Note 506 — Chapter LX · FROM THE RESUMPTION OF DIRECT HOSTILITIES BETWEEN ATHENS AND SPARTA, DOWN TO THE DESTRUCTION OF THE ATHENIAN ARMAMENT IN SICILY. (continued 2)

Dr. Arnold (Thucyd. vol. iii, p. 280, copied by Göller, ad vii, 81) thinks that the division of Demosthenês reached and passed the river Kakyparis; and was captured between the Kakyparis and the Erineus. But the words of Thucyd. vii, 80, 81, do not sustain this. The division of Nikias was in advance of Demosthenês from the beginning, and gained upon it principally during the early part of the march, before daybreak; because it was then that the disorder of the division of Demosthenês was the most inconvenient: see c. 81—ὡς τῆς νυκτὸς τότε ξυνεταράχθησαν, etc. When Thucydidês, therefore, says, that “at daybreak they arrived at the sea,” (ἅμα δὲ τῇ ἕῳ ἀφικνοῦνται ἐς τὴν θάλατταν, c. 80,) this cannot be true both of Nikias and of Demosthenês. If the former arrived there at daybreak, the latter cannot have come to the same point till some time after daybreak. Nikias must have been beforehand with Demosthenês when he reached the sea, and considerably more beforehand when he reached the Kakyparis: moreover, we are expressly told that Nikias did not wait for his colleague, that he thought it for the best to get on as fast as possible with his own division.

It appears to me that the words ἀφικνοῦνται, etc. (c. 80), are not to be understood both of Nikias and Demosthenês, but that they refer back to the word αὐτοῖς, two or three lines behind: “the Athenians (taken generally) reached the sea,” no attention being at that moment paid to the difference between the front and the rear divisions. The Athenians might be said, not improperly, to reach the sea, at the time when the division of Nikias reached it.