Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/450

 428 HISTORY OF GREECE. Ever since the capture of Sphakteria, the Lacedaemonian? had been attempting, directly or indirectly, negotiations for peace /eized with such violence of hatred and indignation, that they would put the prisoners to death." Foppo supports this by appealing to iv, 41, which passage, however, will be found to carry no proof in the case : and the hypothesis is in itself inadmissible, put up to sustain an inadmissible meaning. Next, as to the words avTiiraZa KaraaTiicavro^ ( e-l fj.eiov x.upr]aav~ot aiirov nal u.vr'nra'h.a KaTaarr/aavTOf) ; Guller translates these : " Postquam Brasidas in majus profecisset, et sua anna cum potcstate Atheniensium cequas- set." To the same purpose also Haack and Poppo. But if this were the meaning, it would seem to imply, that Brasidas had, as yet. done nothing and gained nothing ; that his gains were all to be made during the future. Whereas the fact is distinctly the reverse, as Thucydicles himself has told is in the line preceding : Brasidas had already made immense acquisitions, so great and serious, that the principal anxiety of the Lacedaemonians was to make use of what he had already gained as a means of getting back their prisoners, before the tide of fortune could turn against him. Again, the last part of the sentence is considered by Dr. Arnold and other commentators as corrupt ; nor is it agreed to what previous subject Tolf <5e is intended to refer. So inadmissible, in my judgment, is the meaning assigned by the com- mentators to the general passage, that, if no other meaning could be found in the words, I should regard the whole sentence as corrupt in some way or other. But I think another meaning may be found. I admit that the words em fielfrv ^up^cravrof airov mifjht signify, " if he should arrive at greater success;" upon the analogy of i, 17, and i, 118, em TrJiflaTov exupqaav 6vvu.fj.euf im /leya E%upriGav dvvufieuc.. But they do not necessarily, nor even naturally, bear this signification. Xupelv exl (with accus. case) means to march upon, to aim at, to go at or go for (adopt- ing an English colloquial equivalent), tyupovv ivl TJJV uvriKpvf elwdepiav (Thucyd. viii, 64). The phrase might be used, whether the person of whom it was affirmed succeeded in his object or not. I conceive that in this place the words mean : " if Brasidas should go at something greater ;" if he should aim at. " or march upon, greater objects ; " without affirm- ing the point, one way or the other, whether he would attain or miss what he aimed at. Next, the words avrl7:a.~f.a KaracTqaavTOf do not refer, in my judgment, to the future gains of Brasidas, or to their magnitude and comparative avail in negotiation. The words rather mean : " if he should set out in open contest and hostility that which he had already acquired," (thus ex- posing it to the chance of being lost,) "if he should put himself and his already-acquired gains in battle-front against the enemy." The meaning would be then substantially the same as Karaarfiaavrci; tavrbv ('vn'rra/W