Note 738 — Chapter LIV · TRUCE FOR ONE YEAR.—RENEWAL OF WAR AND BATTLE OF AMPHIPOLIS.—PEACE OF NIKIAS.

Thucyd. v, 7. ὥστε καὶ μηχανὰς ὅτι οὐκ κατῆλθεν ἔχων, ἁμαρτεῖν ἐδόκει· ἑλεῖν γὰρ ἂν τὴν πόλιν διὰ τὸ ἐρῆμον.

I apprehend that the verb κατῆλθεν refers to the coming of the armament to Eion: analogous to what is said v, 2, κατέπλευσεν ἐς τὸν Τορωναίων λιμένα: compare i, 51; iii, 4, etc. The march from Eion up to the ridge could not well be expressed by the word κατῆλθεν: but the arrival of the expedition at the Strymon, the place of its destination, might be so described. Battering-engines would be brought from nowhere else but from Athens.

Dr. Arnold interprets the word κατῆλθεν to mean that Kleon had first marched up to a higher point, and then descended from this point upon Amphipolis. But I contest the correctness of this assumption, as a matter of topography: it does not appear to me that Kleon ever reached any point higher than the summit of the hill and wall of Amphipolis. Besides, even if he had reached a higher point of the mountain, he could not well talk of “bringing down battering-machines from that point.”