The great difficulty of construing the sentence arises from the erroneous meaning attached to the word ἀποτροπὴ. But when we interpret that word “deterrence, or prevention,” according to the examples which I have cited, the whole meaning of the sentence will become clear and consistent. Of the two modes of hurting a party-enemy—1. violent and open attack; 2. secret manœuvre and conspiracy—Thucydidês remarks first, what was thought of the one; next, what was thought of the other, in the perverted state of morality which he is discussing.
Τὸ δ᾽ ἐμπλήκτως ὀξὺ ἀνδρὸς μοίρᾳ προσετέθη—ἀσφάλεια δὲ τὸ ἐπιβουλεύσασθαι, ἀποτροπῆς πρόφασις εὔλογος.
“Sharp and reckless attack was counted among the necessities of the manly character: secret conspiracy against an enemy was held to be safe precaution,—a specious pretence of preventing him from doing the like.”
According to this construction, τὸ ἐπιβουλεύσασθαι is the subject; ἀσφάλεια belongs to the predicate and the concluding words, ἀποτροπῆς πρόφασις εὔλογος, are an epexegesis, or explanatory comment, upon ἀσφάλεια. Probably we ought to consider some such word as ἐνομίζετο to be understood,—just as the Scholiast understands that word for his view of the sentence.
[467] See the valuable preliminary discourse, prefixed to Welcker’s edition of Theognis, page xxi, sect. 9, seq.
[468] Aristotel. Politic. v. 7, 19. Καὶ τῷ δήμῳ κακόνους ἔσομαι, καὶ βουλεύσω ὅ,τι ἂν ἔχω κακόν.
[469] Thucyd. iii, 51. See the note of Dr. Arnold, and the plan embodied in his work, for the topography of Minôa, which has now ceased to be an island, and is a hill on the mainland near the shore.
[470] Plutarch, Nikias, c. 2, 3.
[471] Καίτοι ἔγωγε καὶ τιμῶμαι ἐκ τοῦ τοιούτου (says Nikias, in the Athenian assembly, Thucyd. vi, 9) καὶ ἧσσον ἑτέρων περὶ τῷ ἐμαυτοῦ σώματι ὀῤῥωδῶ· νομίζων ὁμοίως ἀγαθὸν πολίτην εἶναι, ὃς ἂν καὶ τοῦ σώματός τι καὶ τῆς οὐσίας προνοῆται.
The whole conduct of Nikias before Syracuse, under the most trying circumstances, more than bears out this boast.