anabasis 1.8.22 τὸ

Greek Learning Greek
1

I can’t work out what the τὸ between ἔχοντες and αὑτῶν. Any suggestions?
καὶ πάντες δ᾽ οἱ τῶν βαρβάρων ἄρχοντες μέσον ἔχοντες τὸ αὑτῶν ἡγοῦνται, νομίζοντες οὕτω καὶ ἐν ἀσφαλεστάτῳ εἶναι, ἢν ᾖ ἡ ἰσχὺς αὐτῶν ἑκατέρωθεν, καὶ εἴ τι παραγγεῖλαι χρῄζοιεν, ἡμίσει ἂν χρόνῳ αἰσθάνεσθαι τὸ στράτευμα.
And my over-literal translation:

And all those of the barbarians leading the middle of their own hold, thinking thus both in the mosst secure place to be if should be their strength on both sides and also if should ever they have need to pass something on (ie a message) in half the time would the army get to know of it.

2

πάντες οἱ τῶν βαρβάρων ἄρχοντες (subject)
μέσον ἔχοντες τὸ αὑτῶν (adverbial phrase expressing manner)
ἡγοῦνται (verb)

We could also reorder the middle clause as τὸ αὑτῶν μέσον ἔχοντες and have it mean the same thing. The sense of ἔχειν is A.I.3 from the LSJ, just as you saw in 1.8.4:

…Κλέαρχος μὲν τὰ δεξιὰ τοῦ κέρατος ἔχων…Μένων δὲ τὸ εὐώνυμον κέρας ἔσχε…

Try translating that phrase again and see what you get.

3

μέσον ἔχοντες τὸ αὑτῶν ἡγοῦνται

τὸ αὑτῶν – Note that this is reflexive with rough breathing. “that of their own”, i.e, “their own contingent”, the contingent they were commanding.

μέσον ἔχοντες τὸ αὑτῶν – “keeping their own contingent in the center”. μέσον is predicative.

ἔχοντες τὸ αὑτῶν ἡγοῦνται – τὸ αὑτῶν is the object of both ἔχοντες and ἡγοῦνται – “they lead their own contingent keeping it in the center”. Translating into readable English, we might add “by”: they lead their own contingent by keeping it in the center.

Sorry, my post crossed Joel’s, which is better because it makes you do the work.

4

Try taking μέσον ἔχοντες τὸ αὑτῶν ἡγοῦνται together.

μέσον ἔχοντες “holding the centre (that of their own) which they command”. Or “they hold the centre of their own (troops) when they are in command”. When translating a combination of a participle and finite verb it is often easier to translate the participle as a finite verb in English and the finite verb as a participle.

EDIT well now you have three versions to choose from!

5

τὸ αὑτῶν μέσον Yes, of course. I was so fixated on trying to connect τὸ αὑτῶν that I forgot about μέσον.

Thanks to the three of you for the help.

6

I see now that I was wrong and Joel was right. I focused only on μέσον ἔχοντες τὸ αὑτῶν ἡγοῦνται and not on the rest of the text.

μέσον ἔχοντες – they occupy the center

τὸ αὑτῶν ἡγοῦνται – they lead their contingents.

The point that I missed is that the commanders lead their contingents by staying in/occupying the center (μέσον ἔχοντες), both because they think they’re safer there with troops on both sides and because they can disseminate orders throughout their troops in half the time it would take them if they were on either flank.

7

So I had looked up Boise before my post, and here is what he has:

τό shows that αὑτῶν is grammatically connected with μέσον; > their own centre

8

ok, now I see how you are construing it. I would have expected τὸ μέσον ἔχοντες τὸ αὑτῶν, but I think you’re right.

9

So would I but I have seen constructions like μέσον τὸ αὑτῶν and think that was in Xenophon. It was him slapping ἔχοντες into the middle that threw me.