σεισμοῦ—‘cf. ch. 50 fin.: viii. 6, 5. But if an earthquake happened after any enterprise was actually begun. it was interpreted as a sign of encouragement on the part of the gods to persevere in it. See Xen. Hell. iv. 7, 4’. (Arnold.) See Liddell and Scott, διοσημία.
τῇ δ̓ ὺστεραίᾳ—‘next day's assembly’; so i. 44, 1. It has been questioned whether τῇ ὺστεραἰᾳ (μάχῃ), vii. 11, 2, has this meaning or simply=ὑστέρᾳ. καίπερ belongs especially to καὶ αὐτός, ‘himself too’, as Classen indicates by marking off with commas the clause τῶν.. ἠπατημένων. The two participial clauses are not coordinate, but the second is the consequence of the first. Alcibiades had deceived the envoys, and Nicias thus found himself in a thoroughly false position. The strengthened form of the participle ἐξηπατημένος emphasizes the disappointment of Nicias, if indeed it has any particular force. Poppo however considers that sound is sometimes consulted rather than sense in such alliterative clauses. He cites Eur. Iph. T. 984, σῶσον...ἔκσωσον, etc.
ὅμως—disappointed as he was by the envoys, he still clung to the hope of a Lacedaemonian alliance. ἐπισχόντας— ch. 32, 28. τὰ πρὸς Ἀργείους—ch. 39, 19, τὰ ἐς Βοιωτούς.
λέγων—‘urging’, lit. going on with his speech: Poppo, with Arnold, takes it=iubens, suadens; ‘advising them to put off’; a force of which instances from tragedy may be found in Liddell and Scott. There are also prose instances in Krüger's Grammar, § 55. 3, 13. Here however there is no need thus to force the meaning of λέγω. To render ‘saying, we (thus) put off the war’, gives an excellent sense.
ἐν...καλῷ—under conditions and circumstances which bring honour to us and discredit to Sparta. ἐν καλῷ is used of conditions and circumstances, ch. 59, 21: ch. 60, 13; though there the sense is somewhat different. For the use of adjectives cf. vi. 11, 6, τὸ σφέτερον ἀπρεπές.
ὠς ἐπὶ πλεῖστον—with διασώσασθαι, as ὅτι τάχιστα goes with διακινδυνεῦσαι: it being a common mannerism of Thucydides thus to break up the stiffness of grammatical connexion. For the force of the aorist cf. ch. 16, 14. εὕρημα— Hdt. vii. 155: Xen. Anab. ii. 3, 18, εὔρημα ἑποιησάμην, εἰ.
ὀρθόν—as Panactum was already known to be dismantled (ch. 42, 19), this looks like an attempt to please the mob with a show of spirit, unless indeed the demolition was supposed to be incomplete. ἀνεῖναι—so τὴν ἐπιτροπήν ch. 31, 17. καθάπερ εἴρητο—ch. 39, 15.
ὅτι . πεποιῆσθαι—after the conditional clause the construction with ὅτι is neglected; so iv. 37, 1, γνοὺς ὅτι, εἰ... ὲνδώσουσι, διαφθαρησομένους αὐτούς. ἂν...πεποιῆσθαι—pluperfect. The combination of tenses implies, ‘if we wished to wrong you (which we do not), we should have already made the Argives our allies’. The imperfect refers to a wish, the present existence of which is denied, the pluperfect to one definite act, which would have been completed before now: Goodwin, § 410.
ὡς παρεῖναι—ch. 45, 11 note. αὐτοὺς αὐτοῦ—Poppo, on ch. 30, 14, collects instances of similar jingles, which plainly were not unpleasing to the writer's ear. εἴ τι=ὅσα, and so it is answered by πάντα.
τοὺς περὶ Νικίαν—ch. 13, 2: so infra, line 29. ἀνήσουσι Βοιωτοῖς—lit. ‘throw it back on the hands of the Boeotians, unless etc.’, or Βοιωτοῖς may be dativus incommodi.
ἐπικρατούντων—vi. 74, 1, ἐπεκράτουν μὴ δέχεσθαι. τὸν ἔφορον—the repetition of the article is ugly, and Classen omits the words as an interpolated note: cf. however ii. 67, 2, τὸν Σάδοκον τὸν γεγενημένον Ἀθηναῖον. ἐφόρων should possibly be read instead of τὸν ἔφορον, as two manuscripts have ἐφόρων and one omits τόν. For Xenares and his party see ch. 36, 9.
τῆς αὐτῆς γνώμης—i. 113, 2, ὅσοι τῆς αὐτῆς γνώμης ἦσαν. ἀνενεώσαντο—according to the provisions of the treaty concluded the year before, ch. 18, 61.
αἴτιος—‘for he was accounted responsible for the treaty with Sparta’. The position of this clause makes it an explanation of ὅπερ καὶ ἐγένετο. Note δοκῶν not δόξας: not ‘he feared he might be accounted’ etc.: but ‘being held responsible as he was, he feared he should be discredited’.
