The English Works of Thomas Hobbes (1839) 2 vols. - Vol. 8 (51 page)

[The passage here alluded to (vii. now no more than a commendation 86), has been corrected by Bekker by of Nicias for his regard for virtue.] striking out ἐς τὸ θεῖον: and contains

[This story is generally regarded as fabulous. The recital by Herodotus of his history at the Olympic games at all, has been called in question. Goeller says: “Libenter credo prælectiones ab Herodoto habitas esse: Thucydidem vero præsentem, ingenuo laudis studio commotum, lachrymas inter auditionem fudisse, una mihi videtur illarum fictionum, quas frequentissimas posterior Græcarum literarum ætas effudit de viris domi militiæque celebribus.” Vit. Thucyd. p. 43.]

[See viii. 109, note.]

[Thucydides was not living at that time in retirement, but was one of the ten annually–chosen
Strategi,
and with another, Eucles, sent with a squadron of seven ships to Thasos, an island within half–a–day’s sail of the mouth of the Strymon. He was appointed to that station, probably for the sake of his influence in those parts derived from his gold mines at Scaptesyle.]

ὡς ἐπολέμησαν. [“As” they warred, and not, as translated by Valla and others, “how” they warred. The words ἀρξάμενος εὐθὺς καθισταμένου, would of themselves imply that the history was so written, even if the words ὡς ἐπολέμησαν were omitted. They are so understood by Goeller, Poppo, and others, as well as the Scholiast and Dionysius of Halicarnassus.]

The common appellation given by the Grecians to all nations besides themselves. [μέρ̧ει τινὶ: to a “large portion” of the barbarians. Arnold.]

Greece.

χρ̧ήματα: whatever is estimated by money. Aristotle.

The territory of the Athenian city, so called from Atthis, the daughter of Cranaus.

The Athenians had an opinion of themselves, that they were not descended from other nations, but that their ancestors were ever the inhabitants of Attica: wherefore they also styled themselves αὐτόχθονειϛ,
i. e.
men of the same land. [“sprung from the land itself”].

[This passage is differently understood by different translators. Some, as Valla, Acacius, and Hudson, understand it thus: “that Attica increased not so much in other things as in men.” Others, as Poppo, Goeller, and Arnold, thus: “that Greece in its other parts did not thrive equally with Athens:” which is in substance the same interpretation as that of Hobbes.]

[“But the tribes, the Pelasgian in especial as well as the rest, gave their names from themselves;” that is, each tribe gave its own name to the region it inhabited, the Pelasgian being the most general.]

[“Because that neither were the Hellenes, as appears to me, as yet distinguished by one name in opposition” (to the barbarians).]

[“They, therefore, who first of all individually, and, such as had intercourse with each other, by cities, got the name of Hellenes, and afterwards were universally so called, did never before,” c.]

[Hobbes seems to have read τὰ πλείω. Bekker, Goeller, Arnold, all omit the article. “And to that expedition they came together through their having now more use of the sea.”]

Before that time, it was called the Carian Sea. [Made himself master “of the greatest part” of the now Grecian sea.”]

[Began “more frequently” to cross over.]

[Καὶ κατὰ κώμας οἰκουμέναις. This is not exactly “scatteringly” inhabited, as appears from ch. x. κατὰ κώμας δὲ τῷ παλαιῷ τῆς Ελλάδος τρ̧όπῳ οἰκισθείσης· It seems rather to mean that the πόλις was still divided into distinct communities, called κῶμαι. “If several little tribes united to form one people, they would sometimes occupy a spot where several eminences were to be found, near to each other, yet distinct: and each of them would form a separate κώμη, or village, appropriated to a separate tribe, while all together composed the city of the united people. Sparta was an instance of a city thus formed out of a cluster of distinct villages; and, according to some opinions, Rome was another.” Arnold.]

[Od. iii. 71:—

• ξξινοι τίνες ἐστὲ;
  
• Ἢ τί κατὰ πρ̧ῆξιν, ἢ μαψιδίως ἀλάλησθε
  
• Ὂιά τε ληϊστῆρ̧ες ὑπεὶρ ἅλα;]
  

In distinction to the other Locrians, called Opuntii.

