κατανοῶν δὲ ὁ Κῦρος ὡς εὖ μὲν αὐτῷ εἶχον τὰ σώματα οἱ στρατιῶται πρὸς τὸ δύνασθαι στρατιωτικοὺς πόνους φέρειν, εὖ δὲ τὰς ψυχὰς πρὸς τὸ καταφρονεῖν τῶν πολεμίων, ἐπιστήμονες δ᾽ ἦσαν τὰ προσήκοντα τῇ ἑαυτῶν ἕκαστοι ὁπλίσει, καὶ πρὸς τὸ πείθεσθαι δὲ τοῖς ἄρχουσιν ἑώρα πάντας εὖ παρεσκευασμένους, ἐκ τούτων οὖν ἐπεθύμει τι ἤδη τῶν πρὸς τοὺς πολεμίους πράττειν.
There is some irregularity in this sentence with ἑώρα, for which I think ὁρῶν would be better.
ok now the word order seems natural though very convoluted.
Yes, he switches construction midway. It’s not strictly grammatical—as ὁρῶν + ptcp would be, or eg (κατανοῶν)…εὖ δὲ παρεσκευασμένοι ἦσαν πρὸς τὸ πείθεσθαι…)—but it’s not unnatural in extended indirect discourse. Fussier authors like Isocrates avoid such ἀνακόλουθα, but it’s not out of place in Xenophon.
Another point of syntax to notice here: do you understand why Xenophon uses εἶχον and ἦσαν here instead of ἔχουσιν + εἰσίν?
I think because these are not Cyrus’s words but those of the author.
Yes, well done. It reflects the narrator’s perspective, close in meaning to εὖ μὲν εἶχον τὰ σώματα οἱ στρατιῶται…καὶ ὁ Κῦρος κατενόει. Regular with verbs of perception.
thanx
The plain understanding, I would have thought, would be that ἑώρα was still governed by the ὡς, especially after that πείθεσθαι δὲ making it part of the forgoing list.
Believing that … he had seen
No, it’s clear that the ὡς clause ends with ἐπιστήμονες δ᾽ ἦσαν - ὁπλίσει. It can’t continue to καὶ πρὸς τὸ πείθεσθαι δὲ, where the και … δε paves the way for the syntactical shift as the sentence risked becoming unwieldy. Besides, κατανοῶν ὡς … ἑώρα would make a rather odd sequence (and would not mean “believing that he had seen”). The switch passes quite inoffensively, and ἐκ τούτων οὖν pulls it all together without trouble.
It singles out the central importance of his personal attention to the leaders.
nicely put