Thucydides 7.71.6

This is an example of a phrase that completely stumped me. I could not for the life of me extract any sense from it until I threw up my hands in despair and looked at a translation. Here is the entire sentence:

τότε δὲ ὁ μὲν ναυτικὸς στρατὸς ἄλλος ἄλλῃ, ὅσοι μὴ μετέωροι ἑάλωσαν, κατενεχθέντες ἐξέπεσον ἐς τὸ στρατόπεδον: ὁ δὲ πεζὸς οὐκέτι διαφόρως, ἀλλ᾽ ἀπὸ μιᾶς ὁρμῆς οἰμωγῇ τε καὶ στόνῳ πάντες δυσανασχετοῦντες τὰ γιγνόμενα, οἱ μὲν ἐπὶ τὰς ναῦς παρεβοήθουν, οἱ δὲ πρὸς τὸ λοιπὸν τοῦ τείχους ἐς φυλακήν, ἄλλοι δὲ καὶ οἱ πλεῖστοι ἤδη περὶ σφᾶς αὐτοὺς καὶ ὅπῃ σωθήσονται διεσκόπουν.

This is the bit that I could not understand:

οἱ δὲ πρὸς τὸ λοιπὸν τοῦ τείχους ἐς φυλακήν.

Before I looked at the translation, I got it into my head that φυλακή meant “a watch, station, post.” I took it to refer to the camp, the στρατόπεδον mentioned before. So I had “And some went to the rest of the wall, to the post.” I failed to see that it meant the guarding of what was left of the wall. So that the preposition ἐς must express purpose. Would πρὸς express movement toward? Some rushed to the defence of the remainder of the wall? I would be thankful for any advice on how to get better at sight-reading.

The sentence is brilliantly constructed to reflect the confusion of the Athenian rout – Thucydides at his most vivid.

ἄλλος ἄλλῃ is dangling without a verb of its own, but conveys as a sort of adverb to what follows the disorganized scatter of the ships.

But I think the sentence as a whole is not too difficult because the elements are clearly articulated.

The overall contrast: ὁ μὲν ναυτικὸς στρατὸς is balanced by ὁ δὲ πεζὸς. The subjects of the two balanced clauses are singular, but the verbal elements shift naturally into the plural:

The naval forces, ὁ μὲν ναυτικὸς στρατὸς ἄλλος ἄλλῃ, ὅσοι μὴ μετέωροι ἑάλωσαν, κατενεχθέντες ἐξέπεσον. . . This itself is articulated into a sort of μὲν δὲ contrast without actually being framed as yet another μὲν δὲ, which might seem excessive: some crews μὲν were captured at sea; others δὲ were forced to the land and were cast onto the shore.

The ground forces, ὁ δὲ πεζὸς οὐκέτι διαφόρως, ἀλλ᾽ ἀπὸ μιᾶς ὁρμῆς οἰμωγῇ τε καὶ στόνῳ πάντες δυσανασχετοῦντες τὰ γιγνόμενα, are then broken into three groups in a sort of tricolon abundans:

  • οἱ μὲν ἐπὶ τὰς ναῦς παρεβοήθουν
  • οἱ δὲ πρὸς τὸ λοιπὸν τοῦ τείχους ἐς φυλακήν [παρεβοήθουν or some such verb]
  • ἄλλοι δὲ καὶ οἱ πλεῖστοι ἤδη περὶ σφᾶς αὐτοὺς καὶ ὅπῃ σωθήσονται διεσκόπουν.

The key to reading a sentence like this is simply to take each element into which the sentence breaks down as it comes. The logical structure:

τότε δὲ ὁ μὲν ναυτικὸς στρατὸς ἄλλος ἄλλῃ,

  • ὅσοι μὴ μετέωροι ἑάλωσαν,
  • κατενεχθέντες ἐξέπεσον ἐς τὸ στρατόπεδον
    ὁ δὲ πεζὸς οὐκέτι διαφόρως, ἀλλ᾽ ἀπὸ μιᾶς ὁρμῆς οἰμωγῇ τε καὶ στόνῳ πάντες δυσανασχετοῦντες τὰ γιγνόμενα,
  • οἱ μὲν ἐπὶ τὰς ναῦς παρεβοήθουν
  • οἱ δὲ πρὸς τὸ λοιπὸν τοῦ τείχους ἐς φυλακήν,
  • ἄλλοι δὲ καὶ οἱ πλεῖστοι ἤδη περὶ σφᾶς αὐτοὺς καὶ ὅπῃ σωθήσονται διεσκόπουν.

