τὸ διάφορον is any difference, either political or related to
degrees of power, that the Athenians might use to compel an enemy to
surrender; hence, not being able “to bring to bear on them (αὐτοῖς) the
difference (τὸ διάφορον) [between them], by which (ᾧ) they brought
enemies over [to themselves] (προσήγοντο ἂν), either (οὔτ᾿) as a result
of change (ἐκ . . . μεταβολῆς), in some respect (τι), of constitution
(πολιτείας), or (οὔτ᾿) as a result of much greater forces (ἐκ παρασκευῆς
πολλῷ κρείσσονος).” Dover admits this is not “easy Greek.” He
remarks, “by a daring and compressed use of language,” both unusual
power and an unusual regime are both “regarded as ‘differences’ ” that
usually help the Athenians but that they can not use against Syracuse.
The “promised change, in some respect, of constitution” refers to the
Athenians’ practice of encouraging the democratic element in a city to
revolt and turn the city over to them (as at Mytilene 3.27).
τὰ πλείω: “for the most part.” Adverbial accusative (Sm. 1609).
τά τε πρὸ αὐτῶν: “with regard to circumstances before these events.”
ὃ οὐκ ἂν ᾤοντο: Past potential (Sm. 1784).
πολλῷ δὴ μᾶλλον ἔτι: That is, ἠπόρουν.
56.1 ὅπως . . . λάθοιεν: A purpose clause (Sm. 2196).
56.2 περὶ τοῦ αὐτοὶ σωθῆναι: “for no longer were they counting only
on their being saved.” Articular infinitive after a preposition (Sm.
2032g). αὐτοί, the nominative subject of the infinitive, refers to the
Syracusans. It is nominative since it indicates the subject of the main
verb (Sm. 1973).
ὅπως ἐκείνους κωλύσουσι: Instead of using another articular infinitive
after περί, Thucydides, as usual, switches constructions (see introduc-
tion 2.3.6). κωλύσουσι is a future indicative in an object clause after
a verb of effort (Sm. 2211). The idea repeats σωθῆναι from above for
what the Syracusans want to prevent the Athenians from doing.
ἀπὸ τε τῶν παρόντων: “in the present circumstances.”
καθυπέρτερα τὰ πράγματα εἶναι: Infinitive with subject accusative in
indirect discourse after νομίζοντες (Sm. 2018).
καλὸν σφίσιν . . . τὸ ἀγώνισμα φανεῖσθαι: Infinitive with subject accu-

sative in indirect discourse after νομίζοντες (Sm. 2018). See Connor
for ring composition in this section of book 7 (1984, appendix 9).
Marchant notes that this is a metaphor from the Olympic games: “the
Greeks are here spectators of the contest.” This phrase thus prepares
for the overt presentation of the Athenian troops on the shore as
spectators at the final horrible naval battle (7.71).
τοὺς μὲν ἐλευθεροῦσθαι, τοὺς δὲ . . . ἀπολύεσθαι: Infinitives with sub-
ject accusative in indirect discourse after νομίζοντες (Sm. 2018).
οὐ . . . δυνατὴν ἔσεσθαι τὴν . . . δύναμιν τὸν . . πόλεμον ἐνεγκεῖν: Infini-
tive with subject accusative in indirect discourse after νομίζοντες
(Sm. 2018). πόλεμον is object of ἐνεγκεῖν. That infinitive explains the
coming inability (οὐ . . . δυνατήν) of Athenian power (Sm. 2001).
αὐτοὶ . . . θαυμασθήσεσθαι: Infinitive in indirect discourse after
νομίζοντες (Sm. 2018), with nominative subject because the subject of
the infinitive is the same as that of the leading verb (Sm. 1973). αὐτῶν
is the result just discussed.
56.3 μόνον: Adverbial accusative (Sm. 1608).
καὶ τὴν σφετέραν πόλιν ἐμπαρασχόντες προκινδυνεῦσαι: The idea
conveyed here is eerily similar to the Athenians’ famous sacrifice of their
city in the Persian Wars, which they pompously boasted about in their
speech at Sparta before the war (1.74.2–3). The Athenians even used the
same verb, προκινδυνεῦσαι, to describe their lone (except for the poor
Plataians) stand against the Medes at Marathon (1.73.4). This is part of
Thucydides’s writing of the Sicilian expedition as a perverse replay of
the Persian Wars and of his claim that the Syracusans were the most like
Athens of any of its opponents (8.96.5; see introduction 6.4 and n. 8.1.2).
καὶ τοῦ ναυτικοῦ μέγα μέρος προκόψαντες: “having made improve-
ments in their navy to a great extent” (LSJ II.2). μέγα μέρος is adver-
bial accusative (Sm. 1609).
The Great Catalogue of Allies (7.56.4–7.59.1)

This section deliberately recalls Homer’s “Catalogue of Ships” (Iliad
2.494–759), which Thucydides refers to early in his work, 1.10.3–4). The
resemblance furthers Thucydides’s claim that his war was the greatest ever
(1.23). By recalling the Iliad, this section also makes readers receptive to the
echoes of the destruction of Troy that cluster in Thucydides’s description
of the defeated army (see below 7.75.7). Throughout, Thucydides takes
pains to show how the traditional alignments of xyngeneia did not hold in
this conflict (see introduction 6.2). The catalogue supports Thucydides’s
point that “violent schoolmaster War teaches men’s minds new concepts”
(Stahl 1973, 70–71), and thus “one of the oldest and most traditional forms of
narration” is “transformed to convey the unprecedented disruption (kinesis)
brought about by the war” (Connor 1984, 196).
For the Athenians’ supporters, Thucydides’s arrangement is political
and geographical, listing “colonies” and “subjects” first (7.57.2–6) and
“independents” next (7.57.7–11). Under “subjects,” his classification is ethnic
(listing states as Ionians plus Karystians 7.57.4, Aiolians 7.57.5, and Dorians
7.57.6). Under “independents” he lists first those in name independent
but actually dependent in some way (7.57.7–8), and next those who were
actually independent (including mercenaries 7.57.9–10). The last mentioned
are supporters from western Greece (7.57.11). The list, for Athens, serves to
give almost a capsule history of the Athenian Empire from the time when
the Ionians appealed to Athens κατὰ τὸ ξυγγενές to lead them after the
Persian Wars (1.95.1).
For supporters of Syracuse, the arrangement is geographical, first divid-
ing supporters into those from Sicily and those from overseas. Thucydides
then further divides Syracuse’s support from Sicily into Greeks from the
south and then the north coast of Sicily, and then lists the aid from the
Sikels (cf. Dover and Hornblower). See Fragoulaki’s (2013) study for the
complicated histories and ties of the states listed in the catalogue.
Thucydides’s references to fighters from Aigina (7.57.2), Himera (7.58.2),
and Naupaktos (7.57.8) have implications for the date of composition of the
catalogue (see introduction 1.5). Furthermore, his references to displaced or
transferred populations—like the Lemnians and Imbrians, the Aiginetans,
and the Hestiaians (all 7.57.2), Plataians (7.57.5), and Messenians (7.57.8),
recall his account of the unsettled movement of peoples after the Trojan
War (6.1–2) and help prove his contention that the Peloponnesian War was
the greatest disturbance (κίνησις) ever in Hellas (1.2). Part of his evidence
for this claim is that never before had so many cities been captured or
abandoned, “and some cities even changed inhabitants after they were
captured” (1.23.2).
56.4 πλήν γε δὴ τοῦ ξύμπαντος λόγου: “except for the overall total
of. . . .”
57.1 ἐπὶ Σικελίαν τε καὶ περὶ Σικελίας: “to Sicily and about Sicily.”
τοῖς μὲν . . . τοῖς δέ: “coming to join with one side in . . . or with the other
in.” The datives represent first the Athenians and then the Syracusans
and respond to the ξυγ- and ξυν- in the verbs.
ὡς ἑκάστοις . . . ἔσχεν: “as [the element] of circumstance existed for
each,” i.e., “according to the circumstances of each party” (LSJ).
Thucydides next describes the two possible motivating circumstances
in characteristically unparallel structure, κατὰ τὸ ξυμφέρον ἢ
ἀνάγκῃ. Crane provides a fascinating discussion of Thucydides’s
understanding of these circumstances (2017, 364–66).
57.2 Ἀθηναῖοι . . . ἑκόντες ἦλθον: Despite the Athenians’ claim at Sparta
that they were “compelled” by fear, honor, and advantage (1.75.3,
1.76.2), here Thucydides says that their imperial adventure in Sicily
was willing (cf. Crane 2017, 366).
Λήμνιοι καὶ Ἴμβριοι: Herodotus ascribes the conquest of Lemnos to Mil-
tiades (6.136.2). Thus, it should date to around 500 b.c. The conquest
of Imbros probably occurred at the same time. These first supporters
listed for the Athenians hearken back to the earliest days of the expan-
sion of Athens. Fifth-century “Lemnians” and “Imbrians” are not real
“Lemnians” and “Imbrians”—if by that we mean men related to the
pre-500 population of the island. They are in fact men descended from
Athenian colonists sent in after Miltiades’s conquest (and, presum-
ably, cleansing) of the island (and at other later points as well; see
Fragoulaki 2013, 329–30). These men demonstrate that a complicated
history can lurk behind a seemingly clear-cut description of a people.
Αἰγινῆται οἳ τότε Αἴγιναν εἶχον: Here Thucydides makes the complicated

nature of ethnics clear. By indicating that the “Aiginetans” at Syracuse
were those who held the island “then,” he shows that they were not
actually “Aiginetans”—if by that we mean men related to the long-
standing residents of the island—but actually Athenian colonists who
were sent to the island after the original inhabitants were expelled in
431 (2.27.1). Thucydides’s phrase “who then” (like that in 7.57.8 below)
provides a sense of authorial distance, akin to that Homer had from
the events that he relates. Such a phrase is also fodder for those search-
ing for evidence of the date of composition of a given passage (see
introduction 1.5). The Athenians lost Aigina in 405 (Xenοphon, Hel-
lenika 2.2.9), and so the τότε suggests to many a date of composition
after 405. For Hornblower it is “most natural” to take it “as looking
back from a date after 405” rather than “as a contrast with the pre-431
position” (3:660). But that seems to depend on how much we think
Thucydides was interested in, and wanted to emphasize, these kinds
of population transfers. His use of them as a criterion for the greatness
of his war (1.23.2) suggests he could easily have written “who then held
Aigina” in order to point out a contrast with the “real”—i.e., pre-431—
Aiginetans. If so, he could have done so at any point after 431.
Ἑστιαιῆς: Nominative plural (Sm. 275). The Hestiaians supported the
revolt of Euboia in 446 (1.114.3). When Perikles subdued the island, he
expelled the original inhabitants of Hestiaia, and the Athenians occu-
pied it themselves (1.114.3). These “Hestiaians,” like the “Aiginetans”
above, are thus actually Athenian colonists. Thucydides makes this
clear when he calls them ἄποικοι.
57.3 εἰσὶ δὲ καὶ οἵ: εἰσὶ οἵ is a fixed phrase without antecedent, meaning
“there are those who” or “some” (Sm. 2513).
57.4 φόρου ὑποτελῶν: This refers to an obligation to pay tribute to Athens.

Ἐρετριῆς . . . Χαλκιδῆς . . . Στυρῆς: Nominative plurals (Sm. 275).
Χῖοι . . . αὐτόνομοι: Chios is called autonomous, while Methymna below
(7.57.5) is not, although it was also not subject to tribute. This probably
does not indicate any real difference in status.
τὸ πλεῖστον: “the most numerous contingent” (Lattimore).

ἀπ᾿ Ἀθηναίων: That is, related ethnically to Athens. Athens saw (and
presented) itself as the metropolis of the Ionian migration (cf. Fragou-
laki 2013, 210–20).
ὅμως Ἴωνές γε ἐπὶ Δωριᾶς: Thucydides’s point is that although these
states were subject and under compulsion, they nevertheless fit the
common pattern “Ionians vs. Dorians.”
57.5 Αἰολῆς: Nominative plural (Sm. 275).

ναυσὶ καὶ οὐ φόρῳ: That is, they were compelled to supply a certain
number of ships to Athens each year, rather than money. Thucydides
identifies the allies’ decision to pay their tribute to the Delian League
in money rather than in ships as the key event that allowed the Athe-
nians to turn that league into an empire (1.99.3).
Αἰολεῦσι τοῖς κτίσασι Βοιωτοῖς: Thucydides’s point is that Aiolians are
of Boiotian stock.
κατ᾿ ἀνάγκην: Thucydides stresses the compulsion that forced these
Aiolians to fight against their founders.
Πλαταιῆς . . . κατα τὸ ἔχθος: Nominative plural (Sm. 275). That is, of
Boiotians, only Plataians fought with Athens because of their hatred
of Thebes. These Plataians must be some of the 212 who escaped from
their city (3.20–24) before its destruction by the Lakedaimonians in
427 (3.68). They are men without a city. The Athenians gave the Pla-
taians the territory of Skione after the Athenians destroyed that city
in 421 (5.32.1), but these men still seem to identify as “Plataians,” and
Thucydides recognizes them as such. The hatred of the Plataians for
the Boiotians dates back at least to the last quarter of the sixth century,
when the Plataians threw in their lot with the Athenians (and, they
say, got a “share of the citizenship” for it, 3.55.3; it is interesting that
Thucydides nevertheless insists that they are καταντικρὺ Βοιωτοί).
The Plataians’ hatred of Thebes was exacerbated by the Thebans’
attack on their city at the beginning of the war (see introduction 3.3).
Despite their motivation for fighting with Athens, Thucydides classi-
fies the Plataians as constrained fighters rather than as voluntary ones,
“presumably because so dire was their dependence on Athens that

they could not have declined to accompany her” (Crane 2017, 365).
57.6 Δωριῆς: Nominative plural (Sm. 275).

οἱ μέν: “the latter.” Thucydides gives no reason why the Dorian Kytheri-
ans fight for Ionian Athens.
γένος: Accusative of respect (Sm. 1600).
ἠναγκάζοντο: Thucydides here explains why the Rhodians fought not
only against Dorian Syracuse but against their own colonists.
57.7 ὅτι θαλάσσης ἐκράτουν οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι: Deeply ironical, given the

sea battle that just occurred at Syracuse and the one to come. The
comment and its numerous echoes in the text (not least Alkibiades’s
claim that if the Athenians failed in Sicily, they could easily withdraw
because they were ναυκράτορες, 6.18.5) reflect the complacent belief
in their inevitable superiority that contributed to Athens’s downfall.
Δωριῆς: Nominative plural (Sm. 275).
βουλήσει δὲ κατὰ ἔχθος τὸ Κορινθίων: “but willingly because of hatred
of Korinth.” The Kerkyraians’ hatred of Korinth begins Thucydides’s
account of the Peloponnesian War. The Athenians’ acceptance of a
naval alliance with Kerkyra, and the events that flowed from it, are
one of the three flashpoints for the war (see introduction 3.1). This
makes it particularly startling that Thucydides calls the Kerkyraians
Κορίνθιοι σαφῶς here.
οὐχ ἧσσον: Adverbial accusative (Sm. 1609).
57.8 οἱ Μεσσήνιοι . . . καὶ ἐκ Πύλου τότε ὑπ᾿ Ἀθηναίων ἐχομένης: These
are Messenian helots whom the Athenians settled at Naupaktos
after the helot revolt in the mid-century (1.103.3) and at Pylos after
the Athenians’ capture of that place in 425 (4.41.2; see introduction
3.5). They were expelled from Naupaktos after the war (but probably
not before 401/400, Diodoros 14.17.4, 14.34.2–5). The Athenians lost
Pylos in 409 (Xenophon, Hellenika 1.2.18). These events could imply
composition (or revision) after 401/400 and 409, respectively (see
introduction 1.5), but only if τότε means “then as opposed to now as I
write” rather than “then as opposed to the situation before.”
Μεγαρέων φυγάδες: Megara suffered a pro-Spartan oligarchic revolu-

tion in 424. These were exiles from that conflict (4.74).
57.9 ἕνεκα . . . καὶ τῆς παραυτίκα ἕκαστοι ἰδίας ὠφελίας: “as well as,
each of them (ἕκαστοι), for the sake of their own individual benefit.”
Δωριῆς . . . Μαντινῆς: Nominative plural (Sm. 275).
ἐπὶ τοὺς . . . ἀποδεικνυμένους: “against those pointed out to them at any
given time (αἰεί) as enemies.”
ξυνέβη . . . τοῖς Κρησὶ . . . ξυγκτίσαντας . . . ἑκόντας . . . ἐλθεῖν: “It hap-
pened to the Kretans that they, having joined with the Rhodians in
founding . . . willingly went. . . .” The Kretans change from the dative
after ξυνέβη to the accusative as subject of the infinitive (cf. 6.55.4).
57.10 τὸ δὲ πλέον: Equivalent to μᾶλλον (Sm. 1068).

Δημοσθένους φιλίᾳ: Because of the great success of his campaigns there
(3.105–14).
57.11 ἐν τοιαύταις ἀνάγκαις . . . στασιωτικῶν καιρῶν: “amid such

pressures of civil strife,” that is, such as to lead to their joining the
Athenians. We heard that Thourioi was in stasis at 7.33.5–6.
κατειλημμένοι: From καταλαμβάνω.
Νάξιοι καὶ Καταναῖοι: The history of Naxos and Katane, which Syracuse
depopulated early in the fifth century, as documented in Thucydides’s
Sicilian Archaeology, means that Thucydides need give no explana-
tion for why they fought with Athens against Syracuse (see introduc-
tion 3.2 on Sicilian history).
οἵπερ ἐπηγάγοντο: See 6.6 and 6.8 for the Egestaians’ role in urging on
the Sicilian expedition.
58.1 ἀντεβοήθησαν Καμαριναῖοι: Although readers know that the

Kamarinaians support Syracuse only to avoid some reprisal if
Syracuse wins without them, Thucydides classifies their support and
others in similar circumstances as willing because it is “subject only to
their autonomous reckoning of the relevant advantages and risks. . . .
However exigent their situations otherwise, no hegemon compels
them” (Crane 2017, 365).
μετ᾿ αὐτούς: “back of them,” that is, further up the south coast (Smith).
ἔπειτα . . . ἐν τῷ ἐπ᾿ ἐκεῖνα: “next . . . in the area next to them.”
Thucydides is listing geographically.
Ἀκραγαντίνων ἡσυχαζόντων: Causal genitive absolute, “since . . .” (Sm.
2070).
58.2 Ἱμεραῖοι: The Karthaginians destroyed Himera in 409 (Diodoros

13.62). That Thucydides here and at 6.62.2 refers to Himera in the present
tense might suggest that the catalogue was written before 409. However,
Diodoros mentions people calling themselves Himeraians living near
the site of their old city in 397/96 (14.47.6, 14.56.2), so no absolute conclu-
sions can be drawn. See introduction 1.5 on such composition questions.
αὐτοῦ: “here.”
58.3 Δωριῆς: Nominative plural (Sm. 275).

[δύναται . . . ἤδη εἶναι]: Τhis is probably originally a scribe’s marginal
note that at some point was mistakenly copied into the text because
(1) Thucydides has used νεοδαμώδης before this without thinking the
word needed to be explained (7.19.3) and (2) the scholiast seems not
to have had these words in his text since he felt the need to explain a
νεοδαμῶδες was free (cf. Maurer 1995, 105).
ναυσὶ καὶ πεζῷ: The “dative of military accompaniment” (Sm. 1526).
58.4 πρὸς δὲ τούς: “in comparison with.”

πρὸς ἅπαντας: “in comparison with.”
ὡς εἰπεῖν: Often “limits” too strict an application of a general statement,
especially πᾶς or οὐδεῖς, so “nearly all” (Sm. 2012b).
πλείω: = πλέον. Adverbial accusative (Sm. 1609).
Preparations for the Great Battle (7.59.2–7.71)

Dewald counts this as one large narrative unit (2005, 175). I have subdivided
it below merely for ease of description. See n. 6.1.1–7.1a and 6.8–26 for
Dewald’s study of Thucydides’s changing narrative divisions. Dewald points
out how Thucydides discusses here the different viewpoints and percep-
tions of those involved, “weaving them together into a single, ongoing and
complicated, multivoiced narrative” (162).
59.2 καλὸν ἀγώνισμα . . . εἶναι: Infinitive with subject accusative in indi-
rect discourse after ἐνόμισαν (Sm. 2018). This recalls the use of καλὸν
. . . τὸ ἀγώνισμα at the beginning of the catalogue (7.56.2).
ἑλεῖν . . . διαφυγεῖν: “to capture . . . and [for them] not to escape.”
Epexegetical (explanatory) infinitives explaining what the Syracusans
think the ἀγώνισμα is (Sm. 2001). For the first the understood subject
is the Syracusans. For the second it is the Athenians. Note the growth
of Syracusan ambition. At 7.56.2 the goal was only to defeat the
Athenians; now it is to capture the whole army. However, because the
Athenians are so far from home, there is not really much difference
between the two goals, practically speaking.
καθ᾿ ἕτερα: That is, land or sea.
59.3 ἔκλῃον οὖν τὸν τε λιμένα: In the course of a critique of the Athe-
nians’ many mistakes in Sicily, Lazenby asks why the Athenians could
not themselves have constructed a boom across the entrance to the
Great Harbor (2004, 167).
ὀκτὼ σταδίων μάλιστα: μάλιστα with numbers = “about.” A stade is
an imprecise unit of measurement in Thucydides. When used for
meters. The mouth of the harbor is about one kilometer wide.
ὀλίγον οὐδὲν ἐς οὐδὲν ἐπενόουν: ἐς οὐδέν here and at 7.87.6 further
intensifies a phrase used elsewhere (cf. 2.8.1).
60.1 ὁρῶσι: Dative plural participle (Sm. 310).

βουλευτέα: Thucydides is fond of using the plural of verbal adjectives
with the suffix -τέος, -τέα, -τέον. They express the idea of necessity
(Sm. 473) with the dative of agent.
60.2 ταξίαρχοι: These were hoplite commanders for each of the ten Attic
tribes.
ὡς ἐκπλευσόμενοι: “on the assumption that they would. . . .” Future
participle for purpose (Sm. 2065).
μὴ ἐπάγειν: Infinitive in indirect discourse after ἀπεῖπον (Sm. 2017).
τὸ λοιπόν: Adverbial accusative (Sm. 1611).

εἰ μὴ ναυκρατήσουσιν: Given the Athenians’ repeated claims of their
invincibility at sea (cf. Alikibiades 6.18.5) and Thucydides’s remark in
his Catalogue of Allies that some of their allies at Syracuse followed
them because the Athenians “ruled the sea” (7.57.7), there is great
irony in this “if” clause.
τὰ μὲν τείχη τὰ ἄνω: This probably means the “circle” and other walls up
on Epipolai. That Thucydides did not mention them as still in Athens’s
possession during the night battle on Epipolai is probably because
that battle did not stretch as far as those positions. See map 3.
ἀπολαβόντες διατειχίσματι: “walling off” (LSJ s.v. ἀπολαμβάνω IV).
οἷόν τε ἐλάχιστον: οἷον here intensifies the superlative (Sm. 1087).
φρουρεῖν . . . πληρῶσαι . . . κομίζεσθαι . . . ἀποχωρεῖν: Infinitives depen-
dent on ἐβουλεύσαντο above.
διαναυμηχήσαντες: This is the first use of this verb by Thucydides
(though it comes up several times in book 8). Herodotus uses it for
Eurybiades’s decision, at Themistokles’s urging, to fight it out at Sala-
mis (8.63). More Thucydidean echoes of the Persian Wars.
ᾗ ἂν: “wherever” (LSJ Ab.II).
τάχιστα: Adverbial accusative.
τινος χωρίου: Genitive with the verb. At 7.33.2 Thucydides says that
“all Sicily” was behind Syracuse, so the Athenians’ hope here seems
misplaced.
60.3 ἔκ τε γὰρ τῶν ἄνω τειχῶν ὑποκατέβησαν: Rood notes that walls
now “drop out of the narrative” (1998a, 196n64),
ἡλικίας μετέχων: Since all of the soldiers and sailors with the Athenians
would be of the proper age, this indicates that slaves were pressed into
service if they were old enough.
60.4 δέκα μάλιστα καὶ ἑκατόν: μάλιστα with numbers = “about.” The
Athenians’ 110 ships must include many that were not earlier thought
to be serviceable, since in the last sea battle the Athenians manned
only 86 ships (7.52.1) and lost at least 18 (7.53.3).
οἷόν τ᾿ ἦν ἐξ ἀναγκαίου τε καὶ τοιαύτης διανοίας: οἷός τε εἰμί indicates

fitness or possibility (LSJ s.v. οἷος III.2). ἀναγκαίου might modify
διανοίας, meaning something like “because of a plan based on neces-
sity” (cf. 1.2.2 for feminine ἀναγκαῖος), but the meaning is more prob-
ably “as was possible given their circumstances (ἐξ ἀναγκαίου) and in
accordance with a plan of that sort” (i.e., involving so many archers
and javelin throwers).
60.5 τοὺς στρατιώτας . . . ἀθυμοῦντας: Accusative and supplementary

participle after ὁρῶν (Sm. 2110).
τῷ . . . κρατηθῆναι: A typically complex articular infinitive with multiple
modifiers (see introduction 2.3.5). Dative after ἀθυμοῦντας.
παρὰ τὸ εἰωθός: “contrary to custom.” A neuter participial substantive
from ἔθω. See introduction 2.3.1.
ὡς τάχιστα: ὡς + superlative = “as X as possible” (Sm. 1086). Adverbial
accusative.
Nikias’s First Battle Speech (7.61–7.64)

There has been no full direct speech since that of Alkibiades in Sparta toward
the end of book 6. No other Athenian general is given a speech. Thucydides
thus betrays his “fascination with Nicias” (Connor 1984, 200). The speech
looks forward to the response to the destruction of the Sicilian expedition
in Athens (8.1.2) and backward both to the generalizing authorial passages
on the Athenians’ naval troubles in Sicily (7.36, 62.1, 62.3) and to Nikias’s
own warning against the expedition in his speeches in Athens.
This exhortation is not very encouraging. Nikias reminds his soldiers that
they are not inexperienced in war, but instead of recalling past victories, he
says that they therefore know how important the unpredictable is in war.
Thus the man who least wished to depend on fortune (5.16.1) is reduced
here to urging his men to count on luck.
The Athenians have 110 ships, the Syracusans about 76, but Nikias
barely mentions this advantage. It appears only in a relative clause when
Nikias urges his men to fight in a manner worthy of their numbers. He then
immediately transforms those numbers into a negative when he talks of the
“crowd” of ships the battle will involve. This is because the Athenians will
fight a “land battle from ships,” something Nikias twice admits they have
been “forced” into, underscoring the Athenians’ weak position.
Even when Nikias tries to be encouraging, he undercuts himself, as
when he says it is “even now” possible to win, thus emphasizing that the
chance is almost gone, or when he cites the numbers of Athenian ships and
forces and urges his soldiers not to be overwhelmed, but then cannot help
adding ἄγαν “too much,” admitting that they ought, indeed, to be at least
somewhat overwhelmed.
Nikias ends by reminding the Athenians of their dire situation and the
danger for Athens itself if they fail. Thus he makes the stakes of the battle
very clear while giving his men little reason to believe they can actually
win it. One cannot help but wonder whether a little Alkibiadian bluster and
confidence might have worked better.
61.1 περί τε σωτηρίας καὶ πατρίδος: This is a change from the Melian
Dialogue where the Athenians seemed to believe that only the
Melians needed to worry about σωτηρία (cf. Allison 1997b, 56–58;
see also n. 7.71.3). Second, Nikias exaggerates because this battle was
not really “over the fatherland” for the Athenians, as it was for the
Syracusans. However, this image ties into the repeated presentation
of the Sicilian expedition as a city (see introduction 6.6) and supports
the Syracusan cavalry’s charge that the Athenians were coming to
take up a new homeland in Sicily (6.63.3). Nikias’s immediately fol-
lowing statement about seeing one’s οἰκείαν πόλιν again, however,
paradoxically underscores that, in fact, the Sicilian expedition is not
the Athenians’ real city. The rest of the speech suggests the damage
the Athenians have done to that actual city by their misguided focus
on an imagined nautical city.
ἔστι: = “it is possible” (LSJ A.VI) with dependent infinitive.
τῳ: “for someone,” i.e., “for each one of us.” τῳ = τινι the indefinite
pronoun (Sm. 334).
61.2 ἀθυμεῖν . . . πάσχειν: Infinitive subjects of χρή (Sm. 1985). The sub-
ject is an understood “you” or “us.”
τὴν ἐλπίδα τοῦ φόβου ὁμοίαν ταῖς ξυμφοραῖς ἔχουσιν: “have fear’s
expectation” (i.e., the expectation caused by their fear) “like their
misfortunes” (i.e., similar to their prior misfortunes), meaning that
because of the fear caused by their prior failures, they expect similar
failures.
61.3 τὸ τῆς τύχης κἂν μεθ᾿ ἡμῶν ἐλπίσαντες στῆναι: “and expecting
that the element of fortune may (κἂν) stand with us.” ἐλπίσαντες sets
up accusative and infinitive construction (Sm. 1868). The ἄν indicates
that in direct speech στῆναι would be a potential optative.
τοῦδε τοῦ πλήθους: It is surprising that Nikias does not make more of
this point about the Athenians’ superiority in numbers. The Athe-
nians have 110 ships (7.60.4) versus about 76 for the Syracusans (7.52,
7.70.1, 7.70.4), but Nikias is so dejected he does not emphasize this
advantage. Earlier Athenians would have felt confident even if those
numbers were reversed!
62.1 ἃ δὲ ἀρωγὰ . . . ἔσεσθαι: “the things which we saw would be useful.”
Infinitive with subject accusative in indirect discourse after ἐνείδομεν
(Sm. 2018a). ἀρωγά is predicate. The antecedent and main clause are
πάντα . . . ἡτοίμασται below.
ἐπὶ τῇ τοῦ λιμένος στενότητι: “in view of . . .” (Lamberton).
τῶν καταστρωμάτων: The decks of a trireme.
οἷς πρότερον ἐβλαπτόμεθα: Hornblower notes the “reader-author irony”
(3:675). At 7.36.6, Thucydides told the reader that the small space of the
harbor harmed the Athenians in all their battles, and so logically the
reader knows, though Nikias and his men do not, that the problem is
not confined to πρότερον but will afflict them also in the coming battle.
ἐσκεμμένα: From σκέπτομαι.
62.2 οὐκ ἂν ἐχρώμεθα: Apodosis (the “then” clause) of a present

contrary-to-fact condition (Sm. 2304). The protasis (or “if” clause)
is formed by the conditional participial clause ναυμαχίαν μὲν
ποιούμενοι.
διὰ τὸ βλάπτειν ἄν: A typically Thucydidean articular infinitive after a

preposition with many modifiers (see introduction 2.3.5). The under-
stood subject is ὄχλος from above. The ἄν imparts a sense of possibil-
ity to the idea (Sm. 2030).
τὸ τῆς ἐπιστήμης: “the element of skill.” Classen-Steup adduce the paral-
lel of τὸ τῆς τύχης at 7.61.3
ἀπὸ τῶν νεῶν πεζομαχίᾳ: Thucydides notes that the battle of Sybota
in 432 between the Korinthians and the Kerkyraians was similar to
a πεζομαχία because of the lack of skill of the opponents (1.49.2).
Phormion at Naupaktos in 429 explicitly avoided fighting a πεζομαχία
(2.89.8; Macleod 1983, 143). Their situation in Syracuse seems to have
pushed the Athenians back in time and transformed them into some-
body else.
62.3 ἀντιναυπηγῆσαι: Subject of χρή (Sm. 1985).

