Note 100 — Chapter LVI · FROM THE FESTIVAL OF OLYMPIAD NINETY DOWN TO THE BATTLE OF MANTINEIA.
Reading edition
Thucyd. v, 55. καὶ Ἀθηναίων αὐτοῖς χίλιοι ἐβοήθησαν ὁπλῖται καὶ Ἀλκιβιάδης στρατηγὸς: πυθόμενοι τοὺς Λακεδαιμονίους ἐξεστρατεῦσθαι· καὶ ὡς οὐδὲν ἔτι αὐτῶν ἔδει, ἀπῆλθον. This is the reading which Portus, Bloomfield, Didot, and Göller, either adopt or recommend; leaving out the particle δὲ which stands in the common text after πυθόμενοι.
If we do not adopt this reading, we must construe ἐξεστρατεῦσθαι, as Dr. Arnold and Poppo construe it, in the sense of “had already completed their expedition and returned home.” But no authority is produced for putting such a meaning upon the verb ἐκστρατεύω: and the view of Dr. Arnold, who conceives that this meaning exclusively belongs to the preterite or pluperfect tense, is powerfully contradicted by the use of the word ἐξεστρατευμένων (ii, 7), the same verb and the same tense, yet in a meaning contrary to that which he assigns.
It appears to me the least objectionable proceeding of the two, to dispense with the particle δέ.