μεσταὶ δὲ αἱ ὁδοὶ πορευομένων παρ᾽ ἀλλήλους,
I think here it means full of people walking beside each other and not ‘to and fro’ as the translation has it.
Νο it’s not παρ’αλληλοις.
then ‘walking towards each other’
Well, it’s not προς αλληλους either. Miller’s translation of the Cyropedia is really very good, exemplary even, and despite its age it’s not easy to improve on it. Most of your criticisms of it have been off the mark.
’ to and fro’ in the normal Attic would be ’ ἅνω κάτω’. So, why παρ᾽ ἀλλήλους? ἀλλήλους implies persons. My purpose is not to improve his translation but to understand his word choice when the dictionaries, as in this case, do not give a direct equivalent.
I was thinking that it implies persons as well, and I would have reached for “visiting each other” or “calling upon each other”, or perhaps closer to what is intended, “transacting business with each other.” Unfortunately I can’t think of a way to say it in English that leaves the activity unspecified, like the Greek does. “Going back and forth to each other” seems too weird and un-English. I haven’t look at the translation beyond what you say about it here, “to and fro”, but I imagine that he’s struggling with the same issue.
The activity: πορευομενων. The streets are crowded with people moving from one place to another. In the context, “passing to and fro” conveys the meaning of πορευομενων παρ’αλληλους quite satisfactorily, it seems to me. (I think of Prufrock’s “In the room the women come and go.”) The words carry no sense of “transacting business,” and I see no sign of anyone “struggling.” It’s a cheerful carefree street scene, bustling, joyous, and peaceful (εἰρήνης δὲ καὶ εὐφροσύνης πάντα πλέα ἦν).
Constantinus, Thanks for explaining what lies behind your incessant posts. Trying to understand an author’s word choices is of course a good thing to be doing, but I don’t think we should be too troubled if dictionary definitions don’t always offer a verbatim match with a given translation. Lexica are invaluable things (and LSJ is truly excellent, even though its English has become rather dated), but we need to look at utterances whole, and integrate their various components.
Wandering about like flower children engaged in simple Brownian motion? Xenophon’s conception of a happy scene is, of course, the bustling activity of economic and civic life.