[492] Thucyd. vii, 72.
[493] Diodor. xiii, 18.
[494] Thucyd. vii, 73; Diodor. xiii, 18.
[495] Thucyd. vi, 64.
[496] Xenophon, Anab. iv, 5, 15, 19; v, 8, 15.
[497] Thucyd. vii, 77.
[498] Thucyd. vii, 74.
[499] Thucyd. vii, 77. Καίτοι πολλὰ μὲν ἐς θεοὺς νόμιμα δεδιῄτημαι, πολλὰ δὲ ἐς ἀνθρώπους δίκαια καὶ ἀνεπίφθονα. Ἀνθ’ ὧν ἡ μὲν ἐλπὶς ὅμως θρασεῖα τοῦ μέλλοντος, αἱ δὲ ξυμφοραὶ οὐ κατ’ ἀξίαν δὴ φοβοῦσι. Τάχα δ’ ἂν καὶ λωφήσειαν· ἱκανὰ γὰρ τοῖς τε πολεμίοις εὐτύχηται, καὶ εἴ τῳ θεῶν ἐπίφθονοι ἐστρατεύσαμεν, ἀρκούντως ἤδη τετιμωρήμεθα.
I have translated the words οὐ κατ’ ἀξίαν, and the sentence of which they form a part, differently from what has been hitherto sanctioned by the commentators, who construe κατ’ ἀξίαν as meaning “according to our desert,” understand the words αἱ ξυμφοραὶ οὐ κατ’ ἀξίαν as bearing the same sense with the words ταῖς παρὰ τὴν ἀξίαν κακοπραγίαις some lines before; and likewise construe οὐ, not with φοβοῦσι, but with κατ’ ἀξίαν, assigning to φοβοῦσι an affirmative sense. They translate: “Quare, quamvis nostra fortuna, prorsus afflicta videatur (these words have no parallel in the original) rerum tamen futurarum spes est audax: sed clades, quas nullo nostro merito accepimus, nos jam terrent. At fortasse cessabunt,” etc. M. Didot translates: “Aussi j’ai un ferme espoir dans l’avenir, malgré l’effroi que des malheurs non mérités nous causent.” Dr. Arnold passes the sentence over without notice.
This manner of translating appears to me not less unsuitable in reference to the spirit and thread of the harangue, than awkward as regards the individual words. Looking to the spirit of the harangue, the object of encouraging the dejected soldiers would hardly be much answered by repeating—what in fact had been glanced at in a manner sufficient and becoming, before—that “the unmerited reverses terrified either Nikias or the soldiers.” Then as to the words; the expressions ἀνθ’ ὧν, ὅμως, μὲν, and δὲ, seem to me to denote, not only that the two halves of the sentence apply both of them to Nikias, but that the first half of the sentence is in harmony, not in opposition, with the second. Matthiæ (in my judgment, erroneously) refers (Gr. Gr. § 623) ὅμως to some words which have preceded; I think that ὅμως contributes to hold together the first and the second affirmation of the sentence. Now the Latin translation refers the first half of the sentence to Nikias, and the last half to the soldiers whom he addresses; while the translation of M. Didot, by means of the word malgré, for which there is nothing corresponding in the Greek, puts the second half in antithesis to the first.