History of the Peloponnesian War

Now the Lacedaemonians did not treat [*]( The full force of the Greek could not I think be expressed here, (or in the next chapter, τύραννον ὄντα ἀποθανεῖν,) without this change of the participle into the verb, the original verb of the sentence following in a subordinate clause. This is by no means an uncommon construction, and Kühner might have added more numerous, and perhaps more apposite examples to the single one by which he illustrates it, viz. Soph. El. 345, ἐλοῦ γε θάτερ᾽,ἢ φρονεῖν κακῶς, ἢ τῶν φίλων φρονοῦσα μὴ μνήμην ἔχειν, i. e. ἦ τῶν φίλων μὴ μνήμην ἔχουσα (εὖ) φρονεῖνHis rule is as follows: Although the Greeks make great use of the participle to express the accidental accompaniments of an action, and thus distinguish it from that action itself, yet this is sometimes reversed; the principal action is expressed in the participle as a mere accompaniment, while the accompaniment assumes the character of the principal verb of the sentence. Gr. Gr. Jelf. 705. 2. In Matthiae there is not any notice of the construction that I am aware of. The same participle, ἔχοντες, is used in precisely a similar manner, chap. 144, τὰς δὲ πόλεις ὅτι αὐτονόμους ἀφήσομεν, εἰ καὶ αὐτονόμους ἔχοντες ἐσπεισάμεθα: if we treated them as independent when we made the treaty and by Xenophon, Anab. I. 8. 22. καὶ πάντες δὲ οἱ τῶν βαρβάρων ἄρχοντες μέσου ἔχοντες τὸ αὑτῶν ἡγοῦντο: occupied the centre—when they led them on. ) as tributaries the allies whom they led, but only took care that they should be governed by an oligarchy, in accordance with their own interest; whereas the Athenians had in course of time taken ships from the states [in their league,] except the Chians and Lesbians, and had commanded all to pay a tribute in money. And their own separate resources for this war were greater than when before they had been in their fullest bloom with their entire alliance.

Such then I found to be the early state of things, though it is difficult to trust every proof of it in succession. For men receive alike without examination from each other the reports of past events, even though they may have happened in their own country.

For instance, the mass of the Athenians think that Hipparchus was tyrant when he was slain by Harmodius and Aristogiton; and do not know that Hippias held the government as being the eldest of the sons of Pisistratus, and Hipparchus and Thessalus were his brothers. But Harmodius and Aristogiton having suspected that on that day, and at the very moment, some information had been given to Hippias by their accomplices, abstained from attacking him, as being fore-warned; but as they wished before they were seized to do something even at all hazards, having fallen in with Hipparchus near the Leocorium, as it is called, while arranging the Panathenaic procession, they slew him.