Question:Herodotus:: 9.2.2

[chibibaiyun]

[b]Hdt: 9.2.2
κατά μὲν γὰρ τὸ ἰσχυρὸν Ἕλληνας ὁμοφρονέοντας, οἵ περ καὶ πάρος ταὐτὰ ἐγίνωσκον, χαλεπὰ εἶναι περιγίνεσθαι καὶ ἅπασι ἀνθρώποισι.
(http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... ection%3D2)

Would you please translate the sentence above closely? though I refer to several English tranlations and get the proper meaning, I can't catch it by the grammer. My questions are: 1) what does ταυτά εγίνωσκον mean literally? 2) the whole is an infinitive phrase, not a complete and independent sentence--is that a normal expression?

Thanks a lot!!!

[modus.irrealis]

About the whole thing being an infinitive phrase, that's because it's indirect discourse, continuing from the previous line. So it represents what the Thebans said and not what the author is saying -- notice also how the μέν here goes with the following δέ in the direct quote. But this sort of implicit indirect discourse is very common.

For ταὐτὰ ἐγίνωσκον, γιγνώσκω can also mean "think", so here's it's "thought the same things" = "had the same opinion".

So my close translation would be: for it is difficult, they said, even for all men to overcome by force the Greeks being of the same mind, who had formerly thought the same things.

(I couldn't find a good literal translation of the participle, but I'm guess you're okay with that part.)

[Damoetas]

Also, ταὐτὰ = τὰ αὐτὰ, in case you were confused by that. The smooth breathing mark above the υ shows that "crasis" (mixing, i.e. of words) has occurred.

[chibibaiyun]

Thanks a lot to modus.irrealis and Damoetas!
the translation is pretty close, and the explanation is concise and clear! they are very helpful!