The Scholiast, with Poppo and most of the commentators on this passage, treat τῶν δύο μοιρῶν as meaning unquestionably _two parts out of three_: and if this be the sense, I should agree with Dr. Arnold in considering the assertion as a mere exaggeration of the orator, not at all carrying the authority of Thucydides himself. But I cannot think that we are here driven to such a necessity; for the construction of Didot and Göller, though Dr. Arnold pronounces it “a most undoubted error,” appears to me perfectly admissible. They maintain that αἱ δύο μοιραὶ does not of necessity mean two parts _out of three_: in Thucydid. i, 10, we find καίτοι Πελοποννήσου τῶν πέντε τὰς δύο μοιρὰς νέμονται, where the words mean _two parts out of five_. Now in the passage before us, we have ναῦς μέν γε ἐς τὰς τετρακοσίας ὀλίγῳ ἐλάσσους τῶν δύο μοιρῶν: and Didot and Göller contend, that in the word τετρακοσίας is implied a quaternary division of the whole number,—_four hundreds_ or _hundredth parts_: so that the whole meaning would be—“To the aggregate _four hundreds_ of ships we contributed something less than _two_.” The word τετρακοσίας, equivalent to τέσσαρας ἑκατοντάδας, naturally includes the general idea of τέσσαρας μοιράς: and this would bring the passage into exact analogy with the one cited above,—τῶν πέντε τὰς δύο μοιράς. With every respect to the judgment of Dr. Arnold on an author whom he had so long studied, I cannot enter into the grounds on which he has pronounced this interpretation of Didot and Göller to be “an undoubted error.” It has the advantage of bringing the assertion of the orator in Thucydides into harmony with Herodotus, who states the Athenians to have furnished one hundred and eighty ships at Salamis. Wherever such harmony can be secured by an admissible construction of existing words, it is an unquestionable advantage, and ought to count as a reason in the case, if there be a doubt between two admissible constructions. But on the other hand, I protest against altering numerical statements in one author, simply in order to bring him into accordance with another, and without some substantive ground in the text itself. Thus, for example, in this very passage of Thucydides, Bloomfield and Poppo propose to alter τετρακοσίας into τριακοσίας, in order that Thucydides may be in harmony with Æschylus and other authors, though not with Herodotus; while Didot and Göller would alter τριακοσίων into τετρακοσίων in Demosthenes de Coronâ (c. 70), in order that Demosthenes may be in harmony with Thucydides. Such emendations appear to me inadmissible in principle: we are not to force different witnesses into harmony by retouching their statements.