εἰσβάλωσι ‘Make the entrance of the Euxine.’ A nautical term, probably, familiar to navigators in that sea and to those coasts.—ἐπὶ κυνὶ, ‘after the rising of the dogstar.’ ‘Bad weather seems to have been generally expected in the dog-days [July 25 to August 5].’ Penrose. [Cf. Hippocr. περὶ ἀέρων 10 ὑπὸ κύνα, ‘just before the rising of Sirius.’ In the sevenfold division of the year noticed by Hippocrates and Galen, θἐρος, or early summer, ended with the κυνὸς ἐπιτολή, and ὀπώρα, or late summer, with the rising of Arcturus (Jebb on Soph. O. T. p. 306). S.]
ὅπου ἂν μὴ σῦλαι ὦσιν ‘Whereever the Athenians have no rights of reprisal’ [and where therefore Athenian ships on their part were not in danger. The purport of this clause in the contract is simply that, in the event of the vessel failing to enter the Euxine, it was to lie in the Hellespont for the ten days about the end of July in which the weather was usually bad, to unload at a safe port, and then to return to Athens. On this passage see Boeckh, P. E. I xxiii end, p. 191 Lamb. On σῦλαι, ‘rights of reprisal,’ ‘seizure of goods,’ see Smith, Dict. Ant. II 732 b. Cf. note on § 26 ὤσπερ δεδομένων συλῶν Φασηλίταις κατ᾽ Ἀθηναίων, and Harpocration s. v. σύλας: Δημοσθένης ἐν τῷ περὶ στεφάνου τῆς τριηραρχίας (page 1232, 4) κἀν τῷ πρὸς τὴν Λακρίτου παραγραφὴν “ἐξελομενος ὀπόταν (sic) μησῦλαι ὦσιν Ἀθηναίοις...” S.]
τοὺς πέρυσι γραφέντας ‘The amount of interest (i.e. not more) inserted in the bond for last year.’ If the legal year should have expired, the interest is to remain the same. [‘L'année commençait au mois de juin, au solstice d'été. La saison de la navigation allait d'avril à octobre, et, par suite, les intérêts convenus au mois d'avril ne pouvaient être payés que l'année suivante, au retour du navire.’ Dareste. S.]
πάθῃ ἀνήκεστον Like ἀφανίζεσθαι, ‘to be missing,’ this is a euphemistic formula for being lost, or wrecked.
σωτηρία δ᾽ ἔσται If the ship be wrecked, but any of the goods be recovered, they shall belong to the lenders, i.e. the wreck shall not exonerate the borrowers from all further obligation. [ἔσται must be regarded as umnfluenced by ἐάν, the clause being virtually parenthetical.] For Bekker's σωτηρία ἔστω we might read (in the plural) σωτήρια ἔστω, ‘let costs be allowed for salvage.’—τὰ περιγενόμενα, ‘let any goods that may be saved be the property of both lenders alike.’ By κοινὰ (in which Kennedy “can see no force”) is meant that neither lender shall claim it in discharge of his part of the loan, but both shall share the benefit of it.
κυριώτερον i.e. the terms of this bond shall be absolute, and not superseded by any law, conditions, or stipulations whatever to the contrary. [§ 39 ἡ...συγγραφὴ οὐδὲν κυριώτερον ἐᾷ εἷναι τῶν ἐγγεγραμμένων.]
