Note 534 — Chapter XLIV · FROM THE BATTLES OF PLATÆA AND MYKALE DOWN TO THE DEATHS OF THEMISTOKLES AND ARISTEIDES.

Thucyd. i, 18. Καὶ μεγάλου κινδύνου ἐπικρεμασθέντος οἵ τε Λακεδαιμόνιοι τῶν ξυμπολεμησάντων Ἑλλήνων ἡγήσαντο δυνάμει προὔχοντες, καὶ οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι, διανοηθέντες ἐκλιπεῖν τὴν πόλιν καὶ ἀνασκευασάμενοι, ἐς τὰς ναῦς ἐμβάντες ναυτικοὶ ἐγένοντο. Κοινῇ δὲ ἀπωσάμενοι τὸν βάρβαρον, ὕστερον οὐ πολλῷ διεκρίθησαν πρός τε Ἀθηναίους καὶ Λακεδαιμονίους, οἵ τε ἀποστάντες βασιλέως Ἕλληνες καὶ οἱ ξυμπολεμήσαντες. Δυνάμει γὰρ ταῦτα μέγιστα διεφάνη· ἴσχυον γὰρ οἱ μὲν κατὰ γῆν, οἱ δὲ ναυσί. Καὶ ὀλίγον μὲν χρόνον συνέμεινεν ἡ ὁμαιχμία, ἔπειτα δὲ διενεχθέντες οἱ Λακεδαιμόνιοι καὶ οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι ἐπολέμησαν μετὰ τῶν ξυμμάχων πρὸς ἀλλήλους· καὶ τῶν ἄλλων Ἑλλήνων εἴτινές που διασταῖεν, πρὸς τούτους ἤδη ἐχώρουν. Ὥστε ἀπὸ τῶν Μηδικῶν ἐς τόνδε ἀεὶ τὸν πόλεμον, etc.

This is a clear and concise statement of the great revolution in Grecian affairs, comparing the period before and after the Persian war. Thucydidês goes on to trace briefly the consequences of this bisection of the Grecian world into two great leagues,—the growing improvement in military skill, and the increasing stretch of military effort on both sides from the Persian invasion down to the Peloponnesian war;—he remarks also, upon the difference between Sparta and Athens in their way of dealing with their allies respectively. He then states the striking fact, that the military force put forth separately by Athens and her allies on the one side, and by Sparta and her allies on the other, during the Peloponnesian war, were each of them greater than the entire force which had been employed by both together in the most powerful juncture of their confederacy against the Persian invaders,—Καὶ ἐγένετο αὐτοῖς ἐς τόνδε τὸν πόλεμον ἡ ἰδία παρασκευὴ μείζων ἢ ὡς τὰ κράτιστά ποτε μετὰ ἀκραιφνοῦς τῆς ξυμμαχίας ἤνθησαν (i, 19).

I notice this last passage especially (construing it as the Scholiast seems to do), not less because it conveys an interesting comparison, than because it has been understood by Dr. Arnold, Göller, and other commentators, in a sense which seems to me erroneous. They interpret thus: αὐτοῖς to mean the Athenians only, and not the Lacedæmonians,—ἡ ἰδία παρασκευὴ to denote the forces equipped by Athens herself, apart from her allies,—and ἀκραιφνοῦς ξυμμαχίας to refer “to the Athenian alliance only, at a period a little before the conclusion of the thirty years’ treaty, when the Athenians were masters not only of the islands, and the Asiatic Greek colonies, but had also united to their confederacy Bœotia and Achaia on the continent of Greece itself.” (Dr. Arnold’s note.) Now so far, as the words go, the meaning assigned by Dr. Arnold might be admissible; but if we trace the thread of ideas in Thucydidês, we shall see that the comparison, as these commentators conceive it, between Athens alone and Athens aided by her allies—between the Athenian empire as it stood during the Peloponnesian war, and the same empire as it had stood before the thirty years’ truce—is quite foreign to his thoughts. Nor had Thucydidês said one word to inform the reader, that the Athenian empire at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war had diminished in magnitude, and thus was no longer ἀκραιφνής: without which previous notification, the comparison supposed by Dr. Arnold could not be clearly understood. I conceive that there are two periods, and two sets of circumstances, which, throughout all this passage, Thucydidês means to contrast: first, confederate Greece at the time of the Persian war; next, bisected Greece in a state of war, under the double headship of Sparta and Athens. Αὐτοῖς refers as much to Sparta as to Athens—ἀκραιφνοῦς τῆς ξυμμαχίας means what had been before expressed by ὁμαιχμία—and ποτε set against τόνδε τὸν πόλεμον, is equivalent to the expression which had before been used—ἀπὸ τῶν Μηδικῶν ἐς τόνδε ἀεὶ τὸν πόλεμον.