- 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-grc2:7.16B.1-7.16B.2
- Generated
- Humanitext Reader · reader.humanitext.ai · 2026-11-08
Artabanus explains to Xerxes that the dream urging him not to cancel the expedition is not divine, but is merely a reflection of the thoughts about the expedition that they had been intensely focused on during the day.
νῦν ὦν, ἐπειδὴ τέτραψαι ἐπὶ τὴν ἀμείνω, φῄς τοι μετιέντι1 τὸν ἐπʼ Ἕλληνας στόλον ἐπιφοιτᾶν ὄνειρον θεοῦ τινος πομπῇ, οὐκ ἐῶντά σε καταλύειν τὸν στόλον.
Now therefore, since you have turned to the better course, you say that as you are about to abandon the expedition against the Greeks, a dream keeps visiting you, sent by some god, which does not allow you to call off the expedition.
ἀλλʼ οὐδὲ ταῦτα ἐστι, ὦ παῖ, θεῖα. ἐνύπνια γὰρ τὰ ἐς ἀνθρώπους πεπλανημένα τοιαῦτα ἐστὶ οἷά σε ἐγὼ διδάξω, ἔτεσι σεῦ πολλοῖσι πρεσβύτερος ἐών·2 πεπλανῆσθαι αὗται μάλιστα ἐώθασι αἱ ὄψιες τῶν ὀνειράτων, τά τις ἡμέρης φροντίζει.3 ἡμεῖς δὲ τὰς πρὸ τοῦ ἡμέρας4 ταύτην τὴν στρατηλασίην καὶ τὸ κάρτα εἴχομεν μετὰ χεῖρας.
But these things, my boy, are not divine either. For those dreams that wander among men are of such a nature as I, who am many years older than you, will teach you: those visions of dreams are most accustomed to wander which a man thinks about during the day. And we, in the preceding days, were holding this expedition very much in our hands.
- 7.16B.1μετιέντι
Present active dative masculine singular participle of μετίημι (to abandon). Taking the preceding τοι as the Ionic dialect form of the personal pronoun σοί (to you), the participle agrees with it: 'to you who are trying to abandon (the expedition)'. The present tense has a conative force.
- 7.16B.2ἔτεσι σεῦ πολλοῖσι πρεσβύτερος ἐών
With the comparative πρεσβύτερος, σεῦ functions as the genitive of comparison ('than you') and ἔτεσι πολλοῖσι as the dative of degree of difference ('by many years'), meaning 'being many years older than you'.
- 7.16B.2τά τις ἡμέρης φροντίζει
τά is the relative pronoun neuter plural, whose antecedent is αἱ ὄψιες τῶν ὀνειράτων, serving as the direct object of the transitive verb φροντίζει (thinks of). ἡμέρης is a genitive of time within which ('during the day').
- 7.16B.2τὰς πρὸ τοῦ ἡμέρας
The adverbial phrase πρὸ τοῦ (before this, previously) is positioned attributively between the article τὰς and the noun ἡμέρας, meaning 'the preceding days'. The accusative case expresses duration of time.