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The common reading in the
MSS. is εἴδεος, which is evidently inadmissible. Petit, in
his Commentary, suggests that the true reading is δέος
ᾑ. Wigan also prefers πλησίον εἴη δέος.
Ermerins accordingly reads πλησίον ἔῃ δέος. None of these
editors, however, refers to any authority for this expression, which appears to me quaint
and unnatural--"but if the dread of a paroxysm be at hand." I prefer
ἤδη on the authority of many parallel passages, as for
example--πλησίον δὲ ἤδη τοῦ φρενίζειν ὄντες, Galen, de loc. affect. iii.; ἐνστάντος δὲ ἤδη τοῦ συμπτώματος,
P. Æ. iii. 5, in the chapter on epilepsy. Ermerins very properly restores it, in
another passage of our author, where ἥδε had been
substituted for it (Sympt. diut. morb. i. 9). Indeed ἤδη, in
such cases, occurs frequently in the works of our author. Moreover, in the margin
of the celebrated Reiske's copy of Henisch's edition, there is found this
emendation--ἤδη δέος. See G. Dindorf's Appendix to
Kuhn's edition. The Latin translation of Crassus would agree very well with the reading I
propose; while it is unsuitable to the text when δέος is
admitted: "Quum vero accessio appropinquat."
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