Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/137

 BEGINNING OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAK. H5 Naukleides and his friends, following the instincts ol political a -ipathy, were eager to conduct the Thebans to the houses of their opponents, the democratical leaders, in order that the latter might be seized or despatched. But to this the Thebans would not consent : believing themselves now masters of the tov'vn, and certain of a large reinforcement at daylight, they thought they could overawe the citizens into an apparently willing acquiescence in their terms, without any actual violence : they wished, more- over, rather to soften and justify, than to aggravate, the gross public wrong already committed. Accordingly their herald was directed to invite, by public proclamation, all Platasans who were willing to return to their ancient sympathies of race, and to the by Wesseling and Larcher, ad Herodot. ix, 52 ; though Biihr on the passage is more satisfactory. Both Poppo and Gb'ller also sanction Dr. Arnold's explanation : yet I cannot but think that it is unsuitable to the passage before us, as well as to several other passages in which rideadat. T& cm^a occurs : there may be other passages in which it will suit, but as a general explanation it appears to me inadmissible. In most cases, the words mean " armati consistere," to ground arms, to maintain rank, resting the spear and shield (see Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 4, 12) upon the ground. In the incident now before us, the Theban hoplites enter Platsea, a strange town, with the population de cidedly hostile, and likely to be provoked more than ever by this surprise , add to which, that it is pitch dark, and a rainy night. Is it likely, that the first thing which they do will be to pile their arms ? The darkness alone would render it a slow and uncertain operation to resume the arms : so that when the Platseans attacked them, as they did, quite suddenly and un- expectedly, and while it was yet dark, the Thebans would have been upon Dr. Arnold's supposition altogether defenceless and unarmed (sec ii, 3. irpoGEftahov re ei>i?t)f ol nharaiyf K<U if x e ^P a f yeaav narti r a # o f ) which certainly they were not. Dr. Arnold's explanation may suit the case of the soldier in camp, but certainly not that of the soldier in presence of an enemy, or under circumstances of danger : the difference of the two will be found illustrated in Xenophon, Hellenic, ii, 4, 5, 6. Nor do the passages referred to by Dr. Arnold himself bear out his inter- pretation of the phrase ri&eadai rti o7r/la. That interpretation is, more- over, not conveniently applicable either to Thucyd. vii, 3, or viii, 25, decidedly inapplicable to iv, 68 (^rjaofisvov r 5;r/la), in the description of the night attack on Megara, very analogous to this upon Platsea, and not less decidedly inapplicable to two passages of Xenophon's Anabasis, i, 5, 14 ; iv. 3, 7. Schneider, in the Lexicon appaaded to his edition of Xenophon's Anabasis, has a long but not very distinct article upon Ti&scr&at TU o