William Watson Goodwin, Commentary on Demosthenes: On the Crown

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1. σκηπτὸς [ἢ χειμὼν]: most recent editors omit ἢ χειμὼν on the ground that the orator, after comparing the sudden raid of Philip to a thunderbolt, would not weaken his figure by adding a common storm. This holds good even when we admit that χειμών and σκηπτός are not the same thing. Aristotle (de Mundo, 4, 19), after describing κεραυνός, πρηστήρ, and τυφῶν, adds ἕκαστον δὲ τούτων κατασκῆψαν εἰς τὴν γῆν σκηπτὸς ὀνομάζεται. σκηπτός, therefore, is not only a stroke of lightning, but also a furious thunderstorm; while χειμών is winter, a winterstorm, or a storm in general. Perhaps ἢ χειμὼν here was originally a marginal reference to χειμῶνι χρησάμενον (6).

3. τί χρὴ ποιεῖν (sc. ἡμᾶς), what ought we to do? The answer is given in the two following sentences. The sense is: “What are we to do? We are to do just what a ναύκληρος would do if any one were to blame him, etc. He would say ‘I was not κυβερνήτης,’ just as I can say ‘No more was I στρατηγός.’” The apodosis to εἴ τις... αἰτιῷτο being suppressed (except ἂν in 4), its subject ναύκληρος appears in the protasis as ναύκληρον, and the implied ὥσπερ ἂν ναύκληρος ποιήσειεν appears in φήσειεν ἂν (9) with its quotation, ἀλλ᾽ οὔτ̓ ἐκυβέρνων...τῶν πάντων. ἡμῶν (2) and ἐγὼ (10) show that the orator identifies the people with himself in the comparison with ναύκληρος. Cf. § 243.

4. ναύκληρον, properly a ship- owner, who sails in his own ship (as ἔμπορος), but generally employs a κυβερνήτης or sailing-master to navigate the ship. In Plato's famous figure of the ship of State (Rep. VI. p. 488), the ναύκληρος is the honest old man Δῆμος Πυκνίτης, who knows little of navigation, and is not skilful enough to keep a professional sailingmaster in authority, and soon lets the command of the ship fall into the hands of the most artful and unscrupulous landsmen on board.

6. χειμῶνι χρησάμενον: the ναύ- κληρος is said to have met with a storm.—πονησάντων σκευῶν, when his tackling laboured (as we speak of a ship as labouring in a heavy sea).