Samuel Butler’s Translation from an Unpublished Work of Herodotus
And the Johnians practise their tub in the following manner:—They select 8 of the most serviceable freshmen and put these into a boat and to each one of them they give an oar; and, having told them to look at the backs of the men before them, they make them bend forward as far as they can and at the same moment, and, having put the end of the oar into the water, pull it back again in to them about the bottom of the ribs; and if any of them does not do this or looks about him away from the back of the man before him, they curse him in the most terrible manner, but if he does what he is bidden they immediately cry out:
‘Well pulled, number so-and-so.’
For they do not call them by their names but by certain numbers, each man of them having a number allotted to him in accordance with his place in the boat, and the first man they call stroke, but the last man bow; and when they have done this for about 50 miles they come home again, and the rate they travel at is about 25 miles an hour; and let no one think that this is too great a rate for I could say many other wonderful things in addition concerning the rowing of the Johnians, but if a man wishes to know these things he must go and examine them himself. But when they have done they contrive some such a device as this, for they make them run many miles along the side of the river in order that they may accustom them to great fatigue, and many of them, being distressed in this way, fall down and die, but those who survive become very strong and receive gifts of cups from the others; and after the revolution of a year they have great races with their boats against those of the surrounding islanders, but the Johnians, both owing to the carefulness of the training and a natural disposition for rowing, are always victorious. In this way, then, the Johnians, I say, practise their tub.
Letter from J. Enoch Powell, Aug. 20, 1937:
Dear Wells, Here are the products of my Anglesey evenings. I was delayed in copying them out fair by work on the Lexicon, which I now hope to publish in December. Please use them or not, modify them or not, as you think best. Apart from any howlers, which I trust your charity will not tell in Gath, your chief complaint will probably be that I am excessively free. I admit this: but somehow one has to accustom undergraduates to recognising those journalese fulnesses and circumlocutions of English which cannot and must not be translated into Greek. Will you be back in Oxford by Monday September 13th? I’m passing through that day en route for Cambridge from Chepstow.
Yours sincerely, J. Enoch Powell
ἀσκέουσι δὲ καὶ εἰρεσίην οἱ Ἴωνες, ἀσκέουσι δὲ ὧδε· τῶν γὰρ νεωτέρων ἀνδρῶν ἐπεὰν ὀκτὼ τοὺς ἐπιτηδεοτάτους δοκέοντας εἶναι ἐπιλέξωνται, ἐς πλοῖον ἐμβιβάσαντες καὶ κώπην ἑκάστῳ δόντες ἀπορᾶν κελεύουσι ἐς τὸ νῶτον τοῦ ἑκάστοτε προκατημένου καὶ ἔπειτα ἀναγκάζουσί σφεας προκύψαντάς τε ἐπ’ ὅσον δυνέαται ἅμα πάντας καὶ τῇ κώπῃ ἐς τὸ ὕδωρ ὑποτύψαντας πάλιν ἔσω ἕλκειν πρὸς τὰς κατωτάτω πλευρὰς μάλιστά κῃ. καὶ ἢν μέν τις μὴ ποιήσῃ τοῦτο ἢ ἐς τὸ τοῦ προτεταγμένου νῶτον ἀποβλέπων παύσηται, τούτῳ μὲν δεινότατα καταρῶνται, τῷ δὲ τὰ κελευόμενα ποιέοντι εὐθὺς ἐπ’ ὦν ἐβώσαντο ὡς εὖ μάλα εἵλκυσε ὃς καὶ ὅς. ἀνακαλέουσι δὲ ἄρα τοὺς ἐρέτας οὐνόματι μὲν οὔ, ἀριθμοῖσι δέ τισι, τῶν ἑκάστῳ εἷς κατὰ τὴν ἐν τῷ πλοίῳ τάξιν πρόσκειται, πλὴν ὅτι τόν τε πρῶτον πληκτὴν εἶναι ὀνομάζουσι καὶ τὸν ὕστατον πρωραῖον. ἐπεὰν δὲ τρόπῳ τῷ εἰρημένῳ ὅσον τε ἐπὶ τετρακόσια στάδια πλώσωσι, εἶτα ἀναστρέψαντες ἐπ’ οἴκου ὀπίσω κομίζονται, διηκόσια στάδια ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ πολὺ ἐν μιῇ κατανύοντες ὥρῃ. καὶ μηδεὶς ἀπιστήσῃ μὴ οὐ τοσαύτην γίνεσθαί σφεων τὴν ταχύτητα. ἔχω γὰρ καὶ ἄλλα πολλὰ ἔτι τῶν θώματος ἀξίων ἀπηγέεσθαι ὡς χρέωνται τῇ εἰρεσίην οἱ Ἴωνες. ἢν δέ τις τὰ ἀτρεκέστερα τούτων πυθέσθαι θέλῃ, αὐτόπτης ἐλθὼν ἐς διάπειραν ἀπικέσθω. ὅταν δ’ ὦν τὰ εἰρημένα ποιέυντες κάμωσι, τοιάδε αὖ ἐπιμηχανῶνται· τοὺς γὰρ ἐρέτας πολλὰ στάδια παρὰ τὸν ποταμὸν ἀναγκάζουσι δραμεῖν, ἵνα δὴ τοῖσι μεγάλοισι αὐτοὺς πόνοισι ἐθίζωσι. καὶ πολλοὶ μὲν μεταξὺ καταπεσόντες τεθνήκασι, τοὺς δ’ ἐκ τούτων περιγενομένους καὶ ἰσχυροὺς κάρτα γενομένους ποτηρίοισι δωρέονται ὧλλοι. τοῦ ἐνιαυτοῦ δὲ περιφερομένου ἀγῶνας μεγάλους τῶν πλοίων ἱστᾶσι πρὸς τοὺς ἐγγὺς κατωκημένους τῶν νησιωτέων, ἐν τοῖσι οἱ Ἴωνες μετὰ πόνων τε μελετήσαντες καὶ δὴ καὶ φύσι πρὸς τὴν εἰρεσίην εὖ κως διακείμενοι αἰεὶ τὸ πλέον ἔχουσι. οἱ μὲν ὦν Ἴωνες τῷ εἰρημένῳ τρόπῳ τὴν εἰρεσίην ἀσκέουσι.
This was the year before the 25 year-old Powell become Professor at the University of Sydney. The letter and translation were unearthed by M L West in an article that JSTOR has unfortunately attributed to W L West. Herodotus at Cambridge: With Samuel Butler and Enoch Powell on JSTOR