At a later time, after Hercules died, as his children were fleeing Eurystheus and were being driven out by all the Greeks, they were ashamed of their works being afraid of Eurystheus’s power. After the children fled to this polis and were demanded themselves of Eurystheus, the Athenians were not willing to surrender. But when the Argives were campaigning against them, they did not change their minds when they became close to the terrible events. But they had the same opinion and were victorious in battles a second [time?].
This was a good effort, well done. Its tricky to decide what tense to use in your translation, especially when present and aorist are used in the same sentence.
Dont be dismayed by the number of comments I have written. I well remember as an undergraduate getting assignments back covered in red ink and how depressing that could be. Could I never satisfy my teachers, they always seem to find mistakes? I see now that they were simply trying to help me improve my understanding of the exercise.
We all make mistakes including (especially) me! Having your homework “corrected” in public like this is very brave. The only way to make progress is to ask questions try things out and learn from your mistakes.
My thoughts.
“were fleeing Eurystheus and were being driven out”
φεύγοντες…ἐξηλαύνοντο
φεύγοντες is a present active participle. ἐξηλαύνοντο is an imperfect
The imperfect is used for a past action that is incomplete, in progress, or repeated or customary. Here the sense is something that happened repeatedly. Heracles’ children were repeatedly expelled from many different cities “by all the Greeks”. So the sense is “while fleeing” or “in fleeing” (present participle) they “kept being” or “were repeatedly” driven out.
“they were ashamed of their works being afraid of Eurystheus’s power”
αἰσχυνομένων μὲν τοῖς ἔργοις, φοβουμένων δὲ τὴν Εὐρυσθέως δύναμιν
you will notice the μὲν… δὲ here. So that implies some kind of contrast between the two participles. So something like “although ashamed.. were afraid”.
Notice also the genitive case which agrees with “πάντων τῶν Ἑλλήνων”. So when you translate αἰσχυνομένων…etc you have to make it clear that you are talking about the Greeks not Heracles’ children. So something like “kept being driven out by all the Greeks, who, although ashamed…”.
“After the children fled to this polis and were demanded themselves of Eurystheus”
ἀφικομένων δὲ τῶν παίδων εἰς τήνδε τὴν πόλιν καὶ ἐξαιτουμένου αὐτοὺς Εὐρυσθέως
ἀφικομένων is a participle from the verb ἀφικνέομαι - arrive at. So “when the children arrived…” πόλις is best translated as city. The whole phrase is a genitive absolute.
ἐξαιτουμένου is a middle present participle. ἐξαιτέω in the middle means “ask for oneself, demand”. The whole phrase “ἐξαιτουμένου αὐτοὺς Εὐρυσθέως” is a genitive absolute so " and Eurystheus was demanding them (αὐτοὺς)= and E. was demanding their surrender to him"
Although we have present tense participles here they are best translated as simple past because of the aorist ἠθέλησαν which comes next.
“the Athenians were not willing to surrender”
οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι οὐκ ἠθέλησαν παραδοῦναι.
παραδοῦναι is from παραδίδωμι and it means “give, hand over to another,” or “give a city or person into anotherʼs hands”. So " the Athenians did not wish or (agree) or (were not willing ) to hand them (ie Heracles’ children) over.
"But when the Argives were campaigning against them they did not change their minds… "
ἐπιστρατευόντων δὲ τῶν Ἀργείων…μετέγνωσαν
The way you have translated although its ok it does not show that you understand that there is a present tense “ἐπιστρατευόντων” and an aorist μετέγνωσαν and that you have to pay attention to aspect as well as tense. Your translation suggests that “all the time the Argives were campaigning” the Athenians did not change their minds. ἐπιστρατεύω is glossed by M. as “go on campaign against”. The emphasis here is that they started campaigning not that they continued it. So literally " The Argives going on campaign against them …" The second clause implies that we have a temporal circumstantial participle here so when we take account of this we have to change the tense in English to the simple past. “when the Argives went on campaign against them.”
“But they had the same opinion and were victorious in battles a second [time?].[/quote]”
ἀλλὰ τὴν αὐτὴν γνώμην εἶχον καὶ δεύτερον ἐνίκων μαχόμενοι.
A minor point but “they kept” is better than “they had” for the imperfect εἶχον.
A second time is a regular meaning of δεύτερος or indeed all ordinals.