William Watson Goodwin, Commentary on Demosthenes: On the Crown

2. ἐπολιτευόμην: cf. § 60.1.

3. οὕτω διέκεισθε: when we com- pare this judicious account of the feelings of the Athenians towards the Phocians and Thebans in 346 B.C. and earlier with the impassioned language of the speech on the Embassy and of the Second and Third Philippics, we see the sobering effect of time and of recent events. When the Thebans were exulting in the devastation of Phocis by Philip, and the political interests of Athens demanded that the Phocians should be protected as allies, Demosthenes seemed to overlook their sacrilegious plundering of Delphi, which he now acknowledges. Again, the intimate alliance of Thebes and Athens in 339 B.C., and still more the destruction of Thebes by Alexander in 335, had changed the Athenians' bitter hatred to the deepest sympathy. Still the orator cannot deny the old hostility against Thebes, nor the chief ground for it.

5. (ὥστε) ὁτιοῦν ἂν ἐφησθῆναι παθοῦσιν: see M.T. 592 and 211. It is often hard to express in English the distinction between the infin. and the finite moods with ὥστε, especially when the infin. has ἄν and must therefore be translated by a finite verb. The thought is, you were (so) disposed (as) to wish...and to feel that you would be pleased etc. (M.T. 584). ἐφησθῆναι ἂν has its protasis implied in παθοῦσιν. The position of Φωκέας μὲν (3) and Θηβαίοις δ̓ shows their strong antithesis.

6. οἷς εὐτυχήκεσαν, their successes: sc. τοῖς εὐτυχήμασιν (obj. of ἐκέχρηντο). Cf. περὶ ὧν ἠγνωμονήκεσαν, § 94.2.

7. ἐν Λεύκτροις: for the battle of Leuctra in 371 B.C. see Grote X. ch. 78. See XX. 109, showing the feeling of Demosth. himself in 355: μεῖζον Θηβαῖοι φρονοῦσιν ἐπ᾽ ὠμότητι καὶ πονηρίᾳ ἢ ὑμεῖς ἐπὶ φιλανθρωπίᾳ καὶ τῷ τὰ δίκαια βούλεσθαι. See note on § 98.4.—ἔπειθ̓, after πρῶτον μὲν: see note on § 1.4.

8. διειστήκει, was in dissension (distracted).—οἱ μισοῦντες: these were especially the Messenians and Arcadians, with their new cities Messene and Megalopolis, established by Epaminondas, and the Argives.

10. οἱ πρότερον ἄρχοντες are oli- garchies which were maintained by Sparta in Peloponnesus before Leuctra, and were overthrown by the later revolutions.

11. ἄκριτος ἔρις καὶ ταραχή, hopeless strife and confusion. ἄκριτος is not admitting of settlement (κρίσις).