τὰς τῶν ἐπωτίδων αὐτοῖς παχύτητας: αὐτοῖς, a dative of possession
(Sm. 1476), takes the place of a genitive here. Thucydides does not like
successive genitives that refer to different things. On these strength-
ened ear timbers see n. 7.34.5 and n. 7.36–41.
χειρῶν σιδηρῶν ἐπιβολαί: “grappling irons” (LSJ s.v. χείρ VII.2). These
grappling irons are new to the reader. Thucydides does not tell us who
thought them up, or when. They briefly give the reader a sense that
things might somehow turn out all right for the Athenians, but see
7.65.2.
τὰ ἐπὶ τούτοις: “the things that come next,” i.e., their job, boarding the
opposing ship and disabling its crew.
ἐπιβάται: Marines. Each trireme had ten hoplites serving as marines
(Morrison, Coates, and Rankov 2000, 109–11).
62.4 ἐς τοῦτο . . . ὥστε: “to that degree that we must . . .” (Lamberton).
τὸ μήτε αὐτοὺς ἀνακρούεσθαι μήτ᾿ ἐκείνους ἐᾶν: Literally, “neither
us backing water nor allowing them [to do so] seems. . . .” A double
articular infinitive subject for ὠφέλιμον φαίνεται.
τῆς γῆς . . . πολεμίας οὔσης: Causal genitive absolute, “since the land . . .”
(Sm. 2070). This recalls Nikias’s own warning, in his second speech
in Athens, that if an invading force does not control the country from
the moment it lands (as the Athenians did not), they will find “every-
thing hostile,” πάντα πολέμια ἕξουσιν (6.23.2).
63.1 διαμάχεσθαι . . . μὴ ἐξωθεῖσθαι . . . μὴ . . . ἀξιοῦν: Infinitive subjects

of χρή (Sm. 1985). The accusative subject of the infinitives is the Athe-
nians, ὧν . . . μεμνημένους, “mindful of which things.”
ἐς αὐτήν: “to the shore.”
ξυμπεσούσης . . . νεώς: Temporal genitive absolute, “when one ship . . .”
(Sm. 2070).
πρότερον . . . ἢ . . . ἀπαράξητε: “before you. . . .” This is a rare use of
πρότερον ἤ + subjunctive (Sm. 2458c).
63.2 ὅσῳ: “in as much as.”

ὑπάρχει: “it is possible” + dative and infinitive (LSJ B.V.2).
τὰ πλείω: “for the most part.” This little addition undercuts Nikias’s
claim.
63.3 ἐν τῷ αὐτῷ τῷδε: That is, in the exhortation, “in this same (breath)”
(Lamberton).
μὴ ἐκπεπλῆχθαι . . . ἄγαν: Accusative and infinitive construction after
δέομαι (Sm. 1991). The understood subject is “you,” the sailors,
modified by ἔχοντας below, a causal participle “since you have. . . .”
Nikias depressingly cannot help but add the ἄγαν that admits that it is
reasonable to be alarmed.
ἐνθυμεῖσθαι: Another infinitive in accusative and infinitive construction
after δέομαι (Sm. 1991). The accusative subject of the infinitive is still
the Athenians in ἔχοντας.
ὡς ἀξία ἐστὶ διασώσασθαι: “that it (ἡ ἡδονή) is worthy to. . . .”
οἳ τέως Ἀθηναῖοι νομιζόμενοι: Nikias’s sentence, beginning as it does
with τοῖς δὲ ναύταις, makes it sound like all the sailors are non-
Athenians. Some of them would have been “metics” (long-time for-
eign residents of Attica) or hired mercenaries, but the whole Athenian
navy in Sicily could not have been made up of foreigners. Presumably
Nikias meant to say something like “those among you who are non-
Athenians” but got jumbled in his own long sentence. Nikias refers to
the Athenians below (7.64.1). In any case, Nikias here certainly seems
to elide the differences between Athenians and foreigners. This links
to his claim that all the men on the ships are the remaining city of
Athens (7.64.2) and to his suggestion that all the men in the expedi-
tion (not just the Athenians) might vote on the withdrawal of the
campaign (n. 7.48.1). The city in Sicily, that is, seems to include both
(original) Athenians and non-Athenians (see Taylor 2010, 172–73).
τῆς ἀρχῆς . . . οὐκ ἔλασσον . . . μετείχετε: “you have a share in our
empire no less [than our own].”
κατὰ τὸ ὠφελεῖσθαι . . . καὶ τὸ μὴ ἀδικεῖσθαι: “when it comes to being
benefitted both with regard to being fearsome (ἐς τε τὸ φοβερόν) to
our subjects and still more not suffering wrong.” The expression is
particularly convoluted.
63.4 ὥστε . . . μὴ καταπροδίδοτε . . . ἀμύνασθε . . . δείξατε: When used
with the imperative, ὥστε has the force of καὶ οὕτως, “and so do not
. . . !” (Sm. 2275).
ὧν . . . οὐδέις: The genitive is partitive. The multiple negatives in the
sentence reinforce each other (Sm. 2761).
ἑτέρας εὐτυχούσης ῥώμης: Genitive of comparison (Sm. 1431).
64.1 οὔτε ναῦς . . . ὑπελίπετε: This foreshadows the thinking of the
Athenians in Athens when they heard the news that the great expedi-
tion was destroyed (8.1.2). They did not see “enough ships in the
shipsheds.”
τι ἄλλο ἢ τὸ κρατεῖν: Nikias will risk only a euphemism for defeat.
τούς τε ἐνθάδε πολεμίους . . . πλευσομένους . . . τοὺς ἐκεῖ ὑπολοίπους
. . . ἐσομένους: Thucydides switches construction from a ὅτι clause to
a supplementary participle after ὐπομιμνῄσκω (Sm. 2106). The fear
is one Nikias warned of long ago (6.10.1) and also foreshadows the
Athenians’ fears detailed in 8.1.2.
ὑπὸ Συρακοσίοις . . . ὑπὸ Λακεδαιμονίοις: “in the Syracusans’ power . . .
in the Lakedaimonians’ power” (LSJ B.II).
οἷς αὐτοὶ ἴστε οἵᾳ γνώμῃ ἐπήλθετε: “against whom you marched with
you know what intention.” That intention was probably death and
enslavement, as at Skione (5.32.1) and Melos (5.116.4). The Syracusans
are even more specific on this point (7.68.2).
64.2 ὥστε . . . καρτερήσατε . . . ἐνθυμεῖσθε: With the imperative, ὥστε
has the force of οὕτως, “and so” (Sm. 2275).
ἡ ὑπόλοιπος πόλις: This image is symbolic of the magnitude of the coming
defeat, but it also marks the contrast of loyalties and interests in Sicily.
This force is not the only remaining city, or the last hope of the Athe-
nian people, as the fleet of Themistokles was in the Persian Wars. Just
like the Athenians who hoped to send the Thracian peltasts to Sicily but
found them too expensive for the defense of Attica (7.27.2), Nikias here
invests his city in Sicily with greater importance than it should have.
εἴ τίς τι ἕτερος ἑτέρου προφέρει: “if anyone surpasses another in any-
thing.”
οὐκ ἂν ἐν ἄλλῳ μᾶλλον καιρῷ . . . ὠφέλιμος γένοιτο: “He could not in
any other time be more useful.” Potential optative.
65.1 παρῆν: “it was possible” + dative and infinitive (LSJ III).
προηγγέλθη: So the Athenians were bested also in intelligence. They did
not know about the Syracusans’ adoption of the Korinthians’ trireme
modification from the battle at Naupaktos, but the Syracusans knew
about their grappling irons. As Rood notes, that Thucydides reveals
this only now “crushes the slim hope that has been raised” (1998a,
192n43). Pointing to the use of παρασκευή here and at 7.62.1 and
7.63.3, Allison argues that Thucydides’s use of paraskeue in book 7
indicates that “the forces with Nicias lack the positive preparation
which the Syracusans now possess” (1989, 112; see n. 6.1.1).
65.2 καὶ πρὸς τοῦτο: The use of grappling irons.

τῆς νεὼς ἄνω ἐπὶ πολύ: = μέγα μέρος τῆς νεὼς ἄνω. The whole phrase
is a second object for the verb (Smith).
ὅπως ἂν ἀπολισθάνοι: The force of ἄν with the optative in this purpose
clause (Sm. 2196) is not clear. It ought to increase the sense that what
is discussed is only a possibility.
The Speech of the Syracusans (7.65.3–7.68)

Thucydides has presumably condensed and combined several speeches
made by Gylippos and the other generals into one (see introduction 1.4 for
the speeches in Thucydides).
In contrast to Nikias, who offered his men no grander purpose than mere
survival for themselves and Athens in his speech, the Syracusans speak of
the soldiers’ noble deeds and the glorious prize they can win if they grant
Sicily freedom by protecting it from enslavement to Athens. They try to stoke
their army’s rage at the aggressor and present the battle as just vengeance.
When they speak of details, the speech is a point-by-point refutation of
Nikias’s assertions, rhetorically defeating, as it were, Nikias’s speech and
foreshadowing the Athenian defeat to come in the battle.
66.1 οὐδὲ γὰρ ἂν . . . ἀντελάβεσθε: Past contrary-to-fact condition (Sm.

2305) with an understood protasis (the “if” clause). αὐτῶν = τῶν
μελλόντων.
μὴ ἐπὶ ὅσον δεῖ: “not as far as is necessary.”
66.2 Ἀθηναίους . . . ἐλθόντας . . . κεκτημένους: Objects of ὑποστάντες.

ἀρχὴν . . . μεγίστην: This recalls Perikles’s boast at 2.64.3.
66.3 ἄνδρες γὰρ ἐπειδὰν . . . κολoυθῶσι . . . ἐστίν: “whenever men are
cut down . . . the rest . . . is . . .” (see below). A present general tempo-
ral condition (Sm. 2337). The verb is another nod to the Persian Wars.
Herodotus gives this verb to Artabanos when he describes how the
god loves to cut down to size all things of greatness (7.10E1).
ᾧ ἀξιοῦσι προύχειν: “[in that element] in which they think they excel.”
Thucydides has left out the antecedent.
τό γ᾿ ὑπόλοιπον αὐτῶν τῆς δόξης: “the rest of their good opinion of
themselves,” i.e., their self-confidence (Smith).
ἀσθενέστερον αὐτὸ ἑαυτοῦ ἐστίν ἢ εἰ . . . : The rest of the present gen-
eral condition. Thucydides has both a genitive of comparison (ἑαυτοῦ;
Sm. 1431) and a clause with ἤ (Sm. 2863) after the comparative, i.e.,
“weaker than if . . .” is added to “weaker than itself,” i.e., “weaker than
it was.” τὸ πρῶτον is adverbial accusative (Sm. 1611).
τῷ παρ᾿ ἐλπίδα τοῦ αὐχήματος σφαλλόμενοι: “deceived in their self-
confidence by that which is (τῷ) contrary to expectation,” taking τοῦ
αὐχήματος with σφαλλόμενοι.
παρὰ ἰσχὺν τῆς δυνάμεως ἐνδιδόασιν: “they give in contrary to the
force of their real power.” This is prophetic. After the coming battle,
although the Athenians had more usable ships than the Syracusans,
the Athenians were unwilling to fight because they did not believe
that they could win (7.72.4).
ὅ . . . Ἀθηναίους . . . πεπονθέναι: “which it is likely the Athenians have
experienced now,” that is, the psychological problem he has just
described. The infinitive (with subject accusative) is subject of εἰκός
(Sm. 1985).
67.1 τό τε ὑπάρχον πρότερον: “that which existed for us earlier.” Not

material strength, but moral.
τῆς δοκήσεως προσγεγενημένης: Causal genitive absolute, “since . . .”
(Sm. 2070).
τὸ κρατίστους εἶναι εἰ τοὺς κρατίστους ἐνικήσαμεν: “the being the
strongest if. . . .” That is, “that we are the strongest if. . . .” An articular
infinitive with multiple modifiers, see introduction 2.3.5. Τhis states
the δοκήσις just mentioned.
τὰ δὲ πολλά: “often.”
67.2 τά τε τῆς ἀντιμιμήσεως αὐτῶν τῆς παρασκευῆς ἡμῶν: “the ele-

ments of their counter-imitation of our preparation.”
ἐπειδὰν . . . ὦσι: Protasis (the “if” clause) of a future more vivid temporal
condition (Sm. 2323) with the question πῶς οὐ σφαλοῦσι below as
apodosis.
παρὰ τὸ καθεστηκός: “contrary to the accustomed manner.” The parti-
ciple is from καθίστημι.
ὡς εἰπεῖν: “so to speak, almost.” An absolute infinitive used parentheti-
cally to limit a single word (as here, χερσαῖοι) or an entire sentence
(Sm. 2012b).
οἳ οὐδ’ ὅπως καθεζομένους χρὴ . . . εὑρήσουσι: Literally, “who will

not discover how it is necessary (ὅπως . . . χρή) that they, sitting
(καθεζομένους) [on the deck], let fly their weapons.” ἀφεῖναι, with its
own subject accusative, is subject of χρή (Sm. 1985).
67.3 τῷ πλήθει τῶν νεῶν: The Syracusans thus answer one of Nikias’s
points (7.61.3, 7.63.3).
τόδε: The fear expressed in the ὅτι clause.
ὑμῶν: Partitive genitive with τις.
ἐν ὀλιγῷ: That is, in a confined space.
πολλαὶ ἀργότεραι . . . ἐς τὸ δρᾶν . . . ῥᾷσται δὲ ἐς τὸ βλάπτεσθαι: The
two articular infinitive phrases more fully explain the two adjectives.
τι ὧν: “any of those things which.” Thucydides has left out the anteced-
ent, as is common when it conveys a general idea, and the relative
pronoun has been attracted into its case (Sm. 2509, 2522).
ἀφ᾿ ὧν: “by those things which.” Thucydides has again omitted the
antecedent.
67.4 τὸ δ᾿ ἀληθέστατον . . . πεπύσθαι: “and be aware of the truest thing

from those elements that we believe we have learned most clearly.”
Thucydides has left out the antecedent to ἐξ ὧν, as is common when it
conveys a general idea, and the relative has been attracted into its case
(Sm. 2509, 2522).
ὑπερβαλλόντων . . . τῶν κακῶν: Causal genitive absolute, “because their
troubles . . .” (Sm. 2070).
οὐ παρασκευῆς πίστει: See n. 6.1.1 for the importance of παρασκευή in
Thucydides.
ἀποκινδυνεῦσαι: This epexegetical (explanatory) infinitive, together
with the preceding words, explains more fully the desperate state
into which the Athenians have been driven that is referred to in ἐς
ἀπόνοιαν καθεστήκασιν (Sm. 2001).
ἵν᾿ . . . ἐκπλεύσωσιν ἢ . . . ποιῶνται: Α purpose clause after a perfect
tense (Sm. 2196).
ὡς . . . οὐκ ἂν πράξαντες: “since they could not fare worse than they are
at present.”
68.1 πρὸς οὖν ἀταξίαν τε τοιαύτην: At 6.72.3 it was the Syracusans who
displayed ἀταξία. This is an example of the exchange of characteristics
between the Syracusans and the Athenians (see introduction 6.5).
τύχην . . . ἑαυτὴν παραδεδωκυῖαν: “the self-betraying fortune” (Lat-
timore).
ὀργῇ: “passionately” (LSJ II.2).
νομιμώτατον εἶναι πρὸς τοὺς ἐναντίους: “and let us consider first (ἅμα
μέν) that it is lawful against enemies if men. . . .” Infinitive in indirect
discourse (with predicate adjective) after νομίσωμεν (Sm. 2018).
The subject of νομιμώτατον is the following οἳ ἄν . . . δικαιώσωσιν
ἀποπλῆσαι clause (literally, “whoever . . .”). The men of that clause are
not, as one might suppose, the same men as τοὺς ἐναντίους, which
immediately preceeds. πρὸς τοὺς ἐναντίους probably goes with
νομιμώτατον as in the translation. Otherwise it belongs in the relative
clause.
ὡς ἐπὶ τιμωρίᾳ τοῦ προσπεσόντος: “on the ground of punishing the
aggressor” (Smith).
τῆς γνώμης τὸ θυμούμενον: literally, “the wrathful element of one’s
spirit.” Compare τὸ μὲν βουλόμενον καὶ ὕποπτον τῆς γνώμης, 1.90.2.
ἅμα δὲ ἐχθροὺς ἀμύνασθαι . . . ἥδιστον εἶναι: “and secondly (ἅμα
δέ), let us consider (νομίσωμεν) that to punish enemies (ἐχθροὺς
ἀμύνασθαι), which will be possible for us (ἐκγενησόμενον ἡμῖν), is
(εἶναι), as the saying goes (τὸ λεγόμενόν που), the sweetest thing
(ἥδιστον).” ἐχθροὺς ἀμύνασθαι is subject of ἥδιστον εἶναι (Sm. 1985),
which is an infinitive in indirect discourse after νομίσωμεν (Sm.
2018). ἐκγενησόμενον is probably parenthetical.
68.2 ὡς δὲ . . . ἔχθιστοι: Understand ὄντες, a supplementary participle in

indirect discourse after ἴστε (Sm. 2106).
εἰ κατώρθωσαν, ἀνδράσι . . . ἄν . . . προσέθεσαν, παισὶ . . . τὰ
ἀπρεπέστατα . . . : Past contrary-to-fact condition (Sm. 2305). Gylip-
pos presumably means slavery and rape.
68.3 μὴ μαλακισθῆναί τινα: Infinitive subject of πρέπει (Sm. 1985) (with

its own accusative subject, τινα).
τὸ ἀκινδύνως ἀπελθεῖν αὐτοὺς κέρδος νομίσαι: “nor is it fitting (πρέπει)

that anyone (τινα) consider (νομίσαι) them departing (τὸ . . . ἀπελθεῖν
αὐτούς) without danger [that is, to us] to be a benefit (κέρδος).”
νομίσαι is another infinitive subject for πρέπει (Sm. 1985). The articu-
lar infinitive is then the subject of κέρδος [εἶναι] in indirect discourse
after νομίσαι (Sm. 2018).
ἐὰν κρατήσωσιν . . . δράσουσιν: Future more vivid condition (Sm. 2323).
τοῦτο = departing.
τὸ δὲ . . . τούσδε τε κολασθῆναι: Literally, “them being punished (τὸ
. . . τούσδε τε κολασθῆναι) if we and they, as is likely, do the things
which we want (πραξάντων . . . ἃ βουλόμεθα), and us handing down
(παραδοῦναι) to all Sicily (which enjoyed it before; καρπουμένῃ καὶ
πρίν) a more secure freedom is a beautiful feat.” The first of two long
and complex articular infinitives that stand as predicate to καλὸς
ὁ ἀγών below. The accusative subject (τούσδε) of the first is the
Athenians. πραξάντων ἐκ τοῦ εἰκότος ἃ βουλόμεθα is a conditional
genitive absolute (Sm. 2070) giving context to the articular infinitive.
This is a good example of Thucydides’s fondness for constructing
elaborate articular infinitives (see introduction 2.3.5). It refers to
actions on both sides, i.e., everything that the Syracusans expect both
from themselves and from the Athenians.
κινδύνων οὗτοι σπανιώτατοι οἳ ἂν. . . . ὠφελῶσιν: “these are the rarest
of dangers whichever. . . .” A present general relative condition (Sm.
2337). ἐλάχιστα and πλεῖστα are adverbial. Note how Thucydides var-
ies the prepositions for the articular infinitives for no real purpose but
variatio (see introduction 2.3.6).
Nikias’s Second Battle Speech (7.69.1–7.69.2)

That Nikias gives a second speech before this battle betrays his understand-
ing that the first one was inadequate. Here Nikias makes an emotional appeal
to individual trierarchs and reminds his men of the excellence of Athens (in
a distant echo of Perikles’s Funeral Oration, 3.35–46)—a point he failed to
make in the earlier speech when arguing that Athens’s continued existence
depended on the battle.
Thucydides describes Nikias’s exhortations here as ἀρχαιολογεῖν, “old-

fashioned talk.” By this he does not mean to censure it as “inadequate
encouragement” (as Lateiner 1985 claims), nor, as Hornblower underscores,
does he look down on it in some “snooty” way (3:689–90). Rather, the
“generalizing remarks mark the greatness of the encounter” (Rood 1998a,
195). Thucydides wants to indicate the sort of things that most people say
when they give up on rhetorical niceties because of being pressed hard in
this kind of situation. Thucydides, who was a general himself, may have
resorted to such talk at some point.
But Nikias’s pleas, especially his references to women, children, and
ancestral gods, are inappropriate to his army’s situation. If Nikias’s side loses,
no women will be raped, or children killed, or temples burned. Those fears
are appropriate rather to men in a besieged city or defending an invaded
land—that is, to a people actually fighting for “salvation and fatherland”
(cf. Nikias’s false claim above at 7.61.1). Nikias’s exhortation to remember
their “women, children, and ancestral gods” recalls the messenger’s speech
from Aeschylus’s Persians 402–5: “A great concerted cry we heard: ‘O Greek
Sons, advance! Free your fathers’ land. Free your sons, your wives, the
sanctuaries of paternal gods, the sepulchers of ancestors” (trans. Benardete
in Grene and Lattimore, 1959). This brief indirect speech is important, then,
both for Thucydides’s presentation of the Sicilian expedition as a perverted
replay of the Persian Wars (see introduction 6.4) and for the continued
characterization of the army as a city (see introduction 6.6). It sets up the
comparison that Thucydides himself will soon explicitly make between the
defeated army and a city lost to siege (see below 7.75.5).
69.2 ὅσον οὐκ: “only just not” (LSJ IV.2), i.e., virtually doing it. Adverbial.
πάντα . . . ἐνδεᾶ εἶναι καί . . . οὔπω ἱκανὰ εἰρῆσθαι: Infinitives (with
accusative subjects) in indirect discourse after νομίσας (Sm. 2018).
ἀξιῶν τό τε καθ᾿ ἑαυτόν . . . μὴ προδιδόναι: Literally, “deeming it right
(ἀξιῶν) that no one (μὴ . . . τινά) betray (προδιδόναι) that part of him-
self (τό τε καθ᾿ ἑαυτόν) in which (ᾧ) he was most brilliant (ὑπῆρχε
λαμπρότητος) in any way (τι).” μὴ προδιδόναι is infinitive (with

subject τινά) after ἀξιῶν.
ὧν ἐπιφανεῖς ἦσαν οἱ πρόγονοι: “and that [those] whose ancestors . . .
not obscure.” Thucydides has left out the antecedent, as is common
when it refers to a general idea (Sm. 2509). The understood anteced-
ent, “those,” is the subject of μὴ ἀφανίζειν, also in accusative and
infinitive construction after ἀξιῶν.
πατρίδος τε τῆς ἐλευθερωτάτης . . . ἐξουσίας: The echo of Perikles’s
Funeral Oration is “unmistakable” (Hornblower 3:692). Rood argues
that Nikias has “the foreigners in the fleet share in this Periclean con-
ception” (1998a, 193). This seems to fit with actual practice in Sicily—if
we recall that Nikias seemed to imagine all the men of the expedition
voting on whether to depart or not (7.48.1)—and with Nikias’s claim
that the foreigners in the army were considered Athenians all along
anyway (7.63.3). That is, the division between Athenians and non-
Athenians seems to be breaking down. This makes perfect sense if we
conceive of these men as all being citizens of the new city in Sicily.
οὐ πρὸς τὸ δοκεῖν τινὶ ἀρχαιολογεῖν φυλαξάμενοι: “not in guarding
against seeming. . . .”
καὶ ὑπερ ἁπάντων παραπλήσια . . . προφερόμενα: “and especially com-
monplace references to women and children and ancestral gods.”
ὠφέλιμα νομίζοντες: Continues to describe the ἄλλα . . . ὅσα.
The Final Sea Battle in the Harbor (7.69.3–7.71)

Thucydides spends little time discussing the details of the battle itself. We
do not hear anything about the reinforced prows, or how the grappling irons
worked, or whether the skins strewn on the Syracusan decks kept them
off. It is likely that Thucydides expects his readers to be able to imagine
the events of the battle well, given the earlier detailed descriptions and
generalizing remarks he has provided (though Ferguson is not wholly wrong
to complain that he “fails even to suggest the factors that determined the
outcome” [1927, 308]). Instead, with an intense focus on the visual and the
aural, Thucydides highlights the emotions and morale of the participants
and especially of the land forces watching the battle from the shore as some
kind of a terrible spectacle (Jordan 2000). Plutarch offers this passage as
an example of Thucydides’s enargeia or “vividness”: “since it is his desire
to make the reader a spectator, as it were, and to produce vividly in the
minds of those who peruse his narrative the emotions of amazement and
consternation which were experienced by those who beheld them” (On
the Glory of the Athenians 3; trans. Babbitt). One way he does this is with
extensive use of the imperfect tense, which involves “the discourse of the
observer” and “present[s] the action as experienced” as if the reader were
there (E. J. Bakker 1997, 42–43). There are echoes of the departure of the
fleet in 415 (6.30–31; Jordan 2000) and of Salamis, though “the Athenian
role is, of course, now totally reversed, since the victors of Salamis have
become the defeated of Syracuse” (Connor 1984, 197).
69.3 οὐχ ἱκανὰ . . . ἀναγκαῖα . . . παρῃνῆσθαι: Infinitive with subject
accusative in indirect discourse after νομίσας (Sm. 2018).
ὡς ἐπὶ πλεῖστον ἐδύνατο: ὡς and a form of δύναμαι both intensify the
superlative (Sm. 1086a).
ὅπως . . . γίγνοιτο: According to Diodoros (13.14.5), the Syracusans also
flocked to the harbor, or balconies, or other high places in order to
watch the battle. As Kagan notes of both sides, “rarely have men fight-
ing at sea had more immediate evidence of the importance of victory
or defeat” (1981, 333).
ὅτι μεγίστη: ὅτι + superlative = “as X as possible” (Sm. 1086).
69.4 ὁ δὲ Δημοσθένης καὶ Μένανδρος καὶ Εὐθύδημος: We do not hear

of Menandros or Euthydemos again.
τὸν παραλειφθέντα διέκπλουν: Thucydides has not told us before that
this exists, but it makes sense since the Syracusans might have needed
to move a ship from their dock in the Great Harbor out to the little
harbor or elsewhere.
70.1 ναυσὶ παραπλησίαις: The “dative of military accompaniment” (Sm.

1526).
τὸν ἀριθμόν: Accusative of respect (Sm. 1600).

