Sunday, October 16, 2022
Oligarchy and Democracy
Thucydides 8.47.2 (tr. Charles Forster Smith):
Newer› ‹Older
For the Athenian soldiers at Samos perceived that he had great influence with Tissaphernes, partly because Alcibiades sent word to the most influential men among them to make mention of him to the best people and say that he wished to come home on condition of there being an oligarchy and not the villainous mob-rule that had banished him...In his Greek text (Loeb Classical Library) Smith adopts van Herwerden's deletion of οὐδὲ δημοκρατίᾳ, but in his translation he seems to include it ("villainous mob-rule," a sort of hendiadys for οὐ πονηρίᾳ οὐδὲ δημοκρατίᾳ). I don't see the passage discussed in Karl Maurer, Interpolation in Thucydides (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1995 = Mnemosyne, Suppl., 150), but see A.W. Gomme et al. ad loc. (vol. V, p. 107):
ἐπειδὴ γὰρ ᾔσθοντο αὐτὸν ἰσχύοντα παρ' αὐτῷ οἱ ἐν τῇ Σάμῳ Ἀθηναίων στρατιῶται, τὰ μὲν καὶ Ἀλκιβιάδου προσπέμψαντος λόγους ἐς τοὺς δυνατωτάτους αὐτῶν ἄνδρας ὥστε μνησθῆναι περὶ αὐτοῦ ἐς τοὺς βελτίστους τῶν ἀνθρώπων ὅτι ἐπ' ὀλιγαρχίᾳ βούλεται καὶ οὐ πονηρίᾳ [οὐδὲ δημοκρατίᾳ] τῇ αὐτὸν ἐκβαλούσῃ κατελθὼν...
οὐδὲ δημοκρατίᾳ secl. van Herwerden
Many edd. follow Herwerden in deleting οὐδὲ δημοκρατίᾳ as a gloss, and the phrase is stronger without these words.
