Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 1.djvu/26

 xxii THUCYDIDES assembly at first voted to the Sicilian expedition, although this vote was never carried into execution ; for a larger fleet was actually sent. But is it likely that such an inoperative decree which was superseded five days afi:er- wards (Thuc. vi. 8 ; cp. 25) would have been recorded in an inscription ? And might not the number sixty equally well refer to the second (vii. 20) or to some other expe- dition ? Another example of the same weakness may be found in the criticism on C. LA. Suppl. i, 46 a, where the letters KOPINOI and AOENAI occur. It is conjectured by Kirchhoff that the inscription has reference to the visit of the Boeotian and Corinthian envoys to Athens, recorded in Thuc. v. 32, But of what value are such conjectures ? Considering that some and not all the facts are narrated by the historian, and only a few legible inscriptions of the time are extant, it is a /r/on' improbable that the number of coincidences should be very great. A few other instances may be given of a similar haste in drawing conclusions. In an inscription C. I. A. 54, which is again inferred from the occurrence in it of datives in ats to be later than 420 B.C., mention is made of 30 ships each having 40 hoplitcs on board, which are directed to collect ' the tribute in full.' These ships are identified with the 30 ships conveying 1200 Athenian hoplites which were sent to Melos in 416. But may not these numbers apply with equal probability to some other expedition in some way concerned with the tribute ? The second coincidence of the 40 hoplites is of no value, as the same number of hoplites conveyed in a trireme occurs elsewhere (cp. Thuc. ii. 56 init.) '. Again, in a fragment of an inscrip- tion, C. I. A. 176, Boeckh (Staatsh. ii. 228) thinks that he discovers a reference to the movable plates of gold («V]^»'}ra ?) with which the statue of Athene was overlaid ' [It should be added that the inscription speaks of 10 archers, ap- parently in each of the 30 ships, corresponding to the total number of 300 archers, Thucydidcs, v. 84. On the other hand, peltasts are men- tioned in the inscription and not in Thucydidcs.]