[The words explain why they wore the linen dress, not why they left it off. Arnold, Goeller. The sense therefore is: “they not long after laid aside the effeminate custom of wearing linen under–garments.”]

The Athenians, holding themselves to be sprung from the ground they lived on, wore the grasshopper for a kind of cognizance; because that beast is thought to be generated of the earth.

[“A common dress.” The Lacedæmonian dress consisted principally of two parts, the χιτὼν and the χλαῖνα. The first was a narrow kind of frock, without sleeves, coming down to the knees; the other a sort of large square shawl, which wrapped round the left arm, then passed across the back and under the right arm, then over the breast, and the end was finally thrown over the left shoulder. Arnold. Goeller renders it “a plain dress.”]

Exercises of divers kinds instituted in honour of Jupiter at Olympia in Peloponnesus; to which resorted such out of Greece as contended for prizes.

This was perhaps the cause, why it was a capital crime for women to be spectators of the Olympic exercises.

[“And one might perhaps show that the ancient Greeks, in many other respects also, used,” c.]

[But the old cities, “by reason of the great hindrance of piracy,” were built, c. Bekker and Arnold read ἀντισχοῦσαν. Goeller reads ἀντισχοῦσαι; which he renders: “veteres urbes ob latrocinia, postquam diu et restiterunt et perduraverunt, longius a mare conditæ erant.”]

[“For they robbed both each other, and also such of the rest as, not being seamen, dwelt by the sea–side.”]

The Cyclades.

Vide lib. iii. cap. 104.

The Carians having invented the crest of the helmet, and the handle of the target, and also the drawing of images on their targets, had therefore a helmet and a buckler buried with them, and had their heads laid towards the west. [This is a mistake. It is not the Carians, but the Phœnicians who were distinguished by their position in their grave. And their heads were laid not to the west, but to the east, so as to look to the west. See the Scholium.]

[“And” these robberies were the exercise, c. “But” when Minos his navy, c.]

The son of Atreus, the son of Pelops.

The opinion was, that Tyndareus, the father of Helena, took an oath of all his daughter’s suitors, that if violence were done to him that obtained her, all the rest should help to revenge it. And that Menelaus, having married her, and Paris, the son of Priam king of Troy, taken her away, Agamemnon, in the behalf of his brother Menelaus, drew them by this oath to the siege of Ilium.

[“Those who have received the clearest accounts of the affairs of Peloponnesus;” or, “those who have received the clearest accounts of any Peloponnesians.” Arnold considers that the want of the article, and the word Πελοποννησίων, which for the first interpretation should be Πελοποννησιακῶν, are in favour of the second.]

[The original name of the country was Apia. See the Schol. and Il. i. 270: τηλόθεν ἐξ Ἀπίης γαίης.]

A kindred and race of men whereof was Hercules. This family was persecuted by Euristheus, who was of the house of Perseus; and driven into Attica, thither he following them was slain by the Athenians.

Astidamia, the mother of Euristheus, was Atreus’ sister.

[“And who happened to have fled from his father for the death of Chrysippus.”]

Atreus and Thyestes, sons of Pelops, at the impulsion of their mother, slew this Chrysippus, who was their half–brother, viz. by the father; and for this fact Atreus fled to Euristheus.

[Thus far is the account of “those that by tradition know most,” c.]

The son of Atreus, heir to the power of both houses, both of the Pelopides and of the Perseides.

[Il. ii. 108.]

[The islands which Thucydides here calls “periœcidæ,” are, according to Poppo, Calauria, Hydrea, Tiparenus, Cecryphalea; perhaps Ægina, though of that Od. Mueller has some doubts. Goeller.]

[Mycenæ had been destroyed by the Argives, A.C. 468, thirty–seven years before the beginning of the Peloponnesian war. From that time it remained in ruins; but the remains, which will last apparently as long as the human race exists, are fully described in Sir W. Gell’s Argolis. Arnold.]

[Et traditio diu durans obtinet. Goeller.]

