Note 524 — Chapter LII · SEVENTH YEAR OF THE WAR.—CAPTURE OF SPHAKTERIA.

Thucyd. iv, 20. ἡμῖν δὲ καλῶς, εἴπερ πότε, ἔχει ἀμφοτέροις ἡ ξυναλλαγὴ, πρίν τι ἀνήκεστον διὰ μέσου γενόμενον ἡμᾶς καταλαβεῖν, ἐν ᾧ ἀνάγκη ἀΐδιον ὑμῖν ἔχθραν πρὸς τῇ κοινῇ καὶ ἰδίαν ἔχειν, ὑμᾶς δὲ στερηθῆναι ὧν νῦν προκαλούμεθα.

I understand these words κοινὴ and ἰδία agreeably to the explanation of the Scholiast, from whom Dr. Arnold, as well as Poppo and Göller, depart, in my judgment erroneously. The whole war had been begun in consequence of the complaints of the Peloponnesian allies, and of wrongs alleged to have been done to them by Athens: Sparta herself had no ground of complaint,—nothing of which she desired redress.

Dr. Arnold translates it: “We shall hate you not only nationally, for the wound you have inflicted on Sparta; but also individually, because so many of us will have lost our near relations from your inflexibility.” “The Spartan aristocracy (he adds) would feel it a personal wound to lose at once so many of its members, connected by blood or marriage with its principal families: compare Thucyd. v, 15.”

We must recollect, however, that the Athenians could not possibly know at this time that the hoplites inclosed in Sphakteria belonged in great proportion to the first families in Sparta. And the Spartan envoys would surely have the diplomatic prudence to abstain from any facts or arguments which would reveal, or even suggest, to them so important a secret.