This is the best account, as it strikes me, of a passage, the real difficulties of which are imperfectly noticed by the commentators.
The site of Gigônus cannot be exactly determined, since all that we know of the towns on the coast between Potidæa and Æneia, is derived from their enumerated names in Herodotus (vii, 123); nor can we be absolutely certain that he has enumerated them all in the exact order in which they were placed. But I think that both Col. Leake and Kiepert’s map place Gigônus too far from Potidæa; for we see, from this passage of Thucydidês, that it formed the camp from which the Athenian general went forth immediately to give battle to an enemy posted between Olynthus and Potidæa; and the Scholiast says of Gigônus,—οὐ πολὺ ἄπεχον Ποτιδαίας: and Stephan. Byz. Γίγωνος, πόλις Θρᾴκης προσεχὴς τῇ Παλλήνῃ.
See Colonel Leake, Travels in Northern Greece, vol. iii, ch. xxxi, p. 452. That excellent observer calculates the march, from Berœa on Mount Bermius to Potidæa, as being one of four days, about twenty miles each day. Judging by the map, this seems lower than the reality; but admitting it to be correct, Thucydidês would never describe such a march as κατ᾽ ὀλίγον δὲ προϊόντες τριταῖοι ἀφίκοντο ἐς Γίγωνον: it would be a march rather rapid and fatiguing, especially as it would include the passage of the rivers. Nor is it likely, from the description of this battle in Thucydidês (i, 62), that Gigônus could be anything like a full day’s march from Potidæa. According to his description, the Athenian army advanced by three very easy marches; then arriving at Gigônus, they encamp, being now near the enemy, who on their side are already encamped, expecting them,—προσδεχόμενοι τοὺς Ἀθηναίους ἐστρατοπεδεύοντο πρὸς Ὀλύνθου ἐν τῷ ἰσθμῷ: the imperfect tense indicates that they were already there at the time when the Athenians took camp at Gigônus; which would hardly be the case if the Athenians had come by three successive marches from Berœa on Mount Bermius.
I would add, that it is no more wonderful that there should be one Berœa in Thrace and another in Macedonia, than that there should be one Methônê in Thrace and another in Macedonia (Steph. B. Μεθώνη).
[121] Thucyd. i, 62, 63.
[122] Thucyd. i, 65.
[123] Thucyd. iii, 2-13. This proposition of the Lesbians at Sparta must have been made before the collision between Athens and Corinth at Korkyra.
[124] Thucyd. i, 139. ἐπικαλοῦντες ἐπεργασίαν Μεγαρεῦσι τῆς γῆς τῆς ἱερᾶς καὶ τῆς ἀορίστου, etc. Plutarch, Periklês, c. 30; Schol. ad Aristophan. Pac. 609.
I agree with Göller that two distinct violations of right are here imputed to the Megarians: the one, that they had cultivated land, the property of the goddesses at Eleusis,—the other, that they had appropriated and cultivated the unsettled pasture land on the border. Dr. Arnold’s note takes a different view, less correct, in my opinion: “The land on the frontier was consecrated to prevent it from being inclosed: in which case the boundaries might have been a subject of perpetual dispute between the two countries,” etc. Compare Thucyd. v, 42, about the border territory round Panaktum.
[125] Thucydidês (i, 139), in assigning the reasons of this sentence of exclusion passed by Athens against the Megarians, mentions only the two allegations here noticed,—wrongful cultivation of territory, and reception of runaway slaves. He does not allude to the herald, Anthemokritus: still less does he notice that gossip of the day, which Aristophanês and other comedians of this period turn to account in fastening the Peloponnesian war upon the personal sympathies of Periklês, namely, that first, some young men of Athens stole away the courtezan, Simætha, from Megara: next, the Megarian youth revenged themselves by stealing away from Athens “two engaging courtezans,” one of whom was the mistress of Periklês; upon which the latter was so enraged that he proposed the sentence of exclusion against the Megarians (Aristoph. Acharn. 501-516; Plutarch, Periklês, c. 30).