I think the two difficulties are οὐκέτι διαφόρως, and, as you noted, πρὸς τὸ λοιπὸν τοῦ τείχους ἐς φυλακήν.

οὐκέτι διαφόρως looks back to the differing reactions described in section 3:

εἰ μέν τινες ἴδοιέν πῃ τοὺς σφετέρους ἐπικρατοῦντας, ἀνεθάρσησάν τε ἂν καὶ πρὸς ἀνάκλησιν θεῶν μὴ στερῆσαι σφᾶς τῆς σωτηρίας ἐτρέποντο, οἱ δ᾽ ἐπὶ τὸ ἡσσώμενον βλέψαντες ὀλοφυρμῷ τε ἅμα μετὰ βοῆς ἐχρῶντο καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν δρωμένων τῆς ὄψεως καὶ τὴν γνώμην μᾶλλον τῶν ἐν τῷ ἔργῳ ἐδουλοῦντο: ἄλλοι δὲ καὶ πρὸς ἀντίπαλόν τι τῆς ναυμαχίας ἀπιδόντες, διὰ τὸ ἀκρίτως ξυνεχὲς τῆς ἁμίλλης καὶ τοῖς σώμασιν αὐτοῖς ἴσα τῇ δόξῃ περιδεῶς ξυναπονεύοντες ἐν τοῖς χαλεπώτατα διῆγον

πρὸς τὸ λοιπὸν τοῦ τείχους ἐς φυλακήν – here you have to remember that Athenians abandoned the upper part of the wall in 60.2.

ἐς φυλακήν[παρεβοήθουν] – maybe “they ran to what was left of the wall [and grouped] into a defensive posture/formation”.

Sight-reading Thucydides without any commentary or other aids requires a knowledge of Greek that I don’t have. But I take comfort from Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who observed that the Greeks of his day (the Augustan era) needed help understanding Thucydides.

Thank you. That is most helpful. I think sight-reading is too lofty a goal for me. I shall be delighted simply to be able to interpret the Greek with every available aid.

Well, Charlie, it was a chaotic situation, and your failure to understand this particular part of Thucydides’ description of it before consulting a translation was only natural, especially since “the wall” has not featured in the recent narrative. On the basis of this passage by itself it was quite reasonable to take φυλακή as referring to the guarding of the στρατόπεδον. If you had read it in context I think you would have understood it better. One detail that might possibly have helped is that it’s not ες την φυλακην with article but just ες φυλακην. But the description is not crystal-clear; it reflects the turmoil of the moment—as in their different ways do δυσανασχετουντες (an ad hoc coinage?) and the disorderly subdividing into οἱ μὲν … οἱ δὲ … followed by ἄλλοι δε και οἱ πλεῖστοι …..

Your “despair” merely shows how carefully you were reading, and that is a good thing. Even the best readers of Thucydides consult translations now and again; and become better readers because of it. To be sure, it tends to be harmful to look at a translation ahead of the Greek, but to refuse to ever consult a translation is positively perverse. That said, the only way to get better at sight-reading is (of course) to read more Greek—with or without translation and/or commentary.

EDIT. I wrote the above before seeing Hylander’s post. Mine is now redundant, but I post it anyway, if only to show that he and I are of one mind on this (and each of us has spent a lifetime with Thucydides and other authors).

Charlie, you might take some amusement – and comfort – in seeing what Dionysius of Halicarnassus wrote in his treatise on Thucydides, section 51:

εὐαρίθμητοι γάρ τινές εἰσιν οἷοι πάντα τὰ Θουκυδίδου συμβαλεῖν, καὶ οὐδ᾽ οὗτοι χωρὶς ἐξηγήσεως γραμματικῆς ἔνια.

