- 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-grc2:5.85.1-5.85.2
- Generated
- Humanitext Reader · reader.humanitext.ai · 2026-11-10
The Athenian account is related: they sent a trireme to Aegina to seize the statues by force, but when they attempted to drag them away, thunder and an earthquake struck, driving the crew mad so that they slaughtered one another until only one survived.
Ἀθηναῖοι μέν νυν λέγουσι μετὰ τὴν ἀπαίτησιν ἀποσταλῆναι τριήρεϊ μιῇ τῶν ἀστῶν τούτους οἳ ἀποπεμφθέντες ἀπὸ τοῦ κοινοῦ καὶ ἀπικόμενοι ἐς Αἴγιναν τὰ ἀγάλματα ταῦτα ὡς σφετέρων ξύλων ἐόντα1 ἐπειρῶντο ἐκ τῶν βάθρων ἐξανασπᾶν, ἵνα σφέα ἀνακομίσωνται.
Now the Athenians say that after this demand, those of the citizens who were dispatched from the state on a single trireme arrived in Aegina and, on the ground that these statues were made of their own wood, attempted to pull them up from their pedestals in order to carry them away.
οὐ δυναμένους δὲ τούτῳ τῷ τρόπῳ αὐτῶν κρατῆσαι, περιβαλόντας σχοινία ἕλκειν τὰ ἀγάλματα, καί σφι ἕλκουσι2 βροντήν τε καὶ ἅμα τῇ βροντῇ σεισμὸν ἐπιγενέσθαι· τοὺς δὲ τριηρίτας τοὺς ἕλκοντας ὑπὸ τούτων ἀλλοφρονῆσαι, παθόντας δὲ τοῦτο κτείνειν ἀλλήλους ἅτε πολεμίους, ἐς ὃ3 ἐκ πάντων ἕνα λειφθέντα ἀνακομισθῆναι αὐτὸν ἐς Φάληρον.
But being unable to get possession of them in this way, they threw ropes around the statues and began to drag them. As they were dragging them, thunder and, along with the thunder, an earthquake occurred; and the trireme-crews who were dragging them became mad because of these things and, in this condition, killed one another as if they were enemies, until out of them all only one was left and returned by himself to Phalerum.
- 5.85.1ὡς σφετέρων ξύλων ἐόντα
The combination of the conjunction ὡς with the accusative participle ἐόντα (agreeing with τὰ ἀγάλματα) expresses the subjective reason alleged by the Athenians. σφετέρων ξύλων is a genitive of material, meaning 'being made of their own wood'.
- 5.85.2σφι ἕλκουσι
Dative pronoun and present participle. Although they represent the agents of the action of dragging, syntactically they function as the dative of interest/reference, indicating those affected by the subsequent events (the occurrence of thunder and earthquake).
- 5.85.2ἐς ὃ
An Ionic idiomatic expression acting as a conjunction (derived from ἐς ὃ χρόνον), meaning 'until'. Here it takes the subsequent infinitive ἀνακομισθῆναι to introduce the disastrous outcome of the mutual slaughter.