Note 466 — Chapter L · FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE FOURTH YEAR OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR DOWN TO THE REVOLUTIONARY COMMOTIONS AT KORKYRA. (continued 2)

Thucyd. iii, 82. γιγνόμενα μὲν καὶ ἀεὶ ἐσόμενα ἕως ἂν ἡ αὐτὴ φύσις ἀνθρώπων ᾖ, μᾶλλον δὲ καὶ ἡσυχαίτερα καὶ τοῖς εἴδεσι διηλλαγμένα, ὡς ἂν ἕκασται αἱ μεταβολαὶ τῶν ξυντυχιῶν ἐφιστῶνται, etc.

The many obscurities and perplexities of construction which pervade these memorable chapters, are familiar to all readers of Thucydidês, ever since Dionysius of Halikarnassus, whose remarks upon them are sufficiently severe (Judic. de Thucyd. p. 883). To discuss difficulties which the best commentators are sometimes unable satisfactorily to explain, is no part of the business of this work: yet there is one sentence which I venture to notice as erroneously construed by most of them, following the Scholiast.

Τὸ δ᾽ ἐμπλήκτως ὀξὺ ἀνδρὸς μοίρᾳ προσετέθη, ἀσφάλεια δὲ (Dr. Arnold and others read ἀσφαλείᾳ in the dative) τὸ ἐπιβουλεύσασθαι, ἀποτροπῆς πρόφασις εὔλογος.

The Scholiast explains the latter half of this as follows: τὸ ἐπιπολὺ βουλεύσασθαι δι᾽ ἀσφάλειαν πρόφασις ἀποτροπῆς ἐνομίζετο,,—and this explanation is partly adopted by Poppo, Göller, and Dr. Arnold, with differences about ἀσφάλεια and ἐπιβουλεύσασθαι, but all agreeing about the word ἀποτροπὴ so that the sentence is made to mean, in the words of Dr. Arnold: “But safely to concert measures against an enemy, was accounted but a decent pretence for declining the contest with him altogether.”

Now the signification here assigned to ἀποτροπὴ is one which does not belong to it. Ἀποτροπὴ, in Thucydidês as well as elsewhere, does not mean “tergiversation, or declining the contest:” it has an active sense, and means, “the deterring, preventing, or dissuading another person from something which he might be disposed to do,—or the warding off of some threatening danger or evil:” the remarkable adjective ἀποτροπαῖος is derived from it, and προτροπὴ, in rhetoric, is its contrary term. In Thucydidês it is used in this active sense (iii, 45): compare also Plato, Legg. ix, c. 1, p. 853; Isokratês, Areopagatic. Or. vii, p. 143, sect. 17; Æschinês cont. Ktesiphon. c. 68, p. 442: Æschyl. Pers. 217; nor do the commentators produce any passage to sustain the passive sense which they assign to it in the sentence here under discussion, whereby they would make it equivalent to ἀναχωρεῖν—ἀναχώρησις—or ἐξαναχωρεῖν (Thucyd. iv, 28; v, 65), “a backing out.”

Giving the meaning which they do to ἀποτροπὴ, the commentators are farther unavoidably embarrassed how to construe ἀσφάλεια δὲ τὸ ἐπιβουλεύσασθαι, as may be seen by the notes of Poppo, Göller, and Dr. Arnold. The Scholiast and Göller give to the word ἐπιβουλεύσασθαι the very unusual meaning of “repeated and careful deliberation,” instead of its common meaning of “laying snares for another, concerting secret measures of hostility:” and Poppo and Dr. Arnold alter ἀσφάλεια into the dative case ἀσφαλείᾳ, which, if it were understood to be governed by προσετέθη, might make a fair construction,—but which they construe along with τὸ ἐπιβουλεύσασθαι, though the position of the particle δὲ, upon that supposition, appears to me singularly awkward.

The great difficulty of construing the sentence arises from the erroneous meaning attached to the word ἀποτροπὴ. But when we interpret that word “deterrence, or prevention,” according to the examples which I have cited, the whole meaning of the sentence will become clear and consistent. Of the two modes of hurting a party-enemy—1. violent and open attack; 2. secret manœuvre and conspiracy—Thucydidês remarks first, what was thought of the one; next, what was thought of the other, in the perverted state of morality which he is discussing.

Τὸ δ᾽ ἐμπλήκτως ὀξὺ ἀνδρὸς μοίρᾳ προσετέθη—ἀσφάλεια δὲ τὸ ἐπιβουλεύσασθαι, ἀποτροπῆς πρόφασις εὔλογος.

“Sharp and reckless attack was counted among the necessities of the manly character: secret conspiracy against an enemy was held to be safe precaution,—a specious pretence of preventing him from doing the like.”

According to this construction, τὸ ἐπιβουλεύσασθαι is the subject; ἀσφάλεια belongs to the predicate and the concluding words, ἀποτροπῆς πρόφασις εὔλογος, are an epexegesis, or explanatory comment, upon ἀσφάλεια. Probably we ought to consider some such word as ἐνομίζετο to be understood,—just as the Scholiast understands that word for his view of the sentence.