Xenophon of Ephesus, An Ephesian Tale 1.13.4 · 1.13.4
The attack comes at midday
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Ὡς δὲ ταῦτα οἱ πειραταὶ ἐβουλεύσαντο, τὰ μὲν πρῶτα παρέπλεον ἡσυχῆ τοῖς περὶ Ἁβροκόμην· τελευταῖον δὲ (ἦν μὲν περὶ μέσον ἡμέρας, ἔκειντο δὲ πάντες οἱ ἐν τῇ νηὶ ὑπὸ μέθης καὶ ῥᾳθυμίας οἱ μὲν καθεύδοντες, οἱ δὲ ἀλύοντες) ἐφίστανται δὲ αὐτοῖς οἱ περὶ τὸν Κόρυμβον ἐλαυνομένῃ τῇ νηὶ σὺν ὀξύτητι πολλῇ.
When the pirates had made this plan, at first they sailed quietly alongside Habrocomes and his people. At last (it was about midday, and everyone on the ship lay about in drink and idleness, some asleep, others lounging) Corymbus and his men came upon them, their ship rowed at great speed.
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The setting
Book 1, chapter 13. The couple's ship has left Rhodes and lies becalmed, and its sailors have been drinking.
A note on this passage
The parenthesis repeats two words from 1.12.3, μέθη, "drunkenness," and ῥᾳθυμία, "idleness," where the narrator's account of that becalmed day ends with "the beginning of what had been prophesied." Apollo's oracle at Colophon had told the two families that the pair would "labor in bonds among men who mix with the sea" (1.6.2), and those men are here.
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