Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of contributors
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction: reading Herodotus, reading Book 5
- Chapter 1 ‘What's in a name?’ and exploring the comparable: onomastics, ethnography, and kratos in Thrace, (5.1–2 and 3–10)
- Chapter 2 The Paeonians (5.11–16)
- Chapter 3 Narrating ambiguity: murder and Macedonian allegiance (5.17–22)
- Chapter 4 Bridging the narrative (5.23–7)
- Chapter 5 The trouble with the Ionians: Herodotus and the beginning of the Ionian Revolt (5.28–38.1)
- Chapter 6 The Dorieus episode and the Ionian Revolt (5.42–8)
- Chapter 7 Aristagoras (5.49–55, 97)
- Chapter 8 Structure and significance (5.55–69)
- Chapter 9 Athens and Aegina (5.82–9)
- Chapter 10 ‘Saving’ Greece from the ‘ignominy’ of tyranny? The ‘famous’ and ‘wonderful’ speech of Socles (5.92)
- Chapter 11 Cyprus and Onesilus: an interlude of freedom (5.104, 108–16)
- Chapter 12 ‘The Fourth Dorian Invasion’ and ‘The Ionian Revolt’ (5.76–126)
- Bibliography
- Index locorum
- General index
Chapter 7 - Aristagoras (5.49–55, 97)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of contributors
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction: reading Herodotus, reading Book 5
- Chapter 1 ‘What's in a name?’ and exploring the comparable: onomastics, ethnography, and kratos in Thrace, (5.1–2 and 3–10)
- Chapter 2 The Paeonians (5.11–16)
- Chapter 3 Narrating ambiguity: murder and Macedonian allegiance (5.17–22)
- Chapter 4 Bridging the narrative (5.23–7)
- Chapter 5 The trouble with the Ionians: Herodotus and the beginning of the Ionian Revolt (5.28–38.1)
- Chapter 6 The Dorieus episode and the Ionian Revolt (5.42–8)
- Chapter 7 Aristagoras (5.49–55, 97)
- Chapter 8 Structure and significance (5.55–69)
- Chapter 9 Athens and Aegina (5.82–9)
- Chapter 10 ‘Saving’ Greece from the ‘ignominy’ of tyranny? The ‘famous’ and ‘wonderful’ speech of Socles (5.92)
- Chapter 11 Cyprus and Onesilus: an interlude of freedom (5.104, 108–16)
- Chapter 12 ‘The Fourth Dorian Invasion’ and ‘The Ionian Revolt’ (5.76–126)
- Bibliography
- Index locorum
- General index
Summary
PUSHOVERS AND PUTTINGS-ACROSS: ARISTAGORAS AT ATHENS
πολλοὺς γ⋯ρ οἶκε εἶναι εὐπετ⋯στερον διαβ⋯λλειν ἢ ἕνα, εἰ Κ λεομ⋯νεα μ⋯ν τ⋯ν Λακεδαιμ⋯νιον μο⋯νον οὐκ οἷ⋯ς τε ⋯γ⋯νετο διαβ⋯λλειν, τρεῖς δ⋯ μυρι⋯δας Ἀθηνα⋯ων ⋯ποι⋯σε το⋯το.
(a) Apparently it is easier to impose upon a crowd than upon an individual, for Aristagoras, who had failed to impose upon Cleomenes, succeeded with thirty thousand Athenians.
(b) It seems to be easier to fool a crowd than a single person, since Aristagoras could not persuade Cleomenes of Lacedaemon, who was all alone, but he succeeded with thirty thousand Athenians.
(Herodotus 5.97.2, tr. (a) de Sélincourt and (b) Waterfield)
If Aristagoras were a website, he would be full of links. The most obvious link here is between the way he played matters at Sparta (5.49–51) and the way he is now more successful at Athens: hence this famous comment that it is εὐπετ⋯στερον – ‘easier’, or more literally ‘more of a pushover’ – to διαβ⋯λλειν thirty thousand people than one – not really Waterfield's ‘fool’ or ‘persuade’, nor even quite de Sélincourt's ‘impose upon’, but rather ‘put one across’. More on these boldly daring choices of colloquial translation in a moment: but, however we translate them, we shall anyway see that those two words εὐπετ⋯ς and διαβ⋯λλειν are almost Aristagoras’ signature tunes. At Athens Aristagoras has indeed just used εὐπετ⋯ς of the Persian foe: they are hopeless with shield and spear, and would be such a pushover (εὐπετ⋯ες τε χειρωθ⋯ναι εἴησαν, 5.97.1).
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- Information
- Reading HerodotusA Study of the Logoi in Book 5 of Herodotus' Histories, pp. 179 - 201Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007
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