Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/125

 MINDARUS ELUDES THRASYLLUS. 100 By th.s well-laid course and accelerated voyage, the Pelopon- nesian fleet completely eluded the lookers-out of Thrasyllus, and from all the best and most recent editors of Thucydides ; from whom I dissent with the less reluctance, as they all here take the grayest liberty with his text, inserting the negative ov on pure conjecture, without the authority of a single MS. Niebuhr has laid it down as almost a canon of criticism that this is never to be done : yet here we have Kriiger rccom mending it, and Haack, Culler, Dr. Arnold, Poppo, and M. Didot. all adopting it as a part of the text of Thucydides ; without even following the caution of Bekker in his small edition, who admonishes the reader, by inclosing the word in brackets. Nay, Dr. Arnold goes so far as to say in note, " This correction is so certain and so necessary, tJiat it only shows the in- Uenticn of the earlier editors that it was not made long since." The words of Thucydides, without this correction, and as they stood universally before Haack's edition (even in Bekker's edition of 1821), are: 'O de Mivdapos iv roiirt^ aal al /e r^c Xt'ov TUV Tleho-ovvnaiuv vtjCf, iTriairiauftevai dvcLV f/pepaif, xal %a{)uvTEf irapa rdv Xt'wv Tpelc. reaaapa- KOOTUC. f/caoroc Xt'ac ry rpiri) 6i& ra^cuv uiraipovacv EK T^C Xtot yiai, Iva pr) irEpirvxaai raif tv TTJ 'Epeoy vavalv, tv apiorepa TT)V Aeaftov f^ovrej- lirheov till rrjv fj -rr c i f o v. Ka2 trpoa^a^ovTef rfjf $w/tai ite'Xu.yiai. They all picture to themselves the fleet of Mindarns as sailing from the town of Chios north- icard, and going out at the northern strait. Admitting this, they say, plau- sibly enough, that the words of the old text involve a contradiction, because Mindarus would be going in the direction towards Eresus, and not away from it ; though even then, the propriety of their correction would be dis- putable. But the word TTfAayioc, when applied to ships departing from Chios, though it may perhaps mean that they round the northeastern corner of the island and then strike west round Lesbos, yet means also as naturally, and more naturally, to announce them as departing by t/ie outer sea, or sailing on the sea-side (round the southern and western coast) of the island. Accept this meaning, and the old words construe perfectly well. 'An-a^-::v IK rr/f Xlov Tre/.ayior is the natural and proper phrase for describ- ing the circuit of Mindarus round the south and west coast of Chios. This, too, was the only way by which he could have escaped the scouts and the hips of Thrasyllus : for which same purpose of avoiding Athenian ships, we find (viii, 8t | the squadron of Klcarchus, on another occasion, making a