I’m wondering about the meaning of the words ἐόντα νηυσιπέρητον. I’ve checked a few translations and other sources, and they are divided as to how to interpret this. Some of them give “which is a navigable stream” (Macauley) or the like, others “which is crossed by boats” (Powell). LSJ gives “ναυσιπέρᾱτος, Ion. νηυσιπέρητος, ον, navigable”.
I would think that point here is that the river can only be crossed by boats, and that whether one can navigate up and down the stream is beside the point, especially as περάω means “go across/through” or the like. I would take the participle ἐόντα as concessive “As Cyrus tried to cross the river, although it could only be crossed on boat, …”
I agree with you. TLG has 8 instances of the word (5 in Herodotus), and in all of them it seems to be used generally in the sense “difficult to cross (without a boat)”.
From the structure of the sentence, it looks to me like ἐόντα νηυσιπέρητον is there to justify ἐπειρᾶτο, and not as an aside. However, I would think that “big enough for ships,” would serve here, the emphasis being on the river’s size. In 1.193 the word is used again, and that seems to be the meaning there.
The river doesn’t look very large on the photo, but nowadays it must be different than it used to be, as Cyrus punished the river by dividing it into 360 channels!
Besides the progression of the monsoons (?? part of the climate cycle based on the wobble in the Earth’s axis ??) to the east between that age and this, it may have been seasonal too.
Section 4 of the same Thucydides 1.189 says that they τὴν θερείην πᾶσαν αὐτοῦ … διέτριψαν “spent the whole summer in that same place”. Fed from the Zagros Mountains, which are cold and snowy in winter, yet relatively warm in summer, the πᾶσα may suggest the impetuous horse met its fate in spring or early summer.
Paul, you might take a look at 5.52, where Herodotus is describing the route from Sardis to Sousa. A number of rivers in succession – the Euphrates, the Tigris (Tigres), two named Zabatos (the Greater and Lesser Zab), and finally the Gyndes – are all described as νηυσιπέρητοι. Here it seems to me that the term specifically means “crossable by boats,” not necessarily “navigable” in the sense that boats could ply up and down, since Herodotus is describing step by step the route that an army would have to take to get from Sardis to Sousa.
This is in the context where Aristagores the Milesian leader attempts to persuade the Spartan king Kleomenes to dispatch a Spartan force to liberate the Ionians on the Aegean coast of Asia Minor from the Persians, suggesting as a temptation that the Spartans could easily defeat the Persian forces (after all, they wear trousers) and march on to capture the Great King’s rich capital Sousa.
Kleomenes asks Aristagores how many days’ march Sousa is from the sea; Ar. says three months (approximately correct, according to Herodotus). Kleomenes’ Laconic response: “Get out of Sparta by nightfall.” Then Ar. tries unsuccessfully to bribe Kl. personally. Ar. keeps bidding up the amount of the bribe (presumably Kl. is interested but wants more), but finally Kl.'s 10-year-old daughter, who is present, tells Kl. that he will be corrupted if he doesn’t get up and leave. Kl. leaves abruptly.
Aristagores is a shifty character, but Herodotus suggests that he failed in his mission because he was not deceitful enough.
Thanks. I agree with you, and the reason why I was doubting my interpretation in the first place was that some quite reliable translations like Macauley and Waterfield give “navigable”. But I guess Macauley started it and the others got it from him.
Aristogoras seems to me just the kind guy you don’t want when you need to buy services from someone. Say, you’re traveling as a tourist or you need someone to make renovations in your house. You’ve been sitting in a cab in a foreign country for at least an hour and you suspect that the driver doesn’t have the faintest idea where he’s going. Every time you try to address the question, you get an evasive answer that we’re almost there. In France, the magic words they’re repeating all the time are “y’a pas de souci, monsieur/madame” - it means “I don’t have a clue but I’m not going to admit it”. They’re not completely dishonest, but there’s a very particular combination of obtuseness and shiftiness about them.
