- Source
- Herodotus. Godley, Alfred Denis, editor. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press; William Heinemann, Ltd., 1920-1925 (printing).
- Translation
- AI-generated (gemini-3.5-flash) — machine translation; may contain errors
- Languages
- 日本語 · English · 简体中文 · 한국어
- CTS URN
- urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0016.tlg001.humanitext-grc2:1.17.1-1.17.3
- Generated
- Humanitext Reader · reader.humanitext.ai · 2026-10-28
Alyattes inherited the war against Miletus from his father, repeatedly invading the territory when crops were ripe to the sound of music, destroying the fields but deliberately leaving the houses intact to allow future cultivation and subsequent plunder.
ἐπολέμησε Μιλησίοισι, παραδεξάμενος τὸν πόλεμον παρὰ τοῦ πατρός. ἐπελαύνων γὰρ ἐπολιόρκεε τὴν Μίλητον τρόπῳ τοιῷδε· ὅκως μὲν εἴη1 ἐν τῇ γῇ καρπὸς ἁδρός, τηνικαῦτα ἐσέβαλλε τὴν στρατιήν· ἐστρατεύετο δὲ ὑπὸ συρίγγων2 τε καὶ πηκτίδων καὶ αὐλοῦ γυναικηίου τε καὶ ἀνδρηίου.
He made war against the Milesians, having inherited the war from his father. For when he marched against them, he besieged Miletus in the following manner: whenever the crops on the land were ripe, at that very time he would invade with his army; and he marched to the sound of pan-pipes and harps, and of flutes, both feminine and masculine.
ὡς δὲ ἐς τὴν Μιλησίην ἀπίκοιτο, οἰκήματα μὲν τὰ ἐπὶ τῶν ἀγρῶν οὔτε κατέβαλλε οὔτε ἐνεπίμπρη οὔτε θύρας ἀπέσπα, ἔα3 δὲ κατὰ χώρην ἑστάναι· ὁ δὲ τὰ τε δένδρεα καὶ τὸν καρπὸν τὸν ἐν τῇ γῇ ὅκως διαφθείρειε, ἀπαλλάσσετο ὀπίσω.
And whenever he arrived in the territory of Miletus, he neither pulled down nor burned the dwellings in the fields, nor did he tear off their doors, but allowed them to stand as they were; but when he had destroyed the trees and the crops on the land, he would depart back again.
τῆς γὰρ θαλάσσης οἱ Μιλήσιοι ἐπεκράτεον, ὥστε ἐπέδρης μὴ εἶναι ἔργον4 τῇ στρατιῇ. τὰς δὲ οἰκίας οὐ κατέβαλλε ὁ Λυδὸς τῶνδε εἵνεκα, ὅκως ἔχοιεν ἐνθεῦτεν ὁρμώμενοι5 τὴν γῆν σπείρειν τε καὶ ἐργάζεσθαι οἱ Μιλήσιοι, αὐτὸς δὲ ἐκείνων ἐργαζομένων ἔχοι τι καὶ σίνεσθαι ἐσβάλλων.
For the Milesians were masters of the sea, so that there was no use for the army to undertake a blockade. The Lydian did not pull down the houses for this reason: so that the Milesians, making them their starting points, might sow and till the land, and that he himself, while they were cultivating it, might have something to plunder when he invaded.
- 1.17.1ὅκως μὲν εἴη
The conjunction ὅκως (Ionic for ὅπως) with the optative mood, corresponding to the imperfect tense in the main clause (ἐσέβαλλε), expresses a repeated or customary action in past time ("whenever...").
- 1.17.1ὑπὸ συρίγγων
The preposition ὑπό with the genitive case here denotes musical accompaniment, meaning "to the sound of" or "accompanied by," rather than its usual sense of "under" or agency ("by").
- 1.17.2ἔα
The third-person singular imperfect of ἐάω. It is an uncontracted Ionic form, representing a repeated action in the past corresponding to the previous optative clause.
- 1.17.3ὥστε ἐπέδρης μὴ εἶναι ἔργον
The noun ἔργον here means "utility," "profit," or "purpose" rather than simple "work." Thus, the phrase means "so that a blockade was of no use (or brought no result) for the army."
- 1.17.3ἔχοιεν ἐνθεῦτεν ὁρμώμενοι
Part of the purpose clause introduced by ὅκως explaining why he did not pull down the houses. The participle ὁρμώμενοι means "starting from there" or "making them their base of operations."