[576] See the earlier part of this History, vol. vi, ch. l, pp. 257, 258.
[577] Thucyd. viii, 22.
[578] Thucyd. viii, 20.
[579] Thucyd. viii, 23. ἀπεκομίσθη δὲ πάλιν κατὰ πόλεις καὶ ὁ ἀπὸ τῶν νεῶν πεζός, ὃς ἐπὶ τὸν Ἑλλήσποντον ἐμέλλησεν ἰέναι.
Dr. Arnold and Göller suppose that these soldiers had been carried over to Lesbos to coöperate in detaching the island from the Athenians. But this is not implied in the narrative. The land-force marched along by land to Klazomenæ and Kymê (ὁ πεζὸς ἅμα Πελοποννησίων τε τῶν παρόντων καὶ τῶν αὐτόθεν ξυμμάχων παρῄει ἐπὶ Κλαζομένων τε καὶ Κύμης). Thucydidês does not say that they ever crossed to Lesbos: they remained near Kymê, prepared to march forward, after that island should have been conquered, to the Hellespont.
Haacke is right, I think, in referring the words ὁ ἀπὸ τῶν νεῶν πεζός to what had been stated in c. 17; that Alkibiadês and Chalkideus, on first arriving with the Peloponnesian five triremes at Chios, disembarked on that island their Peloponnesian seamen and armed them as hoplites for land-forces; taking aboard fresh crews of seamen from the island. The motive to make this exchange was, the great superiority of bravery, in heavy armor and stand-up fighting, of Peloponnesians as compared with Chians or Asiatic Greeks (see Xenoph. Hell. iii, 2, 17). These foot-soldiers taken from the Peloponnesian ships are the same as those spoken of in c. 22: ὁ πεζὸς ἅμα Πελοποννησίων τε τῶν παρόντων καὶ τῶν αὐτόθεν ξυμμάχων ... ὁ ἀπὸ τῶν νεῶν πεζός.
Farther, these troops are again mentioned in c. 24, as οἱ μετὰ Χαλκιδέως ἐλθόντες Πελοποννήσιοι, where Dr. Arnold again speaks of them in his note incorrectly. He says: “The Peloponnesians who came with Chalkideus must have been too few to offer any effectual resistance to one thousand heavy-armed Athenians, being only the epibatæ of five ships.” The fact is that they were not merely the epibatæ, but the entire crews, of five ships; comprising probably from eight hundred to one thousand men (ἐκ μὲν τῶν ἐκ Πελοποννήσου νεῶν τοὺς ναύτας ὁπλίσαντες ἐν Χίῳ καταλιμπάνουσι, c. 17), since there were a remnant of five hundred left of them, after some months’ operations and a serious defeat (viii, 32).
[580] Thucyd. viii, 24, with Dr. Arnold’s note.
[581] Aristotel. Politic. iv, 4, 1; Athenæus, vi, p. 265.
[582] Thucyd. viii, 24. Καὶ μετὰ τοῦτο οἱ μὲν Χῖοι ἤδη οὐκέτι ἐπεξῄσαν, οἱ δὲ (Ἀθηναῖοι) τὴν χώραν, καλῶς κατεσκευασμένην καὶ ἀπαθῆ οὖσαν ἀπὸ τῶν Μηδικῶν μέχρι τότε, διεπόρθησαν. Χῖοι γὰρ μόνοι μετὰ Λακεδαιμονίους, ὧν ἐγὼ ᾐσθόμην, εὐδαιμονήσαντες ἅμα καὶ ἐσωφρόνησαν, καὶ ὅσῳ ἐπεδίδου ἡ πόλις αὐτοῖς ἐπὶ τὸ μεῖζον, τόσῳ δὲ καὶ ἐκοσμοῦντο ἐχυρώτερον, etc.