- 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-grc2:1.200.1
- Generated
- Humanitext Reader · reader.humanitext.ai · 2026-11-02
Concluding the account of Babylonian customs, the text describes the unique diet of three clans who eat only fish, detailing how they dry, grind, sift, and bake it.
νόμοι μὲν δὴ τοῖσι Βαβυλωνίοισι οὗτοι κατεστᾶσι· εἰσὶ δὲ αὐτῶν πατριαὶ τρεῖς αἳ οὐδὲν ἄλλο σιτέονται εἰ μὴ ἰχθὺς μοῦνον, τοὺς ἐπείτε ἂν θηρεύσαντες αὐήνωσι πρὸς ἥλιον, ποιεῦσι τάδε· ἐσβάλλουσι ἐς ὅλμον καὶ λεήναντες ὑπέροισι σῶσι1 διὰ σινδόνος, καὶ ὃς μὲν ἂν βούληται αὐτῶν ἅτε μᾶζαν μαξάμενος2 ἔχει, ὁ δὲ3 ἄρτου τρόπον ὀπτήσας.
These then are the customs established among the Babylonians. But there are three clans among them who eat nothing else but fish alone, which, when they have caught and dried them in the sun, they treat as follows: they throw them into a mortar and, having ground them with pestles, sift them through fine linen; and whoever of them wishes, kneads it like a barley-cake and eats it, while another bakes it in the manner of bread.
- 1.200.1σῶσι
The third-person plural present indicative active of the verb σάω ('to sift'), contracted from σάουσι. Although identical in form to the third-person plural aorist active subjunctive of σῴζω ('to save'), the context determines its meaning as 'to sift'.
- 1.200.1ἅτε μᾶζαν μαξάμενος
The particle ἅτε usually introduces a participle stating an objective reason ('since'), but here in ἅτε μᾶζαν μαξάμενος ('as if having kneaded a barley-cake') it denotes a figurative or situational comparison. The participle μαξάμενος is the aorist middle of μάσσω ('to knead'). The object of the following verb ἔχει ('has/eats') is the sifted powder mentioned in the previous sentence, which is omitted.
- 1.200.1ὃς μὲν ἂν βούληται αὐτῶν ἅτε μᾶζαν μαξάμενος ἔχει, ὁ δὲ...
Against the generalized relative clause ὃς μὲν ἂν βούληται ('whoever of them wishes, on the one hand'), the contrasting second clause is introduced by the demonstrative pronoun ὁ δὲ ('but another, on the other hand'), showing an asymmetrical grammatical construction (anacoluthon).