Read The English Works of Thomas Hobbes (1839) 2 vols. - Vol. 8 Online
Authors: Thucydides
[“Upon
the
old league”: see i. 102, 107. Of the Parasians nothing is known; and the name is supposed by Goeller and Arnold to be merely a various reading of the following name, Πυράσιοι.]
[δήμων:
districts.
Between the hills Parnes and Brelissus lay Deceleia, which, according to Herodotus (ix. 73), in return for certain good offices to the Tyndaridæ at the time of the rape of Helen, ever after enjoyed at Sparta the privileges of precedence and immunity from taxes; and during this entire war, whilst wasting the rest of Attica, the Lacedæmonians always spared Deceleia. The worship of Hercules at Marathon in the Tetrapolis, and other places to the north of Athens, indicates in the opinion of Mueller, a settlement of the Dorians in the northern parts of Attica. Dor. i. 3.]
[Πειραϊκὴν: Bekker, Arnold. Γραϊκήν: Poppo, Goeller. Arnold conceives that Πειραϊκὴ is probably of the same origin as the Πειραιεύς of Athens, which is connected with ἡ πέραν γἦ,
the over–land,
an epithet actually given to the district of Oropus in iii. 91: that in this case the expression has relation to the coast of Eubœa, as to that of Salamis or Peloponnesus in the other: and that the later form of the expression was πέρᾶια, the name of Asia Minor with respect to Rhodes, and of the opposite side of Jordan with respect to Judæa. Poppo objects that πέρα does not admit of the dipthong, and that moreover the adjective derived from πέρα would be, not περαϊκος, but περαῖος. Od. Mueller thinks there was a city called Γραῖα, lying between Oropus and Tanagra. Oropus itself originally belonged to Bœotia.]
[“To move or
put the question.
” This decree was repealed upon the revolt of Chios, after the disaster in Sicily. See viii. 15.]
[In distinction to Methone in Macedonia.]
[“There being
no
men in it”; that is,
no military:
nullo præsidio ibi collocato ex illis militibus, qui domo remanebant ad tuendam patriam, bis tertiis militantibus foras in Attica. Goeller.]
[Dispersed in the fields
and intent upon the wall.
]
[ἐκ τῆς κοίλης Ἤλιδος: “from the
hollow
Elis and periœcis of the Eleians, that came c.” The lowest slope of Peloponnesus is on the western side: and here we find the most extensive plain in the peninsula, which, from being surrounded by the chains from mounts Scollis and Pholoë, was called the
hollow
Elis. The
periœcis
was the name of all the territory which the Eleians had conquered in addition to their original land, the κοίλη Ἤλις. Muell. Dor. The Ætolians, who in the end became masters of Elis, appear to have been relations of the Eleians, and received by them at the time of the Dorian invasion as such. They contrived to divide the land without a war. Ibid.]
[“But meanwhile.”]
[ἁιροῦσι: “march by land and
take
Pheia. And after that, the galleys c.” This march and taking of Pheia, shew that the Athenians did not put in first at the
town
of Pheia. For it takes place whilst the Athenians are sailing round the headland to the harbour: after doubling which, they take the others aboard at the town. Goeller takes Pheia to be the name both of the headland, of which Ichthys was the ἄκρα or highest point, and also of the town.]
[See their fate, iv. 57.]
[These exiles were collected and restored by Lysander after the battle of Ægospotamos. Arnold.]
That is, the man at whose house and by whom any public person was to be entertained, that came from Athens to Abdera. [See iii. 70, note.]
[“First made the Odrysæ a great state, extending it over a larger part of the rest of Thrace.
For
much of Thrace is
still
independent.” Goeller.]
[“Nor of the same Thrace”. The Thracians from Pieria, the worshippers of Bacchus and the Muses, who settled in Phocis: a different race from those of the north.]
[“Was the first king of the Odrysæ of any power”.]
