152
L. Pearson
write in his style (Cicero calls him 'paene pusillus Thucydides').
The identification cannot be proved, but it is very attractive, and
it will become more probable if the text can be restored in such a
way that it does not seriously contradict Thucydides' account.6
Previous editors have introduced details which seem to show the
author differing from Thucydides, offering events in a different
order, and one of the purposes of this paper is to show that these
differences can be avoided.
Thucydides, however, gives only a summary account of this
expedition, and there is no reason to be surprised if the author
mentions incidents about which he says nothing. Thucydides (90.1)
says that he will confine himself to matters that he thinks "worthy
of notice," and all that he says about the activities of the first
summer and autumn (427) is that the Athenians made their base at
Rhegium and "carried on the war in co-operation with their allies"
(86.5). He describes their raid on the Lipari islands in the
following winter, explaining that this would not have been practicable in summer because of the shortage of water on the islands.
The people refused to abandon their alliance with Syracuse, and so
the Athenians ravaged the farm lands and withdrew to Rhegium, accomplishing nothing of any real importance, it seems. Before going
on to describe the operations of next spring and summer Thucydides
says that Charoeades was now dead, "killed fighting the Syracusans,"
and Laches was therefore sole commander (XapoLL6ou y&p ~8T TOO
'ASrnvaLcwv OTopaTnyoO TeSVfrH6Toc nt6 Eupaxoolov Rtok~p &nCoa.v xov
TCOv v~ev T- aPXiv, 90.2).
Here, on the left, is Bartoletti's text, on the right the
text as I would propose to restore it:
Column I
Bartoletti Pearson
TpIo(3ELQ HOULCO)V U TEptOBELC HOvLCOV 69
S'PjyLov xCai t&s vaCO 'PtyLov xaOLL T& vaOC
xaL vroi &v6pa v 6v- H.atL TOc dv6pac AdvXaBov oL EupaH6oLto. Xa- XaBov oL Eupaox6ooL. XapL68n 865 TpaUIjarL- 5 pL5L66ng 6 TpaulaJcTLLoeLte 6x TUv TpauUA- LoeL% sx TWV TpvaudA5 Cic. Ad Q. fr. 2.11.4. Cf. FGrHist. 556 T.14-17.
6 Plutarch notes that Philistus generally agreed with
Thucydides, unlike Timaeus who tried to "improve on" the Thucydidean account of the siege of Syracuse and treated Philistus as a
bungling amateur (Nic. 1, 8, 28).
