Friday, January 06, 2017
Cause of Evils
Thucydides 3.82.8 (tr. C.F. Smith):
Simon Hornblower ad loc.:
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The cause of all these evils was the desire to rule which greed and ambition inspire, and also, springing from them, that ardour which belongs to men who once have become engaged in factious rivalry.Madvig, Adversaria Critica, vol. I, p. 317:
πάντων δ᾿ αὐτῶν αἴτιον ἀρχὴ ἡ διὰ πλεονεξίαν καὶ φιλοτιμίαν, ἐκ δ᾿ αὐτῶν καὶ ἐς τὸ φιλονικεῖν καθισταμένων τὸ πρόθυμον.
Simon Hornblower ad loc.:
There is no need to emend the text so as to eliminate αἴτιον—an emendation which would necessitate (i) taking ἀρχή, 'love of power' in its other sense, 'cause',and (ii) taking αἴτιον, another word for 'cause', as a gloss on ἀρχή.
