xenophon Anabasis 1.8.1 καὶ πλησίον ἦν ὁ σταθμὸς ἔνθα ἔμελλε

καὶ ἤδη τε ἦν ἀμφὶ ἀγορὰν πλήθουσαν καὶ πλησίον ἦν ὁ σταθμὸς ἔνθα ἔμελλε καταλύειν,

I can’t make what πλησίον agrees with. ἔνθα seems the best bet but this doesn’t seem to quite work:
And already it was the time when the market place fills up and the stopping point was the close-by place-where he (ie Kuros) intended to break off (the march)

what I would like to do is make it agree with σταθμὸς but that is masculine nominitive while πλησίον is accusative if masculine or neuter.

..
In full:
καὶ ἤδη τε ἦν ἀμφὶ ἀγορὰν πλήθουσαν καὶ πλησίον ἦν ὁ σταθμὸς ἔνθα ἔμελλε καταλύειν, ἡνίκα Πατηγύας, ἀνὴρ Πέρσης τῶν ἀμφὶ Κῦρον χρηστός, προφαίνεται ἐλαύνων ἀνὰ κράτος ἱδροῦντι τῷ ἵππῳ, καὶ εὐθὺς πᾶσιν οἷς ἐνετύγχανεν ἐβόα καὶ βαρβαρικῶς καὶ ἑλληνικῶς ὅτι βασιλεὺς σὺν στρατεύματι πολλῷ προσέρχεται ὡς εἰς μάχην παρεσκευασμένος.

I thought it was an adverb there. “Was nearly.”

LSJ:

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

An adverb! That makes sense. I guess μόνον meaning only is the same thing. Up to now I have always thought of μόνον in the sense of only as an odd special case - I shall be on the look out for more.

I read thru the entry for ἔνθα very carefully but I thought I understood πλησίον. It often seems to be the words I think I know that give me trouble.

A big thank you to the both of you.

Another case of an accusative acting as and adverb
Κῦρος δὲ καὶ ἱππεῖς τούτου ὅσον ἑξακόσιοι κατὰ τὸ μέσον, … Xen Anab 1.8.6

Couldn’t work out why ὅσον didn’t agree with ἑξακόσιοι but ὅσον being the accusative of ὅσος is an adverb.

Smyth 341 — “Adverbs, like prepositions and conjunctions, were originally case forms, made from the stems of nouns and pronouns…[Accusative Adverbs] are very common, especially such adverbs as have the form of the accusative of neuter adjectives as πολύ much, μικρόν a little, πρῶτον at first, τήμερον to-day, πολλά often.

Smyth 1606-1611 — “Adverbial Accusative”

“Many accusatives marking limitations of the verbal action serve the same function as adverbs…Most of these adverbial accusatives are accusatives of the internal object: thus, in τέλος δὲ εἶπε but at last he said, τέλος is to be regarded as standing in apposition to an unexpressed object of the verb — words, which were the end.