Herodotus 4.163, ἐστάλη

Greek Learning Greek
1

ὁ δὲ Ἀρκεσίλεως τοῦτον τὸν χρόνον ἐὼν ἐν Σάμῳ συνήγειρε πάντα ἄνδρα ἐπὶ γῆς ἀναδασμῷ· συλλεγομένου δὲ στρατοῦ πολλοῦ, ἐστάλη ἐς Δελφοὺς Ἀρκεσίλεως χρησόμενος τῷ χρηστηρίῳ περὶ κατόδου.

ἐστάλη, in all likelihood, means something like “journeyed”, and this is how both the Budé and the TLG translation render it. LSJ, s.v. στέλλω II.1. also gives “Med. and Pass., set out, or (esp. in aor. 2 Pass.) journey”.

Landmark Herodotus translates, however “he sent to Delphi to consult the oracle”. Clearly, this is wrong, right?

Sometimes these middle and passive forms are confusing, but here clearly there seems to be a semantic development “to be sent” → “to travel”. Or am I wrong?

2

Yes I think εσταλη implies he went in person, so “he sent to Delphi” doesn’t seem quite right. The active (απο)στελλω can mean to send someone on a mission or expedition (as with apostles), while the middle/passive means to send oneself on a mission, as it were, or just to journey (for some particular purpose). The passive is used more like a middle than a true passive. Cf. the use of στόλος, and of compounds of the verb.

3

I thought Herodotus 3.53 (which I found through the citation in LSJ s. v. στέλλω), offered an illuminating use of the medio-passive of this verb to mean “set out for,” i.e., begin a journey.

Periander set out to go personally to Corcyra, after trying unsuccessfully to persuade his son Lycophron three times through various messengers (including P.'s daughter) to return to Corinth and take over the tyranny from P. as successor. But Periander never arrived there because the Corcyreans killed Lycophron to prevent Periander from coming.

καταινέσαντος δὲ ἐπὶ τούτοισι τοῦ παιδός, ὁ μὲν Περίανδρος ἐστέλλετο ἐς τὴν Κέρκυραν, ὁ δὲ παῖς οἱ ἐς τὴν Κόρινθον. μαθόντες δὲ οἱ Κερκυραῖοι τούτων ἕκαστα, ἵνα μή σφι Περίἀνδρός ἐς τὴν χώρην ἀπίκηται, κτείνουσι τὸν νεηνίσκον. ἀντὶ τούτων μὲν Περίανδρος Κερκυραίους ἐτιμωρέετο.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0125%3Abook%3D3%3Achapter%3D53

That’s undoubtedly what it means in 4.163: Arcesilaus “set out for” Delphi, followed by a future participle χρησόμενος indicating the purpose of his journey: he set out for Delphi in order to consult the oracle about returning (I take it he has been exiled or driven out, though I haven’t read the rest of the story).

I’ve found that while the Landmark edition, which I’ve consulted from time to time in reading some H., is very helpful with its array of maps and supplemental information, the translation is somewhat inaccurate on occasion.

4

A small and perhaps finicky point, but I think εσταλη is more than “set out for” i.e. began a journey. It’s more like “made the journey” or “made an expedition,” not just started out on it. The word, like its cognate στόλος, applies to the expedition as a whole thing, and my sense is that the aorist (unlike the imperfect as in the case of Periander) implies he accomplished the mission, that he not only set out but arrived.

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Unlike ἐστέλλετο, ἐστάλη isn’t a medium form, which is somewhat strange. But sometimes passives and mediums are not so clear cut as they’re supposed to be…

I’m not completely satisfied with either translation I regularly consult. I’ve found other mistakes beside this one in the Landmark translation, but I find myself more often in agreement with it than with the Budé translation. More often than not the Landmark translation isn’t too literal, which I find to be a plus. The French in the Budé translation is often almost as difficult to understand as the Greek. Most other Budés I’ve laid my eyes on are not this literal.

One funny instance in the Landmark edition: 2.86 translates οἴνῳ φοινικηίῳ “with Phoenician date-palm wine”. To my understanding, the problem is whether φοινικήϊος here means “date-palm” or “Phoenician”; they decided it’s best to translate it both ways!

