by mwh » Tue Jun 03, 2014 2:42 am
I now have the OCT to hand (but not Alberti). To judge by the variants and corruptions in the MSS (ευτελεστερα δε τα δεινα?!) no-one’s ever been able to sort this out. What a mess it is. But reading through the text as you give it, before looking at app.crit. or your report of Tucker etc., I automatically referred A to the King. I didn’t take it as intensive (as I now see Lattimore does) but as providing a subject for the infinitive after the change of case; the clause seemed to continue the point just made (“the King could play each side against the other, whereas if land and sea arxh were unified he’d be at a loss as to …”) rather than leapfrogging that to refer back to the clause before that (“… and to let both sides split possession of the arxh”), though in itself that would be a no less logical thing to say. That still seems to me the most natural way to read it. (Lesser punctuation after επαγειν?) I don’t see Tucker’s grammatical objection as having a great deal of force (but I dare say I’m wrong about that).
Then what of B? Now that could be Tissaphernes, with αυτος marking the switch back. The expense and risk would fall on him, Tiss (“—unless he wanted to … himself,” a touch sardonic, and with the αυτος going more with the subordinate verbs but put up front for clarity[?!] and emphasis; not unusual). Referred to the King, it would mean the King would have to pony up himself, instead of letting the costs of fighting fall on the Pels and Aths. That makes sense of a kind, but not such good sense?
Then C is Tiss also, though it would be the King on a different reading of A and B. (I’m approaching this sequentially, as it goes along, which seems to me the only good way to read. I’m no fan of retrospective interpretations, except in the likes of Callimachus and Ovid.) It’s Tiss he’s manipulating, after all, and appealing to Tiss’s own interests (identified, as they have to be, with the King’s) is paramount.
Then D. Here’s the stumbling-block identified by your annotator. It would be heresy to suggest that by this point the two (Tiss & King) have merged. But can’t it really be Tiss? The arxh is the same as that which Alcib would have him allow to be split in para.1. Doesn’t that imply it’s (kind of) his? Even if it’s not, it flatters Tiss to suggest that it is. It’s also (isn’t it?) the arxh by land and sea of para.2, which Tiss would now be sharing with the Athenians. So I favor Tiss, consistently with my reading of what precedes.
Same goes for E. εκεινω rather than reflexive (or just intensive αυτω) effects the oppositive pairing with σφισιν αυτοις; emphatic σοί in direct speech. (Actually that might be a helpful exercise, to try the oratio recta equivalent of the various interpretations and see which reads most cogently.) Your point against referring it to the King is a strong one, I’d say.
So my vote goes to
A: King
BCDE: Tiss.
But I could be wrong about it all. As I explained, I no longer have confidence in my ability to read Thucydides.
All that’s assuming [sorry: now that I know who you are: on the assumption that] the reconstructed text is right. Incidentally, though, it seems pretty obvious to me that των Ελληνων and των βαρβαρων towards the end of 3 are complementary explanatory glosses and don’t belong in the text.
I once edited a papyrus text from this neighborhood, but all I remember about it is that (unsurprisingly but reassuringly) it had ξυνεπολεμει at the end of the chapter, present only in the Vaticanus—its absence being an exemplary conjunctive error in the rest of the tradition.
A right cunning bastard, Alcibiades.