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Thucydides · History of the Peloponnesian War §4.2.1-4.2.4

Invasion of Attica and Athenian Fleet Sent to Sicily

Passage 367 of 917 · Greek

Summary

While the Peloponnesians invade Attica, Athens dispatches a fleet to Sicily, ordering the generals to assist Corcyra on their way and authorizing Demosthenes to use the ships around the Peloponnese.

§4.2.1ὑπὸ δὲ τοὺς αὐτοὺς χρόνους τοῦ ἦρος, πρὶν τὸν σῖτον ἐν ἀκμῇ εἶναι, Πελοποννήσιοι καὶ οἱ ξύμμαχοι ἐσέβαλον ἐς τὴν Ἀττικήν (ἡγεῖτο δὲ Ἆγις ὁ Ἀρχιδάμου Λακεδαιμονίων βασιλεύς), καὶ ἐγκαθεζόμενοι ἐδῄουν τὴν γῆν.
About the same time of this spring, before the corn was fully ripe, the Peloponnesians and their allies invaded Attica (Agis son of Archidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians, being in command), and establishing themselves there, they ravaged the land.
§4.2.2Ἀθηναῖοι δὲ τάς τε τεσσαράκοντα ναῦς ἐς Σικελίαν ἀπέστειλαν, ὥσπερ παρεσκευάζοντο, καὶ στρατηγοὺς τοὺς ὑπολοίπους Εὐρυμέδοντα καὶ Σοφοκλέα· Πυθόδωρος γὰρ ὁ τρίτος αὐτῶν ἤδη προαφῖκτο ἐς Σικελίαν.
The Athenians dispatched the forty ships to Sicily, as they had been preparing to do, and with them the remaining generals, Eurymedon and Sophocles; for Pythodorus, the third of them, had already arrived in Sicily beforehand.
§4.2.3εἶπον δὲ τούτοις καὶ Κερκυραίων ἅμα παραπλέοντας τῶν ἐν τῇ πόλει ἐπιμεληθῆναι, οἳ ἐλῃστεύοντο ὑπὸ τῶν ἐν τῷ ὄρει φυγάδων· καὶ Πελοποννησίων αὐτόσε νῆες ἑξήκοντα παρεπεπλεύκεσαν τοῖς ἐν τῷ ὄρει τιμωροὶ καὶ λιμοῦ ὄντος μεγάλου ἐν τῇ πόλει νομίζοντες κατασχήσειν ῥᾳδίως τὰ πράγματα.
They also instructed them to look after the interests of the Corcyraeans in the city as they sailed past, who were being plundered by the exiles on the mountain; and sixty Peloponnesian ships had sailed thither to aid those on the mountain, thinking that they would easily control matters as there was a great famine in the city.
§4.2.4Δημοσθένει δὲ ὄντι ἰδιώτῃ μετὰ τὴν ἀναχώρησιν τὴν ἐξ Ἀκαρνανίας αὐτῷ δεηθέντι εἶπον χρῆσθαι ταῖς ναυσὶ ταύταις, ἢν βούληται, περὶ τὴν Πελοπόννησον.
To Demosthenes, who was in a private capacity after his withdrawal from Acarnania, they gave permission at his own request to employ these ships, if he wished, around the Peloponnese.

Notes

  1. §4.2.3παραπλέοντας — The accusative plural participle παραπλέοντας serves as the subject of the infinitive ἐπιμεληθῆναι, rather than agreeing with the dative indirect object τούτοις of εἶπον.
  2. §4.2.4Δημοσθένει ... αὐτῷ δεηθέντι — The dative pronoun αὐτῷ is used pleonastically with the participle δεηθέντι to refer back to Δημοσθένει ... ὄντι ἰδιώτῃ, which is placed at the very beginning of the sentence and separated from the participle.

Cite this passage

Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War §4.2.1-4.2.4. Humanitext Reader, https://reader.humanitext.ai/en/text/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0003.tlg001.humanitext-grc2:4.2.1-4.2.4

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