- 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-grc2:4.111.1-4.111.2
- Generated
- Humanitext Reader · reader.humanitext.ai · 2026-11-10
The Scythians fight the Amazons thinking they are young men, but discover they are women; they then decide to send their youth to camp near them peacefully to have children with them.
οἱ δὲ Σκύθαι οὐκ εἶχον συμβαλέσθαι τὸ πρῆγμα· οὔτε γὰρ φωνὴν οὔτε ἐσθῆτα οὔτε τὸ ἔθνος ἐγίνωσκον, ἀλλʼ ἐν θώματι ἦσαν ὁκόθεν ἔλθοιεν,1 ἐδόκεον δʼ αὐτὰς εἶναι ἄνδρας τὴν αὐτὴν ἡλικίην ἔχοντας, μάχην τε δὴ πρὸς αὐτὰς ἐποιεῦντο. ἐκ δὲ τῆς μάχης τῶν νεκρῶν ἐκράτησαν οἱ Σκύθαι, καὶ οὕτω ἔγνωσαν ἐούσας γυναῖκας.2
But the Scythians were unable to understand the matter; for they knew neither their speech, nor their dress, nor their nation, but were in wonder whence they had come; and they supposed them to be men of the same age, and so they made war against them. But after the battle, the Scythians got possession of the dead bodies, and thus they came to know that they were women.
βουλευομένοισι ὦν αὐτοῖσι ἔδοξε κτείνειν μὲν οὐδενὶ τρόπῳ ἔτι αὐτάς, ἑωυτῶν δὲ τοὺς νεωτάτους ἀποπέμψαι ἐς αὐτάς, πλῆθος εἰκάσαντας3 ὅσαι περ ἐκεῖναι ἦσαν τούτους δὲ στρατοπεδεύεσθαι πλησίον ἐκεινέων καὶ ποιέειν τὰ περ ἂν καὶ ἐκεῖναι ποιέωσι. ἢν δὲ αὐτοὺς διώκωσι, μάχεσθαι μὲν μή, ὑποφεύγειν δέ·4 ἐπεὰν δὲ παύσωνται, ἐλθόντας αὖτις πλησίον στρατοπεδεύεσθαι. ταῦτα ἐβουλεύσαντο οἱ Σκύθαι βουλόμενοι ἐξ αὐτέων παῖδας ἐκγενήσεσθαι. ἀποπεμφθέντες δὲ οἱ νεηνίσκοι ἐποίευν τὰ ἐντεταλμένα.
So, when they took counsel, they resolved by no means to kill them any longer, but to send to them the youngest of their own men, estimating their number to be just as many as the women were. They resolved that these should encamp near them and do whatever they also might do; and if the women should pursue them, they should not fight, but flee, and when the women stopped, they should return and encamp near them. The Scythians resolved on this, wishing that children might be born to them from these women. And the young men, having been sent, did as they had been commanded.
- 4.111.1ὁκόθεν ἔλθοιεν
The verb in the indirect question clause is in the optative mood (ἔλθοιεν) because the main verb is in the past tense (ἦσαν), triggering the oblique optative (optative of indirect discourse after a historical tense).
- 4.111.1ἔγνωσαν ἐούσας γυναῖκας
The verb of cognition ἔγνωσαν (aorist of γιγνώσκω) takes the participle ἐούσας (Ionic for οὔσας) instead of an infinitive to denote the realization of a fact ('they realized that they were women').
- 4.111.2πλῆθος εἰκάσαντας
πλῆθος is an accusative of specification (or direct object of εἰκάσαντας) meaning 'in respect to number'. The participle εἰκάσαντας (accusative plural) logically refers to the deciding Scythians (dative αὐτοῖσι) but agrees in the accusative with the unexpressed logical subject of the infinitive ἀποπέμψαι.
- 4.111.2ἢν δὲ αὐτοὺς διώκωσι, μάχεσθαι μὲν μή, ὑποφεύγειν δέ·
In the apodosis of the conditional clause ἢν ... διώκωσι, the infinitives μάχεσθαι and ὑποφεύγειν are used with imperative force (imperative infinitives), and are thus negated by μή.