Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/230

 208 HISTORY OP GREECE whole Peloponnesian fleet facing to the left, changed fiom column into line, and instead of continuing to sail along the coast, rowed of Achaia to indicate designs against Naupaktus, and that he therefore came into the gulf and sailed along his own shore to defend the town, still the Peloponnesians would be separated from him by the whole breadth of the gulf at that point ; and as sc<>n as they altered their line of direction for the purpose of crossing the gulf and attacking him, he would have the whole breadth of the gulf in which to take his measures for meeting them, so that instead of finding himself jammed up against the land, he would have been able to go out and fight them in the wide water, which he so much desired. The whole description given by 1 hucydides, of the sudden wheeling of the Peloponnesian fleet, whereby Phormio's ships were assailed, and nine of them cut off, shows that the two fleets must have been very close together when that movement was undertaken. If they had not been close, if the Peloponnesians had had to row any considerable distance after wheeling, all the Athenian ships might have escaped along shore without any difficulty. In fact, the words of Thucydides imply that both the two fleets, at the time when the wheel of the Peloponnesians was made, were sailing in parallel directions along the northern coast in the direction of Nau- paktus, oTrwf upa vo[uaa<; tirl TTJV ^avrranrov avroiif ir^eiv 6 fyopfiiuv Kal airbf lirifion&uv ravrn irapuir?>oi, "if he also, with a view to defend the place, should sail along that coast," (that is, if he, as well as they:) which seems to be the distinct meaning of the particle Kal in this place. Now if we suppose the Peloponnesian fleet to have sailed from its orig- inal station towards Naupaktus, all the events which follow become thor- oughly perspicuous and coherent. I apprehend that no one would ever have entertained any other idea, except from the words of Thucydides, ~- ITT^EOV iirl TTJV iavruv yr)v eau kirl roii nohirov. Since the subject or nominative case of the verb lneov is ol Tiehoirovvfjaioi, it has been sup- posed that the word iavruv must necessarily refer to the Peloponne- sians ; and Mr. Bloomfield, with whom I agree as to the signification of the passage, proposes to alter iavruv into aiiruv. It appears to me that this alteration is not necessary, and that iavruv may very well be con- strued so as to refer to the Athenians, not to the Lacedaemonians. The reflective meaning of the pronoun iavruv is not necessarily thrown back upon the subject of the action immediately preceding it, in a complicated sentence where there is more than one subject and more than one action. Thus, for instance, in this very passage of Thucydides which I have trans- cribed, we find the word iavruv a second time used, and used so that its meaning is thrown back, not upon the subject immediately preceding, but upon a subject more distant from it, tirl 6' avry (TV Kepari) eiKoyi vavf lra$av ruf upiara nvleofoof, onuf, d upa, p?) diaQvyoiev irteov-d rbv liriirlmiv a$uv ol 'A&qviioi e !; u rov lavruv Kepuc,uM*. arai <n