[Poppo, Goeller, Arnold, ξυνεξελεῖν: “that they might make themselves masters of the country Thrace–ward and of Perdiccas at the same time.” Vulgo et Bekker, ξυνελεῖν.]
[
For
him. See i. 61.]
[These plural names illustrate the proposition, that the earlier πόλεις, were in their origin societies of men living in the same district, from the several parts of which they afterwards came together, and lived within the same walls. Arnold.]
[μέτοικοι. The
metœcus
appears to have been a citizen of one state dwelling, and having acquired a domicile, in another state. They lay under many of the disabilities of foreigners: they could acquire no property in land: they were represented in all public and private affairs by their
patron,
that is, by a citizen of their own choice who stood as a surety between them and the state. By the yearly payment of 12 drachmæ for his whole family, the metœcus might exercise all trades and professions, like a citizen. For non–payment of this tax, or the undue assumption of rights of citizenship, they forfeited the protection of the law, and were liable to be sold as slaves; but instead of that, were usually made to serve certain degrading offices, such as water–carriers and the like, by way of reminding them of their subordinate rank to real citizens. They were liable to all extraordinary taxes and duties, and to the regular military service of citizens. Their number in Athens appears to have exceeded that in any other state: in 309 A.C., the number of their full–grown men reached 10,000. In consideration of services to the state, they were sometimes released from all the restraints affecting the person of the ordinary metœcus, and in all private relations placed on a footing with the citizen; but without acquiring any political rights. These were called ἰσοτελεῖς. Hermann. Griec. Antiq. § 115, 116. These latter, and the richest amongst the ordinary metœci, served as heavy–armed soldiers: the rest for the most part as mariners. Boeckh.]
[The word
before,
which is not in the Greek, makes the statement true. Later in the war, as at Delium (iv. 93–4), and before Syracuse the Athenians had larger armies.]
[“And afterwards during the war there were every year other invasions also.” The invasions seem to have been regularly two in each year. See iv. 66. By a public decree, the generals took an oath, twice every year to invade Megaris.]
[“And lost some of their men by an unexpected assault of the Cranii: and they were forcibly driven out to sea, and went home.”]
[προτίθενται: “they
expose to view
the ashes of the dead three days (πρότριτα) before the burial.” Göll. According to the Greek mode of computation, if the burial took place on the third day of the month, πρότριτα would be on the first. Ordinarily, the burial took place, by law, before sunrise of the day after the death. Arnold. The ashes were put into an earthen vessel, κεράμιον: whence κεράμεικος, the name of the place where they were deposited.]
[A tree sacred to death.]
[In private funerals this was not allowed; nor that any even of the relations should be present, beyond first cousins. Goeller.]
[Into
the
public burial–ground. Ceramicus extra urbem. The προαϛεῖον, here translated
suburbs,
was as Arnold says, rather an open space like the parks in London. It was used for reviews and public games. The Campus Martius at Rome was exactly what the Greeks called προαϛεῖον.]
[This ceremony appears to have been performed over those slain at the taking of Sphacteria, at Delium, at Amphipolis with Cleon, in Sicily, at Arginusæ, and in the civil war in the year 403. It is believed that about the year 400 it became annual. Did Thucydides forget Platæa, in calling Marathon the only exception? See Herod. ix. 85.]
[Their honour
manifested.
]
[“It is difficult to preserve the just medium in speaking, in a case in which the auditors can scarcely be impressed with any opinion, which shall not in some degree depart from the truth.” Goeller.]
[And what “he knows it to be”.]
[Just and “becoming too.”]
[This no orator, addressing the Athenian people, ever forgot.]
[“But by what pursuits we arrived at that dominion, and by what policy and what means c.”]
[“Yet every man, according as he is esteemed and as he excels in aught, is preferred to public charge, not so much from his belonging to a class, as from his virtue.”]
