The Scholia on Thucydides are the ancient and Byzantine notes on the History of Thucydides, added over many centuries by readers who are mostly unnamed. They follow the eight books in order. Most are short glosses on words and constructions, and the speeches draw long paraphrases, among them the Funeral Oration and Diodotus' reply to Cleon on the Mytileneans. Other notes identify persons and places, set out the early peoples of Sicily, and comment on style, as on the Gorgianic balance of clauses in Pericles' first speech. One, in the fourth book, explains why critics divided the history into eight or thirteen books and names Thucydides' models: Aeschylus, Pindar, Antiphon, Prodicus, Euripides and Homer.
The scholia are transmitted in the medieval manuscripts of Thucydides, among them Vatican Greek manuscript 126 and Laurentian manuscript 69.2. Their oldest layer may go back to Alexandrian commentary such as that of Didymus, and later readers added to it: John Tzetzes wrote verses in the margins on spelling, on place names and on Thucydides' style, and other notes quote and answer Dionysius of Halicarnassus.
Thucydides Commentary Scholia on Thucydides: summary and contents (PDF)
Thucydides Commentary Scholia on Thucydides: summary and contents (Markdown)
Contents
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Αʹ Book I
Thucydides' proem opens this set, with a note on why he names himself at the start and on the difference between writing and composing a history. The glosses follow the first book of his history through the Corinthians' complaint at Sparta about Potidaea, Aegina and Megara, and end with Pericles' first speech, at the close of the book, where one scholiast remarks on its Gorgianic balance of clauses, and with the embassies sent without a herald.
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Βʹ Book II
Dionysius of Halicarnassus' complaint that Thucydides counts by summers and winters rather than by archons and Olympiads is quoted and answered at the outbreak of the war, where these notes on the second book begin. The Funeral Oration draws long paraphrases, on loving beauty without extravagance and on poverty. The set closes at Alcmaeon and the naming of Acarnania, with verses by Tzetzes on how the name should be spelt.
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Γʹ Book III
The revolt of Mytilene and the Peloponnesian invasion of Attica open these notes on the third book of Thucydides, with verses rebuking a copyist over the spelling of the city's name. Diodotus' reply to Cleon on the punishment of the Mytileneans is paraphrased at length. Near the end the notes take apart the exchange with the Ambraciot herald and gloss the lava stream of Etna.
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Δʹ Book IV
Pylos and its fortification lead off, after glosses on the grain in the ear, Messana and the Locrians' war on Rhegium. In the middle the scholiasts follow Hermocrates' appeal at Gela for Sicily to settle its own quarrels against Athens. This fourth-book set ends with a note on why critics divided the history into eight or thirteen books, and on Thucydides' models: Aeschylus, Pindar, Antiphon, Prodicus, Euripides and Homer.
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Εʹ Book V
Covering Thucydides' fifth book, the notes start from the year's truce and the removal of the Delians to Atramyttium, and explain the walls of Torone that Pasitelidas abandoned. The treaty of Athens with Argos, Mantinea and Elis prompts a list of each city's magistrates, followed by the Spartans' exclusion from the Olympic festival. The last glosses fall on the Melian Dialogue and the siege of Melos.
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Ϛʹ Book VI
Sicily's early peoples come first here: the Cyclopes and Laestrygonians of the poets, the Sicanians from Iberia, the Phoenicians and the Elymians, with Tzetzes' verses deriving the name of Italy from a word for bull. Glosses on the sixth book then pass to Catana and Camarina, the informers after the mutilation of the herms, and Harmodius and Aristogeiton, and close with the death of Lamachus and the raid on Laconia.
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Ζʹ Book VII
Gylippus' arrival at Himera, read as the turn from Athenian success to Syracusan victory, begins the commentary on the seventh book. The scholiasts explain the Syracusan counter-wall, Nicias' refusal to withdraw for fear of the Athenians at home, and the crossing from Carthage to Selinus. They end in the quarries, with the rations of water and grain and a lament on the Athenians' total ruin.
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Ηʹ Book VIII
Athens hears of the Sicilian disaster and resolves to economise as the commentary on the last book of Thucydides opens, then turns to Euboea, Lesbos and Tissaphernes' debt to the king. The oligarchic revolution of 411, with Alcibiades, the council chosen by the bean and its dismissal, fills the middle. The close gives Tzetzes' verses on Thucydides' contorted style and on Marcellinus' errors about Anaxagoras and Herodotus.