- 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-grc2:8.7.1-8.7.2
- Generated
- Humanitext Reader · reader.humanitext.ai · 2026-11-07
The Persians send a detachment of two hundred ships to sail around Euboea to trap the Greeks from behind, while the main fleet remains at Aphetae to conduct a muster.
πρὸς ταῦτα ὦν τάδε ἐμηχανῶντο· τῶν νεῶν ἁπασέων ἀποκρίναντες διηκοσίας περιέπεμπον ἔξωθεν Σκιάθου, ὡς ἂν μὴ ὀφθείησαν1 ὑπὸ τῶν πολεμίων περιπλέουσαι Εὔβοιαν κατά τε Καφηρέα καὶ περὶ Γεραιστὸν ἐς τὸν Εὔριπον, ἵνα δὴ περιλάβοιεν οἳ μὲν ταύτῃ ἀπικόμενοι καὶ φράξαντες αὐτῶν τὴν ὀπίσω φέρουσαν ὁδόν, σφεῖς δὲ2 ἐπισπόμενοι ἐξ ἐναντίης.
Therefore they devised the following plan: selecting two hundred ships from the whole fleet, they sent them around outside Skiathos, so that they might not be seen by the enemy as they sailed around Euboea by way of Caphereus and around Geraestus into the Euripus, in order that they might hem them in, the one party arriving by this route and blocking their retreat leading backward, and themselves following up from the opposite direction.
ταῦτα βουλευσάμενοι ἀπέπεμπον τῶν νεῶν τὰς ταχθείσας, αὐτοὶ οὐκ ἐν νόῳ ἔχοντες ταύτης τῆς ἡμέρης τοῖσι Ἕλλησι ἐπιθήσεσθαι, οὐδὲ πρότερον ἢ τὸ σύνθημά σφι ἔμελλε φανήσεσθαι παρὰ τῶν περιπλεόντων ὡς ἡκόντων.3 ταύτας μὲν δὴ περιέπεμπον, τῶν δὲ λοιπέων νεῶν ἐν τῇσι Ἀφέτῃσι ἐποιεῦντο ἀριθμόν.
Having resolved on this, they sent off the designated ships, themselves having no intention of attacking the Greeks on that day, nor indeed before the signal was to appear to them from those sailing around that they had arrived. These ships indeed they sent off, and of the remaining ships they made a muster in Aphetae.
- 8.7.1ὡς ἂν μὴ ὀφθείησαν
The construction of ὡς ἄν followed by the optative (here the aorist passive optative ὀφθείησαν) is a characteristic feature of purpose clauses in Herodotus and Ionic Greek. Unlike the Attic usage of ὡς ἄν with the subjunctive, here it expresses a simple negative purpose ("so that they might not be seen").
- 8.7.1οἳ μὲν ... σφεῖς δέ
A distributive construction subdividing the subject of the clause ἵνα περιλάβοιεν ("in order that they might hem them in") using participles. οἳ μέν refers to the detached squadron of two hundred ships, while σφεῖς δέ refers to the main Persian force remaining at Aphetae.
- 8.7.2ὡς ἡκόντων
The genitive plural present participle (with perfect sense) of ἥκω. It is used in a genitive absolute construction, where the preceding particle ὡς indicates the subjective content of the report or signal ("signifying that they had arrived").