Note 464 — Chapter L · FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE FOURTH YEAR OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR DOWN TO THE REVOLUTIONARY COMMOTIONS AT KORKYRA. (continued 2)

In reading the account of the conduct of Nikostratus, as well as that of Phormio, in the naval battles of the preceding summer, we contract a personal interest respecting both of them. Thucydidês does not seem to have anticipated that his account would raise such a feeling in the minds of his readers, otherwise he probably would have mentioned something to gratify it. Respecting Phormio, his omission is the more remarkable; since we are left to infer, from the request made by the Akarnanians to have his son sent as commander, that he must have died or become disabled: yet the historian does not distinctly say so (iii, 7).

The Scholiast on Aristophanês (Pac. 347) has a story that Phormio was asked for by the Akarnanians, but that he could not serve in consequence of being at that moment under sentence for a heavy fine, which he was unable to pay: accordingly, the Athenians contrived a means of evading the fine, in order that he might be enabled to serve. It is difficult to see how this can be reconciled with the story of Thucydidês, who says that the son of Phormio went instead of his father.

Compare Meineke, Histor. Critic. Comicc. Græc. vol. i, p. 144, and Fragment. Eupolid. vol. ii, p. 527. Phormio was introduced as a chief character in the Ταξίαρχοι of Eupolis; as a brave, rough, straightforward soldier something like Lamachus in the Acharneis of Aristophanês.