This is part of the famous constitutional debate, the end of Otanes’ argument in favor of establishing democracy in Persia. (see the rest of the chapter here).
My problem is that I don’t understand what ἐν γὰρ τῷ πολλῷ ἔνι τὰ πάντα means. I understand the words “everything is in the many”, but not the idea.
Legrand translates “car c’est dans le nombre que tout réside”, and explains in a footnote: “Otanès ne veut pas dire, je crois, que dans la masse résident toutes les vertus, toutes les capacités, ni qu’en elle réside la force brutale; mais, plutôt, que ce qui mérite d’être considéré comme l’intérêt public est celui de la majorité”.
Stein adduces “nach dem Persischen Grundsatze” τὸ πολλὸν ἰσχυρὸν εἶναι (1.135), i.e. that numbers constitute strength (which seems to be the interpretation Legrand disagreed with).
Asheri gives a longish note but perhaps has the least to say (do we really want to know that it can be translated in different ways?): “‘in the many is everything’, in other words, everything depends on the will of the majority. It is a lapidary statement, also translated in different ways (e.g. ‘in the majority is the whole’, etc.)”
So there’s at least three different interpretations for this statement. I’d be grateful for any help.
It seems to me that this is a final flourish that only purports to cap the argument. It’s a fine-sounding sentiment, but vague, and doesn’t really yield anything very precise when pressed. (It wouldn’t pass muster in Plato, say.) So I wonder if it may be a mistake to try to extract any exact meaning from it.
τῷ πολλῷ (rather than τοις πολλοις) seems merely to restate τῷ πλήθει in grander quasi-philosophical terms, and it’s not at all clear just how το πολλον contains τα παντα.* At 1.135 the context gives it a much more definite sense. Here, by contrast, the sentence is hardly more than a rhetorical reiteration of his commendation of democracy, adding nothing of substance to the argument.*
ἐν τῷ πολλῷ τὰ πάντα could be a slogan on a T-shirt, or a tattoo. Or a saying of Heraclitus’.
But (2nd thoughts) perhaps this is giving ενι too narrow a sense. The εν- could be doing more than just doubling the preposition. To take the sentence as meaning “for εν τω πολλω everything is possible” (rather than everything is contained within το πολλον) would make it more satisfactory. Or is that an unreal distinction in Greek?
I looked in Abicht’s’ commentary and he thinks H chose τὸ πολλόν because it contrasts more sharply with μουναρχίη. After looking in the LSJ, I see that another possible meaning for ἔνι (ἔνεστι)is “is possible”. https://logeion.uchicago.edu/ἔνειμι)
Normally, one would think of ἔξεστι, but apparently ἔνι can also have this meaning, so Godley’s translation “all things are possible for the majority” seems to work as well as anything else.
EDIT: corrected “a” to “the” (forgot the article)
EDIT2: corrected Ameis to Abicht (I’m using Ameis right now for the Odyssey)
Thanks Michael, an excellent reply as always. I especially like your second thoughts - I looked up a large number of translations, and there were almost as many different interpretations. Godley’s interpretation (reported by Aetos) is apparently about the same as yours. Almost “Yes we can”!
I need to get that tattoo. Or at least the t-shirt.
Makes sense.
The way I see it’s rhetorical even without taking it as future! But I agree there just might be some sort of (almost a) joke between the very different conclusions of the two succeeding speeches “all things are possible for many people” vs. “for we’ll be among them (so we can profit!)”.
Thanks Aetos, that’s a great resource you’re linking to and which I weren’t aware of. Do you have any idea whose notes those are? Not Bähr’s I suppose (he just made the translation I guess)?