ὁ πεζὸς . . . παρεβοήθει ᾗπερ . . . κατίσχοιεν: A past general temporal
clause (Sm. 2340). ᾗπερ = “wherever” (LSJ s.v. ὅς, ἥ, ὅ Ab.II).
Πυθήν: Nominative masculine singular.
70.2 τῶν Συρακοσίων . . . ἐπιφερομένων: Temporal genitive absolute,

“when the Syracusans . . .” (Sm. 2070).
70.3 πολλὴ . . . προθυμία . . . ὁπότε κελευσθείη ἐγίγνετο: Past general
temporal condition (Sm. 2409); i.e., whenever a charge was ordered.
ἐς τὸ ἐπιπλεῖν: An articular infinitive after a preposition (Sm. 2034b)
explaining the προθυμία. Note again Thucydides’s choice to use
abstract nouns instead of using a personal verb and writing “the sail-
ors were eager to sail out.”
ἀντιτέχνησις: This word is “an obvious piece of Thucydidean inventive-
ness, designed to enact the inventiveness being described” (Horn-
blower 3:696).
οἵ τε ἐπιβάται ἐθεράπευον, ὁπότε προσπέσοι: Past general temporal con-
dition (Sm. 2409). ἐθεράπευον = “took care that” (LSJ II.3) + accusative
and infinitive. τὰ ἀπὸ τοῦ καταστρώματoς (“the actions on deck”) is
accusative subject of λείπεσθαι (“to lag behind”) (LSJ B.II.2) + genitive
of comparison. τῆς ἄλλης τέχνης is the work of other men on the ships.
70.4 ξυμπεσουσῶν . . . νεῶν: Causal genitive absolute, “since many ships
. . .” (Sm. 2070).
βραχὺ . . . ἀπέλιπον . . . γενέσθαι: “both sides’ ships fell short a little of
adding up to” (Nagy, modified).
διὰ τὸ μὴ εἶναι: Articular infinitive after a preposition (Sm. 2034b). τὰς
ἀνακρούσεις καὶ διέκπλους is the accusative subject of the infinitive.
Note again the avoidance of personal verbs.
ὡς τύχοι . . . προσπεσοῦσα: “whenever” is the natural translation.
70.5 ὅσον μὲν χρόνον προσφέροιτο . . . ἐχρῶντο: Accusative of extent of

time (Sm. 1582) in a past general temporal condition (Sm. 2409).
ἐπειδὴ δὲ προσμείξειαν . . . ἐπειρῶντο: A past general temporal condi-
tion (Sm. 2409).
70.6 διὰ τὴν στενοχωρίαν: At Salamis, of course, another sea battle in a

narrow space (1.74.1), the Athenians put the location to good use.
τὰ μὲν . . . τὰ δέ: “here” vs. “there,” or “on one side” and “on the other
side.”
ἐμβεβληκέναι . . . ἐμβεβλῆσθαι: The infinitives are subject of an imper-
sonal ξυνετύγχανε, “it happened that” (LSJ II; Sm. 1985). The subject
of the two infinitives are the same understood ships.
ἔστιν ᾗ: A fixed phrase meaning “in some way” (Sm. 2515). Here “in
some places.”
ξυνηρτῆσθαι: Also infinitive subject of ξυνετύγχανε (Sm. 1985). Its
accusative subject is δύο . . . καὶ πλείους ναῦς.
τοῖς κυβερνήταις . . . φυλακήν . . . ἐπιβουλήν . . . περιεστάναι: Literally,
“it happened that warding off of some, and ramming of others, came
round to the helmsmen” (LSJ s.v. περιίστημι B.3). This infinitive is
also subject of ξυνετύγχανε (Sm. 1985).
τὸν κτύπον μέγαν: “it happened that a great crashing . . . caused.”
Subject of παρέχειν, which is itself another infinitive subject of
ξυνετύγχανε (Sm. 1985).
ὧν: “of those things which.” Thucydides has left out the antecedent, as is
common when it conveys a general idea (Sm. 2509), and the relative
pronoun has been attracted into its case (Sm. 2522).
70.7 ἀφ᾿ ἑκατέρων τοῖς κελευσταῖς: “from both sides by the coxswains.”
The business of the keleustes or coxswain was to direct and encourage
the rowers (cf. Morrison, Coates, and Rankov 2000, 111–12).
βιάζεσθαι . . . ἀντιλαβέσθαι: Dependent on ἐπιβοῶντες, which refers to
the keleustai who are suddenly nominative. These represent impera-
tives of the direct speech. The second is absolute, i.e., “and concerning
the safety of the fatherland—secure it!” (Dover).
καλὸν εἶναι: “shouting (ἐπιβοῶντες) that it would be a beautiful thing
to prevent them (κωλῦσαί τε) from escaping (αὐτοὺς διαφυγεῖν) and
for each of them (ἑκάστους), if they won (νικήσαντας), to magnify
(ἐπαυξῆσαι) his own homeland.” καλὸν εἶναι is infinitive in indirect
discourse after ἐπιβοῶντες (Sm. 2017). The infinitives κωλῦσαι and
ἐπαυξῆσαι are subjects of εἶναι, with καλόν a predicate adjective.
αὐτούς (the Athenians) διαφυγεῖν is the object of κωλῦσαι and repre-

sents what the Syracusans hope to prevent. ἑκάστους . . . νικήσαντας
is the subject of ἐπαυξῆσαι.
70.8 εἰ τινά . . . ὁρῷεν . . . ἠρώτων: Past general condition (Sm. 2409).
πρύμναν κρουόμενον: Backing water (LSJ s.v. κρούω 9); see above n.
7.36.5 and 7.40.1.
τὴν πολεμιωτάτην γῆν οἰκειοτέραν . . . τῆς . . . κεκτημένης θαλάσσης:
The genitive is one of comparison (Sm. 1431). The irony here is powerful
because, of course, the Athenians no longer “own” the sea (despite
Perikles’s claim that the Athenians were masters of the watery half of
the world, 2.62.2, and the Athenians’ and Alkibiades’s claim that they
were naukratores, 5.97, 5.109, 6.18.5). Furthermore, Thucydides’s use of
οἰκειοτέραν ties in to his characterization of the expedition as a city and
to his repeated suggestion that the expedition had lost track of where
its homeland truly was (see n. 7.27.2 and introduction 6.1 and 6.6), as
well as to Nikias’s exhortations to the soldiers before this battle (7.61.1,
7.69.2), which were more appropriate to troops fighting over a present
fatherland and home (7.61.1, 7.69.2). The Athenians’ flexibility in what
land they considered their “homeland” encouraged just what the gener-
als feared—a hope on the part of the men to find some safety and even
a home on land far from home, with little thought left of that other city
in Attica. The Athenians here fulfill the taunt of the Syracusan cavalry
(6.63.3), who suggested the Athenians actually meant to stay in Sicily.
οὕς . . . τούτους: Thucydides has pulled the relative clause before the
antecedent.
71.1 ὅ τε ἐκ τῆς γῆς πεζός: Rood compares Herodotus’s account of

“Xerxes’s gaze” as he watched the battle of Salamis (8.88, 90) with this
description of the “shifting emotions” of the men on land straining to
follow the fight in the harbor (1999, 153).
ἰσορρόπου τῆς ναυμαχίας καθεστηκυίας: Temporal genitive absolute,
“while the battle was . . .” (Sm. 2070).
ὁ αὐτόθεν: “the one from here.”
δεδιότες . . . μὴ . . . πράξωσιν: This is a fear that something may happen;
a fear that something may not happen takes μή οὐ (Sm. 2221). πράττω
+ adverb = fare well or poorly, etc. τῶν παρόντων is genitive of com-
parison (Sm. 1431) after χείρω.
71.2 πάντων . . . ἀνακειμένων: Causal genitive absolute, “since every-

thing was . . .” (Sm. 2070).
οὐδενὶ ἐοικώς: = οἷος ουδεὶς ἄλλος = μέγιστος (Smith).
καὶ διὰ τὸ <ἀνώμαλον> . . . ἔχειν: “because of the varying nature of
the battle, they [the men of the army; suddenly nominative] were
compelled to have varying impressions of it from the shore.” The
angled brackets indicate that the word is not in the manuscripts but is
an emendation.
71.3 δι᾿ ὀλίγου: “at a short distance” (LSJ IV.2), and so affording a view of
only a small part of the battle.
οὔσης τῆς θέας . . . οὐ πάντων . . . σκοπούντων: Causal genitive abso-
lutes, “since the spectacle . . .” (Sm. 2070; Lattimore, nicely capturing
the flavor of display and theatre in this whole passage). Thucydides
uses θέα at 6.31.1 (the departure of the fleet), a passage that he evokes
repeatedly in these sections; or, if one is reading for a second time,
6.31 brings this passage to mind.
εἰ . . . ἴδοιέν πῃ . . . ἀνεθάρσησάν τε ἂν . . . ἐτρέποντο: A past general
condition (Sm. 2409). The “iterative” aorist or imperfect with ἄν rein-
forces the repeated or customary nature of the past action (Sm. 1790).
μὴ στερῆσαι σφᾶς τῆς σωτηρίας: The epexegetical (explanatory) infini-
tive gives the content of the ἀνάκλησις (Sm. 2001). The subject is the
gods. Allison remarks, “with the Melians’ naive expectations about
soteria from the gods fresh in one’s mind, the Athenians call on the
gods for soteria” (1997b, 58).
τὸ ἡσσώμενον: A part of the battle where their side was losing.
ὀλοφυρμῷ . . . ἐχρῶντο: ὀλοφυρμός appeared unexpectedly at the
triumphant launching of the fleet (6.30.2) “like an operatic leitmotif”
and is now “expanded and developed fully at the end of the drama”
(Jordan 2000, 77). Cf. ὀλοφυρμός below at 7.71.3, 7.75.4. We should
note also the absence of proper burial lamentation over the dead from
this battle, since their corpses remained unburied (7.75.3).
τῶν δρωμένων: “from the sight of the things being done.” Objective
genitive with τῆς ὄψεως.
τὴν γνώμην . . . ἐδουλοῦντο: “were oppressed in spirit.”
τῶν ἐν τῷ ἔργῳ: “than those in the battle.” Genitive of comparison (Sm.
1431).
πρὸς ἀντίπαλον: That is, toward a more even part of the battle.
τῆς ἁμίλλης: Thucydides repeats a competition word from his account
of the departure of the fleet (6.31.3, 6.32.2, ἁμιλληθέν at 6.31.3, and
ἅμιλλαν at 6.32.2).
ἴσα: “similar to” + dative (τῇ δόξῃ). Adverbial with ξυναπονεύοντες.
ἐν τοῖς χαλεπώτατα: Adverbial accusative with διῆγον. ἐν τοῖς is a
fixed expression used in prose to emphasize superlatives (LSJ ὁ, ἡ, τὸ
A.VIII.6).
παρ᾿ ὀλίγον: “only just” (LSJ IV.9). Thus, “for they were always only just
escaped or destroyed.”
71.4 ἦν . . . πάντα ὁμοῦ ἀκοῦσαι: “Everything was able to be heard at the
same time.” πάντα is subject of ἦν, which here indicates ability (LSJ
A.VI). The nouns ὀλοφυρμὸς, βοή, and so on are all in apposition to
πάντα. Greek usually uses an active infinitive to modify an adjective
(or, here, an adjectival idea in a verb) in places where English would
use the passive (Sm. 2006). Cf. Aeschylus, Persians 419: θάλασσα
δ᾿οὐκέτ᾿ ἦν ἰδεῖν ναυαγίων πλήθουσα—“the sea was no longer able to
be seen since it was full of wrecks.”
νικῶντες κρατούμενοι: Also in apposition to πάντα, these words rep-
resent the shouts of the soldiers as they watched. “This splendid and
lucid incoherence does justice to the subject: ‘wails, yells—winning,
losing—’ ” (Dover).
71.5 πρίν γε . . . ἔτρεψαν: Here πρίν after an affirmative clause means
“until” and takes the indicative, one of only three instances in prose
where the leading verb is affirmative (another example is at 7.39.2;
the third is at Aeschines 1.64). In all three cases, the leading verb is
imperfect, emphasizing “the continuation of the action up to the point

of time expressed by the πρίν clause” (Sm 2441c).
ἀντισχούσης τῆς ναυμαχίας: Temporal genitive absolute, “after the
fighting . . .” (Sm. 2070).
ἐπικείμενοι λαμπρῶς: “attacking decisively.”
71.6 ἄλλος ἄλλῃ: One in one direction, another in another direction (LSJ
II.2), i.e., in many different directions.
οὐκέτι διαφόρως: That is, no longer with various emotions. As Visvardi
notes, “defeat . . . eventually unifies the Athenian army’s points of
view” (2015, 88).
oἰμωγῇ: See n. 7.75.4
71.7 οὐδεμιᾶς δὴ τῶν ξυμπασῶν ἐλάσσων ἔκπληξις: οὐδεμιᾶς is genitive

of comparison (Sm. 1431). ἔκπληξις links forward to Thucydides’s
use of κατάπληξις at 8.1.2. Thucydides’s claim that this was the
greatest ἔκπληξις of all connects to his penchant for superlatives that
“contribute to his success in catching the reader up in his own belief
in the importance of the Peloponnesian War” (Grant 1974, 83). As it
turns out, Thucydides later says that the disaster in Sicily was the least
disconcerting of three linked and ranked disasters (Sicily–Chios–
Euboia; see n. 8.1.2).
ἐν Πύλῳ: As Hornblower notes (3:694), such an “explicit comparison” is
“unusual” for Thucydides, who typically uses “the Homeric technique
of identical phraseology” to make comparisons. Macleod points out
that it was Athenian overconfidence, largely caused by their unex-
pected success at Pylos, that led the Athenians to grasp after more and
to reject the Spartans’ offer of peace (4.17.4, 4.21.2, 4.41.4, 4.65.4), and
that the “same spirit of pride and greed” was one cause of the Sicilian
expedition. “Thus if Syracuse reverses Pylos, that is a truly tragic,
not merely a casual, irony: the Athenians have not just been carried
down on Fortune’s wheel; in their success, there is an error, and in
their failure they enact that error again, and pay for it” (1983, 143). See
introduction 3.5 for Pylos.
διαφθαρεισῶν . . . τῶν νεῶν: Temporal genitive absolute, “after the

ships . . .” (Sm. 2070).
προσαπώλλυντο: Imperfect for “that which is in danger of happening”
(Marchant); translate “as good as lost” (Lattimore).
ἀνέλπιστον ἦν . . . τὸ . . . σωθήσεσθαι: Compare Atossa in Aeschylus’s
Persians 728: ναυτικὸς στρατὸς κακωθεὶς πεζὸν ὤλεσε στρατόν, “the
naval host, defeated, destroyed the host on land.” Another reverse
echo of the Persian Wars, with the Athenians taking the role of the
Persians (see introduction 6.4). As at Pylos, the defeat of the navy
doomed the land forces.
ἢν μή τι παρὰ λόγον γίγνηται: Readers know from 2.65.12 that nothing
unexpected will happen, but the vividness of the presentation causes
the reader to feel the illogical hope of the moment that something
might.
The Athenians Retreat and Are Captured

(7.72–7.87)
Dewald has demonstrated that this section is one large narrative unit (2005,
175). I have subdivided it below merely for convenience. See n. 6.8–26 on
Dewald’s study of Thucydides’s changing narrative divisions.
72.1 γενομένης . . . ναυμαχίας . . . πολλῶν . . . ἀπολομένων: Temporal

genitive absolute, “after the battle . . .” (Sm. 2070).
72.2 οὐδὲ ἐπενόουν αἰτῆσαι ἀναίρεσιν: It was imperative to recover the

dead for proper burial. The failure of the generals and trierarchs to do
so after the battle of Arginousai in 406 led to mass outrage in Athens
and the execution of the six generals foolish enough to return to Ath-
ens (Xenophon, Hellenika 1.6.24–1.7.35; see introduction 7.4). That the
Athenians did not ask to recover their dead at this point indicates the
depths of their despair.
72.3 πληρώσαντας . . . βιάσασθαι: Infinitive with subject accusative in

indirect discourse after γνώμην ἐποιεῖτο (Sm. 2018).
πλείους: Nominative plural feminine (Sm. 293).

ὡς ἑξήκοντα: ὡς with numbers = “about” (LSJ E). It follows from this
that the Athenians lost about 50 ships, because they began the battle
with 110 (7.60.4), and the Syracusans lost about 30, since they began
the battle with about 76 (7.52, 7.70.1, 7.70.4).
ἐλάσσους: Nominative plural feminine (Sm. 293).
72.4 ξυγχωροῦντος Νικίου: Concessive genitive absolute, “although

Nikias . . .” (Sm. 2070). It is not possible to tell whether the Athenian
decision to withdraw falls within the “thrice nine day” prohibited
period called for by the seers (7.50.4). It does not seem as if that much
time has passed, however, and so it appears that Nikias is finally ready
to ignore the the seers.
βουλομένων . . . αὐτῶν: Concessive genitive absolute, “although they
. . .” (Sm. 2070), here of Nikias and Demosthenes.
διὰ τὸ . . . καὶ μὴ ἂν ἔτι οἴεσθαι κρατῆσαι: “and because they did not still
think that they would win.” The ἄν goes in thought with κρατῆσαι
and represents the potential optative of the direct thought (Sm. 1845).
Another long articular infinitive after a preposition.
73.1 ὡς . . . ἀναχωρήσοντες: Future participle for purpose (Sm. 2065).

δεινὸν εἶναι: “thinking it would be terrible if.” Ιnfinitive with accusative
predicate in indirect discourse after νομίσας (Sm. 2018).
καὶ καθεζομένη: Hermokrates’s image of the army “settling” in Sicily
furthers Thucydides’s presentation of the Sicilian expedition as a city
and as an abandonment of Attica (see introduction 6.6). Although it
uses different verbs, the thought also recalls the taunts of the cavalry
in the winter of 415/14, asking whether the Athenians had come to
settle themselves in Sicily rather than to resettle the Leontinoi in their
homeland (6.63.3).
τῆς νυκτός: Genitive of time within which (Sm. 1444).
περιιδεῖν . . . ἀποἰκοδομῆσαι . . . φυλάσσειν: “that it was necessary not
to overlook . . . but to blockade . . . and to guard.” Infinitive subjects
of οὐ χρεών (Sm. 1985). The understood subject of the first infinitive
is the Syracusans. Its object is the object infinitive “them departing”
(ἀποχωρῆσαι . . . αὐτούς). The subject of the other infinitives is

ἐξελθόντας . . . πάντας Συρακοσίους καὶ τοὺς ξυμμάχους.
73.2 ἐκείνου: Genitive of comparison (Sm. 1431).

ποιητέα: The suffix -τέος, -έα, -έον expresses necessity (Sm. 473).
Thucydides is fond of using the plural of such words.
τοὺς δὲ ἀνθρώπους . . . οὐ δοκεῖν ἂν ῥᾳδίως ἐθελῆσαι ὑπακοῦσαι:
“that the men did not seem to be willing to obey easily.” Infinitive in
implied indirect discourse after ξυνεγίγνωσκον (Sm. 2129). The infini-
tive + ἄν represents the potential optative of the direct expression
(Sm. 1845). If the thought is sincere, what this means is that an Athe-
nian breakout attempt might well have worked (cf. Dover at 7.72.4).
ἑορτῆς οὔσης: Causal genitive absolute, “since there was . . .” (Sm. 2070).
τετράφθαι τοὺς πολλούς: Infinitive with subject accusative in continued
indirect discourse.
ἐλπίζειν ἂν σφῶν πείθεσθαι αυτούς: Infinitive with subject accusative
in continued indirect discourse. The ἄν represents the potential opta-
tive of the direct expression (Sm. 1845). The (unexpressed) subject of
ἐλπίζειν is the generals themselves: “they said that they (understood)
expected (ἐλπίζειν) that they (αὐτούς, the soldiers) would obey them
(σφῶν) with regard to anything (πάντα) rather than. . . .” πείθεσθαι
here takes the genitive instead of the dative by analogy to verbs mean-
ing “heed, hearken, etc.” (Sm. 1366). ἢ . . . λαβόντας . . . ἐξελθεῖν . . .
represents what the generals said that they could not persuade the
soldiers to do.
73.3 ἐπὶ τούτοις: “under these circumstances” (Smith).

δεδιὼς μὴ . . . προφθάσωσιν: This represents a fear that something may
happen. A fear that something may not happen is introduced with μή
οὐ (Sm. 2221).
ἐξ ὅσου: = ἐς τοσούτον ἐξ ὅσου, i.e., “to such a distance from which.”
τῶν ἔνδοθεν: The gender of τῶν is unclear; does it represent things
inside or men? Thucydides presents this fifth column as real, but it
seems that the Syracusans knew about it and had coopted it to their
own uses.
μὴ ἀπάγειν . . . ἀλλὰ . . . παρασκευασάμενον ἀποχωρεῖν: Infinitive of

command with subject accusative after φράζειν (Sm. 1992c).
ὡς Συρακοσίων . . . φυλασσόντων: Causal genitive absolute, “since the
Syracusans . . .” (Sm. 2070).
τῆς ἡμέρας: Genitive of time within which (Sm. 1444).
74.1 οὐκ ἀπάτην εἶναι: Accusative and infinitive in indirect discourse

after νομίσαντες (Sm. 2018). Ring composition thus defines the Athe-
nians’ presence in Syracuse. When they first landed at Syracuse in
winter 415/14, they were able to do so “at their leisure” (καθ᾿ ἡχυχίαν,
6.66.1) because they had tricked the Syracusans into believing that
they could catch them unawares back at Katane. Now, however, it is
the Syracusans who trick the credulous Athenians, urging them to
make their preparations “at their leisure” (καθ᾿ ἡσυχίαν, 7.73.3) during
the day. These episodes are part of Thucydides’s theme of the transfor-
mation of the Athenians over the course of the Sicilian expedition (see
introduction 6.5). Thucydides probably also has a longer timescale
in mind, however, because Hermokrates’s trick is reminiscent of
the trick Themistokles played on the Persians to get them to fight at
Salamis (Herodotus 8.75–76; cf. Connor 1984, 198; see introduction
6.4 for the theme of reverse echoes of the Persian Wars). So just as the
Athenians are shown to have lost the nautical brilliance they first dis-
played in the Persian Wars, we see that they have lost an intellectual
brilliance as well. As Strauss remarks, “the spirit of initiative, daring,
and inventiveness by which the Athenians hitherto excelled has left
them and now animates their enemies; the Athenians have become
Spartans and the Athenians’ enemies have become Athenians” (1964,
206). Strauss goes on to claim that in a way “Athens’ defeat is her
triumph: her enemies have to become in a manner Athenians in order
to defeat her” (1964, 226).
περιμεῖναι: Infinitive subject of ἔδοξεν (Sm. 1985).
ὅτι χρησιμώτατα: ὅτι + superlative = “as X as possible” (Sm. 1086).
καταλιπεῖν . . . ἀφορμᾶσθαι: More infinitive subjects for ἔδοξεν (Sm. 1985).
74.2 τῷ μὲν πεζῷ: The “dative of military accompaniment” (Sm. 1526).

ἰέναι: Infinitive subject of εἰκός (Sm. 1985), with τοὺς Ἀθηναίους its
accusative subject.
ὡς κωλύσοντες: Future participle for purpose (Sm. 2065).
ᾗ ἐδόκει: “where it seemed [the best place to do so],” i.e., to receive it to
prevent its passage.
οὐδενὸς κωλύοντος: Circumstantial genitive absolute, “with no one . . .”
(Sm. 2070). This brief phrase well conveys the demoralization and
defeat of the Athenians.
ὡς ἑκάστην ποι ἐκπεπτωκυῖαν: “as each one had been cast ashore any-
where.” At this point, ships drop out of the narrative (as walls had at
7.60.3), and we have instead a focus on “human disaster and suffering”
(Rood 1998a, 196).
The Departure of the Athenians (7.75)

This justly famous passage is the culmination of the city theme and
rounds out the fate of the polis that Nikias urged the Athenians to imagine
themselves sending to Sicily. The “emotionally charged and dramatically
heightened passage” belongs to a tradition of such passages on the capture
of cities that goes back to Homer (Paul 1982, 146). The passage foreshadows
the fall of Athens in Attica and so configures Athens as one in a “succession
of mortal cities” (Rood 1998b, 254), but because the passage focuses on the
destruction of the city-army in Sicily, it also reinforces the notion that the
fatherland Nikias spoke of was in Sicily, not Attica. Thucydides continues
his extensive use of the imperfect (see above n. 7.69.3–7.71).
75.1 τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ: Inclusive counting, so “two days later.”
75.2 καθ᾿ ἕν: Like καθ᾿ ἕκαστ᾿ this phrase can act as either the subject or
object of a verb. The one thing is the point explained in the ὅτι clause.
It is contrasted to the thought in ἀλλὰ . . . αἰσθέσθαι.
ἀντὶ μεγάλης ἐλπίδος: This naturally directs us back to Thucydides’s
description of the hopeful departure of the fleet in 415 (cf. εὐέλπιδες
6.24.3).
τῇ τε ὄψει . . . ἄλγεινὰ καὶ τῇ γνώμῃ αἰσθέσθαι: “painful for the sight . . .
and [painful] to be perceived by the spirit.” αἰσθέσθαι is an epexegeti-
cal (explanatory) infinitive for ἀλγεινά (Sm. 2001). Thucydides refuses

to use a parallel construction and simply supply another adjective for
τῇ γνώμῃ (i.e., “painful to the sight and disturbing to the spirit”).
75.3 τῶν . . . ἀτάφων ὄντων: Causal genitive absolute, “because the
dead were . . .” (Sm. 2070). That the Athenians did not bury the dead
on shore, just as they did not ask for leave to pick up the dead after
the battle (7.72.2), is further indication of their despair. If this army
is a city (7.75.5), it is a city as disordered as Athens during the plague,
when burial customs were also abandoned (2.47.3–53; cf. Allison
1997b, 129).
ὁπότε τις ἴδοι . . . καθίστατο: Past general condition (Sm. 2340).
τῶν τεθνεώτων: Genitive of comparison (Sm. 1431).
τοῖς ζῶσι: Classen cuts these words because Thucydides has just used
ζῶντες to great effect for a different group.
75.4 πρὸς γὰρ ἀντιβολίαν καὶ ὀλοφυρμὸν τραπόμενοι: Ιn a terrible

reversal, the sick and the dying turn to the lamentation that those still
whole should have given to the dead (cf. 7.71.3, 7.71.4 for other uses of
ὀλοφυρμός). The word is common in Homer but in classical literature
occurs only in Thucydides (Allison 1997b, 129n38).
ἐς ἀπορίαν καθίστασαν: The object is the departing soldiers.
ἄγειν: Object infinitive after ἀξιοῦντες, “asking, entreating” (Sm. 1991).
The subject of the infinitive is again the departing soldiers.
τῳ: = τινι, the indefinite pronoun (Sm. 334).
οὐκ ἄνευ ὀλίγων ἐπιθειασμῶν καὶ οἰμωγῆς: Because Thucydides’s
fifteenth-century translater Valla has multis here, it is best to accept
the emendation οὐκ ἄνευ πολλῶν.
ὥστε . . . ἀφορμᾶσθαι: Infinitive of natural result (Sm. 2258).
δάκρυσι: A rare dative with πλησθέν (Sm. 1508b). The two mentions
of tears in this sentence are the only ones in all of Thucydides. They
recall the army of the Persians, which was also “full of tears” (Aeschy-
lus, Persians 134, πίμπλαται δακρύμασιν; Smith).
ἀποριᾴ τοιαύτῃ: Causal dative (Sm. 1517).
ἐκ πολεμίας: Understand “although departing from . . .” and γῆς with

πολεμίας.
πεπονθότας . . . δεδιότας: Referring to the men of πᾶν τὸ στράτευμα,
now thought of severally; accusative as the subject of ἀφορμᾶσθαι.
μὴ πάθωσιν: This represents a fear that something may happen. A fear
that something may not happen would be indicated by μή οὐ (Sm.
2221).
75.5 κατήφειά τέ τις: No extant author between Homer and Thucydides

uses this word, although the adjective κατηφής appears in tragedy
and Hippokrates (Dover). This Homeric vocabulary furthers
Thucydides’s evocation of the fall of Troy.
ἢ πόλει ἐκπεπολιορκημένῃ ἐῴκεσαν ὑποφευγούσῃ: Nikias urged the
Athenians to imagine themselves as going to found a city in a foreign
land (6.23.2). Later he warned in his letter that the pretend city-army
was besieged (7.11.4), and when he claimed in his speech before the
last battle that it was “over salvation and fatherland” and urged his
trierarchs to remember their “women, children, and ancestral gods,”
he evoked just the image of the destruction of a defeated city that
Thucydides alludes to here, where we see Nikias’s city on the march as
it flees after falling to a siege.
μυριάδες . . . οὐκ ἐλάσσους τεσσάρων: ἐλάσσους is nominative plural
(Sm. 293). This number is almost certainly wrong. The figures
Thucydides gives allow us to determine that there were roughly fif-
teen thousand hoplites, light-armed troops, and cavalry in all phases
of the campaign. There were also sailors for the 220 ships. Scholars
sometimes simply multiply the number of ships (220) by two hundred
sailors per ship, add forty-four thousand sailors to the roughly fifteen
thousand land troops, and thus arrive at a total number of combatants
on the Athenian side of almost sixty thousand. This cannot be right,
however, because a number of the ships were not “fast” triremes but
“hoplite-transports” (see n. 6.31.3) that did not carry a full comple-
ment of two hundred sailors because they held, instead, scores of
hoplites. Unfortunately, we do not know exactly how many sailors
and how many troops a “hoplite-transport” carried. Reasonable

guesses range from eighty-five to one hundred hoplites, with a corre-
sponding reduction in the number of sailors. Nor, furthermore, do we
know exactly how many of the 220 ships were troop carriers because
although Thucydides specifies their number as 40 out of 134 in 415
(6.43), he does not do so for Demosthenes’s reinforcing fleet (7.42.1;
see n. 7.52.1). Hornblower concludes that the total number of persons
conveyed from Athens must have been about forty thousand (see
Hornblower’s appendix 2 for these figures). Thus Hornblower calls
Thucydides’s claim that forty thousand men remained to set out on
the retreat “astonishing” and concludes it “cannot possibly be right:
Thucydides has been carried away by the emotion of this chapter”
(3:713–14).
ὅτι: = ὅ τι.
παρὰ τὸ εἰωθός: Logically, then, usually the hoplites and cavalry did not
carry their own provisions and supplies but instead used slaves to do so.
ἀπορίᾳ . . . ἀπιστίᾳ: “some because they did not have slaves, others
because they did not trust them.” Causal datives (Sm. 1517).
75.6 ἔχουσά τινα ὅμως . . . κούφισιν: “although (ὅμως) it provided a

certain lightening—‘with the many,’ as they say—.” τό introduces the
proverbial comment μετὰ πολλῶν.
οὐδ᾿ ὣς ῥᾳδία . . . ἐδοξάζετο: If the text is correct, the subject is the
whole concept ἡ ἄλλη αἰκία καὶ ἡ ἰσομοιρία. Translate as “did not
seem [to them] lightened in the present circumstances.”
We must supply the idea “as they considered that. . . .”
καὶ ἀπὸ οἵας λαμπρότητος καὶ αὐχήματος τοῦ πρώτου ἐς οἵαν
τελευτήν: Jordan compares the λαμπρότης and boasting of Alkibi-
ades (2000, 78–79; 6.16.1, 6.16.5, 6). The double οἷος “marks a strong
contrast” (Sm. 2682b).
75.7 μέγιστον . . . τὸ διάφορον: Grant underscores Thucydides’s “predi-

lection for the superlative” (1974, 83). Part of Thucydides’s reason for
writing up this war was its superlative nature. It was the greatest kinesis
of all time (1.1.2), and the war was accompanied by more numerous
battles and greater suffering than any other (1.23.1). The size of this
reversal is part of Thucydides’s evidence of the greatness of his war.
οἷς: These are the men of the Athenian army, object of ξυνέβη ἀπιέναι
(“to whom it happened to depart”).
ἀντὶ μὲν τοῦ ἄλλους δουλωσομένους ἤκειν αὐτοὺς τοῦτο μᾶλλον
δεδιότας μὴ πάθωσι: “instead of them having come (ἀντὶ . . τοῦ . . .
ἤκειν) in order to enslave (δουλωσομένους; future participle for
purpose) others, it happened to them that they depart (ἀπιέναι) them-
selves fearing (δεδιότας) that rather they might suffer this (τοῦτο . . .
μὴ πάθωσι).” The sentence begins with a complex articular infinitive
after a preposition, as is Thucydides’s wont (Sm. 2032g). The subject
of the infinitives is the Athenians, now accusative despite having just
appeared in the dative. This refers to a fear that something may hap-
pen (Sm. 2221). A fear that something may not happen has μή οὐ.
ἀντὶ δ᾿ εὐχῆς τε καὶ παιάνων: Like ἀντὶ μεγάλης ἐλπίδος (7.75.2), this is
an explicit reference to the departure in 415.
πεζούς . . . πορευομένους . . . προσέχοντας: Accusative subjects of
ἀφορμᾶσθαι, which is itself another subject of ξυνέβη (Sm. 1985).
οἰστά: Verbal adjectives in -τός, -τή, -τόν can indicate possibility (Sm.
472).
Speech of Nikias (7.76–7.77)

The beginning of this speech focuses on obscure arguments about what
the Athenians can expect from the gods and says little that would make a
scared soldier feel confident about the future. Nikias can not help himself
from admitting the trouble the men are in, and when urging them to take
heart, he can do so only by encouraging them not to blame themselves
“too much” (7.77.1) or, considering how many men there are, not to be
“too demoralized” (7.77.4). Nikias continues his characterization of the
army as a city in ways that seem to utterly abandon Attica. Lazenby argues
that Nikias’s “ineffectiveness” is suggested by Thucydides’s mention of his
increasing volume (2004, 163).
76 τὸ στράτευμα ἀθυμοῦν καὶ . . . ὄν: Supplementary participles in indi-

rect discourse after ὁρῶν (Sm. 2110).
ὡς ἐκ τῶν ὑπαρχόντων: “as well as possible under the circumstances”
(Smith with additions).
77.1 ἔχειν . . . μὴδε καταμέμφεσθαι: Subjects of χρή (Sm. 1985).
77.2 οὐδενός: Genitive of comparison (Sm. 1402) after προφέρων.

