Note 398 — FIRST SECTION. (continued 3)

In the text of Froesius it stands: καὶ μᾶλλον τοῖσιν ὀλίγα κεκτημένοισιν, οὐ τιμωμένοισιν ἤδη, εἰ χαίρουσιν οἱ θεοὶ καὶ θαυμαζόμενοι ὑπ’ ἀνθρώπων, κ. τ. λ. (to a greater extent those who possess little and therefore fail to make offerings; if that is to say the gods take pleasure in being venerated by men, etc). Coray has emended this into εἰ δὴ τιμώμενοι χαίρουσι (if that is to say the gods take pleasure in being honoured and venerated), on the grounds that τιμᾶν and θαυμάζειν (to honour, to venerate) are frequently used in conjunction with one another to express the veneration of the gods, which fact he confirms by passages from Euripides and Aristophanes. Yet this emendation can scarcely be right, even though de Mercy has also adopted it. The latest editor, Prof. Petersen of Hamburg, a professed Philologist, has undoubtedly maintained not without weighty reasons the old reading, noting Coray’s conjecture in the notes. Indeed neither is the old reading altogether correct, but can be easily restored, we think, if the words, as has already been done in our translation above, are read in the following way: οὐ τιμωμένοισιν· εἰ δὴ χαίρουσιν οἱ θεοὶ θαυμαζόμενοι,—a way of taking it that Coray had already seen to be possible, only that he preferred to read instead of οὐ τιμωμένοισιν,—ἢ τοῖσι τιμωμένοισιν, because he does not think that the words can refer at all to the poorer Scythians, as did Cornarius before him, though he translates quite correctly: “It affected to a greater extent poorer men, as being more negligent concerning the worship of the gods.” Foesius translates: “and they do not pay honour.” In fact Coray’s chief difficulty was as to the active meaning of τιμωμένοισι (i.e. “paying honour”, not “being honoured”); but this use is by no means so rare, and exactly in this sense of veneration paid to the gods by men is found in Homer, Od. XIX. 280, where we read of the Phaeacians on the occasion of Odysseus’ landing:

οἳ δή μιν περὶ κῆρι θεὸν ὣς τιμήσαντο.

(Now they honoured him from their heart as if he had been a god). The whole sense of the passage requires us to refer the words οὐ τιμωμένοισιν to the poorer Scythians, who possess little, and therefore can offer nothing to the gods, and also do not wish to do so, as is clearly shown in what follows; and it is exactly for this reason that Hippocrates says, then they ought to suffer more from the disease than the rich, if the gods practised any system of equivalent returns.