Humanitext Reader

Dionysius of Halicarnassus · Roman Antiquities §20.14.1-20.14.2

Roman Embassy and the Gifts of Ptolemy II

Passage 959 of 962 · Greek

Summary

The Roman ambassadors, after returning from their embassy to Ptolemy II of Egypt, attempted to hand over their personal gifts to the public treasury, but the senate, admiring their virtue, allowed them to keep the gifts.

§20.14.1Νεμέριος Φάβιος Πίκτωρ καὶ Κόιντος Φάβιος Μάξιμος καὶ Κόιντος Ὀγούλνιος πρὸς τὸν Φιλάδελφον Πτολεμαῖον πρεσβεύσαντες καὶ δωρεαῖς ἰδίαις τιμηθέντες ὐπʼ αὐτοῦ· ἦρχε δὲ τῆς Αἰγύπτου δεύτερος μετὰ τὸν Μακεδόνα Ἀλέξανδρον· §20.14.2ἐπειδὴ κατέπλευσαν εἰς τὴν πόλιν, τά τε ἄλλα ἀπήγγειλαν, ὅσα διεπράξαντο κατὰ τὴν ἀποδημίαν, καὶ τὰς δωρεάς, ἃς παρὰ τοῦ βασιλέως ἔλαβον, εἰς τὸ δημόσιον ἀνήνεγκαν·
Numerius Fabius Pictor, Quintus Fabius Maximus, and Quintus Ogulnius, having gone as ambassadors to Ptolemy Philadelphus, and having been honored by him with personal gifts—he ruled Egypt as the second after Alexander the Macedonian— when they sailed back to the city, reported both the other things that they had accomplished during their journey abroad and deposited the gifts which they had received from the king into the public treasury.
οὓς ἡ βουλὴ πάντων ἀγασθεῖσα τῶν ἔργων οὐκ εἴασε δημοσιῶσαι τὰς βασιλικὰς χάριτας, ἀλλʼ εἰς τοὺς ἑαυτῶν οἴκους ἀπενέγκασθαι τιμὰς ἀρετῆς καὶ κόσμους ἐκγόνοις.
The senate, having admired them for all their deeds, did not allow them to make the royal favors public property, but permitted them to carry them back to their own homes as rewards for virtue and ornaments for their descendants.

Notes

  1. ¦20.4¦Νεμέριος Φάβιος Πίκτωρ ... πρεσβεύσαντες — Grammatically, this subject is introduced at the beginning of §20.14.1, but the main verb does not follow immediately. Instead, after a parenthetical clause (ἦρχε δὲ...), it acts as the subject of the main verbs ἀπήγγειλαν and ἀνήνεγκαν following the temporal clause in §20.14.2 (ἐπειδὴ κατέπλευσαν...). This constitutes an anacoluthic structure with long participial modifiers.
  2. §20.14.1δεύτερος — The ordinal number δεύτερος functions predicatively, meaning "ruling as the second." It indicates that Ptolemy II Philadelphus was the second ruler of Egypt after Alexander the Great of Macedon, succeeding Ptolemy I Soter.
  3. §20.14.2οὓς ἡ βουλὴ... οὐκ εἴασε... ἀλλʼ... ἀπενέγκασθαι — The relative pronoun οὓς is used as a connecting relative at the beginning of the clause (similar to the Latin relative connection), referring back to the ambassadors. The infinitive ἀπενέγκασθαι in the second part is governed by the matrix verb οὐκ εἴασε, where the negative "did not allow [to make public]" shifts to a positive "but [allowed/encouraged them] to carry back" (a type of zeugma).

Cite this passage

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities §20.14.1-20.14.2. Humanitext Reader, https://reader.humanitext.ai/en/text/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0081.tlg001.humanitext-grc2:20.14.1-20.14.2

Please note the AI-draft status of the translation and the date accessed.

Translation, notes and summary are AI-generated drafts, revised through reader feedback.