του: = τινος, the indefinite pronoun (Sm. 334). Genitive of comparison
(Sm. 1431).
77.3 ἐλπίς: Here “expectation” with τοῦ μέλλοντος.

οὐ κατ᾿ ἀξίαν: “not with regard to deserts” (cf. Green 1970, 36), meaning
their misfortunes do alarm him, but not so as to make him think that
they deserve them. If they did not deserve their misfortunes, because
they were not weak or ill-trained or ill-equipped, then there is reason
to think that coming events may turn out differently. Nikias’s point
in these opening paragraphs is that the soldiers should not take their
past disasters as an indication of what is to come.
τάχα . . . ἂν . . . λωφήσειαν: Potential optative (Sm. 1824).
ἱκανά: Subject of the passive ηὐτύχηται.
τῳ: = τινι (Sm. 334).
ἀποχρώντως ἤδη τετιμωρήμεθα: As Dover notes, knowledge of heroic
tales must have made Nikias’s men wonder if one can ever know what
a god might think was “adequate” punishment.
77.4 ἡμᾶς . . . ἐλπίζειν: The infinitive (with subject accusative) is subject
of εἰκός (Sm. 1985). ἐλπίζειν then sets up its own accusative and
infinitive construction in ἠπιώτερα ἕξειν (Sm. 2018). And so we see
the man who least wanted to trust his fate to luck (5.16.1) reduced to
invoking hope when the Athenians mocked the Melians for doing the
same thing (5.103, 111). (See introduction 3.6, 6.1).
πόλις . . . ἐστε ὅποι ἂν καθέζησθε: Present general condition (Sm. 2334).
In the speech in which Nikias first used the image of the expedition
as a city, he stressed the difficulties of founding a city in an alien land
(6.23.2), the very thing that he is asking his men to imagine doing
here. Thucydides’s word choice emphasizes their problem. καθέζομαι
is the same verb that Thucydides used earlier to describe Her-
mokrates’s planning against just this possibility. He thought it would
be a terrible thing if so large an army, having “settled” someplace in
Sicily (καθεζομένη ποι τῆς Σικελίας, 7.73.1), should make war against
them, and so he got the Syracusans to block off the places where the
Athenians were likely to march (7.74.2). When readers “hear” this
exhortation to the troops, they know that Hermokrates has taken care
that this city-army will not settle down again anywhere.
ὀὐτ᾿ ἂν . . . δέξαιτο ῥᾳδίως: Receive militarily, hence “withstand.”
Potential optative (Sm. 1824).
οὔτ᾿ ἂν . . . ἐξαναστήσειεν: Also potential optative (Sm. 1824).
77.5 ὥστ᾿ . . . εἶναι: An infinitive of natural result (Sm. 2258).

ἐν ᾧ ἂν . . . χωρίῳ: “in whatever land,” i.e., “wherever.”
τοῦτο καὶ πατρίδα καὶ τεῖχος κρατήσας ἕξειν: ἕξειν is infinitive in indi-
rect discourse after ἡγησάμενος (Sm. 2018). The participle is nomina-
tive because its subject is the same as the subject of the leading verb,
namely, “each man” (Sm. 1973). When Nikias before the last battle
said that the contest was “over salvation and fatherland,” he at least
made the suggestion that what he really meant was that it was over the
chance for the Athenians to see their fatherland again by return to the
“home polis” (οἰκείαν πόλιν, 7.61.1). Here, however, Nikias says that
wherever the men “settle” in Sicily will be their fatherland. This ironi-
cally inverts Alkibiades’s claim from before the war that the Sicilians
would be quick to retreat to other lands if things went badly for them
because they had no regard for “their own home fatherland” (περὶ
οἰκείας πατρίδος, 6.17.3).
77.6 σπουδὴ . . . ἔσται τῆς ὁδοῦ: A future of command (jussive future;
Sm. 1917).
νύκτα καὶ ἡμέραν: Accusative of extent of time (Sm. 1582).
τοῦ φιλίου χωρίου τῶν Σικελῶν: Nikias seems to concede that no Greek
city will take them in, but see n. 7.80.2
εἶναι: Infinitive in indirect discourse after νομίζετε (Sm. 2018). The

subject is an understood “yourselves.”
εἰρημένον: Accusative absolute (Sm. 2076B), literally, “it being said.”
Both ἀπαντᾶν and κομίζειν are dependent on it.
77.7 τό τε ξύμπαν: “to sum up.”

ἀναγκαῖόν τε ὄν: Supplementary participle in indirect discourse after
γνῶτε (Sm. 2106). γίγνεσθαι is the subject of ἀναγκαῖον.
μὴ ὄντος χωρίου ἐγγύς: Causal genitive absolute, “there being no . . .”
(Sm. 2070).
ὅποι ἂν . . . σωθείητε: “to whichever place, if you turn soft and flee, you
might be saved,” in a potential optative clause (Sm. 1824).
ἢν . . . διαφύγητε . . . τευξόμενοι . . . ἐπανορθώσαντες: Future more
vivid condition (Sm. 2323) with participles in the apodosis (the “then”
clause) in indirect discourse after γνῶτε.
ὧν: Genitive after τευξόμενοι. Thucydides has left out the antecedent,
which is common when it refers to a general idea (Sm. 2509), and the
relative has been attracted into its case (2522).
ἄνδρες γὰρ πόλις: There are numerous poetic predecessors to this senti-
ment, going back to Alcaeus (fr. 426 Lobel and Page 1955). Connor
judges that Nikias inverts “the calculus of power in the Archaeology
with its emphasis on the physical and quantitative bases of power,
especially walls and ships. In the last ironic analysis, all depends on
men, not on material resources” (1984, 202–3). But there is not just
inversion here, and Nikias’s vision is deeply Athenian. The Athenians’
ability in the Persian Wars still to believe that “men are the city”
when they had lost the physical city of Athens is what saved them
(see introduction 3.1). The inclusion of this event in Athenian and
Korinthian prewar calculations of power on both sides shows that
for the Athenians there has always been more than just the “physical
and quantitative bases of power” (cf. 1.68–78; Taylor 2010, 14–29).
Hornblower (3:220–21) adduces the example of Themistokles, who,
when taunted by a Korinithian for being a “cityless” man after the
Persians’ sack of Athens, replied that he had a city and land larger
than the Korinthian as long as he had two hundred fully manned ships
(Herodotus 8.61). As Hornblower notes, “both Athenian speakers dis-
count the physical city.” We should add Perikles to this list, however,
for his whole policy flouts the importance of Attica and the real city
in Attica and, especially in his last speech, suggests that that territory
is replaceable by any other (2.60–64, esp. 2.62.2). Athenian practice
and rhetoric has long redefined the city. What is different now is that
this group of men—large enough to make a city, far enough away from
home to wonder if they could ever return to their real city, and who
have for years heard that their real city has nothing to do with Attica
but is an abstraction focused on the sea and maritime conquests—are
primed to hear Nikias’s words not as a stock bromide but as a serious
explanation of what constitutes the city. Nikias’s words, that is, flirt
with both stasis and dissolution. As such they foreshadow the stasis
to come when the Athenian factioneers on Samos dramatically put
Nikias’s claims that the “men are the city” into practice (see introduc-
tion 7.2).
The Retreat of the Athenians (7.78–7.83)

The disastrous failed retreat of the Athenians took eight days, and Thucydides
gives a description and details for each day. Thucydides employs “narrative
deceleration” in his description, taking “progressively longer” to tell the
events of each passing day (Joho 2017, 591–92). The original goal was Katane
(see n. 7.80.2). The regular route there would run along the southern edge
of Epipolai and then turn north at the western end of the plateau to head
for the flat ground next to the sea between Trogilos and Thapsos (see map
3). However, that route was too close to Syracuse and too exposed, so the
Athenians probably headed due west from Syracuse and headed north at
some distance from Epipolai (see Kagan 1981, 340 and his map 12). For
the first two days, the Athenians made progress (forty stades the first day,
about five to eight kilometers, twenty the next). But on the third day they
were stopped at the mountain pass called “the Akraian Rock” (probably
a spur of Monte Climati to the northwest of Epipolai; see Green 1970, 323
and Kagan 1981, 340–43, now accepted by Dover 1972, 297–98), and the
Athenians could make no headway for that or the next day. On the fifth day,
they proceeded only five or six stades (less than a kilometer); exactly where
is not clear. They must have been trying to bypass the valley that they could
not get through. Consequently, on the night of the fifth day they decided to
change direction toward the sea, which they reached (somewhere south of
Syracuse) at dawn on the sixth day. They then turned toward the region of
Kamarina and Gela. The forces of Demosthenes and Nikias were separated
in the night, and Demosthenes’s portion was surrounded at mid-day on
the sixth day and surrendered to the Syracusans. Nikias’s army continued
marching for another day and night but was eventually surrounded and
slaughtered in the Assinaros River on the eighth day.
78.1 ξυνάγων καὶ καθιστάς: The organizational ability and resiliency

Nikias shows despite his illness is impressive.
78.2 ἐν πλαισίῳ: In this “square” formation, the hoplites surround and

protect the noncombatants in the interior.
78.3 ἐγένοντο: The army, suddenly plural and so indicating the men.
78.4 σταδίους ὡς τεσσαράκοντα: With numbers, ὡς signifies “about”

(LSJ E).
ἀυτοῦ: “there.”
78.6 οἷόν τ᾿ ἦν: οἷόν τε [ἐστι] = “it is possible” (LSJ III.2). ἀποχωρεῖν is
the subject.
79.1 ἄραντες: from αἴρω (ἀείρω).

ἐβιάσαντο . . . ἐλθεῖν: βιάζομαι + infinitive means “forced their way.”
79.2 ῥᾷον: Comparative of ῥᾳδίως. Adverbial accusative.
79.3 τοῦ ἔτους . . . ὄντος: Temporal genitive absolute, “when the year
. . .” (Sm. 2070).
ἐπὶ τῷ σφετέρῳ ὀλέθρῷ . . . ταῦτα . . . γίγνεσθαι: Infinitive with
subject accusative in indirect discourse after ἐνόμιζον (Sm. 2018).
The contrast to the Athenians’ response to the rainstorm in winter

415/14 is marked (6.70.1). Then, either only the Syracusans or only the
inexperienced men in both armies took the rain as a bad omen; the
rest understood that it was a natural phenomenon. Now seemingly all
the Athenians read the thunder and rain as ominous, even though, as
Thucydides makes clear, such rains were a commonplace at this time
of year. Nikias’s speech directly addressed the question of whether the
gods were against them (7.77.3–4), and here we see that the Athenians
believe that they are.
79.4 ἀναπαυομένων δ᾿ αὐτῶν: Temporal genitive absolute, “while they

were . . .” (Sm. 2070).
ἀποτειχιοῦντας: Future participle for purpose (Sm. 2065). This mascu-
line plural participle represents the men in the μέρος τι τῆς στρατιᾶς.
αὐτούς (the Athenians) is the object.
79.5 πασῇ τῇ στρατιᾷ: The “dative of military accompaniment” (Sm.

1526).
εἰ μὲν ἐπίοιεν . . . ὑπεχώρουν, εἰ δ᾿ ἀναχωροῖεν, ἐπέκειντο: Past general
condition (Sm. 2340).
εἰ . . . τρεψάμενοι . . . φοβήσειαν: “The elliptical condition expresses
purpose” (Smith; cf. Goodwin 53.N2).
80.1 τῆς δὲ νυκτός: Genitive of time within which (Sm. 1444).

κακῶς . . . εἶχε: ἔχω + adverb of manner = “it is going well or poorly for
. . .” (LSJ B.II.2).
ἀπορίᾳ: Causal dative (Sm. 1517).
καύσαντας . . . ἀπάγειν: Infinitive with accusative subject as subject of
ἐδόκει (Sm. 1985). The point of lighting the fires is to make the Syra-
cusans think that they are still in camp.
ὡς πλεῖστα: ὡς + superlative means “as Χ as possible” (Sm. 1086).
80.2 οὐκ ἐπὶ Κατάνης: At 7.77.6 Nikias spoke only of help from the
Sikels, but the plan before the last naval battle had been to head to
Katane if they won (7.60.2). So Thucydides might reasonably expect

his readers to think (without his telling them again) that the retreat
was originally toward Katane. That would mean that ἡ ξύμπασα
ὁδός here refers not to the whole march but only to the last part he is
now going to describe and that the sentence means “now their line of
march lay not towards Katane as hitherto, but. . . .” See Hornblower
(3:725–26) and Dover (1988, 195) for this reading. Dover reversed
himself there from his earlier position in which he argued that the
Athenians had originally not thought further than a rendezvous with
the Sikels.
80.3 φόβοι καὶ δείματα ἐγγίγνεσθαι: This infinitive phrase explains

οἷον φιλεῖ (Marchant), i.e., “as fears and terrors are wont to fall upon
armies.”
ἰοῦσιν: Dative plural participle from εἶμι (ibo) (Sm. 305), modifying
στρατοπέδοις.
80.4 τὸ ἥμισυ μάλιστα: μάλιστα with numbers = “about.”

ἀτακτότερον: Αdverbial accusative (Sm. 345, 1608).
80.5 τὴν ὁδὸν τὴν Ἑλωρίνην καλουμένην: This road ran south from
Syracuse toward Heloros.
τοὺς Σικελοὺς . . . ἀπαντήσεσθαι: Infinitive with subject accusative
in indirect discourse after ἤλπιζον (Sm. 2018). Since the army had
changed its direction, Nikias must have sent multiple messengers to
the Sikels to keep them apprised of the changing rendezvous point.
80.6 ταύτῃ: “there” (LSJ C.VIII.4.a).

οἱ ἡγεμόνες ἐκέλευον: We get no explanation for why the Athenians
did not continue inland up the course of the Kakyparis River as
Thucydides says they had intended. Thucydides does not tell us who
these guides were or whether they were truly working in the Athe-
nians’ interests.
81.1 ἐν τούτῳ: “meanwhile.”

τοὺς Ἀθηναίους ἀπεληλυθότας: Supplementary participle in indirect
discourse after ἔγνωσαν (Sm. 2106).
ἑκόντα ἀφεῖναι: This represents the charge they laid against Gylippos,
“that he had willingly let them get away.”
κεχωρηκότας: A participle referring to the Athenians in indirect dis-
course after ᾐσθάνοντο (Sm. 2110).
81.2 οὖσι . . . χωροῦσιν: Dative plural participles modifying τοῖς.

σχολαίτερον καὶ ἀτακτότερον: Adverbial accusatives (Sm. 345, 1608).
τῆς νυκτός: Genitive of time within which (Sm. 1444).
ξυνεταράχθησαν: Demosthenes’s troops.
ῥᾷον: Comparative of ῥᾳδίως. (Sm. 319).
81.3 πεντήκοντα σταδίους: Accusative of extent of space (Sm. 1581) with

ἀπεῖχεν.
τὸ ὑπομένειν . . . ἑκόντας εἶναι καὶ μάχεσθαι σωτηρίαν: Literally, “since
he considered that in such circumstances (ἐν τῷ τοιούτῳ) to stand
his ground (τὸ ὑπομένειν) and fight of their own accord (ἑκόντας . . .
μάχεσθαι) was not safety, but to retreat (τὸ . . . ὑποχωρεῖν) as quickly
as possible, fighting only so much as (τοσαῦτα . . . ὅσα) they were
compelled to.” Two accusative articular infinitive subjects of an infini-
tive (εἶναι) in indirect discourse after νομίζων (Sm. 2018). σωτηρίαν is
the predicate modifier to the articular infinitives. ὡς + superlative =
“as X as possible” (Sm. 1086). See introduction 2.3.5 for Thucydides’s
fondness for such articular infinitives.
81.4 τὰ πλείω: Adverbial accusative (Sm. 1609).

διὰ τὸ . . . ἐπικεῖσθαι τοὺς πολεμίους: “on account of the enemy falling
on him first because he was retreating last.” A complicated articular
infinitive (with accusative subject) after a preposition (Sm. 2034b),
with the verb of the articular infinitive itself taking a dative (ὑστέρῳ
ἀναχωροῦντι αὐτῷ πρώτῳ) referring to Demosthenes.
τοὺς Συρακοσίους διώκοντας: Supplementary participle in indirect
discourse after γνούς (Sm. 2106).
81.5 εἰκότως: “reasonably,” i.e., “it was reasonable for them to. . . .”
τὸ γὰρ ἀποκινδυνεύειν: Articular infinitive subject of ἦν and modified
by οὐ πρὸς ἐκείνων. πρός + genitive = “on one’s side, in one’s favor”
(LSJ A.III.2).
φειδώ τέ τις ἐγίγνετο . . . μὴ προαναλωθῆναί τῳ: “a certain hesitation to
throw one’s life away occurred.” Infinitive + redundant μή after a verb
(or idea) of hindering (Goodwin 95.2; Sm. 2038).
ταυτῄ τῇ ἰδέᾳ: Understand τῆς μάχης.
λήψεσθαι: Infinitive in indirect discourse after ἐνόμιζον (Sm. 2018). The
participle (καταδαμασάμενοι) is nominative because it refers to the
same people as the subject of the leading verb, the Syracusans (Sm.
1973).
82.1 τοὺς Ἀθηναίους . . . τεταλαιπωρημένους: Supplementary participle

in indirect discourse after ἑώρων (Sm. 2110).
τῶν νησιωτῶν: Partitive genitive (Sm. 1306) with τις, which follows. The
Syracusans appeal to them presumably because they believed that the
islanders would be more likely to desert because they fought with the
Athenians under the compulsion of empire.
ἐπ᾿ ἐλευθερίᾳ ὡς σφᾶς ἀπιέναι: “that they could depart. . . .” Infinitive
with subject accusative in indirect discourse after κήρυγμα ποιοῦνται
(Sm. 2017).
82.2 ὥστε ὅπλα τε παραδοῦναι καὶ μὴ ἀποθανεῖν μηδένα . . . : This

clause represents the conditions of the agreement (LSJ s.v. ὥστε B.4).
The serial negatives reinforce one another (Sm. 2739). As it turned out,
this was all a lie (cf. 7.86.2, 7.87.1).
82.3 ἑξακισχίλιοι: This is a shocking number since Thucydides says

that Demosthenes led more than half of the forces (7.80.4) and he
claims that no less than forty thousand men set out on the retreat
(7.75.5). We would need to assume catastrophic levels of casualties to
bring the more than twenty thousand men Demosthenes led down
to six thousand. But, as we have seen (n. 7.75.5), Thucydides’s figure
of forty thousand is exaggerated. Even so, Demosthenes’s forces
must have suffered terrible casualties. If we were to arbitrarily halve
Thucydides’s figure at 7.75.5. to twenty thousand, that would still

mean that Demosthenes’s part of the force was more than ten thou-
sand strong at the beginning and that he had lost about half of them
on his journey.
ἀσπίδας τέσσαρας: Kallet argues that Thucydides means to contrast
the “many talents” carried out by the city-fleet to Sicily (6.31) and the
attendant extravagance and display there with the “paltry amount”
of four shields’-worth of silver collected from six thousand men
(2001, 174–75). This image may well also serve as a symbolic tribute
payment to the Syracusans from the defeated city-army. As such it
would complete the transformation of the Athenians underscored
by Thucydides’s repeated evocation of the Persian Wars since it was
the Athenians’ willingness to follow up their victory there with, for
example, the siege of Sestos (1.89) that led to their empire and put
most of the Aegean in tributary status beneath them (Taylor 2010,
182–84).
83.1 ὅτι . . . παραδεδώκοιεν: Optative in indirect discourse after ἔλεγον

(Sm. 2592, 2599).
σπένδεται . . . πέμψαι: Made an agreement under oath (cf. 3.109.2), with
the infinitive giving the substance of the agreement. σκεψόμενον,
agreeing with ἱππέα, the object of πέμψαι, is a future participle for
purpose (Sm. 2065).
83.2 παραδεδωκότας: Supplementary participle in indirect discourse

after ἀπήγγειλε (Sm. 2106). The understood subject is Demosthenes
and his men.
εἶναι ἑτοῖμος . . . ξυμβῆναι: Infinitive in indirect discourse after
ἐπικηρυκεύεται (Sm. 2017). The adjective is nominative (rather than
accusative) because Nikias is the subject of both it and the leading
verb (Sm. 1973).
ὅσα . . . ἀποδοῦναι: This represents the terms that Nikias proposed. The
infinitive is subject of ξυμβῆναι (Sm. 1985).
ὥστε . . . ἀφεῖναι αὐτούς: “on the condition that they” (Smith). The
clause represents the conditions of the agreement (LSJ s.v. ὥστε B.4).
μέχρι οὗ: “until the time when.”

δώσειν: The infinitive is again subject of ξυμβῆναι (Sm. 1985).
83.4 εἶχον . . . πονήρως: ἔχω + adverb of manner = is faring well, ill, and
so forth (LSJ B.II.2).
τῆς νυκτός . . . τὸ ἡσυχάζον: “the dead of night” (LSJ s.v. ἡσυχάζω).
83.5 πλὴν τριακοσίων μάλιστα: μάλιστα with numbers indicates

“about.” This breakout seems to give some hope, but these men were
soon captured (7.85.2).
The Slaughter at the Assinaros and

the End of the Expedition (7.84–7.87)
Connor argues that readers are “implicated in the violence” here because
the “lofty and ironic viewpoint” with which the Sicilian expedition began,
with the Athenians’ destruction of Melos “fresh in mind,” made it “easy to
anticipate with some satisfaction” the destruction and punishment of the
Athenians. “Now we have what we wished but it is a suffering greater than
anyone could have imagined or willed” (Connor 1984, 207). Hornblower
notes how “appallingly memorable” these chapters are and gives references
for their reception history—that is, passages in later works that allude to
or imitate this scene (3:733–34). Thucydides continues his extensive use of
the imperfect here (see n. 7.69.3–7.71).
84.2 ῥᾷον: Comparative of ῥᾳδίως.

ἔσεσθαι: Infinitive in indirect discourse after οἰόμενοι (Sm. 2018), the
apodosis (the “then” clause) of a future more vivid condition (with ἤν
διαβῶσι; Sm. 2323).
84.4 ἐς τὰ ἐπὶ θάτερά τε: “to or on the other side” (LSJ s.v. ἕτερος IV.2.a).
84.5 οἵ τε Πελοποννήσιοι: A particularizing detail. Should we believe

that the Peloponnesians really hated the Athenians more than the
Syracusans?
τῷ πηλῷ ᾑματωμένον: Another pitiable image.

νεκρῶν . . . κειμένων . . . καὶ διεφθαρμένου τοῦ στρατεύματος: Tempo-
ral genitive absolute, “when many bodies . . .” (Sm. 2070).
τοῦ δὲ καί . . . ὑπὸ τῶν ἱππέων: τοῦ μέν and τοῦ δέ refer to τοῦ
στρατεύματος. One cannot help but reflect on Nikias’s warnings long
ago about the danger from the Syracusan cavalry (and his failure to
make sure that the Athenians had adequate provision against it). See
n. 6.20.4.
ὅτι: = ὁ τι, “however” (Sm. 339).
85.2 ὅσους μὴ ἀπεκρύψαντο: That is, all those who had not been
smuggled away by individual soldiers to be sold as slaves for their per-
sonal benefit. Some of these eventually escaped (cf. 7.85.4). Pausanias
(7.16.5–6) and Lysias (20.24–5) mention Athenians who either escaped
from the Assinaros slaughter or from captivity and who later fled to
Katane. Plutarch (Nikias 29) reports that some Athenian slaves were
freed by their masters if they could recite the poetry of Euripides.
τοὺς διωξομένους: Future participle for purpose (Sm. 2065).
85.3 τὸ δὲ διακλαπέν: That is, that part of the army that was not τὸ μὲν
ἁθροισθέν.
85.4 πλεῖστος γὰρ δὴ φόνος: At 7.87.4 Thucydides indicates that only

about one thousand men of Nikias’s half of the army survived the
retreat and the slaughter. If we arbitrarily halve the impossibly high
figure Thucydides gives for the whole retreating force to twenty thou-
sand (7.75.5), giving ca. ten thousand men to Nikias’s half of the army
at the start, that would imply that many thousands died in the river
and justify Thucydides’s superlative, even if we admit that many men
were not killed but were captured and enslaved by individuals. In the
Archaeology, Thucydides uses the point that there was never before so
much φόνος in Greece as one of the markers that justify his claim that
his war was greater than any earlier war (1.23.2).
οὐδενὸς: Genitive of comparison (Sm. 1431).
[Σικελικῷ]: The square brackets indicate that although the word is found
scribe. The word is cut because Thucydides’s comparison is not just to
the events of the Sicilian expedition but to those of the whole war.
86.1 τῶν τε αἰχμαλώτων ὅσους . . . πλείστους . . . ἀναλαβόντες: We saw

how Hermokrates’s trick against the Athenians (7.73) is reminiscent
of Themistokles’s trick against the Persians at Salamis (Herodotus
8.75–76). But as Connor notes, the analogy between the Athenians at
Syracuse and the Persians at Salamis soon “breaks down” (1984, 198).
For Themistokles was unable to persuade his fellow Greeks to cut
off Xerxes’s retreat. Hermokrates succeeds, however, and “this new
Themistokles achieves what has hitherto seemed unlikely or impos-
sible—the actual capture of the invading force.”
ὅσους ἐδύναντο πλείστους: ὅσος, -η, -ον is used with superlatives to
indicate “as X as possible” (LSJ 7); the superlative can be further
strengthened with a form of δύναμαι (Sm. 1086).
86.2 ἀσφαλεστάτην εἶναι . . . τήρησιν: Infinitive with subject accusative

in indirect discourse after νομισάντες (Sm. 2018).
ἄκοντος τοῦ Γυλίππου: Concessive genitive absolute, “although Gylip-
pos . . .” (Sm. 2070).
καλὸν τὸ ἀγώνισμα . . . οἱ εἶναι: Infinitive with subject accusative in
indirect discourse after ἐνόμιζε (Sm. 2018). This is the last time
Thucydides uses the “ ‘fine prize’ motif” so prevalent in the second
half of the Sicilian expedition (Hornblower 3:739; cf. 7.56.2, 7.59.2). οἱ
= “for him” (Sm. 325).
ἐπὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις: “in addition to, over and above, besides” the rest (LSJ
s.v. ἐπί B.I.1.e).
κομίσαι: The infinitive explains what the great prize would consist of.
86.3 πολεμιώτατον . . . εἶναι, Δημοσθένη . . . τὸν δὲ . . . ἐπιτηδειότατον:

The infinitive (with accusative subject and predicate adjectives) is
subject of ξυνέβαινε (Sm. 1985).
διὰ τὰ ἐν τῇ νήσῳ καὶ Πύλῳ: See introduction 3.5 for the events at Pylos.
Demosthenes initiated the campaign there. Nikias urged the peace
that led to the return of the Spartans captured there.
σπονδάς: See introduction 3.6 for the Peace of Nikias.
ὥστε ἀφεθῆναι: With προυθυμήθη above. Infinitive of natural result
(Sm. 2258).
86.4 4 ἀλλὰ τῶν Συρακοσίων τινές: This long sentence is a “funnel” that
begins with a description of motives and circumstances and culmi-
nates in a decisive verb (here ἀπέκτειναν). See introduction 2.3.8 and
Rusten 2017.
ὡς ἐλέγετο: It is unusual for Thucydides to admit even this degree of
uncertainty. See 7.86.5 for another example.
δείσαντες . . . μὴ . . . ποιήσῃ . . . μὴ . . . ἀποδρᾷ: This is a fear that some-
thing may happen. A fear that something may not happen is conveyed
with μή οὐ (Sm. 2221).
οὐχ ἥκιστα οἱ Κορίνθιοι: The Korinthians’ hatred of Athens helped push
the Spartans to war (see introduction 3.1) and helped make the Peace
of Nikias a false peace (see introduction 3.6). Xenophon reports that at
the end of the war they (along with the Thebans) urged the Spartans
to raze Athens to the ground and enslave or kill the whole population
(Xenophon, Hellenika 2.2.19). Their alleged role here, then, is not
particularly surprising.
ὅτι πλούσιος ἦν: For Nikias’s wealth, see Davies 1971, #10808. It is sur-
prising to hear of it only now rather than during the debate in Athens
over the expedition, when Alkibiades’s personal finances came up.
νεώτερόν τι: “trouble.” That which is new is often threatening.
86.5 τοιαύτῃ ἢ ὅτι ἐγγύτατα τούτων αἰτίᾳ: “for this reason, or one as
near as possible to it.” More hesitation (see above n. 7.86.4 on ὡς
ἐλέγετο). ὅτι + superlative = “as X as possible” (Sm. 1086).
ἥκιστα δὴ ἄξιος ὢν . . . ἀφικέσθαι: The infinitive is limiting, explain-
ing the adjective (Sm. 2001). Many readers of Thucydides’s account
of Nikias’s command in Sicily have wondered how he could have
reached this judgment. While in sole command Nikias was, in
Dover’s words (in HCT 4:462), “inept, dilatory and querulous.” The
reason Thucydides gives, διὰ τὴν πᾶσαν ἐς ἀρετὴν νενομισμένην
ἐπιτήδευσιν, seems to mean “because of his having conducted his
whole life (taking νενομισμένην and πᾶσαν with ἐπιτήδευσιν) in
accordance with virtue.” This leaves ἀρετήν in “forceful isolation”
(Rood 1998a, 184n9). We should note, however, the absence of
ξύνεσις, intelligence, in Thucydides’s description of Nikias, an attri-
bute that Thucydides assigns along with virtue to Brasidas and the
Peisistratidai (4.81.2; 6.54.5).
The absence of an epitaph for all the other generals in Sicily makes
this judgment all the more striking. It seems possible that Thucydides
was influenced in what he says about Nikias by the Athenians’ treat-
ment of Nikias’s memory after his death. According to Pausanias
(1.29.12), Nikias’s name was not included on the casualty list in Athens
because Nikias had surrendered himself voluntarily, whereas Dem-
osthenes, although surrendering his troops, had tried to kill himself.
Thucydides, however, in contrast to the judgment in Athens, reports
that at the end Nikias had little thought for himself but only sought to
end the slaughter of his men (7.85.1). But Nikias’s decision to have his
portion of the army fight to the bitter end, instead of surrendering the
men more quickly like Demosthenes, led to the slaughter of most of
his troops.
I find it unlikely that Thucydides is being deliberately obscure here
because of the politically sensitive nature of Nikias’s controversial
death (as Hornblower 3:741 suggests), since the overall favorable
judgment itself (ἥκιστα δὴ ἄξιος ὤν) seems clear as day. We should
note, furthermore, Green’s contention that Thucydides is writing with
“irony” (1970, 346). Green goes on: “Goodness, he is saying, cannot
survive stupidity. Nicias was an honest, pious, sincere man. Yet for
all his piety and virtue . . . he died hideously, because he was also a
bumbling ass with no sense of judgment.” Green directs us to Nikias’s
speech before the retreat where he points to the good deeds he has
done in life and says that because of them he does not fear the army’s
misfortunes “with regard to deserts” (κατ᾿ ἀξίαν, 7.77.3), meaning he
does fear them, but not so much as to think that they deserved them,
and so he still has hope. Thucydides, by stating here that Nikias least
“deserved” his fate (ἥκιστα δὴ ἄξιος ὤν), could be seen (as Green
suggests) to be hinting that “deserts” with regard to the gods do not
come into play at all. All that matters is whether one acts competently
or not.
87.1 τοὺς δ᾿: As Connor notes, the story is “all over” (2017, 222). And yet
Thucydides adds what Connor calls a “reprise” in which Thucydides
uses “almost all his expansionary techniques” (including polysyn-
deton, litotes, and superlatives) to convey “an emotional mimesis of
the sufferings the Athenians endured.”
87.2 πάντα τε ποιούντων αὐτῶν . . . τῶν νεκρῶν . . . ξυννενημένων:

Causal genitive absolute, “since they were all . . .” (Sm. 2070).
κοτύλην ὕδατος καὶ δύο κοτύλας σίτου: The amounts are small. In con-
trast, during the Pylos campaign, the Lakedaimonians were allowed
to send to their men marooned on Sphakteria two choinikes of grain
(a choinix = four kotyles), two kotyles of wine, and some meat; half
this amount was sent to the servants (4.16.1). The Athenians, that is,
were getting only half the grain granted to a servant at Pylos.
ἄλλα τε ὅσα εἰκός . . . ἐμπεπτωκότας κακοπαθῆσαι: “whatever other
things men having fallen into such a place are likely to suffer.” Infini-
tive (with subject accusative) as subject of εἰκός (Sm. 1985).
87.3 ἡμέρας μὲν ἑβδομήκοντά τινας: τινας here means “some” or “or so”
(LSJ A.II.8).
ἔπειτα . . . ἀπέδοντο: Thucydides does not say what happened to the
Athenians. Presumably they were left to die in their miserable condi-
tions.
87.4 ἐλάσσους: Nominative plural (Sm. 293).

