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78.
This was how Croesus reasoned. Meanwhile, snakes began to swarm in the outer part of the city; and when they appeared the horses, leaving their accustomed pasture, devoured them. When Croesus saw this he thought it a portent, and so it was.
[2]
He at once sent to the homes of the Telmessian interpreters,1 to inquire concerning it; but though his messengers came and learned from the Telmessians what the portent meant, they could not bring back word to Croesus, for he was a prisoner before they could make their voyage back to Sardis.
[3]
Nonetheless, this was the judgment of the Telmessians: that Croesus must expect a foreign army to attack his country, and that when it came, it would subjugate the inhabitants of the land: for the snake, they said, was the offspring of the land, but the horse was an enemy and a foreigner. This was the answer which the Telmessians gave Croesus, knowing as yet nothing of the fate of Sardis and of the king himself; but when they gave it, Croesus was already taken.
1 These were a caste of priests of Apollo at Telmessus or Telmissus in Lycia. τῶν ἐξηγητέων Τελμησσέων is contrary to Greek usage, ἐξηγητής being a substantive: Stein suggests that the true reading may be Τελμησσέων τῶν ἐξηγητέων.
Herodotus, with an English translation by A. D. Godley. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 1920.
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References (22 total)
- Cross-references to this page
(6):
- The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites, TELMESSOS Caria, Turkey.
- Raphael Kühner, Friedrich Blass, Ausführliche Grammatik der Griechischen Sprache, Dritte Deklination.
- Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 3.2.3
- A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), ORA´CULUM
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), TELMESSUS
- William Watson Goodwin, Syntax of the Moods and Tenses of the Greek Verb, Chapter IV
- Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page
(16):
- LSJ, ἀλλό-θροος
- LSJ, ἀναπλέω
- LSJ, ἔπηλ-υ^ς
- LSJ, ἐξηγ-ητής
- LSJ, ἐκγίγνομαι
- LSJ, ἐπιλέγω
- LSJ, ἐπιχώριος
- LSJ, ἐθέλω
- LSJ, φοιτ-άω
- LSJ, γιγνώσκω
- LSJ, μεθίημι
- LSJ, νέμω
- LSJ, ὅς
- LSJ, προ-άστιον
- LSJ, προσδόκ-ι^μος
- LSJ, ὑποκρίνω
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