Herodotus, Histories 1.24.1 · 1.24.1
Arion goes west
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Τοῦτον τὸν Ἀρίονα λέγουσι, τὸν πολλὸν τοῦ χρόνου διατρίβοντα παρὰ Περιάνδρῳ ἐπιθυμῆσαι πλῶσαι ἐς Ἰταλίην τε καὶ Σικελίην, ἐργασάμενον δὲ χρήματα μεγάλα θελῆσαι ὀπίσω ἐς Κόρινθον ἀπικέσθαι.
This Arion, they say, who spent most of his time with Periander, longed to sail to Italy and Sicily; and having made a great deal of money, he wanted to come back to Corinth.
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The setting
The story itself begins. From here to the end it is told in reported speech: "they say."
A note on this passage
Look at the verbs: epithymēsai, "to have longed," thelēsai, "to have wanted." They are infinitives, and they hang on the legousi, "they say," at the start. Nearly the whole of the Arion story is built this way, in reported speech, as a sentence someone else is saying. English translations usually drop the frame after a line or two and tell it straight. The Greek keeps Herodotus at arm's length from his marvel all the way to the end.
The story opens with money. Arion goes west to the rich Greek cities of southern Italy and Sicily, where a famous performer could earn a fortune, and he earns one: chrēmata megala, "great wealth." Herodotus does not moralise about it, but he has put it in the first sentence for a reason. Everything that happens next happens because of what Arion is carrying home.
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