History of the Peloponnesian War

Now to others there arose in other ways obstacles to their increase; and in the case of the Ionians, when their power had advanced to a high pitch, Cyrus and the Persian kingdom, having subdued Croesus and all within the Halys to the sea, marched against them, and reduced to bondage their cities on the mainland, as Darius afterwards did even the islands, conquering them by means of the fleet of the Phoenicians.

As for the tyrants, such as there were in the Grecian cities, since they provided only for what concerned themselves, with a view to the safety of their own persons, and the aggrandizement of their own family, they governed their cities with caution, as far as they possibly could; and nothing memorable was achieved by them; [indeed nothing,] except it might be against their own several border states. [I speak of those in old Greece,] for those in Sicily advanced to a very great degree of power. Thus on all sides Greece for a long time was kept in check; so that it both performed nothing illustrious in common, and was less daring as regards individual states.

But after the tyrants of the Athenians and those in the rest of Greece, (which even at an earlier period [*]( i. e. than the Athenians.) was for a long time subject to tyrants,) the most and last, excepting those in Sicily, had been deposed by the Lacedaemonians; (for Lacedaemon, after the settlement of the Dorians who now inhabit it, though torn by factions for the longest time of any country that we are acquainted with, yet from the earliest period enjoyed good laws, and was always free from tyrants; for it is about four hundred years, or a little more, to the end of this war, that the Lacedaemonians have been in possession of the same form of government; and being for this reason powerful, they settled matters in the other states also;) after, [*]( A common force of δέ after a long parenthesis.) I say, the deposition of the tyrants in the rest of Greece, not many years subsequently the battle of Marathon was fought between the Medes and Athenians.

And in the tenth year after it, the barbarians came again with the great armament against Greece to enslave it. And when great danger was impending, the Lacedaemonians took the lead of the confederate Greeks, as being the most powerful; and the Athenians, on the approach of the Medes, determined to leave their city, and having broken up their establishments, [*]( Or, having removed their furniture, the word meaning, just there verse of κατασκευάζομαι. Bloomfield connects it with ἐς τὰς ναῦς.) went on board their slips, and became a naval people. And having together repulsed the barbarian, no long time after, both those Greeks who had revolted from the king, and those who had joined in the war [against him], were divided between the Athenians and Lacedaemonians. For these states respectively appeared the most powerful; for the one was strong by land, and the other by sea.

And for a short time the confederacy held together; but afterwards the Lacedaemonians and Athenians, having quarrelled, waged war against each other with their allies: and of the rest of the Greeks, whoever in any quarter were at variance, now betook themselves to these. So that, from the Persian war all the time to this, making peace at one time, and at another war, either with each other or with their own revolting allies, they prepared themselves well in military matters, and became more experienced from going through their training in scenes of danger. [*]( Their field of exercise was not the parade, but the field of battle. —Arnold.)

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.