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Smyth:

  1. The second aorist passive agrees in form with the second aorist active of μι-verbs; cp. intransitive ἐχάρην rejoiced with ἔστην stood. The passive use was developed from the intransitive use.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0007%3Apart%3D2%3Achapter%3D19%3Asection%3D50%3Asubsection%3D44

I think Chantraine discusses this either in Grammaire homérique or in Morphologie historique du grec ancien, neither of which I have access to at the moment. The 2d aorist passive was originally an intransitive form and some verbs retain this sense, especially in Homer. The first aorist with the -θ- suffix is a true passive.

In my defense, I almost got it right in my earlier post, noting that ἐστέλλετο is an inchoative imperfect – “he was about to go,” “he was setting out”, but then changed it after misreading at LSJ.

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I wonder whether this isnt making a mountain out of molehill.

Rawlinson’s translation, generally reckoned to be very fine, has “he sent to Delphi” which is probably where the Landmark got it from. I dont see it is remotely important whether Arcesilaus went himself or told others to go. In 164 we learn that A. returned to Cyrene taking the troops he had raised in Samos. What does it tell us if A. went from Samos to Delphi back to Samos and thence to Cyrene or stayed in Samos and then went to Cyrene? I am all for literalism if it actually adds something but worrying about this seems a bit pointless. If we were to imagine that any of this actually happened I think it highly unlikely that Arcesilaus would have risked a sea journey from Samos to Delphi leaving his troops to idle away for the months all this would have taken.

Herodotus doesnt make a big deal out of it. i am not sure we should.

EDIT I can see that there is some philological interest in this but i am not sure it really advances our understanding of the text here.

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I think it’s always important to understand with some precision what the Greek text is saying, if only to improve our understanding of other Greek texts. For me it’s important to understand the intransitive use of στέλλω in its medio-passive and 2d aorist forms, as part of our on-going effort to learn Greek, and here we have two instances to look at. Yes, the interest is philological, but that’s exactly the point.

The Rawlinson translation is a very good rendering of Herodotus into polished and elegant English prose, but in my view it’s far from literal–which is exactly why it’s still an excellent translation for those who are using it to read Herodotus in English, and aren’t using it as an aid to understanding the Greek text.

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Going by the LSJ, “Act. intr. in sense of the Pass.,” could he have used ἔστειλα just as well here? Is there any difference of meaning between ἔστειλα and ἐστάλη here?

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Hylander as ever I entirely agree with you. And I am grateful that this was raised and discussed in such a thorough manner. I was struggling with another text and wanted to let off steam!

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Going by the LSJ, “Act. intr. in sense of the Pass.,” could he have used ἔστειλα just as well here? Is there any difference of meaning between ἔστειλα and ἐστάλη here?

Interesting question.

This is one of the passages cited in LSJ under this head (4.147):

τὸν δὲ αὐτὸν τοῦτον χρόνον Θήρας ὁ Αὐτεσίωνος τοῦ Τισαμενοῦ τοῦ Θερσάνδρου τοῦ Πολυνείκεος ἔστελλε ἐς ἀποικίην ἐκ Λακεδαίμονος:

Here ἔστελλε seems to mean that Theras set out (imperf. active) on an expedition to colonize the island of Thera. I think the use of the active suggests that Theras didn’t just set out Thera alone, but that he went out with a party of colonists, which is perhaps understood as the direct object of the transitive verb.

In the next chapter, ἐπὶ τούτους δὴ ὦν ὁ Θήρας λεὼν [Ionic for λαον] ἔχων ἀπὸ τῶν φυλέων ἔστελλε, – he had a [group of] people from among the Lacedaemonian clades and set out with them [with himself along], i.e., went out with them on an expedition to colonize Thera.

Herodotus 5.124-5:

πρὸς ταῦτα δὴ ὦν συγκαλέσας τοὺς συστασιώτας ἐβουλεύετο, λέγων ὡς ἄμεινον σφίσι εἴη κρησφύγετόν τι ὑπάρχον εἶναι, ἢν ἄρα ἐξωθέωνται ἐκ τῆς Μιλήτου, εἴτε δὴ ὦν ἐς Σαρδὼ ἐκ τοῦ τόπου τούτου ἄγοι ἐς ἀποικίην, εἴτε ἐς Μύρκινον τὴν Ἠδωνῶν, τὴν Ἱστιαῖος ἐτείχεε παρὰ Δαρείου δωρεὴν λαβών. ταῦτα ἐπειρώτα ὁ Ἀρισταγόρης. Ἑκαταίου μέν νυν τοῦ Ἡγησάνδρου, ἀνδρὸς λογοποιοῦ, τουτέων μὲν ἐς οὐδετέρην στέλλειν ἔφερε ἡ γνώμη, ἐν Λέρῳ δὲ τῇ νήσῳ τεῖχος οἰκοδομησάμενον ἡσυχίην ἄγειν, ἢν ἐκπέσῃ ἐκ τῆς Μιλήτου:

