Humanitext Reader

Thucydides · History of the Peloponnesian War §2.16.1-2.16.2

Athenian Attachment to Rural Life and Reluctance to Evacuate

Passage 162 of 917 · Greek

Summary

Describes how the Athenians, long accustomed to autonomous rural life even after their political unification, felt deep resentment and grief at having to abandon their homes and ancestral sanctuaries to move into the city at the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War.

§2.16.1τῇ τε οὖν ἐπὶ πολὺ κατὰ τὴν χώραν αὐτονόμῳ οἰκήσει μετεῖχον οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι, καὶ ἐπειδὴ ξυνῳκίσθησαν, διὰ τὸ ἔθος ἐν τοῖς ἀγροῖς ὅμως οἱ πλείους τῶν τε ἀρχαίων καὶ τῶν ὕστερον μέχρι τοῦδε τοῦ πολέμου γενόμενοί τε καὶ οἰκήσαντες οὐ ῥᾳδίως πανοικεσίᾳ τὰς μεταναστάσεις ἐποιοῦντο, ἄλλως τε καὶ ἄρτι ἀνειληφότες τὰς κατασκευὰς μετὰ τὰ Μηδικά· §2.16.2ἐβαρύνοντο δὲ καὶ χαλεπῶς ἔφερον οἰκίας τε καταλείποντες καὶ ἱερὰ ἃ διὰ παντὸς ἦν αὐτοῖς ἐκ τῆς κατὰ τὸ ἀρχαῖον πολιτείας πάτρια δίαιτάν τε μέλλοντες μεταβάλλειν καὶ οὐδὲν ἄλλο ἢ πόλιν τὴν αὑτοῦ ἀπολείπων ἕκαστος.
The Athenians had thus for a long time been accustomed to their autonomous life in the country; and even after they were united, the majority, both of the ancient people and of those who came after them down to this war, still from habit lived in the fields where they had been born and bred, and did not easily make their removal with their whole households, especially as they had only recently restored their establishments after the Persian War. They were depressed and bore it heavily, leaving behind their homes and the temples which had always been theirs from ancestral times since the ancient constitution, being about to change their way of life, and each of them leaving what was nothing less than his own city.

Notes

  1. 2.16.1τῇ ... οἰκήσει μετεῖχον — The verb μετέχω typically governs the genitive case, but here it is used with the dative τῇ ... οἰκήσει. This can be understood either as a rare construction where μετέχω takes a dative meaning 'to share in/be accustomed to', or as a dative of respect or cause ('with respect to their living...').
  2. 2.16.2ἀπολείπων ἕκαστος — The main verbs of the sentence, ἐβαρύνοντο and ἔφερον, are plural, but at the end of the sentence, the singular subject ἕκαστος is introduced, with the participle ἀπολείπων agreeing with it in the singular. This is an instance of the schema 'kath' holon kai meros' (whole and part construction), shifting the focus from the collective plural to the individual.

Cite this passage

Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War §2.16.1-2.16.2. Humanitext Reader, https://reader.humanitext.ai/en/text/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0003.tlg001.humanitext-grc2:2.16.1-2.16.2

Please note the AI-draft status of the translation and the date accessed.

Translation, notes and summary are AI-generated drafts, revised through reader feedback.