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The End of the Peloponnesian War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

J. A. R. Munro
Affiliation:
Lincoln College, Oxford

Extract

The traditional text of Thucydides, II. 1, dates the surprise of Plataea by the Thebans, which began the Peloponnesian war, έπì ΠυΘοδώρου ⋯τι δύο μ⋯νας ἄρχοντος Αθηναίοις. It has long been recognized that the two months are too short a time, and that the facts of the history demand four. The day cannot be precisely determined, but the narrative of Thucydides fixes it near the end of a lunar month, and the choice has lain between the new moons of March 8 and April 7, 431 B.C. Now that Meritt has shown that the year of Pythodorus was not intercalary and ended on July 2, the former must be accepted. Accordingly the Theban attack may be put on the night of, let us say, March 3, which by Attic reckoning would be the early hours of Anthesterion 27.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1937

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References

page 32 note 1 Krüger's conjecture, δ' instead of δύο, is not convincing, and I am inclined to believe that the whole passage, ⋯πì χρυσ⋯δος…μην⋯ ἕκτΨ κα⋯ was inserted by an editor anxious to define the date in accordance with a wrong chronological scheme. Explanations may differ, but the δύο cannot be maintained.

page 32 note 2 The Athenian Calendar, ch. IX., particularly pp. 88, 107–111.

page 32 note 3 Calculated from Meritt's tables.

page 32 note 4 The stress is on ⋯ άρχἠ το⋯ πολ⋯μου (the Theban attack on Plataea), which is corrective, not epexegetic, of ⋯ ⋯σβολἠ ⋯ ⋯ς τἠν Άττικ⋯ν or, more probably, the reference to the invasion is a misguided interpolation.

page 32 note 5 Cf. Thuc. IV 118; Aristoph. Pax 516, 520; Mommsen, A., Heort, pp. 388–90Google Scholar; Ed. Meyer, , Forsch. II. pp. 287–9Google Scholar.

page 33 note 1 Xen, . Hell. II. ii. 21–2Google Scholar. Cf. Lys. XIII. 13. My references to Xenophon will all be to his Hellentca unless otherwise noted.

page 33 note 2 This section reads to me like II. iv. 43. The author has finished in section 22 the task which he had undertaken, the continuation of Thucydides' history, down to the end set by Thucydides himself. He appends to it a sort of ‘envoy,’ which rounds off the story but carries it over the appointed limit beyond which he did not mean to pursue it. The break between II. ii. 22 and 23, marked by μετ⋯ δ⋯ τα⋯να is of course a matter of days only, whereas that between II. iv. 42 and 43, marked by ὑστ⋯ρΨ δ⋯ χρóνΨ, extends to a couple of years.

page 34 note 1 Xen. II. ii. 4.

page 34 note 2 Lys. XIII. 25, 58. Lysias (XIII. 34) lets Lysander into all the harbours.

page 34 note 3 Lys. XIII. 13–63. Cf. XVIII. 4–5.

page 34 note 4 Lys. XIII. 13. We may recognize them in the speakers who opposed Theramenes' motion accepting the terms in the Assembly on the day after his arrival (Xen. II. ii. 22. Cf. Plut, . Lys. 14Google Scholar).

page 35 note 1 Plut, . Lys. 14Google Scholar. Cf. Andoc. III. 11–12, 31. 39; Xen. II. ii. 20; Lys. XIII. 14; Diod. XIII. 107.

page 35 note 2 Lys. XII. 77.

page 35 note 3 G. G. III. pp. 1635–6, note, and 1638.

page 35 note 4 Cf. Thuc. V. 77, 79.

page 36 note 1 Xen. II. ii. 16.

page 36 note 2 Xen. II. ii. 11.

page 36 note 3 Thuc. VII. 27.

page 36 note 4 In this connexion I may be allowed what the critics might describe as ‘a conjecture not admitted to the text’. Thucydides tells us that it was the Long walls and the Piraeus that were occupied by the Lacedaemonians and their allies, and the Ephors demand the destruction of just those same two fortifications. Is it not possible that, pending the conclusion of the peace, Munichia may have been left in possession of the Athenians ? Munichia is sometimes distinguished from the Piraeus, notably by Xenophon on a parallel occasion (II. iv. 37). During the occupation of the Piraeus the Athenians can exercise jurisdiction and hold a meeting of the Assembly at Munichia, and the port was free (Lys. XIII. 24–32). Agis might have found it difficult to garrison all the fortifications with the force at his disposal. May Munichia and the ships have been treated as a single whole and reserved to be dealt with under the terms of the peace ?

page 37 note 1 Xen. II. ii. 11–17. Cf. Lys. XIII. 11.

page 37 note 2 Lys. XIII. 5; XXI. 3, 9.

page 37 note 3 Xen. II. i. 17; Demosth. L. 4–6; Busolt, , G.G. III. p. 1620Google Scholar, note. Cf. Mommsen, A., Chron. pp. 421–4Google Scholar.

page 37 note 4 Cf. Demosth. XX. 31–2.

page 38 note 1 Even Grote, vol. VIII. (1855 ed.) p. 320, note.

page 38 note 2 V. viii. 6. (For ‘in has leges’ compare Livy, XXXIII. 30, which contains also some interesting historical parallels.)