Creuzeri or Baehr (don’t know which) refer to a W. Schorn who thinks that Herodotus’ phrase points to Anaxagoras’ precept “ἐν παντὶ παντὸς μοῖρα ἔνεστι πλὴν νόου”. This is fragment 11, which translates: “In everything there is a portion of everything except Nous”. The translation is by John Burnet. Here is a link to the excerpt from Burnet’s Early Greek Philosophy: http://demonax.info/doku.php?id=text:anaxagoras_fragments
P.S. A little more on Egon Gottwein-he teaches Latin and Greek at Theodor Heuss Gymnasium in Ludwighafen. I know of this school because one of their faculty visited our school back in the sixties. I remember him, because he gave me my first beer!
I suppose then that the notes were written by the Gottweins.
I noticed a funny thing: “for all things are possible for the majority” is not actually Godley’s own translation, but a belongs to a modernized version of it. The original version has “seeing that all good lies in the many”.
In the XML header of the modernized version I found the words “This text was modernized by Steven Ott, to remove archaisms. It was reviewed by John Marincola, and revisions were made accordingly.” So the newer interpretation of these words belongs to either Ott or Marincola.
That is funny. Thanks for pointing this out, Paul. I didn’t know that they could take that much liberty with an original translation. I think there is a definite difference in sense between the two expressions. “for all things are possible for the majority” speaks to me of power and where it should reside. “seeing that all good lies in the many” would mean to me that there is such a thing as the collective good which perhaps favours the democratic process. In any event, it is a much more profound thought and one closer to that of Anaxagoras. It would seem then that Godley’s translation is in line with Bähr’s and Abicht’s. Personally though, I think the modernised version fits the context better.
I still prefer my second thought to my first, if we’re to try to tie it down at all (a big if, in my view), and that’s more or less what you came up with too Aetos.
Godley’s “all good” for τα απαντα is more interpretation than translation! “The majority” (Ott/Marincola) is a bit of a stretch for τω πολλω too (not τοις πολλοις, I noted), though we can hardly translate as “the much” or even “the most”!
The comparison with Anaxagoras’ well known fragment (whether or not it was well known to Herodotus) is a suggestive one. Otanes is not saying anything like there’s a portion of everything in everything, but there is something (everything?!) about ἐν τῷ πολλῷ ἔνι τὰ πάντα that does ring preSocratic. I called it “quasi-philosophical” and only half-jokingly adduced Heraclitus ὁ σκοτεινός.
I can see why one would be reminded of Heraclitus. Given his delight in word-play and characteristic obscurity, this is just the sort of saying he would coin. He comes close:
συλλάψιες· ὅλα καὶ οὐχ ὅλα, συμφερόμενον διαφερόμενον, συνᾷδον διᾷδον καὶ ἐκ πάντων ἓν καὶ ἐξ ἑνὸς πάντα
Graspings: things whole and not whole, what is drawn together and what is drawn asunder, the harmonious and the discordant. The one is made up of all things, and all things issue from the one.
and
τίς γὰρ αὐτῶν νόος ἢ φρήν· δήμων ἀοιδοῖσι πείθονται καὶ διδασκάλῳ χρείωνται ὁμίλῳ οὐκ εἰδότες ὅτι “οἱ πολλοὶ κακοί, ὀλίγοι δὲ ἀγαθοί”
For what thought or wisdom have they? They follow the poets and take the crowd as their teacher, knowing not that “the many are bad and few good.”
Well then, if ἐκ πάντων ἓν καὶ ἐξ ἑνὸς πάντα, perhaps we should read the Hdt as ἐν γὰρ τῷ πολλῷ ἑνὶ τὰ πάντα.
Incidentally, here’s Gildersleeve depreciating second thoughts in favor of first impressions: “The more one meditates, the more one is apt to sophisticate oneself.”
I had the following joke typed out, but was called away by bedtime, and so was anticipated:
Well, clearly ἐν γὰρ τῷ πολλῷ ἔνι τὰ πάντα should be ἓν γὰρ τῷ πολλῷ ἔνι τὰ πάντα: “To the mass it’s possible to make everything one,” exactly as Plato tells us democracy does: “ἰσότητά τινα ὁμοίως ἴσοις τε καὶ ἀνίσοις διανέμει”. Or, as we put on the cash, “e pluribus unum.”
