Note 124 — Chapter XLVIII · FROM THE BLOCKADE OF POTIDÆA DOWN TO THE END OF THE FIRST YEAR OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR.

Thucyd. i, 139. ἐπικαλοῦντες ἐπεργασίαν Μεγαρεῦσι τῆς γῆς τῆς ἱερᾶς καὶ τῆς ἀορίστου, etc. Plutarch, Periklês, c. 30; Schol. ad Aristophan. Pac. 609.

I agree with Göller that two distinct violations of right are here imputed to the Megarians: the one, that they had cultivated land, the property of the goddesses at Eleusis,—the other, that they had appropriated and cultivated the unsettled pasture land on the border. Dr. Arnold’s note takes a different view, less correct, in my opinion: “The land on the frontier was consecrated to prevent it from being inclosed: in which case the boundaries might have been a subject of perpetual dispute between the two countries,” etc. Compare Thucyd. v, 42, about the border territory round Panaktum.