ἑπτακισχιλίων: Genitive of comparison (Sm. 1431) after ἐλάσσους. Ιf
correct, this number, too, is shocking. Given that Thucydides has said
that six thousand men were captured from Demosthenes’s portion of
the army, this figure would indicate that only one thousand men were
captured from Nikias’s portion of the army after the slaughter at the
Assinaros. Not all of the rest were killed, however, since Thucydides
says that a great number were spirited away by individuals (7.85.3).
87.5 ἔργον . . . μέγιστον γενέσθαι: Infinitive (with subject accusative)

as subject of ξυνέβη (Sm. 1985). This passage is a deliberate and artful
closure to the Sicilian expedition. It is also strange, however, because
it is both a second closure after 7.75.7 and a false closure—false
because, despite all the rhetoric from both Nikias and Thucydides, the
end of the Sicilian expedition was not, in fact, the end of Athens, as 8.1
immediately makes clear.
δοκεῖν δ᾿ ἔμοιγε: As Rood notes, Thucydides uses this phrase to “tone
down” the superlative (1998b, 246). Both δοκεῖν ἔμοιγε and ὧν ἀκοῇ
. . . ἴσμεν are phrases that Herodotus uses to characterize expeditions
from Asia to Europe or vise versa. According to Rood, Thucydides
uses Herodotus’s phraseology while shifting the claim about great-
ness from conflict between Greeks and Persians to conflict between
Greeks and other Greeks. He also shifts “the ‘criterion of greatness’
from size to suffering” (248).
ὧν ἀκοῇ Ἑλληνικῶν ἴσμεν: Τhe relative has been attracted into the case
of the absent antecedent (Sm. 2509, 2522). This is a second comparison
for the Sicilian expedition.
87.6 οὐδὲν ὀλίγον ἐς οὐδέν: Literally, “nothing small in no way.” Connor

describes the “contrasting patterns of alliteration” Thucydides uses:
“ ‘p’ sounds for words indicating much and many and ‘o’ sounds for
negatives and words indicating annihilation . . . until the two extremes
merge in a cascade of phrases that combine the two elements and fuse
the two alliterative systems” (1984, 208).
πανωλεθρίᾳ δὴ τὸ λεγόμενον: Herodotus uses πανωλεθρία for the fall
of Troy (2.120.5), where he says that the gods destroyed the city in
order to show that “for great wrongdoings, great also are the punish-
ments from the gods.” Thus, this is another passage equating the end
of the Sicilian expedition with the destruction of Troy. The claim that
the destruction was “total” also links the fate of the city-army in Sicily
to the fate of other destroyed cities in his work, i.e., to Plataia “razed
to its foundation” (3.68.3), to Skione, and to Melos. However, it also
contrasts the city-army’s total destruction to the fate of the real Ath-
ens, which was not utterly destroyed at the end of the war. Marinatos-
Kopff and Rawlings (1978), as well as Connor (1984, 208n57)—though
less surely—suggest that Thucydides means to use the reference to
divine punishment in Herodotus that this passage recalls to imply
that divinity played a role also in the Athenians’ destruction. Rood is
rightly skeptical that Thucydides intends to suggest that the gods were
active here, and he argues that the purpose of the allusion is to stress
“the parity of his subject, and his treatment of it, with both Herodotus
and ‘Homeric’ epic” (1998b, 252).
ὀλίγοι ἀπὸ πολλῶν ἐπ᾿ οἴκου ἀπενόστησαν: The verb evokes Homer
one last time, in an allusion to the difficult nostoi—returns—of the
Achaians sailing from Troy (cf. Allison 1997a, 513–15. The allusion
insists again, as Rood puts it, “that the Athenian expedition and
Thucydides’ representation of it, are epic in scale and ambition”
(1998b, 243). Furthermore, that few “returned home” underscores that
the men of Sicily had real homes that were not in Sicily. Thucydides
thereby criticizes the imaginary cities conjured for the Sicilian
expedition, the Athenians’ fascination for foreign lands in preference
to home, and indeed, the Athenians’ failure to recognize where their
homeland truly lay (see introduction 6.1 and 6.6). Connor argues
that this phrase is a final reference back to the Persian Wars because
it “evokes Darius’ ghost in Aeschylus’s Persians, who refers to the
survivors of the expedition against Greece as ‘few from many’ (παύροι
γε πολλῶν, 800)” (1984, 208n55).
At the climax of this powerful closure of the Sicilian expedition
(cf. Fowler 1989, 91), this phrase also makes links that open that
closure. Thucydides used the same phrase (ὀλίγοι ἀπὸ πολλῶν) in the
Archaeology to describe the Athenians who escaped from the Egyp-
tian disaster in 454 (1.110.1), where somewhere between one hundred
and two hundred ships were lost. Despite the disaster, Thucydides’s
Archaeology allows no pause in Athenian activity and expansion. In

the immediately following chapters, the Athenians are off restoring
the king of Thessaly, attacking Pagai and Sikyon, and later even
Κypros. That is, the loss does not stop them. Nor does the loss in Sicily
stop them. Instead, as Greenwood remarks, “the conflict is reset” at
the beginning of book 8 (2017, 172).
The Response in Athens (8.1)

This division between books 7 and 8 shows more clearly than most that the
book divisions are not Thucydides’s own because the break comes in the
middle of a thought expressed with a μέν/δέ construction, the μέν in book
7, the δέ in 8 (see Hornblower 2004, 239 and Dover xvii on Thucydides’s
book divisions). This first chapter of book 8 also contains numerous links
to the narrative of the Sicilian expedition. At the same time, it foreshadows
elements of the narrative to come and highlights the Athenians’ resilience.
8.1.1 ἐς δὲ τὰς Ἀθήνας ἐπειδὴ ἠγγέλθη: Hornblower speaks of an “esca-

lating trio of ‘bad-news-hits-Athens passages’ (Sicily, Chios, Euboia),”
of which this is the first (3:749). On each occasion, the Athenians do
not give in but show great fortitude. Plutarch (Nikias 30) recounts a
story in which the first person to return to Athens with the news was
a sailor who—assuming everything was already known—stopped first
at a barber in Peiraieus. As the sailor commented on how awful it was
that so many Athenians had been lost in Sicily, the horrified barber
dropped what he was doing and ran off to the city to tell the terrible
news (cf. Trittle 2010, 157).
ἐπὶ πολύ: This refers to time.
ἠπίστουν . . . μὴ . . . διεφθάρθαι: The verb takes the dative of the person
and the infinitive. The μή is redundant and here means “that” (Sm.
2739).
πάνυ: Probably goes with διαπεφευγόσι and means, “who were actually
themselves survivors of. . . .” The participle is dative plural (Sm. 309).
χρησμολόγοις: “oracle-mongers.” Those who interpret written or oral

texts.
μάντεσι: “seers.” Those who interpret natural phenomena like the
flight of birds or the entrails of sacrificial victims for divine meaning.
Thucydides told us nothing about the role of seers or oracles in the
run up to the Sicilian expedition in book 6. Thucydides seems to
have wanted to show the Athenians in book 6 as led astray by lust for
conquest and money, not by religion.
8.1.2 κατάπληξις μεγίστη δή: At 8.96.1, Thucydides states that the

revolt of Euboia (in 411) caused ἔκπληξις μεγίστη δὴ τῶν πρίν, and
he specifically notes there that nothing, not even the disaster in Sic-
ily, was so great καίπερ μεγάλη τότε δόξασα εἶναι (“even though it
seemed to be great at the time”). His notation that “nothing” else was
so terrifying also excludes the revolt of Chios, for which the Athe-
nians used their one-thousand-talent reserve fund of money (8.15.1).
Scholars who trolled for evidence of levels of composition used this
seeming “contradiction” to argue that Thucydides wrote up the Sicil-
ian expedition before the revolt of Euboia—before he knew that this
κατάπληξις was not the greatest one of the war—but this is the wrong
approach. Rather, Thucydides focuses on the perceptions of the
Athenians and the effect of each event at the time. That is, Thucydides
writes with all the emotional intensity of the moment. Later, when the
Athenians had actually survived the Sicilian blow, it seemed less pow-
erful, allowing the revolt of Chios or Euboia to seem “the greatest.”
Thucydides represents this changing response and allows the reader
to feel each successive shock as the Athenians did.
ἡλικίας οἵαν οὐχ ἑτέραν ἑώρων: This phrase and ναῦς οὐχ ὁρῶντες ἐν
τοῖς νεωσοίκοις below recall Nikias’s speech before the retreat (7.64.1)
and so link this passage back to the narrative of the Sicilian expedi-
tion. That the Athenians do not “see ships in the shipsheds” indicates
that they had not followed the decree of 431 that required them to
keep a reserve force of one hundred ships (along with the reserve fund
of one thousand talents, 2.24.2; cf. Andrewes in HCT 5:6).
τούς τε ἀπὸ τῆς Σικελίας . . . ἐπὶ τὸν Πειραιᾶ πλευσεῖσθαι: Infinitive
with accusative subject in indirect discourse after ἐνόμιζον (Sm.
2018). This thought, too, makes powerful connections backward and
forward. It recalls Nikias’s warning in his first speech before the expe-
dition that the Athenians risked sailing “over there” only to bring back
more enemies “here” (6.10.1). In reality, however, after the destruction
of the Sicilian expedition, the Syracusans sent only twenty ships to
the main war (alongside two from Selinous) and waited to do so until
the following summer (8.26.1, with an additional ship at 8.35.1).
The fear for the Peiraieus (and, in fact, the Syracusans’ slow
response) makes connections even further back, however, and links
to Thucydides’s overarching judgment on the Sicilian expedition
and the entire war. In 429/28, the Spartans attempted a raid on the
Peiraieus but turned back prematurely, even though Thucydides
judged that they could “easily” have captured the Peiraieus if they
had had more nerve (ὅπερ ἄν . . . ῥᾳδίως ἐγένετο, 2.94.1). So, too, in
411, after the revolt of Euboia, the Athenians feared that the enemy
would sail straight for the Peiraieus, which, Thucydides judges with
careful echoes of 2.94.1, they could “easily” have done if they had been
more bold (ὅπερ ἂν . . . ῥᾳδίως ἂν ἐποίησαν, 8.96.4). But, Thucydides
judges, on that occasion as on many others, the Spartans showed
themselves to be the “most convenient” of enemies for the Athenians
because of their difference in character—the one quick, the other
slow; the one timid, the other innovative. He thus endorses the judg-
ment of the Korinthians from before the war (1.70–71). Thucydides
then goes on explicitly to note the similarity between the Athenians
and Syracusans that he underscored symbolically throughout the
narrative of the Sicilian expedition. The Syracusans, he says, as
most similar to the Athenians, fought the best against them (8.96.5).
Thucydides’s disparagement of the Spartans’ character as enemies
also links to his overarching judgment that the Athenians actually
defeated themselves in the war (2.65.12; see appendix), a judgment
that the surprising resilience of the Athenians helps support.
τοσοῦτον: “so decisively” (Lattimore).

τοὺς αὐτόθεν πολεμίους . . . ἐπικείσεσθαι: Infinitive with subject accusa-
tive in indirect discourse after ἐνόμιζον (Sm. 2018).
8.1.3 ὅμως: With this word, the description of the Athenians’ response
pivots from panic to resiliency.
χρῆναι μὴ ἐνδιδόναι: The infinitive phrase (like παρασκευάζεσθαι,
ποιεῖσθαι, σωφρονίσαι and ἑλέσθαι below) is subject of ἐδόκει (Sm.
1985). The Athenians’ refusal to give in showed up already in 7.27–28,
where Thucydides discussed their shocking ability to carry on two
wars at once. Thucydides flags it also in the “epitaph” of Perikles when
he notes that even after the disaster in Sicily and the oligarchic revolu-
tion in Athens (see introduction 7.2), they “still held out” (ὅμως . . .
ἀντεῖχον, 2.65.12; see appendix).
ἀλλὰ παρασκευάζεσθαι: Allison notes that this preparation is “defen-
sive. . . . Concern is for acquisition, not the utilization of the resources
of naval power and capital” because the Athenians have wasted it all
(1989, 122). See above n. 6.1.1 on παρασκευή.
ξυμπορισαμένους: Accusative subject of παρασκευάζεσθαι.
ἀρχήν τινα πρεσβυτέρων ἀνδρῶν . . . οἵτινες . . . προβουλεύσουσιν: The
so-called probouloi—named from their role in consulting beforehand
with the boule, the Athenians’ council of five hundred—were ten in
number (Aristotle, Constitution of the Athenians 29.2). One shows
up as a character in Aristophanes’s Lysistrata. The two probouloi we
know of, Hagnon (Lysias 12.65) and the poet Sophocles (Aristotle,
Rhetoric 1419a25), were both elderly (Andrewes in HCT 5:6). As
Andrewes notes, Aristotle calls probouloi an oligarchic element in
constitutions (Politics 1298b29), and the probouloi were “clearly insti-
tuted in order to restrain rash decisions.” In addition, σωφρονίσαι
(used just above) like the noun σωφροσύνη has oligarchic overtones.
The probouloi are, then, a step toward the oligarchy of the Four
Hundred that ravaged Athens in 411 (see 8.47–54, 63.3–77, 81–82, 86,
89–98, and introduction 7.2).
ὡς ἂν καιρὸς ᾖ: “when there was need.”
ὅπερ φιλεῖ δῆμος ποιεῖν: Whatever the details of Thucydides’s politics,

he does not seem to have been overly enamored of democracy. See
8.97.2, where Thucydides says that the regime of the Five Thousand in
411 was the best Athenian regime under which he lived.
καὶ τὸ θέρος ἐτελεύτα: In late October or so, 413. The war had eight
more years to go.
Appendi x
Commentary on the
Epitaph of Perikles (2.65.5–2.65.13)
Th is section, often called the “epitaph” or “obituary” of Perikles, con-

tains Thucydides’s judgment on Perikles and on his conduct of the war.
It also includes an explanation for why and how Athens lost the war. In it,
Thucydides makes statements about the Sicilian expedition that seem to
be at odds with the account that he gives in the narrative in books 6 and 7.
Although I elaborate on some individual points in the commentary below,
most discussion is held for the end.
65.5 ὁ δὲ φαίνεται καὶ ἐν τούτῳ προγνούς: Thucydides emphasizes

Perikles’s foresight both here and at 2.65.6 below. Foresight links
Perikles to Themistokles, whom Thucydides praises at 1.138.3 because
he was “the best diviner of what was to come farthest off in the future”
(τῶν μελλόντων ἐπὶ πλεῖστον τοῦ γενησομένου ἄριστος εἰκαστής).
Hornblower calls Thucydides’s comment about Perikles’s foresight
here a misjudgment but only in the limited sense that Perikles’s
“financial optimism . . . was misplaced” (1:341; see below n. 2.65.6).
Others are more critical of Perikles generally (see, e.g., Foster 2010
and Taylor 2010).
τὴν δύναμιν: Accusative of respect (Sm. 1600).
421
422 Appendix
65.6 ἐπεβίω δὲ δύο ἔτη καὶ ἓξ μῆνας: Perikles died in the fall of 429.
Thucydides does not announce the death at the correct chronological
place in the narrative but where the reflections that it evokes best fit.
As Monoson and Loriaux note, Thucydides’s method “empowers us
to experience vicariously the shock and confusion that the Athenians
of the period must have felt” (1998, 290). Thucydides announces the
death of only three individuals outside battle: Perikles, Kleon, and
Nikias.
ἡ πρόνοια: Hornblower notes that the combination of Perikles’s claim
that the war will not require “violent capital levies” (1.141.5) and 3.19,
where it turns out that a levy is required, “to some extent undermines”
Thucydides’s praise here (1:342).
65.7 ἡσυχάζοντας . . . θεραπεύοντας . . . μὴ ἐπικτωμένους . . .

κινδυνεύοντας . . . περιέσεσθαι: Infinitive with subject accusatives in
indirect discourse after ἔφη (Sm. 2017). The subject is the Athenians.
Thucydides here mimics, with careful verbal echoes, Perikles’s
assessment from his first speech that he had great expectations that
the Athenians would “come out on top” (περιέσεσθαι) if they were
“willing not to add to the empire while you are fighting the war and
do not involve yourself in risks of your own making” (κινδύνους
αὐθαιρέτους μὴ προστίθεσθαι, 1.144.1). But in his summing up of
Perikles’s advice here, Thucydides adds “with the city” (τῇ πόλει) to
Perikles’s caution against taking risks. Because Perikles had a par-
ticular idea of an island-city and encouraged the Athenians to protect
“the sea and the city” (1.143.5) while abandoning their actual territory
of Attica to the Peloponnesians, Thucydides’s addition of “with the
city” to Perikles’s advice focuses attention on the “city” and raises the
question of which city it is that is most worth protecting (Taylor 2010,
85–87).
In addition, although Thucydides is right that Perikles urged
“quiet” (ἡσυχάζοντας) on the Athenians in his first speech—to
the extent that he urged them not to fight the Peloponnesians in
Attica—that exhortation does not fit with the speech that readers have
just heard Perikles give in the text. In that speech, Perikles boasted
Epitaph of Perikles 423
that “of the two useful parts that the world is divided into, land and
sea, you are complete masters over all of the latter, both as much as
you now hold and still more if you wish” (2.62.2). To this image of
complete control of the sea, Perikles adds no note of quiet or caution.
Gomme underlines the “contrast between the cautious, almost Nikian
tone of 65.7 and the magniloquence and adventurous spirit of the
last words given to Perikles, 63–4: ‘action and yet more action, and
we gain a glorious name even if we fail’ ” (1951, 71n6). Thus, despite
Thucydides’s summing up, Periklean policy is not entirely clear (cf.
Taylor 2010, 75–77, 86–87). The Sicilian expedition, for example,
would seem contrary to the policy of the early Perikles, but much less
so to that of the boastful, adventurous Perikles of his last speech.
οἱ δέ: As Connor notes, Thucydides leaves it unclear exactly whom he
indicts here (1984, 61n27). It is really all the Athenians, not just the
politicians.
ταῦτά τε πάντα . . . ἔπραξαν: Gomme (in HCT 2:191) remarks on the
“sweeping statement” and complains that it is a “pity that Thucydides
is not more precise.” Hornblower points out that just how “sweeping”
a statement this is depends on what war Thucydides is referring to in
this paragraph (3:342–43). If Thucydides refers here only to the Archi-
damian War of 431–421, the claim that Perikles’s successors did the
exact opposite of Perikles “is certainly unjust” (see introduction 3.3–5
on the Archidamian War). If Thucydides is referring to the whole war
in this paragraph (which does go on to discuss even the fall of Athens),
it seems likely that the chief complaint Thucydides has with the suc-
cessors is the Sicilian expedition. Whether that expedition was really
contrary to Perikles’s vision, however, is unclear, especially in light of
Perikles’s last speech.
καὶ ἄλλα ἔξω τοῦ πολέμου δοκοῦντα εἶναι: It is unfortunately not clear
what Thucydides means to indicate here.
κατὰ τὰς ἰδίας φιλοτιμίας: Thucydides uses almost this exact phrase at
8.89.3 to describe the motives of the oligarchs of 411 as the oligarchy
began to unravel (see introduction 7.2 on the oligarchy of the Four
Hundred).
424 Appendix
ἰδίας . . . ἴδια . . . ἰδιώταις: This “ἴδιος-language” has echoes in

Thucydides’s introduction of Alkibiades at 6.15.2–4 and thus connects
the people’s misjudgment of Alkibiades there to his comments on the
loss of the war here (Rood 1998, 127 and n66).
κατορθούμενα . . . σφαλέντα: Conditional participles referring to the
policies of the politicians after Perikles, i.e., “policies which, if they
succeeded . . . but if they failed. . . .” σφάλλομαι is one of Thucydides’s
favorite words for failure in the Sicilian expedition (Hornblower
2004, 351).
65.8 τῷ τε ἀξιώματι: Causal dative (Sm. 1517) like γνώμῃ, referring to

Perikles’s personal position.
κατεῖχε . . . ἐλευθέρως: “exercised free control over the people” (Lat-
timore). An “oxymoron” referring to Perikles’s “frankness and refusal
to resort to flattery” (Rusten 1989, 210).
διὰ τὸ μὴ . . . πρός ἡδονήν τι λέγειν, ἀλλ᾿ . . . πρὸς ὀργήν τι ἀντειπεῖν:
“on account of not speaking (τὸ μὴ . . . λέγειν) with an aim to please
(πρὸς ἡδονήν τι) because of acquiring power (κτώμενος) from
unfitting means (ἐξ οὐ προσηκόντων) but, due to having [power]
(ἔχων) because of his reputation (ἐπ᾿ ἀξιώσει), contradicting them
(ἀντειπεῖν) in response to their passion (πρὸς ὀργήν τι).” Two articu-
lar infinitives after a preposition (Sm. 2034b), which contrast how
Perikles’s successors were obliged to address the assembly (because
they were hoping to gain power improperly) with how Perikles was
able to talk (because he already had power). The participles modify-
ing Perikles (κτώμενος, ἔχων) are nominative instead of accusative
because Perikles is also the subject of the main verb (Sm. 1973).
Gomme (in HCT 2:193) argues πρὸς ὀργήν τι probably means “ ‘so
as to provoke their anger’ in direct contrast with πρὸς ἡδονήν ‘to
give pleasure,’ ” but Connor, stressing the verb ἀντειπεῖν, argues that
Thucydides means “in response to their passion” (1984, 60n25).
65.9 ὁπότε . . . αἴσθοιτό τι . . . κατέπλησσεν . . . ἀντικαθίστη: A past

general temporal condition (Sm. 2414). θαρσοῦντας is a supplemen-
tary participle in indirect discourse after αἴσθοιτο (Sm. 2110). The
subject is the Athenians. We are probably meant to contrast this with
the absence of anyone to tamp down the Athenians’ enthusiasm after

Pylos (cf. 4.65.4; see introduction 3.5 for Pylos).
δεδιότας αὖ ἀλόγως: The subject is again the Athenians. Parallel to
θαρσοῦντας, another supplementary participle in indirect discourse
after αἴσθοιτο (Sm. 2110).
λόγῳ: “nominally” (Sm. 1527). Adverbial dative. Contrast ἔργῳ.
65.10 οἱ δὲ ὕστερον: This section now speaks more about the leaders
after Perikles, not the Athenians in general as at 2.65.7. However, Con-
nor argues that the participles ἐκπέμψαντες and ἐπιγιγνώσκοντες
below still “hint at the Athenian assembly generally” (1984, 61n27).
ἴσοι μᾶλλον αὐτοὶ . . . ὄντες καὶ ὀρεγόμενοι: Causal participles (Sm.
2064). ὀρέγεσθαι is the same verb Thucydides uses to describe the
grasping for more that led the Athenians to refuse a peace offer after
Pylos (4.41.4; see introduction 3.5 for Pylos).
τοῦ πρῶτος ἕκαστος γίγνεσθαι: “each of them so that he might become
the first man.” A genitive articular infinitive after ὀρεγόμενοι.
πρῶτος is predicate. It is nominative, not accusative, because it refers
to the subject of the leading verb (Sm. 1973).
ἐτράποντο καθ᾿ ἡδονὰς τῷ δήμῳ καὶ τὰ πράγματα ἐνδιδόναι: “began to
surrender even policy-making at the people’s pleasure” (Rusten 1989,
211).
65.11 ἐξ ὧν: The antecedent is all the preceding ideas.

ἄλλα τε πολλά: This phrase serves as a foil for the second point (Sm.
1273).
ὠς . . . ἐχούσῃ: Α phrase explaining πολλά.
οὐ τοσοῦτον γνώμης ἁμάρτημα . . . ὅσον: “Not so much X as Y.” This
is the heart of the chapter as far as Thucydides’s judgment of the
Sicilian expedition goes, since he seems here to say that the Sicilian
expedition was not really a mistake of judgment. In books 6 and 7,
in contrast, the whole narrative screams that the Sicilian expedition
was utter folly, and that the Athenians were not fully aware of what
they were up against in Sicily. However, Westlake has shown that οὐ
τοσοῦτον . . . ὅσον does not negate the validity of the first element
but instead emphasizes the greater importance of the second (1958,
426 Appendix
102–6). On this reading, the Sicilian expedition would still seem to

have been a γνώμης ἁμάρτημα in Thucydides’s opinion. See more
below.
πρὸς οὓς ἐπῇσαν: That is, concerning those against whom they went. The
early parts of book 6 strongly suggest that the Athenians were quite
ignorant about Sicily.
oἱ ἐκπέμψαντες . . . ἐπιγιγνώσκοντες: Thucydides switches from a con-
struction with a relative clause to one with a participle.
οὐ τὰ πρόσφορα: The meaning of τὰ πρόσφορα is key to determining
whether Thucydides’s description here conforms to his account of
Athenian decisions regarding the Sicilian expedition in books 6 and 7.
Meaning, literally, “the suitable” or “fitting” things, the words might
indicate “proper support to those in the field” (Kallet 2001, 116). Alter-
natively, one might take οὐ τὰ πρόσφορα as a cognate accusative with
ἐπιγιγνώσκοντες, with the phrase meaning “took decisions which
were against the interests of the expedition” (Hornblower 1:348). That
is, even the basic translation of these words is in dispute. See discus-
sion below.
κατὰ τὰς ἰδίας διαβολάς: These words have echoes in Thucydides’s
introduction of Alkibiades (διαβόλως, τὰ ἴδια 6.15.2; ἰδίᾳ, 6.15.4), in
Alkibiades’s speech to the Athenian assembly (ἰδιώτης, 6.16.2; τοῖς
ἰδίοις τέλεσι, 6.16.3; τὰ ἴδια, 6.16.6), and in Alkibiades’s characteriza-
tion of the attack on him with regard to the herms and the mysteries
(διαβολάς, 6.29.2).
περὶ τῆς τοῦ δήμου προστασίας: Rood sees an important echo between
this phrase and τοῦ δήμου βεβαίως προεστάναι in Thucydides’s nar-
rative at 6.28.2 of the affair of the herms and mysteries (1998, 177).
τὰ περὶ τὴν πόλιν: Accusative of respect (Sm. 1600).
πρῶτον: Adverbial (Sm. 1611).
ἐν ἀλλήλοις ἐταράχθησαν: Rood sees this as a reference to the attacks
on those accused of participation in the affair of the herms and the
mysteries of 6.27–29 (1998, 179–80).
65.12 σφαλέντες: Another instance of Thucydides’s favorite word for

failure in the Sicilian expedition (Hornblower 2004, 351).
ἄλλῃ τε παρασκευῇ καὶ . . . τῷ πλέονι μορίῳ: “Dative of military accom-

ἐν στάσει ὄντες: This refers to the short-lived civil war in Athens in 411
when the city in Attica turned to oligarchy under the rule of “the Four
Hundred” and the fleet constituted itself a democratic city on Samos
(8.47–54, 63.3–77, 81–82, 86, 89–98). The turmoil was instigated by
Alkibiades as a means to return to Athens (see introduction 7.2).
ὅμως †τρία† μὲν ἔτη ἀντεῖχον: Thucydides uses ὅμως also at 8.1.3 to
signal the Athenians’ resiliency and their determination to hold out
despite the disaster in Sicily. The “daggers” around τρία indicate that
most editors regard the number as corrupt because the Athenians
“held out” for longer than three years—whether one counts from the
failure of the Sicilian expedition or from the stasis of 411. Most editors
emend the text to include a different number, usually ὀκτώ (to cover
the period from the spring of 412—the spring after the destruction
of the Sicilian expedition—to spring of 404, the time of the fall of
Athens). Connor, however, while agreeing that the passage is corrupt,
argues that any figure “is otiose” (1979, 270). Rusten, in contrast,
argues that τρία μὲν ἔτη should stand, and that it refers to “three years
of chaos” from 412–410 (counted inclusively) (1989, 213–14). Rusten
further argues that this period is “answered” by Κύρῳ τε ὕστερον
. . . , with μέν answered by τε (for which Rusten cites Denniston GP,
374–76 and n2).
ἀφεστηκόσι: Dative plural participle from ἀφίστημι after ἀντεῖχον.
Thucydides refers to the mass defections of Athens’s “allies” that
began immediately after the failure of the Sicilian expedition (8.2.2).
In the end, only Samos remained loyal to Athens (see introduction
7.5).
oὐ πρότερον ἐνέδοσαν: The subject here is still the Athenians.
ἢ αὐτοὶ ἐν σφίσι . . . περιπεσόντες ἐσφάλησαν: ἐν denotes the agent
with σφίσι (see Rusten and his n. 2.35.1; cf. Sm. 1687c).
κατὰ τὰς ἰδίας διαφοράς: This may denote the second exile of Alkibiades
during the Ionian War (see introduction 7.2 and 7.3). Perikles had said
at the beginning of the war that he had come to fear “our own mis-
428 Appendix
takes more than the plans of our enemies” (μᾶλλον γὰρ πεφόβημαι
τὰς οἰκείας ἡμῶν ἁμαρτίας ἢ τὰς τῶν ἐναντίων διανοίας, 1.144.1).
This sentence seems to support the postwar, revisionist version of the
conflict in which the Athenians defeated themselves (cf. Xenophon,
Hellenika 2.1.32; Lysias, Against Alkibiades 138). Such an argument
saves face because it makes the Athenians so powerful that they could
be defeated only by themselves.
65.13 τοσοῦτον: Αdverbial (LSJ III).