[Aristotle speaks of this toleration as being general at Athens: ἀναρχία δούλων καὶ γυναικῶν καὶ παίδων· καὶ τὸ ζῇν ὅπως τις βούλεται παρορᾷν. Pol. vi. 4.
[We “differ from.”]
[See i. 144, note. Mueller observes, that the xenelasia was practised only against tribes of different usages and manner of life from themselves: chiefly, for instance, against the Athenians. At their Gymnopædeia, and other festivals, Sparta was full of foreigners. Poets and philosophers were freely admitted: other classes excluded. The prohibition to their own citizens to live abroad, originated in the same feeling common to the Doric race: the desire to maintain pure and unchanged the Doric customs. Dor. iii. 1.]
[The peculiar severity of the Spartan education began at the age of twelve years. Thenceforward the boy supported the intense degrees of heat and cold peculiar to the valley of Sparta in the same clothing, one thick woollen garment, throughout the year. At times he was sent abroad to support himself by what he could steal, and severely beaten when detected. At eighteen, he went through the κρυπτεία, the hardships of which are said by Plato to be scarcely credible: traversing the country barefoot, day and night in summer and winter: the purpose, until it was perverted to other objects (iv. 80, n.), being to inspect the fortresses, roads, c. At twenty, he served in the ranks, and performed duties similar to those of the Athenian περίπολος (iv. 67, n.) The scourging of boys at the altar of Diana Orthia, presided over by the priestess, seems to have been a substitution for the human sacrifices, expiatory of blood once accidentally shed at her altar. This education (ἀγωγὴ), as it was an essential, so was it also the exclusive privilege of the Spartans, and the Mothaces (slaves brought up in the family) selected to share in it. The Spartan that did not go through it, ceased to be ὅμοιος. Writing was never generally taught: and it is not certain that they even learnt to read. Contracts were evidenced by cutting in pieces a staff, and preserving the pieces. It may be questioned whether this system can justly claim the merit of their martial courage. We have Aristotle’s testimony (Pol. viii. 4), that it made them θηριώδεις,
brutal:
and that their military superiority over other states, was merely that of disciplined over raw soldiers: and that their superiority in the field, did not survive the loss of that in the gymnasium.]
[When we
by ourselves alone
invade c.; yet we
easily
get the victory.]
[“Because at the same time that our hands are full of naval matters, we are sending our own citizens abroad upon divers land–services”.]
[We have this odds by it: “not to faint c., and to appear c., and to procure” c.]
[ϕιλοκαλοῦμεν: “we study elegance”: of which
bravery
is rather the opposite.]
In Athens no man so poor but was a statesman. So St. Luke, Acts xvii. 21: “all the Athenians spend their time in nothing but hearing and telling of news”: the true character of politicians without employment.
[“And if we do not contrive, we at any rate judge for ourselves correctly of measures”. αὐτοὶ,
ourselves,
as distinguished from the magistrates. Goeller, Arnold.]
[“We differ from” others.]
[“
So as,
by kindness to the person on whom he conferred it, to preserve the favour owed”. Goeller.]
[“And we alone do good to others without fear (of its turning out to our damage), not upon computation of profit, so much as through the confidence inspired by liberty”. Poppo, Arnold.]
[“And with the utmost grace and dexterity”. Goeller.]
[τρόπων: these “manners”.]
[καταστροϕή: “And the
end
of these men here, manifests in my opinion a man’s virtue, both when it is the first to indicate, and when the last to confirm (his worth)”: that is, both when he is as yet unknown whether good or bad, and when it confirms the good opinion previously held of him. Goeller.]
[“For it is just towards those in other respects not good, to think more of their valour, c., (than of their want of goodness on other occasions)”. Goeller.]
[“But considering revenge upon their enemies more to be coveted than those objects (hope or longer enjoyment of wealth); and esteeming this (the battle) the most honourable of dangers; they sought through it to take vengeance on the one and attain the other: committing to hope the uncertainty of the event, but for action concerning what was already before their eyes, deeming fit to rely on themselves.”]