Tense, aspect and related textual criticism in Herodotos, Historiai 1.186

Abstract

In this article I discuss the use of tense and aspect in Herodotos Historiai 1,186 and, related to that, the instances where both a form from the present-stem and the aorist-stem are attested. I first provide a brief overview and discussion of tense and aspect in Greek and Herodotos, briefly summarising scholarship before Hettrich 1976 and discussing in somewhat more detail Hettrich 1976, the reactions to that work (Ruijgh 1979 (and 1971), Rijksbaron 1979) and Stork 1982. As the literature on aspect (in Greek and on aspect in general) is very large, my discussion will inevitably have to leave out many studies and issues, and I canonly treat the issue of the fortwirkende Handlung and the observer’s perspective, and even those only very superficially. The issue of tense, aspect, Aktionsart and their overlap cannot be discussed here. In a second step I proceed to the actual passage and discuss all the forms of the present and aorist stem (finite and non-finite forms). As is known, the transmission of Herodotos’ text often poses problems and in several instances, forms from both stems are transmitted (in two cases in 1,186, the manuscripts agree but conjectures were made). In order to decide on which variant to adopt, a detailed analysis of all the forms in the passage is offered using the distinction perfective / completed – imperfective / ongoing as guiding principle (time and space constraints prevented me from quoting the variants printed in all editions and commentaries, limiting myself to 15 in total).