The number of those who can understand all of Thucydides is limited, and even they can’t understand some passages without grammatical commentary.

Before we get too far down this somewhat broken record of an advice column about the importance of smoking a pack a day of translations, I’ll try to answer the original question asked: “I would be thankful for any advice on how to get better at sight-reading.”

The best advice I’ve ever come across about sight-reading is here in the introduction Hayes’ “Advanced Greek Unseens.” It is absolute gold, especially in its example of working out words from their roots and terminations, but I suspect it can only be appreciated once you have enough Greek to mostly sight-read the quoted Greek on page 12.

Why the snide remarks? No one has advocated using translations exclusively, but everyone recognizes that turning to translations when all else fails can be helpful, not just in understanding a specific passage, but also in sharpening one’s own ability to read Greek.

And who doesn’t try to work out words from roots and terminations, before turning to other resources? But, to be frank, your recent attempt to apply that approach alone to Thuc. 4.26 demonstrated its limitations.

Why the snide remarks? And who doesn’t try to work out words from roots and terminations, before turning to other resources? But, to be frank, your recent attempt to apply that approach alone to Thuc. 4.26 demonstrated its limitations.

Perhaps you are right, and Hayes didn’t know what he was talking about in regards to teaching sight-reading. I found the advice useful.

Mwh’s “positively perverse” potshot drew the response in kind from me. I would [EDIT: removed “not”] have responded differently to your post alone, Hylander. I stand by both points, however colorfully I made them: the translation discussion is a broken record here on Textkit, and the extremely common and immoderate use of translations in the field is both addictive and ultimately damaging.

The Thuc. 4.26 argument is silly. My Greek improves day to day. Perhaps it’s not very good. And if you did better than I did at that point, knowing the context, having read it before, checking the context in detail before attempting your translation, perhaps your Greek is better than mine. I recommend contributing to the Random Greek Passages thread and proving it to everyone.

EDIT: Quoting the version of the post I replied to, and Thuc. 4.26.

Thank you both, once again, for your help. I don’t think I’m quite ready to tackle unseens. My immediate objective is to finish all the books in the JACT series. I’ve actually created my own commentary simply by imposing upon the kindness of my new friends here at Textkit.

Here’s what mwh wrote:

Even the best readers of Thucydides consult translations now and again; and become better readers because of it. To be sure, it tends to be harmful to look at a translation ahead of the Greek, but to refuse to ever consult a translation is positively perverse.

Hard to argue with that.

It’s easy to argue with: the point, for some, of reading classics is not to accumulate facts (which can easily be picked up through just reading the Loebs), but to expose ourselves to the minds and spirits of the ancient Greeks. Frequent recourse to translation is unhelpful, in fact detrimental, for building the skills and experience necessary for that.

One result of all the cribbing that’s easy to notice is the mechanical derivative railroad style of translation that you see everywhere in classics today.

Luckily we all have the freedom to read however floats our boat.

Joel, If you must argue, at least argue honestly. Whoever said the point was to accumulate facts?!

MWH, please re-read. I said that the point of our reading is not to accumulate facts.

If you want the color and the feel and the spirit of something, the translation will be less than helpful, and in fact a distraction. I think I demonstrated how much color can be missed with my post in the recent Plato thread. The more of a crib (ie., more correct) a translation is, the worse it will be. Someone (Housman??, but later I think) describes how much harder it was for him to recover the original Greek from the more hypercorrect translations that were then becoming common than it was for him to recover it from the looser translations of earlier periods.

Joel, There’s no need for me to re-read, nor for you to repeat yourself. Of course the accumulation of facts is not the point of our reading ancient Greek literature. You wrote as if I had suggested it was.
We agree on the (inevitable) inadequacy of “correct” translations, and even perhaps on their potential harm. I wouldn’t agree that it’s harder to recover the original Greek from hypercorrect translations than from older looser ones, but that’s a side-issue.
If I want “the color and the feel and the spirit of something”—and I do—I have to read it in the original, as accurately and as sensitively as I possibly can. For me that’s axiomatic (and a lot of work). We part ways if you disagree with that.
Michael
[Lightly edited for clarity and civility]