ἐπερίσσευσε: The subject must be supplied from the vague thought in
ἀφ᾿ ὧν. Thucydides presumably means “resources.” Something like
“so abundant were the resources on the basis of which (ἀφ᾿ ὧν). . . .”
πάνυ ἂν ῥᾳδίως περιγενέσθαι: The infinitive is in implied indirect
discourse after προέγνω (Sm. 2018). The subject is τὴν πόλιν. The ἄν
shows that the original thought was a potential optative (Sm. 1845).
As Connor points out, this “ambiguous potential construction . . . can
emphasize the false belief that Athens ‘would’ win as well as the cur-
rent belief Athens ‘could’ have won” (1984, 63n30). Gomme (in HCT
2:198) comments that “all Perikles’ πρόνοια came to nothing. Clearly
Thucydides did not believe in a foreseeable future in any literal sense,
even by the most intelligent of men.”
One’s own understanding of Thucydides’s general judgment of
Perikles and his policy will determine whether one sees irony in
Thucydides’s remark that Perikles “foresaw” that the city “would very
easily” prevail in a war with the Peloponnesians alone.
Πελοποννησίων αὐτῶν: Genitive object after περιγενέσθαι.
Discussion
Some scholars have seen grave inconsistencies between Thucydides’s dis-
cussion of the Sicilian expedition here and his narrative of the expedition
in books 6 and 7 (cf. Dover in HCT 4:197; Kagan 1981, 360–62; Buck 1988;
Rhodes 1988; Bloedow 1992). The controversy turns on the translation
and interpretation of οὐ τοσοῦτον . . . ὅσον and of οὐ τὰ πρόσφορα . . .
ἐπιγιγνώσκοντες in 2.65.11. As we shall see, the first point is not a real
problem. A commonsense reading of οὐ τοσοῦτον . . . ὅσον largely dissolves
any supposed contradiction between “epitaph” and narrative. As for the

second point, overly specific translation of Thucydides’s very vague phrase
has created difficulties where none really exist.
The first alleged problem is that Thucydides says in the “epitaph” that the
Sicilian expedition was “not so much (οὐ τοσοῦτον) a mistake of judgment
about those against whom they sailed” (2.65.11) as it was a mistake on other
grounds, but in the narrative of book 6, especially in the complex of the
Sicilian Archaeology and the assembly speeches in Athens, Thucydides
presents the campaign as the height of folly and ignorance. That is, it seems
in book 6 as if the Sicilian expedition was very much “a mistake of judgment
about those against whom they sailed.” However, Westlake has shown that
οὐ τοσοῦτον . . . ὅσον (“not so much . . . but rather”) does not negate the first
point (1958, 102–6). Thucydides is not denying that the Sicilian expedition
was a mistake in judgment; rather, he is stressing that other failings were
more important. There is no contradiction between the “epitaph” and book
6 on this point. At most, there is a difference in emphasis. As Rood remarks,
“mistakes in Athens are stressed in the analysis at ii.65, mistakes in Sicily
in the narrative” (1998, 159).
A second alleged inconsistency between the “epitaph” and the narrative
of books 6 and 7 involves Thucydides’s description of those mistakes in
Athens. In the “epitaph,” Thucydides writes οὐ τὰ πρόσφορα τοῖς οἰχομένοις
ἐπιγιγνώσκοντες . . . τά τε ἐν τῷ στρατοπέδῳ ἀμβλύτερα ἐποίουν. The first
part of Thucydides’s sentence is extremely vague because τὰ πρόσφορα,
which means literally “the suitable” or “fitting” things, does not sufficiently
describe what the Athenians did wrong. Westlake notes that οὐ τὰ πρόσφορα
seems “at first sight” to indicate military support and that the sentence means
that the Athenians reduced the military strength of the expedition because
they “failed to give military and financial support on a sufficiently generous
scale” (1958, 106). Some scholars contend that if τὰ πρόσφορα means military
support, Thucydides’s account in book 6 and 7 contradicts his judgment
here because, they argue, the narrative shows the Athenians provisioned
the Sicilian expedition well and resupplied it fully and quickly. Hornblower,
for example, charges that “it would be plain false for Thucydides to suggest
that the expedition was inadequately reinforced” (1:348).
430 Appendix
But not all scholars who think that Thucydides references military sup-
port in τὰ πρόσφορα agree that Thucydides here charges that the Athenians
failed to adequately supply or resupply the expedition. Connor, for example,
reads οὐ τὰ πρόσφορα κτλ. to mean “a failure to provide the expedition
with the right kind of backing” and argues that the narrative of books 6 and
7 “ultimately confirms” this judgment (1984, 158n2). According to Connor,
this is because Athens’s decision to later increase “the scale and the risks”
of the expedition ultimately proved decisive. Thus Connor reads οὐ τὰ
πρόσφορα . . . ἐπιγιγνώσκοντες as a reference not to inadequate supply
but to a failure to provide the right kind of support.
Many scholars, however, deny that Thucydides is thinking of military
support at all in οὐ τὰ πρόσφορα κτλ. and instead translate his words
much more generally to mean something like “took decisions which were
against the interests of the expedition” (Hornblower 1:348; cf. Westlake
1956, 107). Several scholars who understand the words in this general way
have argued that what Thucydides means here is the recall of Alkibiades.
This judgment causes its own difficulties, however. This is because some
critics who think that Thucydides means to indicate the recall of Alkibi-
ades with οὐ τὰ πρόσφορα . . . ἐπιγιγνώσκοντες argue that nothing in the
narrative indicates that the recall of Alkibiades was decisive in the failure
of the Sicilian expedition. Rather, these critics argue, as Gomme (in HCT
2:196) put it, that the failure of the Sicilian expedition “was due, to judge
from books vi and vii, almost entirely to military blunders by the men on
the spot,” and so they still find an inconsistency between the epitaph and
the narrative of books 6 and 7.
These critics suppose that it was only after Thucydides saw Alkibiades’s
successes during the Ionian War that he came to think that his presence in
Sicily could have been decisive for Athenian victory there, and so he wrote
up this summary in book 2 in the light of that hindsight. This would mean
that Thucydides wrote this summary and the narrative of books 6 and 7
at substantially different times and changed his mind about the reasons
for Athenian failure in Sicily after writing his narrative (cf. Westlake 1958,
108–9; Gomme in HCT 2:196; Andrewes in HCT 5:423–27).
Others, however, see no need for such a supposition. Macleod, for

example, argues that Alkibiades’s “recall and condemnation began a chain
of events which ended in catastrophe” (1983, 70). He thus sees no contradic-
tion between the “epitaph” and the narrative. Rood agrees, arguing that
verbal echoes between 2.65.11 and Thucydides’s account of the affair of the
herms, the “portentous brevity” of the sentence regarding the decision to
let Alkibiades sail with the expedition (6.29.3), and other emphases in the
narrative of the Sicilian expedition indicate that it was, indeed, the recall
of Alkibiades that Thucydides had in mind when he says that (in Rood’s
translation of οὐ τὰ πρόσφορα . . . ἐπιγιγνώσκοντες) “the senders did not
take the best measures for those who had gone out” (1998, 177–78). Rood
further concludes that those same verbal echoes and stylistic emphases
in the narrative indicate that the narrative and the summary at 2.65 were
conceived at the same time.
Kallet, in contrast, thinks it unlikely that Thucydides would allude “in
such an opaque and coded way” as οὐ τὰ πρόσφορα . . . ἐπιγιγνώσκοντες
(2.65.11) to the recall of Alkibiades, and so she reverts to an understanding
of these words that focuses on military support (2001, 116–17). Like Jordan’s
(2000) study, which calls the expedition a “Potemkin fleet,” Kallet argues
that Thucydides’s narrative “strongly suggests that the Athenians did not
adequately support the expedition with money (and provisioning generally)”
(2001, 117). (See also Stahl 1973 on the problems with cavalry.) Thus Kallet,
too, but for very different reasons, sees “no inconsistency” between 2.65.11
and the narrative of the Sicilian expedition and “no reason to think that
they were written at different times.”
Kallet’s position is, of course, entirely consistent with Rood’s.
Thucydides’s phrase οὐ τὰ πρόσφορα τοῖς οἰχομένοις ἐπιγιγνώσκοντες
is extremely—and presumably deliberately—vague. It seems designed to
indicate all the bad decisions in Athens: both the failure to send sufficient
horses, money, and resources initially and sufficient resupply later à la Stahl,
Jordon, and Kallet, as well as the disastrous decision to recall Alkibiades
à la Macleod and Rood, and the decision to send a second massive force
after the first one rather than recall the army or Nikias when things started
432 Appendix
going wrong à la Connor. Furthermore, as Kallet underscores, because οὐ

τοσοῦτον . . . ὅσον is “entirely relative,” whatever we decide Thucydides
means about subsequent failures at 2.65.11, Thucydides has simply noted
that these were more important than the first point in the sentence; he
does not negate that first point (2001, 117). Thus the sentence indicates that
Thucydides thought that the Sicilian expedition was in itself a grave mistake
from the very beginning, just as he suggests in book 6.
Sources for Student Work
General Studies
Cogan, M. 1981. The Human Thing: The Speeches and Principles of Thucydides’
History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Connor, W. R. 1984. Thucydides. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Cornford, F. 1907. Thucydides Mythistoricus. London: E. Arnold.
Crane, G. 1996. The Blinded Eye: Thucydides and the New Written Word. Lanham,
Md.: Rowman and Littlefield.
de Romilly, J. 2012. The Mind of Thucydides. Translated by E. Rawlings. Ithaca,
N.Y.: Cornell University Press. (Originally published in 1956 as Histoire et raison
chez Thucydide. Paris: Les Belles Lettres.)
Greenwood, E. 2006. Thucydides and the Shaping of History. London: Duckworth.
Hornblower, S. 1987. Thucydides. London: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Hunter, V. 1973. Thucydides: The Artful Reporter. Toronto: Hakkert.
Kagan, D. 1981. The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell
University Press.
Kallet, L. 2001. Money and the Corrosion of Power in Thucydides: The Sicilian
Expedition and Its Aftermath. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Morrison, J. V. 2006. Reading Thucydides. Columbus: Ohio State University Press.
Parry, A. 1981. Logos and Ergon in Thucydides. New York: Arno Press.
Rawlings, H., III. 1981. The Structure of Th ucydides’ History. Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press.
433
434 Sources for Student Work
Rood, T. 1998. Thucydides: Narrative and Explanation. Oxford: Oxford University

Press.
Stahl, H.-P. 2003. Thucydides: Man’s Place in History. Swansea: Classical Press of
Wales. (Originally published in 1966 as Thukydides: Die Stellung des Menschen
im geschichtlichen Prozess. Munich: Beck).
Alkibiades and Nikias / Public / Private
Bloedow, E. 1992. “Alcibiades ‘Brilliant’ or ‘Intelligent’?” Historia 41: 139–57.

Debnar, P. 2001. “Alcibiades’ Spartans.” In Speaking the Same Language, 201–20.
Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Forde, S. 1989. The Ambition to Rule: Alcibiades and the Politics of Imperialism in
Thucydides. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.
Gribble, D. 1999. Alcibiades and Athens: A Study in Literary Presentation. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
———. 2006. “Individuals in Thucydides.” In Brill’s Companion to Thucydides,
edited by A. Rengakos and A. Tsakmakis, 439–68. Leiden: Brill.
Lateiner, D. 1985. “Nicias’ Inadequate Encouragement (Thucydides 7.69.2).” Clas-
sical Philology 80: 201–13.
Macleod, C. 1983. “Rhetoric and History.” In Collected Essays, 68–87. Oxford:
Marinatos, N. 1980. “Nicias as a Wise Advisor and Tragic Warner in Thucydides.”
Philologus 125: 305–10.
Nichols, M. 2017. “Leaders and Leadership in Thucydides’ History.” In The Oxford
Handbook of Thucydides, edited by R. Balot, S. Forsdyke, and E. Foster, 459–74.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Palmer, M. 1982. “Alcibiades and the Question of Tyranny in Thucydides.” Canadian
Journal of Political Science 15: 103–24.
———. 1992. Love of Glory and the Common Good. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and
Littlefield.
Stadter, P. 2017. “Characterization of Individuals in Thucydides’ History.” In The
Oxford Handbook of Thucydides, edited by R. Balot, S. Forsdyke, and E. Foster,
283–99. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Tompkins, D. P. 1972. “Stylistic Characterization in Thucydides: Alcibiades and
Nicias.” Yale Classical Studies 22: 181–214.
Westlake, H. D. 1968. Individuals in Thucydides. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Wohl, V. 1999. “The Eros of Alcibiades.” Classical Antiquity 18: 345–89.
Sources for Student Work 435
———. 2002. Love Among the Ruins: The Erotics of Democracy in Classical Athens.
Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
The City Theme / The Near and the Far
Avery, H. C. 1973. “Themes in Thucydides’ Account of the Sicilian Expedition.”

Hermes 101: 1–13.
Kitto, H. D. F. 1966. Poiesis: Structure and Thought. Berkeley: University of Cali-
fornia Press.
Taylor, M. C. 2010. “The City Sets Sail.” In Thucydides, Pericles and the Idea of
Athens in the Peloponnesian War, 135–87. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Young, D. 1968. Three Odes of Pindar: A Literary Study of Pythian 11, Pythian 3 and
Olympian 7. Mnemosyne Supplement 9. Leiden: Brill.
Herodotean Intertexts / Sicily as a Perversion of the Persian Wars
Bowie, A. 1993. “Homer, Herodotus, and the ‘Beginnings’ of Thucydides’ History.”

In Tria Lustra: Essays and Notes Presented to John Pinsent, edited by H. Jocelyn,
141–47. Liverpool: Liverpool Classical Monthly.
Foster, E., and D. Lateiner, eds. 2012. Thucydides and Herodotus. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Harrison, T. 2000. “Sicily in the Athenian Imagination: Thucydides and the Persian
Wars.” In Sicily from Aeneas to Augustus, edited by C. Smith and J. Serrati,
84–96. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Hornblower, S. 1996. “Annex A. Thucydides’ Use of Herodotus,” and “Annex B.
Thucydides and Herodotus: List of Parallel Passages Suggested, Discussed,
Accepted, or Rejected by Modern Scholars.” In A Commentary on Thucydides,
2: 122–45. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
———. 2011. “Thucydides’ Awareness of Herodotus, Or Herodotus’ Awareness of
Thucydides?” In Thucydidean Themes, 277–85. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Marinatos-Kopff, N. 1978. “Panolethria and Divine Punishment: Thucydides 7.87.6
and Herodotus 2.120.5.” Parola del Passato 182: 331–37.
Pelling, C. B. R. 1991. “Thucydides’ Archidamus and Herodotus’ Artabanus.” In
Georgica Greek Studies in Honour of George Cawkwell, edited by M. Flower and
M. Toher, 120–42. London: University of London, Institute of Classical Studies.
Rengakos, A. 2006. “Thucydides’ Narrative: the Epic and Herodotean Heritage.”

In Brill’s Companion to Thucydides, edited by A. Rengakos and A. Tsakmakis,
279–300. Leiden: Brill.
Rogkotis, Z. 2006. “Thucydides and Herodotus: Aspects of their Intertextual
Relationship.” In Brill’s Companion to Thucydides, edited by A. Rengakos and
A. Tsakmakis, 57–86. Leiden: Brill.
Rood, T. 1998. “Thucydides and his Predecessors.” Histos 2: 230–67. http://
research.ncl.ac.uk/histos/documents/1998.10RoodThucydidesandhisPredec
essors230267.pdf
———. 1999. “Thucydides’ Persian Wars.” In The Limits of Historiography: Genre
and Narrative in Ancient Historical Texts (Mnemosyne Supplement 191), edited
by C. S. Kraus, 141–68. Leiden: Brill. Reprinted 2009 in Thucydides: Oxford
Readings in Classical Studies, edited by J. Rusten, 148–75. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Homeric Allusions
Allison, J. W. 1997. “Homeric Allusions at the Close of Thucydides’ Sicilian Nar-

rative.” American Journal of Philology 118: 499–516.
Fragoulidis, S. 1993. “A Pattern from Homer’s Odyssey in the Sicilian Narrative of
Thucydides.” Quaderni Urbinati, n.s., 44: 95–102.
Joho, T. 2017. “Thucydides, Epic, and Tragedy.” In The Oxford Handbook of
Thucydides, edited by R. Balot, S. Forsdyke, and E. Foster, 587–604. Oxford:
Mackie, C. J. 1996. “Homer and Thucydides: Corcyra and Sicily.” Classical Quarterly
46: 103–13.
Rengakos, A. 2006. “Thucydides’ Narrative: The Epic and Herodotean Heritage.”
Zadorojnyi, A. 1998. “Thucydides’ Nicias and Homer’s Agamemnon.” Classical
Quarterly 48: 298–303.
The Melian Dialogue
Amit, M. 1968. “The Melian Dialogue and History.” Athenaeum 46: 216–35.
Bosworth, A. B. 1993. “The Humanitarian Aspect of the Melian Dialogue.” Journal
of Hellenic Studies 113: 30–44.
de Romilly, J. 1963. “The Unity of Athenian Imperialism (II): The Melian Dia-
logue.” In Thucydides and Athenian Imperialism, translated by P. Thody,
273–310. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. (Originally published in 1947 as Thucydide
et l’impérialisme athénien. Paris: Les Belles Lettres.)
Liebeschuetz W. 1968. “The Structure and Function of the Melian Dialogue.”
Journal of Hellenic Studies 88: 7–77.
Macleod, C. 1983. “Form and Meaning in the Melian Dialogue.” In Collected Essays,
52–67. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Morrison, J. V. 2000. “Historical Lessons in the Melian Episode.” Transactions of
the American Philological Association 130: 119–48.
Stahl, H.-P. 2003. “Behaviour in the Extreme Situation (Book 5.84–113).” In
Thucydides: Man’s Place in History, 103–28. Swansea: The Classical Press of
Wales. (Originally published in 1966 as Die Stellung des Menschen im geschicht
lichen Prozess. Berlin: Beck.)
Sicily and Syracuse
Angelis, F. de. 2016. Archaic and Classical Greek Sicily. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Asheri, D. 1992. “Sicily, 478–431 b.c.” In The Cambridge Ancient History. Vol. 5,
The Fifth Century, 2nd ed., edited by D. M. Lewis, J. Boardman, J. K. Davies,
and M. Ostwald, 147–70. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Berger, S. 1991. “Great and Small Poleis in Sicily: Syracuse and Leontinoi.” Historia
40: 129–42.
———. Revolution and Society in Greek Sicily and South Italy. Historia Supplement
71. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag.
Bosworth, B. 1992. “Athens’ First Intervention in Sicily: Thucydides and the Sicil-
ian Tradition.” Classical Quarterly 42: 46–55. Reprinted 2009 in Thucydides:
Oxford Readings in Classial Studies, edited by J. Rusten, 312–37. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Brunt, P. A. 1957. “Review: Sicily and Athens.” Classical Review 7: 243–45.
Dominguez, A. “Greeks in Sicily.” In Greek Colonisation: An Account of Greek
Colonies and Other Settlements (Mnemosyne Supplement 193), edited by G. R.
Tsetskhladze, 253–357. Leiden: Brill.
Finley, M. I. 1979. Ancient Sicily. 2nd ed. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield.
Greenwood, E. 2017. “Thucydides on the Sicilian Expedition.” In The Oxford
Robinson, E. 2011. Democracy beyond Athens: Popular Government in the Greek

Classical Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rutter, K. 1986. “Sicily and South Italy. The Background to Thucydides Books 6
and 7.” Greece and Rome 33: 142–55.
———. 2000. “Syracusan Democracy: ‘Most Like the Athenian’?” In Alterna-
tives to Athens, edited by R. Brock and S. Hodkinson, 137–51. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Zahrnt, M. 2006. “Sicily and Southern Italy in Thucydides.” In Brill’s Companion
to Thucydides, edited by A. Rengakos and A. Tsakmakis, 629–55. Leiden: Brill.
Thucydides’s Language and Style, Use of Speeches,

and Narrative Technique
Allan, R. J. 2007. “Sense and Sentence Complexity: Sentence Structure, Sentence

Connection, and Tense-Aspect as Indicators of Narrative Mode in Thucydides’
Histories.” In The Language of Literature: Linguistic Approaches to Classical
Texts, edited by R. J. Allan and M. Buijs, 93–121. Leiden: Brill.
Bakker, E. J. 1997. “Verbal Aspect and Mimetic Description in Thucydides.” In
Grammar as Interpretation: Greek Literature in Its Linguistic Context, edited
by E. J. Bakker, 7–54. Leiden: Brill.
———. 2006. “Contract and Design: Thucydides’ Writing.” In Brill’s Companion
———. 2007. “Time, Tense and Thucydides.” Classical World 100: 113–22.
Bakker, M. de. 2017. “Authorial Comments in Thucydides.” In The Oxford Handbook
of Thucydides, edited by R. Balot, S. Forsdyke, and E. Foster, 239–56. Oxford:
Connor, W. R. 1985. “Narrative Discourse in Thucydides.” In The Greek Historians:
Literature and History: Papers Presented to A. E. Raubitschek, edited by W. R.
Connor, 1–18. Saratoga, Calif.: ANMA Libri.
———. 2017. “Scale Matters: Compression, Expansion, and Vividness in
Thucydides.” In The Oxford Handbook of Thucydides, edited by R. Balot, S.
Forsdyke, and E. Foster, 211–24. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dover, K. 1983. “Thucydides “ ‘As History’ and ‘As Literature.’ ” History and Theory
22: 54–63. Reprinted 2009 in Thucydides: Oxford Readings in Classical Studies,
edited by J. Rusten, 44–59. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Finley, J. H. 1939. “The Origins of Thucydides’ Style.” Harvard Studies in Classical
Philology 50: 35–84. Reprinted 1967 in J. Finley, Three Essays on Thucydides.
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Grant, J. 1974. “Toward Knowing Thucydides.” Phoenix 28: 81–94.

Grethlein, J. 2013. Experience and Teleology in Ancient Historiography: “Future
Past” from Herodotus to Augustine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gribble, D. 1998. “Narrator Interventions in Thucydides.” Journal of Hellenic Studies
118: 41–67.
Hornblower, S. 1994. “Narratology and Narrative Technique in Thucydides.”
In Greek Historiography, edited by S. Hornblower, 131–66. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
———. 2008. “Direct and Indirect Speech in 5.25–8.109.” In A Commentary on
Thucydides, 3: 32–35. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kagan, D. “The Speeches in Thucydides and the Mytilene Debate.” Yale Classical
Studies 24: 71–94.
Kirby, J. T. 1983. “Narrative Structure and Technique in Thucydides VI–VII.”
Classical Antiquity 2: 183–211.
Lamari, A. 2013. “Making Meaning: Cross-References and Their Interpretation in
Thucydides’ Sicilian Narrative.” In Thucydides between History and Literature,
edited by A. Tsakmakis and M. Tamiolaki, 287–307. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Morrison, J. V. 2006. “Interaction of Speech and Narrative in Thucydides.” In
Brill’s Companion to Thucydides, edited by A. Rengakos and A. Tsakmakis,
Parry, A. M. 1970. “Thucydides’ Use of Abstract Language.” Yale French Studies
45: 3–20.
Pelling, C. 2000. “Thucydides’ Speeches.” In Literary Texts and the Greek Historian,
42–122 London: Routledge. Reprinted 2009 in Thucydides: Oxford Readings in
Classical Studies, edited by J. Rusten, 176–87. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rood, T. 2004. “Thucydides.” In Narrators, Narratees, and Narratives in Ancient
Greek Literature: Studies in Ancient Greek Narrative 1 (Mnemosyne Supplement
257), edited by I. J. F. de Jong, R. Nünlist, and A. Bowie, 115–28. Leiden: Brill.
———. 2007. “Thucydides.” In Time in Ancient Greek Narrative: Studies in Ancient
Greek Narrative 2 (Mnemosyne Supplement 291), edited by I. J. F. de Jong and
R. Nünlist, 13–146. Leiden: Brill.
Rusten, J. 2017. “The Tree, the Funnel, and the Diptych: Some Patterns in
Thucydides’ Longest Sentences.” In The Oxford Handbook of Thucydides, edited
by R. Balot, S. Forsdyke, and E. Foster, 225–38. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Stadter, P., ed. 1973. The Speeches in Thucydides: A Collection of Original Studies
with a Bibliography. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Stahl, H-P. 1973. “Speeches and Course of Events in Books Six and Seven of
Thucydides.” In The Speeches in Thucydides, edited by P. Stadter, 60–77. Cha-
pel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Reprinted 2009 in Thucydides:
Oxford Readings in Classical Studies, edited by J. Rusten, 341–58. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Tsakmakis, A. 2017. “Speeches.” In The Oxford Companion to Thucydides, edited by
R. Balot, S. Forsdyke, and E. Foster, 267–81. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Yaginuma, S. 1995. “Did Thucydides Write for Readers or Hearers?” In The Pas-
sionate Intellect: Essays on the Transformation of Classical Traditions, edited by
L. Ayres, 131–42. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers.
The Transformation of the Athenians
Allison, J. W. 1989. Power and Preparedness in Thucydides. Baltimore: The Johns

Hopkins University Press.
Crane, G. 1992. “The Fear and Pursuit of Risk: Corinth on Athens, Sparta, and the
Peloponnesians (Thucydides 1.68–71, 120–121).” Transactions of the American
Philological Association 122: 227–56.
Smith, D. G. 2004. “Thucydides’ Ignorant Athenians and the Drama of the Sicilian
Expedition.” Syllecta Classica 15: 33–70.
Steiner, D. 2005. “For Want of a Horse. Thucydides 6.30–2 and Reversals in the
Athenian Civic Ideal.” Classical Quarterly 55: 407–22.
Strauss, L. 1964. The City and Man. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
The Tyrannicides Excursus
Furley, W. D. 1996. Andokides and the Herms: A Study of Crisis in Fifth Century
Athenian Religion. London: University of London, Institute of Classical Studies.
Kallet, L. 2006. “Thucydides’ Workshop of History and Utility Outside the Text.”
In Brill’s Companion to Thucydides, edited by A. Rengakos and A.Tsakmakis,
Meyer, E. A. 2008. “Thucydides on Harmodius and Aristogeiton, Tyranny, and
History.” Classical Quarterly 58: 13–34.
Murray, O. 1990. “The Affair of the Mysteries: Democracy and the Drinking-Group.”
In Sympotica: A Symposium on the Symposium, edited by O. Murray, 149–61.
Osborne, R. 1985. “The Erection and Mutilation of the Hermai.” Proceedings of the
Cambridge Philological Society 31: 47–73.
Quinn, J. C. 2007. “Herms, Kouroi, and the Political Anatomy of Athens.” Greece
and Rome 54: 82–105.
Vickers, M. 1995. “Thucydides 6.53.3–59: Not a ‘Digression.’ ” Dialogues d’histoire
ancienne 21: 193–200.
Winkler, J. 1990. “Phallos Politikos: Representing the Body Politic in Athens.”
differences 2(1): 29–45.
Warfare
Campbell, B., and L. Trittle, eds. 2015. The Oxford Handbook of Warfare in the
Classical World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Foster, E. 2017. “Campaign and Battle Narratives in Thucydides.” In The Oxford
Companion to Thucydides, edited by R. Balot, S. Forsdyke, and E. Foster, 301–15.
Funke, P., and M. Haake. 2006. “Theaters of War: Thucydidean Topography.” In
Graham, A. J. 1992. “Thucydides 7.13.2 and the Crews of Athenian Triremes.”
Transactions of the American Philological Association 122: 257–70.
———. 1998. “Thucydides 7.13.2 and the Crews of Athenian Triremes: An Adden-
dum.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 128: 89–114.
Hanson, V. 1989. The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
———. 1996. “Appendix F: Land Warfare in Thucydides.” In The Landmark
Thucydides, edited by R. Strassler, 603–7. New York: Free Press.
———. 2005. A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Sparta Fought the
Peloponnesian War. London: Methuen.
Hirschfeld, N. 1996. “Appendix G: Trireme Warfare in Thucydides.” In The Land-
mark Thucydides, edited by R. Strassler, 608–13. New York: Free Press.
Hunt, P. 1998. Slaves, Warfare, and Ideology in the Greek Historians. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
———. 2006. “Warfare.” In Brill’s Companion to Thucydides, edited by A. Rengakos
and A. Tsakmakis, 385–413. Leiden: Brill.
Lazenby, J. F. 2004. The Peloponnesian War: A Military Study. London: Routledge.
Morrison, J., J. Coates, and N. Rankov. 2000. The Athenian Trireme. 2nd ed.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Morpeth, N. 2006. Thucydides’ War: Accounting for the Conflict. Zürich: Georg
Olms Verlag Hildesheim.
Roisman, J. 1993. The General Demosthenes and His Use of Military Surprise (Historia
Einzelschriften 78). Stuttgart: F. Steiner.
Sabin, P., H. van Wees, and M. Whitby, eds. 2007. The Cambridge History of Greek
and Roman Warfare. Vol. 1, Greece, the Hellenistic World and the Rise of Rome.
van Wees, H., ed. 2000. War and Violence in Ancient Greece. London: Duckworth.
———. 2004. Greek Warfare. London: Duckworth.
Bibliog raphy
Allan, R. J. 2007. “Sense and Sentence Complexity: Sentence Structure, Sentence

