[263] See the narrative of Diodorus (xiii, 100, 101, 102),
where nothing is mentioned except about picking up the floating
_dead_ bodies; about the crime, and offence in the eyes of the
people, of omitting to secure burial to so many _dead_ bodies.
He does not seem to have fancied that there were any _living
bodies_, or that it was a question between life and death to
so many of the crews. Whereas, if we follow the narrative of
Xenophon (Hellen. i, 7), we shall see that the question is put
throughout about picking up the _living men_, the _shipwrecked
men_, or the men belonging to, and still living aboard of, the
broken ships, ἀνελέσθαι τοὺς ναυαγοὺς, τοὺς δυστυχοῦντας, τοὺς
καταδύντας (Hellen. ii, 3, 32): compare, especially, ii, 3, 35,
πλεῖν ἐπὶ τὰς καταδεδυκυίας ναῦς καὶ τοὺς ἐπ᾽ αὐτῶν ἀνθρώπους
(i, 6, 36). The word ναυαγὸς does not mean a dead body, but a
_living man_ who has suffered shipwreck: ~Ναυαγὸς~ ἥκω, ξένος,
ἀσύλητον γένος (says Menelaus, Eurip. Helen. 457); also 407, Καὶ
νῦν τάλας ~ναυαγὸς~, ἀπολέσας φίλους Ἐξέπεσον ἐς γῆν τήνδε etc.;
again, 538. It corresponds with the Latin _naufragus_: “mersâ
rate naufragus assem Dum rogat, et pictâ se tempestate tuetur,”
(Juvenal, xiv, 301.) Thucydidês does not use the word ναυαγοὺς,
but speaks of τοὺς νεκροὺς καὶ τὰ ναυαγία, meaning by the latter
word the damaged ships, with every person and thing on board.
It is remarkable that Schneider and most other commentators on
Xenophon, Sturz in his Lexicon Xenophonteum (v. ἀναίρεσις),
Stallbaum ad Platon. Apol. Socrat. c. 20, p. 32, Sievers,
Comment. ad Xenoph. Hellen. p. 31, Forchhammer, Die Athener und
Sokratês, pp. 30-31, Berlin, 1837, and others, all treat this
event as if it were nothing but a question of picking up dead
bodies for sepulture. This is a complete misinterpretation of
Xenophon; not merely because the word ναυαγὸς, which he uses four
several times, means _a living person_, but because there are two
other passages, which leave absolutely no doubt about the matter:
Παρῆλθε δὲ τις ἐς τὴν ἐκκλησίαν, φάσκων ἐπὶ τεύχους ἀλφίτων
σωθῆναι· ~ἐπιστέλλειν δ᾽ αὐτῷ τοὺς ἀπολλυμένους, ἐὰν σωθῂ,
ἀπαγγεῖλαι τῷ δήμῳ, ὅτι οἱ στρατηγοὶ οὐκ ἀνείλοντο τοὺς ἀρίστους
ὑπὲρ τῆς πατρίδος γενομένους~. Again (ii, 3, 35), Theramenês,
when vindicating himself before the oligarchy of Thirty, two
years afterwards, for his conduct in accusing the generals, says
that the generals brought their own destruction upon themselves
by accusing him first, and by saying that the men on the disabled
ships might have been saved with proper diligence: φάσκοντες
γὰρ (the generals) ~οἷον τε εἶναι σῶσαι τοὺς ἄνδρας, προέμενοι
αὐτοὺς ἀπολέσθαι~, ἀποπλέοντες ᾤχοντο. These passages place
the point beyond dispute, that the generals were accused of
having neglected to save the lives of men on the point of being
drowned, and who by their neglect afterwards were drowned, not
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