Note 27 — Chapter LV · FROM THE PEACE OF NIKIAS TO THE OLYMPIC FESTIVAL OF OLYMPIAD NINETY.

Thucyd. v, 31. Βοιωτοὶ δὲ καὶ Μεγαρῆς τὸ αὐτὸ λέγοντες ἡσύχαζον, περιορώμενοι ὑπὸ τῶν Λακεδαιμονίων, καὶ νομίζοντες σφίσι τὴν Ἀργείων δημοκρατίαν αὐτοῖς ὀλιγαρχουμένοις ἧσσον ξύμφορον εἶναι τῆς Λακεδαιμονίων πολιτείας.

These words, περιορώμενοι ὑπὸ τῶν Λακεδαιμονίων, are not clear, and have occasioned much embarrassment to the commentators, as well as some propositions for altering the text. It would undoubtedly be an improvement in the sense, if we were permitted (with Dobree) to strike out the words ὑπὸ τῶν Λακεδαιμονίων as a gloss, and thus to construe περιορώμενοι as a middle verb, “waiting to see the event,” or literally, “keeping a look-out about them.” But taking the text as it now stands, the sense which I have given to it seems the best which can be elicited.

Most of the critics translate περιορώμενοι “slighted or despised by the Lacedæmonians.” But in the first place, this is not true as a matter of fact: in the next place, if it were true, we ought to have an adversative conjunction instead of καὶ before νομίζοντες, since the tendency of the two motives indicated would then be in opposite directions. “The Bœotians, though despised by the Lacedæmonians, still thought a junction with the Argeian democracy dangerous.” And this is the sense which Haack actually proposes, though it does great violence to the word καὶ.

Dr. Thirlwall and Dr. Arnold translate περιορώμενοι “feeling themselves slighted;” and the latter says, “The Bœotians and Megarians took neither side; not the Lacedæmonian, for they felt that the Lacedæmonians had slighted them; not the Argive, for they thought that the Argive democracy would suit them less than the constitution of Sparta.” But this again puts an inadmissible meaning on ἡσύχαζον, which means “stood as they were.” The Bœotians were not called upon to choose between two sides or two positive schemes of action: they were invited to ally themselves with Argos, and this they decline doing: they prefer to remain as they are, allies of Lacedæmon, but refusing to become parties to the peace. Moreover, in the sense proposed by Dr. Arnold, we should surely find an adversative conjunction in place of καὶ.

I submit that the word περιορᾶν does not necessarily mean “to slight or despise,” but sometimes “to leave alone, to take no notice of, to abstain from interfering.” Thus, Thucyd. i, 24. Ἐπιδάμνιοι—πέμπουσιν ἐς τὴν Κερκύραν πρέσβεις—δεόμενοι μὴ σφᾶς περιορᾶν φθειρομένους, etc. Again, i, 69, καὶ νῦν τοὺς Ἀθηναίους οὐχ ἑκάς ἀλλ’ ἐγγὺς ὄντας περιορᾶτε, etc. The same is the sense of περιϊδεῖν and περιόψεσθαι, ii, 20. In all these passages there is no idea of contempt implied in the word: the “leaving alone” or “abstaining from interference,” proceeds from feelings quite different from contempt.

So in the passage here before us, περιορώμενοι seems the passive participle in this sense. Thucydidês, having just described an energetic remonstrance sent by the Spartans to prevent Corinth from joining Argos, means to intimate (by the words here in discussion) that no similar interference was resorted to by them to prevent the Bœotians and Megarians from joining her: “The Bœotians and Megarians remained as they were, left to themselves by the Lacedæmonians, and thinking the Argeian democracy less suitable to them than the oligarchy of Sparta.”