Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/206

184 HISTORY OF GREECE. If this latter were really true, how came the generals, in theil official despatch first sent home, to say nothing about it ? Euryp tolemus, an advocate of the generals, speaking in a subsequent stage of the proceedings, though we can hardly doubt that the same topics were also urged in this very assembly, while blaming the generals for such omission, ascribed it to an ill-placed good- nature on their part, and reluctance to bring Theramenes and Thrasybulus under the displeasure of the people. Most of the generals, he said, were disposed to mention the fact in their official despatch, but were dissuaded from doing so by Perikles and Dio- medon; an unhappy dissuasion, in his judgment, which The- ramenes and Thrasybulus had ungratefully requited by turning round and accusing them all. 1 This remarkable statement of Euryptolemus, as to the inten- tion 'of the generals in wording the official despatch, brings us to a closer consideration of what really passed between them on the one side, and Theramenes and Thrasybulus on the other ; which is difficult to make out clearly, but which Diodorus repre- sents in a manner completely different from Xenophon. Diodo- rus states that the generals were prevented partly by the storm, partly by the fatigue and reluctance and alarm of their own sea- men, from taking any steps to pick up, what he calls, the dead bodies for burial ; that they suspected Theramenes and Thrasy- bulus, who went to Athens before them, of intending to accuse them before the people, and that for this reason they sent home intimation to the people that they had given special orders to these two trierarchs to perform the duty. When these letters were read in the public assembly, Diodorus says, the Athenians 1 Xenoph. Hellen. i, 7, 17. Euryptolemus says : Ka~jj-yopu /usv ovv aiiruv, oriEKEianv rof)f tjvvapxovrac, ftovhopevovf triymeiv ypd^fiara rij TE f3ov%rj Kai vfilv, OTI ETTcTa^av TU> QijpafiEVEi KOI Qpaovftov'ku TETTapiiKovTa KOI ETTTa TpiTjpEGiv uvE^-Effdoi Toi)f vaiia)'ot)f, ol ds OVK uveitovro. Emz vvv TT/V aiTiav t.oivfyv e^ovatv, EKEIVUV Idia ap.api ovruv KOI uvrl TTJS TOTE <j>t%a.V' dpuTriac, vvv VTT' EKEIVUV TE nai TIVUV &?Jkuv Eiupov^evofiEvoi Kiv6vv; vovsa We must here construe InsLcav as equivalent to uvsiretcav or ^creimffav placing a comma after ^vvnp^ovraf. This is unusual, but not inadmissible. To persuade a man to alter his opinion or his conduct, might be expressed by ireideiv, though it would more properly be expressed by u.v ], Thucyd. iii S"