Connection, and Tense-Aspect as Indicators of Narrative Mode in Thucydides’
Histories.” In The Language of Literature: Linguistic Approaches to Classical
Texts, edited by R. J. Allan and M. Buijs, 93–121. Leiden: Brill.
———. 2013. “History as Presence: Time, Tense and Narrative Modes in
Thucydides.” In Th ucydides between History and Literature, edited by A.
Tsakmakis and M. Tamiolaki, 371–89. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Allison, J. W. 1989. Power and Preparedness in Thucydides. Baltimore: The Johns
Hopkins University Press.
———. 1997a. “Homeric Allusions at the Close of Thucydides’ Sicilian Narrative.”
American Journal of Philology 118: 499–516.
———. 1997b. Word and Concept in Thucydides. Atlanta: Scholars Press.
Andrewes, A. 1960. “The Melian Dialogue and Perikles’ Last Speech.” Proceedings
of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, n.s., 6: 1–10.
———. 1992. “The Spartan Resurgence.” In The Cambridge Ancient History. Vol.
5, The Fifth Century, edited by D. M. Lewis, J. Boardman, J. K. Davies, and M.
Ostwald, 464–98. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Angelis, F. de. 2016. Archaic and Classical Greek Sicily. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Arnold, P. 1996. “The Unpersuasive Thebans: (Thuc. 3.61–67).” Phoenix 50: 95–110.
443
444 Bibliography
Asheri, D. 1992. “Sicily, 478–431 b.c.” In The Cambridge Ancient History. Vol. 5,
The Fifth Century, edited by D. M. Lewis, J. Boardman, J. K. Davies, and M.
Ostwald, 147–70. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Avery, H. C. 1973. “Themes in Thucydides’ Account of the Sicilian Expedition.”
Hermes 101: 1–13.
Babbitt, F. C. 1936. Plutarch’s Moralia. Vol. 4. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Uni-
versity Press.
Bakker, E. J. 1997. “Verbal Aspect and Mimetic Description in Thucydides.” In
Grammar as Interpretation: Greek Literature in Its Linguistic Context, edited
by E. J. Bakker, 7–54. Leiden: Brill.
———. 2006. “Contract and Design: Thucydides’ Writing.” In Brill’s Companion
Bakker, M. de. 2013. “Character Judgements in the Histories: Their Function
and Distribution.” In Thucydides between History and Literature, edited by A.
Tsakmakis and M. Tamiolaki, 23–40. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Berger, S. 1992. Revolution and Society in Greek Sicily and South Italy. Historia
Supplement 71. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner.
Bloedow, E. 1992. “Alcibiades ‘Brilliant’ or ‘Intelligent’?” Historia 41: 139–57.
Bowra, C. M. 1960. “Euripides’ Epinician for Alcibiades.” Historia 9: 6–79.
Brenne, S. 1994. “Ostraka and the Process of Ostrakophoria.” In The Archaeology
of Athens and Attica under Democracy, edited by W. D. E. Coulson, O. Palagia,
T. L. Shear Jr., H. A. Shapiro, and F. J. Frost, 13–24. Oxford: Oxbow Books.
Brunt, P. A. 1957. “Review: Sicily and Athens.” Classical Review 7: 243–45.
Buck, R. 1998. “The Sicilian Expedition.” Ancient History Bulletin 2: 73–79.
Cicero. 1939. Brutus. Orator. Translated by G. L. Hendrickson and H. Hubbell.
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Connor, W. R. 1979. “Thucydides 2.65.12.” In Arktouros: Hellenic Studies Presented
to Bernard M. W. Knox on the Occasion of His Sixty-Fifth Birthday, edited by G.
W. Bowerstock, W. Burkert, and M. C. J. Putnam, 269–71. New York: Walter
de Gruyter.
———. 1984. Thucydides. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
———. 1985. “The Razing of the House in Greek Society.” Transactions of the
American Philological Association 115: 79–102.
———. 2017. “Scale Matters: Compression, Expansion, and Vividness in
Thucydides.” In The Oxford Handbook of Thucydides, edited by R. Balot, S.
Forsdyke, and E. Foster, 211–24. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bibliography 445
Cornford, F. M. 1907. Thucydides Mythistoricus. London: E. Arnold.

Crane, G. 1996. The Blinded Eye: Thucydides and the New Written Word. Lanham,
MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
———. 1998. Thucydides and the Ancient Simplicity: The Limits of Political Realism.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Davidson, J. 1991. “The Gaze in Polybius’ Histories.” Journal of Roman Studies
81: 10–24.
Davies, J. K. 1971. Athenian Propertied Families. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
de Romilly, J. 2012. The Mind of Thucydides. Translated by E. Rawlings. Ithaca,
N.Y.: Cornell University Press. (Originally published in 1956 as Histoire et raison
chez Thucydide. Paris: Les Belles Lettres.)
Debnar, P. 2001. Speaking the Same Language: Speech and Audience in Thucydides’
Spartan Debates. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Derow, P. 1994. “Historical Explanation: Polybius and his Predecessors.” In Greek
Historiography, edited by S. Hornblower, 73–90. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Dewald, C. 2005. Thucydides’ War Narrative. Berkeley: University of California
Press.
Dionysius of Halicarnassus. 1975. On Thucydides. Edited and translated by W. K.
Pritchett. Berkeley: University of California Press.
———. 1985. Critical Essays. Vol. 2, On Literary Composition. Dinarchus. Letters
to Ammaeus and Pompeius. Translated by S. Usher. Harvard, Mass.: Harvard
University Press.
Dover, K. J. 1972. “Review of Armada from Athens by Peter Green,” Phoenix 26:
297–300.
———. 1988. The Greeks and Their Legacy. Oxford: Blackwell.
———. 1997. The Evolution of Greek Prose Style. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Dreizehnter, A. 1978. Die rhetorische Zahl: Quellenkritische Untersuchungen anhand
der Zahlen 70 und 700. Munich: C. H. Beck.
Dunbar, N., ed. 1995. Aristophanes’ Birds. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Ferguson, W. 1927. “The Athenian Expedition to Sicily.” In The Cambridge Ancient
History. Vol. 5, Athens: 478–401 b.c., edited by J. B. Bury, S. A. Cook, and F. E.
Adcock, 282–311. New York: Macmillan Co.
Finley, J. 1963. Thucydides. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
———. 1967. Three Essays on Thucydides. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press.
Forrest, G. 1975. “An Athenian Generation Gap.” Yale Classical Studies 24: 37–52.
446 Bibliography
Foster, E. 2002. “Material Culture in Thucydidean Narrative.” PhD diss., University

of Chicago.
———. 2010. Thucydides, Pericles, and Periclean Imperialism. Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press.
Fowler, D. P. 1989. “First Thoughts on Closure: Problems and Prospects.” Materiali
e discussioni per l’analisi dei testi classici 22: 75–122.
Fragoulaki, M. 2013. Kinship in Thucydides. Intercommunal Ties and Historical
Narrative. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Funke, P., and M. Haake. 2006. “Theaters of War: Thucydidean Topography.” In
Geagan, D. 2011. The Athenian Agora. Vol. 18, Inscriptions: The Dedicatory Monu-
ments. Princeton, N.J.: American School of Classical Studies.
Gomme, A. W. 1951. “Four Passages in Thucydides.” Journal of Hellenic Studies
71: 70–80
Graham, A. J. 1992. “Thucydides 7.13.2 and the Crews of Athenian Triremes.”
Transactions of the American Philological Association 122: 257–70.
———. 1998. “Thucydides 7.13.2 and the Crews of Athenian Triremes: An Adden-
dum.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 128: 89–114.
Grant, J. 1974. “Toward Knowing Thucydides.” Phoenix 28: 81–94.
Green, P. 1970. Armada from Athens. New York: Doubleday.
Greenwood, E. 2017. “Thucydides on the Sicilian Expedition.” In The Oxford
Grene, D., and R. Lattimore, eds. 1959. The Complete Greek Tragedies. Vol. 1,
Aeschylus. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Griffin, J. 1987. “Homer and Excess.” In Homer: Beyond Oral Poetry, edited by
J. M. Bremer, I. J. F. de Jong, and J. Kalff, 85–104. Amsterdam: B. R. Grüner.
Griffiths, E. 2007. “Fighting the Future: Euripidean Letters and Thucydides’
Athens.” In Politics of Orality, edited by C. Cooper, 277–91. Leiden: Brill.
Grote, G. 1881. History of Greece. Vol. 3. New York: American Book Exchange.
Handley, E. W. 1953. “–σις Nouns in Aristophanes.” Eranos 51: 129–42.
Hanson, V. 1989. The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece.
Hobbes, T. 1962. English Works. Vol. 8, edited by W. Molesworth. London: Scientia
Aalen. (Reprint of the 1843 volume published by J. Bohn.)
Bibliography 447
Hornblower, S. 2004. Thucydides and Pindar: Historical Narrative and the World
of Epinikian Poetry. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
———. 2011a. The Greek World. 4th ed. London: Routledge.
———. 2011b. Thucydidean Themes. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Huart, P. 1968. Le Vocabulaire de l’analyse psychologique dans l’oeuvre de Thucydide.
Paris: C. Klincksieck.
Hudson-Williams, H. L. 1950. “Conventional Forms of Debate and the Melian
Dialogue.” American Journal of Philology 71: 156–69.
Hunt, P. 1998. Slaves, Warfare, and Ideology in the Greek Historians. Cambridge:
———. 2006. “Warfare.” In Brill’s Companion to Thucydides, edited by A. Rengakos
and A. Tsakmakis, 385–413. Leiden: Brill.
Hunter, V. 1973. Thucydides. The Artful Reporter. Toronto: Hakkert.
Joho, T. 2017. “Thucydides, Epic, and Tragedy.” In The Oxford Handbook of
Thucydides, edited by R. Balot, S. Forsdyke, and E. Foster, 587–604. Oxford:
Jordan, B. 2000. “The Sicilian Expedition Was a Potemkin Fleet.” Classical Quar-
terly 50: 63–79.
Kagan, D. 1974. The Archidamian War. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.
———. 1981. The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell
University Press.
Kallet, L. 2001. Money and the Corrosion of Power in Thucydides: The Sicilian
Expedition and Its Aftermath. Berkeley: University of California Press.
———. 2006. “Thucydides’ Workshop of History and Utility outside the Text.”
Kitto, H. D. F. 1966. Poiesis: Structure and Thought. Berkeley: University of Cali-
fornia Press.
Klug, W. 1992. Erzählstruktur als Kunstform: Studien zur künstlerischen Funktion
der Erzähltempora im Lateinischen und im Griechischen. Heidelberg: Manutius
Verlag.
Lalonde, G. V., M. K. Langdon, and M. B. Walbank. 1991. The Athenian Agora. Vol.
19, Inscriptions. Horoi. Poletai Records. Leases of Public Lands. Princeton, N.J.:
American School of Classical Studies at Athens.
Lateiner, D. 1985. “Nicias’ Inadequate Encouragement (Thuc. 7.69.2).” Classical
Philology 80: 201–13.
448 Bibliography
Lattimore, R. 1939. “The Wise Adviser in Herodotus.” Classical Philology 34: 24–35.
Lazenby, J. F. 2004. The Peloponnesian War: A Military Study. London: Routledge.
Lesky, A. 1966. A History of Greek Literature. New York: T. Crowell.
Lewis, D. M. 1992. “The Archidamian War.” In The Cambridge Ancient History.
Vol. 5, The Fifth Century, edited by D. M. Lewis, J. Boardman, J. K. Davies, and
M. Ostwald, 370–432. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lobel, E., and D. Page, eds. 1959. Poetarum Lesbiorum Fragmenta. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Long, A. A. 1968. Language and Thought in Sophocles. London: Athlone Press.
Loraux, N. 1986. “Thucydide a écrit la guerre du Péloponnese.” Metis 1: 139–61.
Macauley, T. 1828. “The Romance of History.” Edinburgh Review 47: 331–67.
Mackie, C. J. 1996. “Homer and Thucydides: Corcyra and Sicily.” Classical Quarterly
46: 103–13.
Macleod, C. 1983. Collected Essays. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
MacDowell, D. 1962. On the Mysteries. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Marinatos-Kopff, N., and H. Rawlings, 1978. “Panolethria and Divine Punishment:
Thucy. 7.87.6 and Hdt. 2.120.5.” La Parola del Passato 182: 331–37.
Maurer, K. 1995. Interpolation in Thucydides. Mnemosyne Supplement 150. New
York: Brill.
Meiggs, R., and D. M. Lewis, eds. 1988. A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions
to the End of the Fifth Century b.c. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Meritt, B. D. 1932. Athenian Financial Documents of the Fifth Century. Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press.
Meritt, B. D., A. G. Woodhead, and G. A. Stamires. 1957. “Greek Inscriptions.”
Hesperia 26: 198–270.
Meyer, E. A. 2008. “Thucydides on Harmodius and Aristogeiton, Tyranny, and
History.” Classical Quarterly 58: 13–34.
Monoson, S., and M. Loriaux. 1998. “The Illusion of Power and the Disruption of
Moral Norms: Thucydides’ Critique of Periclean Policy.” American Political
Science Review 92: 285–97.
Morpeth, N. 2006. Thucydides’ War: Accounting for the Conflict. Zürich: G. Olms.
Morrison, J., J. Coates, and N. Rankov. 2000. The Athenian Trireme. 2nd ed.
Morrison, J. V. 2000. “Historical Lessons in the Melian Episode.” Transactions of
the American Philological Association 130: 119–48.
Bibliography 449
Munn, M. 2000. The School of History. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Murray, O. 1990. “The Affair of the Mysteries: Democracy and the Drinking-Group.”
In Sympotica: A Symposium on the Symposium, edited by O. Murray, 149–61.
Nichols, M. 2017. “Leaders and Leadership in Thucydides’ History.” In The Oxford
Nietzsche, F. 1982. Daybreak. Translated by R. J. Hollingdale. Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press.
———. 1998. Twilight of the Idols. Translated by D. Large. Oxford: Oxford Uni-
versity Press.
Nisetich, F. J., trans. 1980. Pindar’s Victory Songs. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press.
Orwin, C. 2017. “Thucydides on Nature and Human Conduct.” In The Oxford
Osborne, R. 1985. “The Erection and Mutilation of the Hermai.” Proceedings of the
Cambridge Philological Society 31: 47–73.
Page, D. L., ed. 1962. Poetae Melici Graeci. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Palmer, M. 1992. Love of Glory and the Common Good. Lanham, Md.: Rowman
and Littlefield.
Parker, R. 1983. Miasma: Pollution and Purification in Early Greek Religion. Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
———. 1996. Athenian Religion: A History. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Parry, A. M. 1970. “Thucydides’ Use of Abstract Language.” Yale French Studies
45: 3–20.
———. 1981. Logos and Ergon in Thucydides. New York: Arno Press.
Paul, G. M. 1982. “ ‘Urbs Capta’: Sketch of an Ancient Literary Motif.” Phoenix
36: 144–55.
Price, J. 2013. “Difficult Statements in Thucydides.” In Thucydides between History
and Literature, edited by A. Tsakmakis and M. Tamiolaki, 435–46. Leiden: Brill.
Quinn, J. C. 2007. “Herms, Kouroi and the Political Anatomy of Athens.” Greece
and Rome 54: 82–105.
Quinn, T. 1995. “Thucydides and the Massacre at Mycalessus.” Mnemosyne 48:
571–74.
Radt, S. 1976. “Philologische Kleinigkeiten zum Melierdialog.” Mnemosyne 29:
33–41.
450 Bibliography
Rahe, P. A. 2017. “Religion, Politics, and Piety.” In The Oxford Companion to

Thucydides, edited by R. Balot, S. Forsdyce, and E. Foster, 427–41. Oxford:
Rawlings, H. R., III. 1981. The Structure of Thucydides’ History. Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press.
Rhodes, P. J. 1972. “The Five Thousand in the Athenian Revolution of 411 b.c.”
Journal of Hellenic Studies 92: 115–27.
———. 1988. Thucydides: History 2. Warminster, UK: Aris and Phillips.
Roisman, J. 1993. The General Demosthenes and His Use of Military Surprise. His-
toria, Einzelschriften 78. Stuttgart: F. Steiner.
Rood, T. 1998a. Thucydides: Narrative and Explanation. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
———. 1998b. “Thucydides and His Predecessors.” Histos 2: 230–67. http: //
research.ncl.ac.uk/histos/documents/1998.10RoodThucydidesandhisPredec
essors230267.pdf.
———. 1999. “Thucydides’ Persian Wars.” In The Limits of Historiography: Genre
and Narrative in Ancient Historical Texts, edited by C.S. Kraus, 141–68. Leiden:
Brill. (Reprinted 2009 in Thucydides: Oxford Readings in Classical Studies,
edited by J. Rusten, 148–75. Oxford: Oxford University Press.)
———. 2006. “Objectivity and Authority. Thucydides’ Historical Method.” In
Russell, D. A. 1981. Criticism in Antiquity. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Rusten, J. 1989. Thucydides: The Peloponnesian War. Book 2. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
———. 2017. “The Tree, the Funnel, and the Diptych: Some Patterns in Thucydides’
Longest Sentences.” In The Oxford Handbook of Thucydides, edited by R. Balot,
S. Forsdyke, and E. Foster, 225–38. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rutter, N. K. 2000. “Syracusan Democracy: ‘Most Like the Athenian’?” In Alterna-
tives to Athens, edited by R. Brock and S. Hodkinson, 137–51. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Seaman, M. 1997. “The Athenian Expedition to Melos in 416.” Historia 46: 385–418.
Sears, M. 2013. Athens, Thrace, and the Shaping of Athenian Leadership. New York:
Silk, M. 2007. “Pindar’s Poetry as Poetry: A Literary Commentary on Olympian
12.” In Pindar’s Poetry, Patrons and Festivals, edited by S. Hornblower and C.
Morgan, 177–97 Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bibliography 451
Smarczyk, B. 2006. “Thucydides and Epigraphy.” In Brill’s Companion to

Thucydides, edited by A. Rengakos and A. Tsakmakis, 495–522. Leiden: Brill.
Stadter, P. 2012. “Thucydides as ‘Reader’ of Herodotus.” In Thucydides and Herodo-
tus, edited by E. Foster and D. Lateiner, 39–66. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Stahl, H-P. 1973. “Speeches and Course of Events in Books Six and Seven of
Thucydides.” In The Speeches in Thucydides, edited by P. Stadter, 60–77. Cha-
pel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. (Reprinted 2009 in Thucydides:
Oxford Readings in Classical Studies, edited by J. Rusten, 341–58. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.)
———. 2003. Thucydides: Man’s Place in History. Swansea: Classical Press of
Wales. (Originally published in 1966 as Thukydides: Die Stellung des Menschen
im geschichtlichen Prozess. Munich: Beck).
Strauss, L. 1964. The City and Man. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Stroud, R. S. 1994. “Thucydides and Corinth.” Chiron 24: 267–304.
Taylor, M. C. 2010. Thucydides, Pericles, and the Idea of Athens in the Peloponnesian
War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Telo, M. 2010. “Embodying the Tragic Father(s): Autobiography and Intertextuality
in Aristophanes.” Classical Antiquity 29: 278–326.
Thompson, H. A., and R. E. Wycherley. 1972. The Agora of Athens: The History,
Shape and Uses of an Ancient City Center. Princeton, N.J.: American School of
Classical Studies at Athens.
Tompkins, D. P. 1972. “Stylistic Characterization in Thucydides: Nicias and Alcibi-
ades.” Yale Classical Studies 22: 181–214.
Trittle, L. 2010. A New History of the Peloponnesian War. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
True, M. 1954a. “Athen und Melos und der Melierdialog des Thukydides.” Historia
2: 253–73.
———. 1954b. “Nachtrag zum Aufsatz ‘Athen und Melos und der Melierdialog des
Thukydides.’ ” Historia 3: 58–59.
Vickers, M. 1995. “Thucydides 6.53.3–59: Not a ‘Digression.’ ” Dialogues d’histoire
ancienne 21: 193–200.
Walbank M. 1978. Athenian Proxenies of the Fifth Century b.c. Toronto: S. Stevens.
Warner, R., trans. 1972. History of the Peloponnesian War. New York: Penguin
Books.
Wasserman, F. 1947. “The Melian Dialogue.” Transactions and Proceedings of the
American Philological Association 78: 18–36.
Westlake, H. D. 1958. “Thucydides 2.65.11.” Classical Quarterly, n.s., 8: 102–10.
452 Bibliography
———. 1968. Individuals in Thucydides. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Whitehead, D. 1977. The Ideology of the Athenian Metic. Cambridge: Cambridge
Philosophical Society.
Winkler, J. 1990. “Phallos Politikos: Representing the Body Politic in Athens.”
differences 2(1): 29–45.
Wohl, V. 1999. “The Eros of Alcibiades.” Classical Antiquity 18: 349–85.
———. 2002. Love among the Ruins: The Erotics of Democracy in Classical Athens.
Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Yaginuma, S. 1990. “Thucydides 6.100.” In Owls to Athens: Essays on Classical
Subjects Presented to Sir Kenneth Dover, edited by E. M. Craik, 281–85. Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
———. 1995. “Did Thucydides Write for Readers or Hearers?” In The Passionate
Intellect: Essays on the Transformation of Classical Traditions, edited by L. Ayres,
131–42. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers.
Young, D. 1968. Three Odes of Pindar: A Literary Study of Pythian 11, Pythian 3,
and Olympian 7. Leiden: Brill.
Yunis, H. 1996. Taming Democracy: Models of Political Rhetoric in Classical Athens.
Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.
Index
Abydos, 39 244; exaggerations of, 122, 124,

Aeneas, 86 128; exile of, first, 41, 197–201, 216,
Aeschylus: Agamemnon, 143; Persians, 430–32; exile of, second, 41, 427;
380, 389, 394, 415 and the fleet on Samos, 40–41;
Agis, 288–89 and the four hundred, 40, 114,
Aigina/Aiginetans, 231, 361 427; and the herms and mysteries,
Aigospotamoi, 42–43, 77, 327, 346 147–51, 187, 189–91, 197, 199, 201,
Aiolians, 363 426; introductions of, 97, 121–24;
Aitna, 22 in the “Ionian” war, 39, 124, 430;
Akanthos, 28, 52 and Karthage, 122; and the loss of
Akarnania, 242 the Sicilian Expedition, 124, 329,
Akragas, 88–89, 313 430–31; and the loss of the war,
Akrai, 88–89 41, 122, 123–24, 424; and Melos,
Alcaeus, 400 51–52; Olympic victory of, 126; and
Alkibiades: age of, 3n1, 116; at Aigos- the peace of Nikias, 97, 105; and
potamoi, 43, 346; ambition of, 121, Perikles, 20–21, 124, 244, 246; poli-
242; and Argos, 29; Athenian reac- tics of, 123, 127, 150, 239, 241–42,
tion to, 121–24, 373; and the battle 420; and proxeny of Sparta, 240;
of Mantineia, 29, 97, 128; boastful- and the public/private divide, 36,
ness of, 124, 125, 160, 238, 240, 396; 98, 116, 125, 128, 240, 246–7; on
and Chios, 39; and Dekeleia, 41, quiet, 133–34; rhetorical style of,
453
454 Index
Alkibiades (continued) 359–61; disorder of, 252, 327, 336,

124–25, 239–40; speech of, in Ath- 378; and Egesta, 23, 91–94, 101, 119,
ens, 124–36; speech of, in Sparta, 156, 180, 201; and Euboia, 19, 39, 40,
229, 239–48; strategy for Sicily of, 304, 361, 417; and expediency, 55,
184, 349; Thucydides’s judgment 67; as experienced fighters, 211–12;
on, 329, 430–432; transgressive and expulsion of Peisistratids, 189,
lifestyle of, 116, 122–23, 190; and 196; finances of, 39, 41, 146, 308; and
tyrannicides excursus, 189–90; the fleet on Samos, 40, 427; grain
vision of Athens of, 246–47 supply of, 41, 42, 43, 139; and Hes-
Alkmaionidai, 97, 116, 123, 189, 192, tiaia, 359, 361; home-attachment
241 of, 59, 72, 139, 203, 210, 221, 232,
Amphipolis, 4, 28, 29, 78, 108, 277 369, 384, 399, 415; and hope, 28,
Andokides, 146–47, 149, 197–199 63, 144, 153, 160, 393, 398; imports
Antiochos of Syracuse, 86–87 of, 139, 304; invasion of Lakonia
Antiphon, 16 by, 261–262; irrationality of, 27–28,
Archidamos, 23–24, 39, 70, 71 112–13, 305–7, 309, 388; as island-
Arginousai, 41–42, 275, 280–81 city, 20, 107–8, 152, 246, 293; and
Aristogeiton. See tyrannicides excur- islands, 49, 51, 55, 59, 79, 102; and
sus Kamarina 186, 217–37, 314; and Kar-
Aristophanes: Acharnians, 6; Birds, thage, 122, 166; and Katane, 186–87,
77, 205, 213; Clouds, 116; Frogs, 308; 202, 314, 364, 401; and Kerkyra,
Lysistrata, 145, 148, 189, 419 18, 20, 21–22, 23, 315; and Korinth,
Argos, 29, 49, 65, 94, 200 18–19, 20–21, 29, 43, 78, 411; and
Artabanos, 36, 98 Leontinoi, 22–23, 25, 34, 91–92; and
Artas, 23, 315 masculinity, 120; and Megara, 19;
Athenagoras, 170–76 and Melos, 48–77; and Mytilene, 25;
Athens/Athenians: and Aigina, 221, morale of, in Sicily, 277, 279, 318–19,
361; and Alkibiades, 121–24, 373; 389, 391, 394, 403; as naukratores,
and Argos, 29, 49; character of, 37–38, 59–60; naval skill of, 37–38,
37–38, 69, 70, 103, 145, 164, 318–19; 269, 293, 312–13, 317, 320; as the
credulity of, 173, 188, 200; as defeat- new Persians, 36–37, 66–67, 102,
ing themselves, 36, 116, 122, 345–46, 163, 293, 382.; and Poteidaia, 18–19,
418, 427–28; as deluded by display, 20, 24; and the public/private
125, 144–45, 151, 153–155, 158–59, divide, 122, 144; and quiet, 105, 133,
180; democracy in, 30–31, 40–41, 144–45, 235–26; reserves of, 417;
277–78; depopulations of cities by, resiliency of, 307, 415–16, 418, 419,
Index 455
427; resources of, 82–83, 307; and Chalkedon, 41