Aristagoras suggests that if the mutineers are driven out of Miletus, he should lead them as a group to settle [ἄγοι ἐς ἀποικίην] either in Sardis or in Myrcinus. But the opinion of Hecataeus was prevailing[ἔφερε ἡ γνώμη] that they should set out on an expedition [στέλλειν] to neither of these.

I think that the imperfect and aorist active, when used intransitively, imply going in a party, and both instances in Herodotus involve a wholesale resettlement by a group of people in a new location. There doesn’t seem to be a similar implication of a group resettlement in the case of Arcesilaus and Periander, although it can be understood that they went or started to go with a party of retainers.

In sum, looking beyond dictionary definitions at Herodotus’ actual usage, I think that the “intransitive” use of active στελλω implies setting out or going in a group (and perhaps with the purpose of resettlement), whereas the medio-passive and 2d aor. passive don’t have those implications. But I would probably want to look at more instances of στελλω in Herodotus, and I could be wrong.

mwh will surely provide some help here.

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Off the top of my head, without looking at either dictionaries or passages (reprehensible! I know, but I’m short of time), I’d say εστειλεν and εσταλη were used in quite different contexts, with εστειλε meaning something like “he launched an expedition” (involving others), as distinct from “he made an expedition” (in person), see my previous post. That’s to say, I think Hylander’s right (though expeditions can be launched for purposes other than group resettlement; but στέλλειν/στόλος always has some particular purpose in view). Compare e.g. επεστράφη “he turned round” (επιστραφείς very common, likewise αποστραφεις “turning away”) vs. επέστρεψεν “he turned (to).”

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https://pages.wustl.edu/files/pages/imce/cwconrad/thetapsv.pdf

This pdf contains a discussion of aorists in -η- from both Chantraine and Sihler. I assume it’s not a copyright violation. It’s worth reading if you’re interested in ἐστάλη–the point is that this suffix (the so-called 2d aorist passive forms) is in origin stative, not necessarily passive, and in the case of some Greek verbs its function is not necessarily passive.

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Incidentally, in the Arcesilaus passage, which I quoted without a citation (that has been fixed), Herodotus 4.147-8, the Ionic form λεὼν for λαὸν a conjectural emendation.

The α in the “original” form λαὸν is long and would have become η in Ionic, yielding ληος, and then, by the curious phonological process known as "quantitative metathesis, λεων (the quantity of η and ο appear to be “exchanged,” so that η > ε and ο > ω, but I suspect the actual phonological or phonetic process was more complicated than that). This was a pervasive process in the Ionic dialect.

As LSJ notes, all of the mss. actually have λαὸν.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dlao%2Fs1

N.G. Wilson, in the new OCT, prints λεὼν, attributing the conjecture to Stein (mid-19th c.) in his critical notes. Is λεὼν a valid correction of an erroneous change of an original λεὼν to λαὸν–a change that would have entered the text, perhaps originally from a marginal gloss to assist reader unfamiliar with the Ionic form, in a manuscript that was the ancestor of all of the extant manuscripts–or is λεὼν a 19th century scholarly hypercorrection of a genuine reading? To decide, you would have to look very carefully at all possible instances of quantitative metathesis in Herodotus to reach a conclusion as to whether Herodotus observes this Ionicism consistently or not. Hopefully, N.G. Wilson or at least Stein, did this. Both are considered reliable scholars (N.G. Wilson is an eminence on a par with M.L. West, and has made important contributions to understanding the history of ancient texts in the Byzantine period), and my money is on λεὼν, but this is the sort of dilemma that editors face.

A small point, perhaps too trivial to bother with, but it’s illustrative of Ionic phonology and the process by which the text we read was constructed.