1.
Laconia. 2. Arcadia. 3. Argolica. 4. Messenia. 5. Elis. [Achaia was the fifth part: Elis was comprehended in Arcadia. Goeller.]

Laconia, Messenia.

[“And not forming a connected or continuous city, but made up of different κῶμαι, after the ancient manner of Greece.” Mueller (Dor.) gives the names of these villages: Pitane, Messoa, Simnæ, and Cynosura, lying round about the Acropolis, some on small hills, some on the plains. In the time of the Romans they were all enclosed in one wall. Goeller.]

[αὖ: again. Referring to “if any think his testimony sufficient.” chap. ix.]

[“But that they were all mariners and fighting men, he has shown in his account of the ships of Philoctetes.” Bekker, Goeller, and Arnold all agree in this construction of the passage.]

As Achilles, Ulysses, Ajax, Diomedes, Patroclus, and the like. The whole number of men, estimating the ships at a medium to carry eighty–five men a piece, which is the mean between one hundred and twenty and fifty, come to one hundred and two thousand men carried in these one thousand two hundred ships. Yet the author makes it a light matter in respect of the present war.

[And no greater than they “expected could maintain itself from the seat of war by their arms: and when upon their arrival they had gotten the upper hand in fight, c., they appear not even then to have used their whole power,” c. That is, they carried the lesser army, and that lesser army they did not make the most of.]

[“Whereas, if they had gone furnished with store of provision, and had with all their forces, eased of boot–haling and tillage, carried through the war without interruption, they might easily have overcome them in open battle and taken the city; since they were a match for the Trojans even without their whole force, and with such part only as from time to time was present at the siege; or even by a blockade, they might have taken Troy with less time and trouble.”]

[“Built
the
cities.” That is, those famous cities built by Teucer, Philoctetes, Diomede, c. Poppo.]

[The great family or rather clan, which claimed descent from the hero Hercules, being expelled from Peloponnesus by the Pelopidæ, found an asylum among the Dorians, an Hellenian people inhabiting a mountain district between the chain of Æta on the one side, and Parnassus on the other. Here they found willing followers in their enterprise for the recovery of their former dominion in Peloponnesus: the Heraclidæ were to possess the thrones of their ancestors; but the Dorians were to have the free property of the lands they hoped to conquer, and were not to hold them under the Heraclidæ. The invaders were also assisted by an Ætolian chief named Oxylus, and by his means they were enabled to cross over by sea from the northern to the southern side of the Corinthian gulf, instead of forcing their way by land through the isthmus. This invasion was completely successful; all Peloponnesus, except Arcadia and Achaia, fell into their power; and three chiefs of the Heraclidæ took possession of the thrones of Sparta, Argos, and Messenia, while Elis was assigned to their associate Oxylus. The land was divided in equal shares, with the exception probably of some portions attached to the different temples, and which, with the offices of priesthood, belonged to the Heraclidæ, as descendants of the national gods and heros of the country. Meanwhile the old inhabitants were either reduced to emigrate, or were treated as an inferior caste, holding such lands as they were permitted to cultivate, not as freeholders, but as tenants under Dorian lords. These were the Laconians, or περ̧ίοικοι, of whom we shall find frequent mention in the course of this history; and some of this caste striving to recover their independence, were degraded to the still lower condition of villains or predial slaves; and thus formed the first class of Helots, which was afterwards greatly swelled from other quarters. On the other hand, the Hellenian name derived its general predominance throughout Greece from the Dorian conquest of Peloponnesus; the Dorians claiming descent from the eldest son of Hellen, and while they gloried in their extraction, asserting their peculiar title to the Hellenian name above all the other tribes which had assumed it. Arnold.]

[The name “Italy,” in the age of Thucydides, was applied merely to the southernmost point of the Peninsula, the modern provinces of Calabria citra and Calabria ultra. See Aristotelis Politica, vii. 10. Arnold.]

[“And wealth was accumulated still more than formerly; in many of the cities there were erected tyrannies, the revenues becoming greater: (but before that, the governments were hereditary kingdoms with prerogatives and revenues defined).” Goeller.]