So I think that the problem derailing the sentence is the πρός. If it were πρό, I would think that the fix is something like this: πρὸ δὲ τούτου (rf. κόσμου) ἔτι γελᾶν τε καὶ πτύειν ἀντίον <βασιλέων> καὶ ἅπασι εἶναι τοῦτό γε αἰσχρόν. This makes reasonable sense to me, also justifies the the earlier πρῶτός, and the βασιλεών adds a genitive for ἀντίον while also justifying the καὶ ἅπασι. γελᾶν and πτύειν would be understood as infinitives or permission, rather than prohibition, though maybe they need some subject. The εἶναι should really be a finite verb, but in Herodotus doesn’t seem too surprising.
The biggest difficulty, to me, is that Herodotus would be giving two justifications now for the law, καὶ ἅπασι…, and τῶνδε ἕινεκεν… So maybe Powell is right to just strike everything from πρός to ἀισχρόν.
I just read it as “besides these things”, so there’s the rules concerning the presence of the king and on top of that there’s the no laughing or spitting thing (in the infinitive continuing the εἰσιέναι, χρᾶσθαι etc). ἀντίον is adverbial and doesn’t need a genitive. I do see your point for πρὸ τούτου, though, in that it makes no sense to have rules concerning spitting and laughing if you wouldn’t even be allowed in the king’s presence.
Yes, I had thought of leaving out βασιλέων out of my post. But I couldn’t find adverbial ἀντίον/ἀντία used absolutely like that in Herodotus (unlike Homer, where the LSJ gives examples). He generally uses a genitive, except for once or twice with a dative. Wilson puts ἀντίον αὐτοῦ as a suggestion into the apparatus, but not the text, and I would assume something like that might have been his reasoning.
The Basileus must have had a large number of people around his person, at the very least to minister to his physical needs – waiters to serve him food, servants to fetch things, wives and concubines and their eunuchs, etc., as well as counselors, bodyguards, and of course the messengers who carried his commands to those excluded from his presence. All of these people were capable of spitting and laughing. It would have been the high-ranking nobility and anyone who might have been a threat to his throne, as well as non-essential personnel and the general populace, who would have been kept out of his presence.
The text is obviously not completely sound, but Joel’s proposal requires too much tinkering with words that already yield plausible sense, in order to strongarm it into saying something he thinks it should say. It would abruptly interrupt the logical flow of ideas with an extraneous comment. And infinitive εἶναι can’t simply be brushed off as “well, that’s just Herodotus”. The proposal requires not just an assumption of scribal error, but an assumption that someone deliberately though somewhat ineptly altered the text, for no apparent reason.
The δέ is DRSUVX per Wilson, so all I’ve done here is to remove the σ from προς.
For my “not surprising” statement about the εἶναι, I was relying on “Intrusive Oblique Infinitives in Herodotus” by Guy Cooper, including the discussion of “the free succession of oblique upon dependent imperatival infinitives” in footnote 7.
προ δε του – what is this? And who are τοισι . . . απασι?
I think you’re misreading the Cooper article, and especially fn. 7, which focus the intrusion of an “intrusive” infinitive representing indirect speech, where (Cooper thinks) the infinitive serves to distance the statement it represents from the narrator. That’s not what we have here even assuming your alteration is correct – however the original text read, ειναι αισχρον isn’t something reported as uttered by Deiokes. It would require something like the particle γαρ to make it clear that it was a justification for the other measures he put in place.
Fn. 7 addresses situations where an infinitive representing indirect speech “intrudes” in a clause in which one or more other infinitives depend on an explicit or implicit verb of command. infinitive deand Nothing implies, even under your interpretation, that ειναι is a statement by Deiokes. To be sure, the infinitives μητε εισιεναι, χρασθαι and ορασθαι in this passage are motivated by the command implicit in κοσμον τονδε . . . καταστησαμενος. But again, even with your change, ειναι αισχρον isn’t something reported as uttered by Deiokes. Even though it seems there’s something not quite right about the text as transmitted, ειναι αισχρον comes close to making sense without your changes as an element of the κοσμος Deiokes put in place.
Again, it’s inconceivable that the basileus was completely isolated from all humanity. At the very lesst messengers would need to be admitted into his presence, as the text implies. But can you imagine how awkward and laborious his life would be if servants couldn’t come in? He’d be unable to engender offspring without wives and concubines, or govern an empire without ready ability to consult and communicate directly with viziers and counselors.
του is the κοσμος
τοισι are the kings (and dative target of αντιον)
απασι is everybody, it’s an authorial comment from the narrator, Herodotus
“before this, one was still allowed to laugh and to spit before them, and this is something shameful to all persons”
Anyway, I think that the important word in this section is the earlier πρωτος, signaling that Herodotus actually has a point with this story. He wants to explain where the oriental (non-Greek) style of Asian (Persian) despots comes from with their highly ceremonial and socially separated court. Down to my level, why is the Persian King in 300 so different from the Spartan leaders?
I think that trying to reason it out as something like “in addition to this no one was to laugh or spit ” is not completely logically contradicted, as you point out. Just very odd and pointless, and therefore seems unlikely to me.
Joel ’s chutzpah never ceases to amaze me. He now wants to change πρὸς δὲ τούτοις to πρὸ δὲ τοῦ τοῖς (?!), and he wants his πρὸ τοῦ to mean “before this”!
Words fail me.