- 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-grc2:8.116.1-8.116.2
- Generated
- Humanitext Reader · reader.humanitext.ai · 2026-11-08
The Thracian king of the Bisaltians gouged out the eyes of his six sons as a punishment for disobeying his command and joining Xerxes' campaign against Greece.
ἔνθα καὶ ὁ τῶν Βισαλτέων βασιλεὺς γῆς τε τῆς Κρηστωνικῆς Θρῆιξ ἔργον ὑπερφυὲς ἐργάσατο· ὃς οὔτε αὐτὸς ἔφη τῷ Ξέρξῃ ἑκὼν εἶναι1 δουλεύσειν, ἀλλʼ οἴχετο ἄνω ἐς τὸ ὄρος τὴν Ῥοδόπην, τοῖσί τε παισὶ ἀπηγόρευε μὴ στρατεύεσθαι2 ἐπὶ τὴν Ἑλλάδα.
There too, the king of the Bisaltians and of the Crestonian land, a Thracian, performed an extraordinary deed. He said that he would not of his own free will be a slave to Xerxes, but departed up into the mountain of Rhodope, and forbade his sons to march against Greece.
οἳ δὲ ἀλογήσαντες, ἢ ἄλλως σφι θυμὸς ἐγένετο θεήσασθαι τὸν πόλεμον, ἐστρατεύοντο ἅμα τῷ Πέρσῃ· ἐπεὶ δὲ ἀνεχώρησαν ἀσινέες πάντες ἓξ ἐόντες,3 ἐξώρυξε αὐτῶν ὁ πατὴρ τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς διὰ τὴν αἰτίην ταύτην.
But they, disregarding his command, or else because a desire had seized them to behold the war, joined the march with the Persian; and when they all returned unharmed, being six in number, their father gouged out their eyes for this reason.
- 8.116.1ἑκὼν εἶναι
An idiomatic absolute infinitive usage where εἶναι is attached to the adjective ἑκών. It means 'willingly' or 'of one's own free will' and is used almost exclusively in negative contexts (here with οὔτε).
- 8.116.1ἀπηγόρευε μὴ στρατεύεσθαι
A redundant negative construction where the verb of forbidding, ἀπαγορεύω, is followed by an infinitive with the negative particle μὴ. In translation, it is rendered as a single prohibition: 'forbade them to march'.
- 8.116.2ἓξ ἐόντες
The participle ἐόντες (Ionic for ὄντες) accompanies the numeral ἓξ (six), meaning 'being six in number' or 'all six of them'. It emphasizes the numeral, highlighting that every single one of them returned safely.