revolt of Amphipolis, 4, 28–29, 108, Chalkidians, 28, 29, 34, 38, 95
277; and revolts of allies, 18–19, 25, Charmides, 198
38, 39; and Rhegion, 22–23; and Charoiades, 25
Samos, 43, 427; Sicilian contacts of, Chios, 39, 178, 361
21–23, 92, 265; and siege-warfare, closure, 39, 267, 414, 415
73, 279; similarity to Syracuse of, composition question, 9–10, 214–15,
33, 162, 293, 214, 358, 418; similar- 300, 359, 361, 417, 430
ity to Melians of, 63, 97, 160; and Connor, Robert, 10
Skione, 43, 79, 362, slowness of, in
Sicily, 217, 340, 349, 351–52; speech Daskon, 206–7, 354–55
of, at Spartan congress, 55, 67, 228, Dekeleia: fortification of, 41, 244–45,
229, 230; speeches of, suppressed, 286, 288–90, 300–303; spared by
184, 228; stasis in, 39, 40; surrender Spartans, 244, 247–48
of, 43–44, 56; transformation of, Dekeleian war. See “Ionian” war
37–38, 164, 293, 322, 370, 371, 407; Delian league, 19, 34, 362
treatment of generals by, 26, 27–28, democracy: in Athens, 30–31, 41; in
42, 345, 412; as tricked by enemies, Syracuse, 31–33. See also boule of
97, 180, 202, 326–27, 392; as trick- Athens
ing enemies, 205, 392; tyranny of Demosthenes, 284, 299; on Attica vs.
Peisistratids in; and xyngeneia, 35, Sicily, 341, 347; boldness of, 333,
58–59, 221, 339, 359 342; critique of Nikias by, 213, 226,
Attica: invasions of, 19–20, 24, 27, 237; funds for, 291; slowness of,
71, 285–286, 289, 303; value of, to 288, 291–92, 299, 312, 315, 330
Demosthenes, 341, 347 “didactic arenas,” 58, 202
Attica, abandonment of: by Nikias, Diitrephes, 309–10, 311
393, 397, 401; by Perikles, 20–21, 38, Diodotos, 56
76–77, 246, 300–302, 305; in Persian Dionysius of Halicarnassus: on Her-
war, 38, 246–47; in Sicilian expedi- mokrates’s speech, 221, 222, 223,
tion, 38, 203, 286, 300–303, 341, 385 225; on Melian Dialogue, 50, 55; on
Atticism, 36–37 Thucydides, 11, 17
Dioskouroi, 244
Boiotians, 29, 36–37, 106 Dorian/Ionian divide: Hermokrates
boule of Athens, 30–31, 278 on, 162, 219–20, 222–223; in Sicily,
Brasidas, 4, 20, 28, 52, 71–72, 191 22–23, 25, 34–35, 87, 362
Byzantion, 41, 42
456 Index
eclipse, interpretation of, 350–51 four hundred, the, 39, 196, 423; and
Egesta/Egestaians, 101, 119; alliance Alkibiades, 40, 114, 427
with Athens of, 23; deception by, funeral oration, the, 8, 9n6, 24, 35–36,
86, 180; embassy of, 27, 34–35, 76–77, 121, 309; echoed in the
91–94; financing of Sicilian expedi- Melian Dialogue, 58–59; echoed by
tion by, 156; war with Selinous of, Nikias, 381
91, 92, 201–2; and xyngeneia, 35, 93
Elaians, 106 Gela, 26, 88–89
Epidamnos, 18, 21, 34 Gelon, 22, 88
Epipolai, 217, 329–30, 332; night attack general of Syracuse, 176–77
on, 329–40 generals’ conference, first (Alkibi-
eros: in the funeral oration, 35–36; for ades, Lamachos, Nikias), 180–84;
the Sicilian expedition, 102, 118 Alkibiades’s plan at, 184, 329;
Eryx, 86 Lamachos’s plan at, 182, 185, 203,
Etruscans, 238, 336 29
Euboia, 19, 39, 40, 304, 361, 417 generals’ conference, second (Demos-
Euphemos: and Alkibiades, 228; on thenes, Eurymedon, Nikias), 238,
Athens’s home attachment, 233; on 340–49
Ionians, 228, 229, 230, 232; irony in, generation gap, 100, 117, 175
229, 234; speech of, at Kamarina, Gorgias, 14, 18, 283
218–19, 228–37 Gylippos, 248, 260, 263–68, 282
Euripides, 126, 409
Euryelos, 252, 329–30, 334–35 Hagnon, 155, 419
Eurymedon, battle of, 4 Harmodios. See tyrannicides excursus
Eurymedon, 25, 26, 83, 284, 345, helots, 4, 27, 290
354–55 Herakleidai, return of, 75, 87
expediency: and catalogue of allies, herms, 147–148. See also mutilation of
360, 364; in Euphemos’s speech, the herms
233; in the Melian Dialogue, 55, 56, Hermokrates: boldness of, 163,
61, 68; in the Plataian debate, 61, 66 167–68; Dionysius of Halicarnas-
sus on, 221, 222, 223, 225; on the
five thousand, the, 40 Dorian/Ionian divide, 26, 162,
foreshadowing, 160, 178; in Alkibi- 220, 222–23, 225–26; expectation
ades’s speech, 129, 130, 134; in the of glory of, 162, 165, 293; hopes
Melian Dialogue, 54, 56, 61, 64, 77; of, realized, 165; introduction of,
in Nikias’s speeches, 139, 140, 373 214–15; on naval skill, 293, 317, 353;
Index 457
and the “near and the far,” 165; 291; funds for Sicilian expedition
position of, 292; rhetorical style of, (Meiggs and Lewis 1988, #77), 249;
220, 221; speech of, at Gela, 26, 35, used by Thucydides, 7n5, 193. See
222–23; speech of, at Kamarina, also Poletai lists
218, 219–28; speech of, at Syracuse Ionia/Ionians, 90, 228; and Athens,
162–70; and xyngeneia, 35, 221, 19, 34, 35, 359, 362; as betrayers of
225–26 Athens, 229–30; in Sicily 22–23, 25,
Herodotus, 6, 10, 414–15 87, 138, 220
Hestiaia/Hestiaians, 231, 361 “Ionian” war, 39–44; Alkibiades and,
Hieron, 22 123–24, 430
Himera/Himeraians, 201, 202, 365; ironic perspective, 143, 240, 267, 408
battle of, 238 irony, 9, 161, 178, 300, 370; in Athenian
Hipparchos, 188–97 speeches, 229, 234, 333; and Melian
Hippias, 188–97, 201 Dialogue, 76; and Nikias’s speech,
Homer, echoes of, 85, 99, 177, 358–59, 213, 275, 412–413; about Pylos, 388;
394, 395 in Syracusan speeches, 172, 221
hope: and Athens, 28, 144, 153, 160,
393, 398; and Gylippos, 292; in Kamarina, 22, 25, 26, 88–89; and
Melian Dialogue, 40, 63, 64, 73, Athens, 186, 219, 228–29, 237; con-
77; and the “near and the far,” 28, ference at, 218–37; and Syracuse,
33–34; and Nikias, 63, 398 90, 219–20, 314, 364
hoplites, 212; as rowers, 265, 354 Karthage, 122, 166
hoplite-transports, 145–46, 353–54, Kasmenai, 88
395–96 Katane: and Athens, 186, 202, 314,
Hykkara, 202 364; depopulation of, 22–23; foun-
dation of, 88–89
Imbros/Imbrians, 360 Kephallenia, 242, 312
inscriptions: alliance with Egesta (IG Kerameikos, 195
I3 11), 23; alliance with Leontinoi Kerkyra/Kerkyraians, 308, 310, 371;
(IG I3 53), 22–23; alliance with and Athens 18–19, 21–22, 98, 243,
Rhegion (IG I3 54), 22; citizenship 315; and Korinth, 18, 21; in Sicily,
for Samos (Meiggs and Lewis 363
1988, #95), 43; fleet manpower, Kimon, 4
(IG I3 1032), 280–81; fundraising Kleandridas, 260
in Sicily, (IG I3 291), 201–202; Kleisthenes, 123, 189, 192
funds for Demosthenes, (IG I3 371), Kleoboulos, 105
458 Index
Kleon, 28, 56, 232, 422 liturgies, 126, 156, 184

Klytaimnestra, 143 Lokroi, 25
Knidos, 39 long walls of Athens, 20, 44, 152
Konon, 41, 43, 284, 312 Lysandros, 41, 42–43, 327
Korinth/Korinthians, 22, 98, 265, 312,
319; on Athenian character, 37, 70, Makedonia, 95–96
102, 103, 105, 164; and naval innova- Mantineia, battle of, 29, 128
tions, 317–18, 320; and the outbreak Marathon, 4, 189, 192–93, 358
of war, 18–20, 21, 71, 78; and the Marcellinus, 4, 11
peace of Nikias, 29, 106; on Spartan Mardonios, 36, 98, 129
character, 37, 70, 104, 108–9; on the marines, 160–61, 178
surrender of Athens, 43–44, 56; and Megara Hyblaea, 88–89, 183, 218
Syracuse, 320; and Thucydides, 5, Megara/Megarians, 19, 106, 364
317–18; and xyngeneia, 34, 320 Melos/Melians: and Alkibiades,
Kratippos, 6 51–52; Athenian attack on, in
Kretans, 364 416, 29, 48–77, 78–80; Athenian
Kyklopes, 85 attack on, in 426, 51; foolishness
Kynossema, battle of, 40 of, 34, 68, 70, 72, 73, 74, 75; island
Kyrene, 349 nature of, 49, 51, 102; oligarchy
Kythera/Kytherians, 299, 363 in, 52; punishment of, 77, 78–79,
Kyzikos, battle of, 40–41, 275 80; similarity to Plataians of, 61,
75–76; similarity to Athenians of,
Labdalon, 269 63; Spartan betrayal of, 35, 51, 58,
Laches, 25, 83, 186 65; Spartan kinship of, 69, 78;
Lakedaimonians. See Spartans supposed guilt of, 50–51, 54–55;
Lamachos, 98, 258; strategy for Sicily worldview of, 58, 72
of, 182, 185, 203, 218 Melian Dialogue, 29, 48–77; and
Lampsakos, 39, 42 an “Athenian dialogue,” 56;
Lastrygonians, 85 authenticity of, 8, 50; Dionysius of
Laurion, 245 Halicarnassus on, 50, 55; echoed by
Lemnos/Lemnians, 360 Nikias, 101–2, 118; echoes of funeral
Leon, 252 oration in, 58–59; expediency and,
Leontinoi, 88–89; and Athens, 22–23, 55, 61, 68; foreshadowing in, 54, 56,
25, 27, 34, 91–92; embassy to Ath- 61, 64, 77; gods in, 50, 386; hope in,
ens of, 101, 137; and Nikias, 101, 119; 50, 63, 77; luck in, 62, 74; the “near
and Syracuse, 22–23, 25, 26–27, 344 and the far” in, 54, 63, 73, 76; and
Index 459
philia, 65–66; pity in, 55–56; and Naupaktos, 285, 315–319

the Plataian debate, 65, 68; as “pre- naval skill/power: of Athens, 21, 37,
lude” to the Sicilian Expedition, 306–7, 312–13, 320, 353; of Sparta,
48; reverse echoes of the Persian 21; of Syracuse, 21, 320, 353
wars in, 55, 66–67; xyngeneia in, Naxos, 22–23, 88–89, 202, 364
35, 58–59, 65–66, 70 “near and the far,” 33–34; in Her-
Messana, 25–26, 202 mokrates’s speech at Syracuse, 165;
Messapians, 23 in Nikias’s first speech, 34, 101–2,
Messenians, 363 104, 111, 120; in Nikias’s second
Metapontion, 23 speech, 139, 140; used about Ath-
Methone, 95 ens, 28, 72, 144, 160, 203, 302; used
Methymna, 178, 361 about Melians, 54, 63, 73, 76; used
metics, 148; in Athenian fleet, 372–73, against Chalkidians, 34
380 neodamodes, 290
Miletos, 39 Nietzsche, 9
mysteries of Eleusis, profanation of. Nikias: abandonment of Attica by
See profanation of the mysteries 38, 181, 369, 380, 385, 393, 397, 401;
Miltiades, 4, 192, 360 accusation of Alkibiades by, 116;
mutilation of the herms, 146–51, assembly speeches of, 99–121, 136–
187–201, 426; accusers regarding, 42; battlefield speeches of, 208–14,
147, 149; Alkibiades and, 147, 368–74, 379–81; carelessness of,
148, 150; Andokides on, 146–47, 261, 264, 266; caution of, 28, 103;
149, 197–99; Athenian credulity on cavalry, 136, 138, 140, 172–73,
regarding, 188; class differential in, 178, 212; comparison of expedition
149, 188; men accused of, 147, 201; to a city by, 107–8, 141, 279, 374,
sources for, 146–47, 198–99. 380, 397, 400–401; courage of, 102;
Mykalessos, 308–11, 313, 314 death of, 411–13; defeatism of, 100,
Mytilene/Mytilenaians: and aid from 208–9, 271, 272, 277, 368–69, 370,
Sparta, 25, 70; debate in Athens 372; Demosthenes’s critique of, 213,
over, 49, 100; punishment of, 79, 238, 329, 331; early withdrawal of,
267; revolt of, 25, 71 213, 226, 331; echoes of Herodotus
in, 102; echoes of Melian Dialogue
naukratores: used by Alkibiades, by, 101–2, 118; exaggerations of,
134–35; in Melian Dialogue, 35, 136–37, 181; failures of, 203, 264,
59–60, 70; and Sicilian expedition, 266, 268, 270, 275, 280, 350; and
108, 213–14 foreigners in army, 342, 372–73,
460 Index
Nikias (continued) Thucydides’s judgement of, 29, 105,

381; and generation gap, 100, 131, 172
117; and hope, 63, 398; illness of, Peiraieus, 20, 44, 152
258, 402; introduction of, 97–98; Peisistratos, 188
leadership of, 282, 346, 402; and Peisistratos, son of Peisistratos, 192
Leontinoi, 101, 119; letter of, 31, Peloponnesian war, first, 19–20
263, 275–76, 277–85; and luck, 142, Peloponnesian war, main: Archidam-
368; and the “near and the far,” ian war phase of, 23–30, 289, 423;
34, 101–2, 104, 111, 120, 139, 140; armistices in, 28, 29; causes of,
and the peace of Nikias, 28; piety 18–20, 287; end of, 4–5, 43–44,
of, 210, 350, 390; and the public/ 56–57; as greatest kinesis, 160, 308,
private divide, 36, 98, 103, 122, 358–59, 359–60, 361, 396–97; peace
346–47; and quiet, 268; reluctance overtures during, 24, 27, 41, 42,
to command of, 99; rhetorical style 388. See also “Ionian” war
of, 100, 102, 109, 136–37, 380, 397; pentekontaetia, 19
Thucydides’s judgment on, 111, Perdikkas, 95
122, 203, 329, 331, 411–13; as “tragic Perikles: and Attica, 20–21, 38–39,
warner,” 36, 100, 102; wealth of, 411 246, 300–302, 304, 305; death of,
Notion, battle of, 41 24, 422; “epitaph” of, 421, 432; and
fleet of 430, 155; foresight of, 21, 62,
Odysseus, 85 307, 421–22, 428; on fortifications
Olympieion, 204 in Attica, 21, 244–5, 289; mistakes
oracles, 64 of, 21, 37–38, 288–89, 300–301,
Ortygia, 87 304–5; on naval skill, 37, 353; as
Oscans, 89 philopolis, 246; and the public/pri-
ostracism, 116 vate divide, 35–36; redefinition of
the city by, 21, 38–39, 58–60, 76–77,
paean, 161, 339 246, 300–303, 305; on resources,
panic, Athenian, 40, 388, 417, 419 63, 307–8; similarity to Alkibiades
Paralos, 187 of, 20–21, 246; and stasis, 246, 342;
paraskeue: Athenian, 82–83, 156, 158, strategy of, 20, 24, 60, 105, 422–23;
214, 243, 374, 419; Syracusan, 206, successors of, 24, 36, 423–28;
214, 374 Thucydides’s view of, 20–21,
Pausanias, 19 421–32; on tyranny and empire,
peace of Nikias, 28–30, 57, 77, 95, 232. See also funeral oration
106; terminal points of, 262; Persian funding, 39, 40, 41
Index 461
Persian war: as appropriated by and the Athenians, 122, 144; and

Hermokrates, 162–63, 293; echoed the loss of the war, 36; and Nikias,
in Melian Dialogue, 55, 66–67; 36, 98, 103, 122, 346–47; and
echoed in Sicilian expedition, Perikles, 35–36
36–37, 129, 161, 165, 367, 375 Pythodoros, 25, 26
Phaiax, 27 Pylos, 27–8, 29, 65, 112–113, 388, 425
philia, 65–66, 224
Phormion, 312–13, 317, 320, 371 quiet: and Alkibiades, 133–134; and
Pindar, 4n3, 33, 106, the Athenians, 105, 144–45, 236; as
pity, 55–56 a Dorian virtue, 236; and Nikias,
plague, 9n7, 24, 115, 303, 305, 394 105, 268; as required by Perikles’s
Plataia/Plataians: battle of, 24, 65; war strategy, 105, 422–23
punishment of, 75, 80, 415; in
Sicily, 362–63; siege by Sparta of, Rhegion, 22–23, 25, 179
24–25; Theban attack on, 23–24, Rhodes/Rhodians, 39, 363
287, 309
Plataian debate: and expediency, 61, Salaminia, 187, 200
65–66, 68; irrelevance of past to, Salamis, battle of, 19, 63, 322, 343, 382,
56–57, 61; and Melian dialogue, 49, 384–85
65; sources for, 8 Samos, 40–41, 43, 342
Pleistoanax, 19 seers, 64, 417
Plemmyrion, 270–72, 292–96, 314 Selinous, 88–89, 91, 201–2
Plutarch, 17, 382 Sestos, 73
Poletai records, 147, 201 Sicilian expedition of 415–413: as
Poteidaia, 18–19, 24, 34, 155, 248 abandonment of Attica, 203, 286,
probouloi, 114, 419 300–303, 341, 385, 390; athletic
profanation of the mysteries, 146–151, metaphors for, 105–6, 114, 165, 358,
187–201, 426; accusers regarding, 366, 410; Athenian support for,
146–47, 149, 199; Alkibiades impli- 426, 429–32; capture of force of,
cated in, 149, 199; Andokides on, 366, 393, 410; cavalry deficiency
146–47, 198–99; Athenian credulity of, 155, 159, 178, 204, 212, 252, 409;
during, 188; class differential in, 149, closure to, 39, 414–15; debate over,
188; men denounced for, 147, 201 in Athens, 5, 96–146; departure
prytaneis, 30, 120 of fleet in, 151–61, 382, 386, 393;
public/private divide: and Alkibiades, display in, 151, 153–54, 157–58, 160,
36, 98, 116, 125, 128, 240, 246–47; 161, 358, 387; as equivalent to
462 Index
Sicilian expedition of 415–413 380, 397, 400–401; by Thucydides,

(continued) 393, 395
Peloponnesian war, 81, 91, 104, Sicilian expeditions of 427–422, 22,
172, 244, 341; eros for, 118, 143–44, 25–27
190; as new Troy, 85–86, 359, 393, Sicily: and aid to Sparta, 21–22, 25, 93,
395, 414–15 (see also Homer); 104; Athenian contacts with, 21–23,
financial motives for, 133, 144, 153, 92; colonization of, 21, 84–90;
417; financing of, 156, 158–59, 180, Dorian/Ionian divide in, 22–23, 25,
201–2, 249, 301–2; as folly, 171, 265, 34–35, 87, 219; foreignness of, 84,
315, 429, 432; foreigners in forces of, 92; unity of, 34–35, 83, 219–20
342, 372–73, 381; goal of, 96–97, 98, siege warfare, 73, 80, 333
138, 201, 232, 278; as heroic quest, Skione/Skionians, 43, 72, 75, 79, 80
85, 151, 415; liberation propaganda slavery, words for, 57, 80
in, 232; numbers of Athenian forces slaves: and Arginousai, 41–42, 280–81;
in, 154, 155, 330, 353–54, 395–96, occupations of, 304; as rowers,
413–14; and Perikles’s war strategy, 280–81, 367
105, 423; Persian war echoes in, Sokrates, 42, 53
36–37, 129, 161, 165, 367, 375 (see also Sophocles (poet), 419
Persian war); as potemkin fleet, Sophokles (general), 25, 26
151, 154–55, 158, 180, 249, 431–32; Sparta/Spartans: and aid from Syra-
reinforcements of, 154, 159, 291, cuse, 22–23, 25, 93, 228, 418; and
330; response to loss of, in Athens, Argos, 29, 65; and battle of Man-
416–20; retreat of, 401–8; as reverse tineia, 29, 128; as conservatives,
echo of Persian war, 163, 322, 351, 104; and Dekeleia, 41, 244–45,
358, 380, 389, 392 (see also Persian 247–48, 288–90; and expediency,
war); seers and, 64, 210, 390, 417; 35, 55, 65–66; and fear of Athens,
soldiers voice in, 340, 342, 344–45, 19; as homebodies, 37, 70; invasion
350, 381; supply problems of, 139, of Argos by, 94–95; invasions of
165, 177, 182, 213; Thucydides’s Attica by, 19–20, 24, 71, 286, 303;
judgement on, 10, 83, 138, 329, 421, and Melians, 35, 51, 58, 65, 69, 78;
425–26, 428–32; unity of narrative morale of, 29, 128, 287–88; and
about, 10, 249, 261, 276–77, 315–16 Mytilene, 25, 70; and oligarchic
Sicilian expedition of 415–413, as com- plotting, 114; and overthrow of
pared to a city, 38, 152, 159, 352; by Athenian tyranny, 188–89; peace
Athenagoras, 173; by Hermokrates, offers of, 27, 41, 42; Persian funds
390; by Nikias, 107–8, 141, 279, 374, for, 39, 41; piety of, 79, 247–48, 287;
Index 463
and philia, 65–66; and Plataia, 88–89; inexperience of soldiers of,

24–25, 61; and responsibility for 211–12, 215; ingenuity of, 327; and
war, 287; and revolt of Athens’ Kamarina, 90, 219–20, 314, 364;
allies, 25, 28, 39, 70; and Sicilian and Karthage, 166; and Katane,
allies, 21–22, 25, 93, 104; slowness 22, 364; leadership of, 176, 214; and
of, 37, 79, 108–9, 247–48, 285, Leontinoi, 22–23, 25, 26–27, 344;
418; and the surrender of Athens, morale of, 215; naval innovations
43–44; timidity of, 69, 418; as by, 320, 374; naval skill of, 21, 320,
tyrant-haters, 241; war propaganda 353; and Naxos, 22–23, 364; simi-
of, 20, 232; and xyngeneia, 35, 58, larity to Athens of, 33, 162, 170–71,
65–66, 178, 349 214, 293, 357–58, 418; topography
speeches: accuracy of, 6–9, 49–50, of, 204, 207; transformation of, 38,
375; and the course of events, 137, 269, 327, 352, 378, 392; as tricked by
138; difficulty of, 11 Athenians, 205, 208, 392; tyranny
sphallomai, 165, 235, 340; in the in, 22–23, 32
Melian Dialogue, 56, 64, 71, 77;
in Nikias’s speeches, 105–6, 113, Taras, 178
142, 143–44; in the “epitaph” of Temenites, 217, 269
Perikles, 424, 426 Thapsos, 252
stockades: Athenian, on land, 206–7; Thebes, 23–24, 43–44, 287, 309
Syracusan, on land, 255, 256; in Themistokles, 400–401, 410
water, 324–25, 328 Theopompos, 6
Syracuse/Syracusans: and aid to Thermopylai, 27, 106
Sparta, 23, 25, 93, 228, 418; appeal Theseus, shrine of, 200
to Sparta from 166; Athenian Thespians, 297, 316, 336
landing at, winter 415–14, 203–14; thirty-years peace, 20, 287
Athenian landing at in summer Thourioi, 23, 364
414, 250–59; Athenian reconnais- Thrace/Thracians, 4, 310–11
sance at, summer 415, 185, 202; “Thrace-haunters,” 4n2, 309
cavalry superiority of, 138, 186, 212, Thucydides: accuracy of, 5, 6, 7, 7n5,
252, 409; character of, 38; cost of 190, 396; archaeology of, 21, 84;
defense of, 249, 344; democracy and the boule, 30–31; biography of,
in, 31–33, 176; disorder of, 252, 3–6; book divisions in, 81, 263, 264,
268, 295, 327, 355; expansion of, 416; and the composition question,
22–23, 25, 92, 228–29; fifth column 9–10, 214–15, 300, 359, 361, 417,
in, 344, 391; foundation date of, 430; continuators of, 6; dating
464 Index
Thucydides (continued) 306–7, 321, 338; concision in, 17,

system of, 10–11, 263; death of, 252, 356, 357; deliberate obscurity
5; decision to write by, 80, 308, of, 11, 412–13; dialect and spell-
359–60, 361, 396–97; disagree- ing of, 12; difficulty of, 11–12, 18;
ment with Andokides of, 147, 149, “find-passages” in, 187; formular
197–99; end of text of, 5, 9–10; exile sentences in, 48–49, 94, 289; “fun-
of, 4–5, 44, 345; and Herodotus, nel” sentences in, 16, 411; hyper-
6, 10, 414–15 (see also Persian baton in, 15–16, 114; interlocked
war); generalship of, 3–4, 275–76, narratives in, 161, 248, 291, 298;
327, 337, 380; and geographical literary techniques in, 413, 414;
information, 204, 207, 250, 253; medical vocabulary in, 301, 302,
inscriptions used by, 193; judgment 303, 305, 307–8, 309–10; narrative
of Alkibiades of, 329, 430–32; deceleration in, 401; narrative
judgment on loss of war of, 122–24, “seeds” in, 85, 346; narrative units
345–46, 418, 424, 428; judgment of, 48–49, 81–82, 94, 96, 263, 365;
on Nikias of, 111, 122, 203, 329, 331, narrator interventions in, 7, 261;
411–13; judgment on Perikles of, neuter adjectives and participles
20–21, 300–302, 421–32; judgment in, 13, 63, 65, 70, 193, 368; paradig-
on Sicilian expedition of, 83, 329, matic style of, 209, 210, 308, 323;
418, 425–26, 428–32; methodol- paratactic style of, 11, 17, 255, 270;
ogy of, 6–9, 190, 198, 336–37; as personification in, 63, 177, 328;
obscuring Sparta’s xyngeneia ties, prepositions in, 15, 59, 65, 105, 224;
178; as obscuring Athens’s Sicilian prolepsis (grammatical) in, 93, 97,
support, 92, 201–2, 265, 315; politi- 168; prolepsis (narrative) in, 93–94,
cal views of, 4, 40; predecessors of, 97, 180; qualification of nouns
6; proposed 10-book work of, 56, by adverbs in, 13, 228; rhetorical
84, 218; reception history of, 408; questions in, 337; ring-composition
sources of, 5, 7, 9, 86–87; on ‘total’ in, 187, 200, 287–88, 309, 350, 392;
warfare, 309; uncertainty in, 7, 411; season-ending chapters in, 94, 95,
on the unpredictable, 168, 264, 330, 276–77, 285; sentence-length in, 16,
331–2; writing and, 96, 275–76 117–20, 136, 255, 306, 373; stylistic
Thucydides’s style, 11–18; abstract enactment in, 274; superlatives in,
nouns in, 12–13, 71, 142–143, 171, 339, 388, 396–97, 409; tense and
271, 383; adjectives τός, -τή, -τόν narrative mode in 16–17, 257–58,
in, 14, 397; alliteration in, 101, 114; 355, 382, 393, 408; variatio in,
articular infinitives in, 14, 112, 280, 14–15, 18, 57, 63, 135, 294, 393–94;
Index 465
vividness of, 17, 227, 270, 382, 389; wages, for sailors, 96, 156, 157
word-coining of, 12–13, 15, 66, 213, walls: Athenian building materials
254, 273, 383 for, 178, 238; Athenian “circle”, 253,
Torone, 28 266–67, 332, 367; Athenian cir-
trierarchy, 126, 156 cumvallation, 178, 217–18, 250, 253,
triremes, 156, 280, 348; crews of, 269–70; cross-walls, of Syracusans,
156–157, 161, 384; “ear timbers” of, 256, 269, 329; double, of Athenians,
317, 320; innovations to, 317–18, 256, 259, 266, 269–70; “dueling,”
320, 325; maneuvers of, 321–22, 323, 77, 248, 254, 272–75, 311, 367;
326; outriggers of, 316–17 Syracusan focus on, 254; “winter,”
Trogilos, 253–54 of Syracusans, 217–18, 335
Trojan war, 75–76, 177, 213, 358–59
trophies, 212, 213 Xenophon, 6
tyrannicides excursus, 7n5, 188–97; Xerxes, 66–67, 161, 189, 351, 385, 410
absence of political motive stressed xyngeneia: and Athens, 35, 58–59, 221,
in, 191, 195–96; class element 339, 359; and Egesta, 35, 93; and
stressed in, 188, 189, 190, 191; con- Hermokrates, 35, 221, 225–26; and
nection to Alkibiades of, 189–90; Korinth, 34, 320; in the Melian
connection to Sicilian expedition dialogue, 35, 58–59, 65–66, 70; in
of, 190; daring stressed in, 189, 195, Sicily, 34, 35, 89, 179; and Sparta,
197; sexual element stressed in, 35, 58, 65–66, 178, 349
190, 197; and Thucydides’s method-
ology, 190 Zakynthos, 243, 312

T's Melian Dialogue and Sicilian Expedition

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

T's Melian Dialogue and Sicilian Expedition

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

THUCYDIDES’S

Oklahoma Series in Classical Culture

university of oklahoma press : norman

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Thucydides’s Melian Dialogue and Sicilian Expedition: A Student Commentary

Copyright © 2019 by the University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Publishing Division of

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a

List of Maps • xiii

3.2 Athens and Sicily before the War • 21

Commentary on Thucydides’s Melian Dialogue

Commentary on Thucydides’s Sicilian Expedition,

Activity in Thespiai (6.95.2) • 249

Commentary on Thucydides’s Sicilian Expedition,

Naval Battle at Naupaktos (7.34) • 315

Appendix: Commentary on the Epitaph of Perikles

Map 1. Greece and the Aegean • 45

Th is volume is designed for beginning readers of Thucydides who need

Unless otherwise specified, references to commentaries are to the entry

Classen-Steup J. Classen and J. Steup, eds. Thukydides. Vols. 6 and 7.

HCT A. W. Gomme, A. Andrewes, and K. J. Dover, eds. A

1 Thucydides and His History

1.1 Thucydides the Man

When Thucydides reports his activities as general in Thrace (which he

We do not know how Thucydides’s work came to be published. It is likely

1.5 The “Composition Question”

important for Thucydides’s text because it is unfinished, and so one can

1.6 Thucydides’s Dating System

2 Thucydides’s Language and Style

2.2 Dialect and Spelling

He uses ἤν instead of ἐάν.

have been coined by Thucydides in order to underscore the sense of the

2.3.2 Neuter adjectives and participles

2.3.3 Qualification of nouns by adverbs and phrases

2.3.4 Adjectives in –τός, –τή, –τόν

2.3.5 Articular infinitives

2.3.6 Antithesis and variatio

tion: ἢ τούτους μεταπέμπειν δέον ἢ ἄλλην στρατιὰν μὴ ἐλάσσω ἐπιπέμπειν

2.3.8 Sentence complexity

2.3.9 Tense and narrative mode

on things outside himself?” Parry argues that Thucydides “dramatised this

3 The Course of the Peloponnesian War

withdraw, the Athenians actually stopped the invasion by agreeing to the

3.2 Athens and Sicily before the War

for all the surviving Ionians” (1992, 151).

3.3 The Archidamian War I

meaningless. Thucydides gives the event attention for thematic reasons

The Athenians saw this as another opportunity to convince the Sicilians

3.5 The Archidamian War III

(4.65.3). The Athenians did this, according to Thucydides, because “so

3.6 The Peace of Nikias

4 Athenian Democracy and

In Athens, the demos gathered in assembly was sovereign. Meetings included

Each year, a board of ten generals was elected—not selected by lot—and

mid-fifth-century tyranny at Syracuse turned into a democracy (Politics

6 Major Themes in the Sicilian Expedition

6.1 The Near and the Far

6.2 Xyngeneia and Sicilian Unity

conflict mattered to Athens, Egesta warned, because if Syracuse conquered

6.4 Reverse Echoes of the Persian Wars

6.5 The Transformation of the Athenians

6.6 The City Theme and the Definition of Athens

7 The Course of the Peloponnesian War

7.1 The Initial Response to Sicily

HCT A. W. Gomme, A. Andrewes, and K. J. Dover, eds. A

3 The Course of the Peloponnesian War

4 Athenian Democracy and

7 The Course of the Peloponnesian War