Herodotus, Histories 1.24.2 · 1.24.2
A ship of Corinthians
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ὁρμᾶσθαι μέν νυν ἐκ Τάραντος, πιστεύοντα δὲ οὐδαμοῖσι μᾶλλον ἢ Κορινθίοισι μισθώσασθαι πλοῖον ἀνδρῶν Κορινθίων. τοὺς δὲ ἐν τῷ πελάγεϊ ἐπιβουλεύειν τὸν Ἀρίονα ἐκβαλόντας ἔχειν τὰ χρήματα. τὸν δὲ συνέντα τοῦτο λίσσεσθαι, χρήματα μέν σφι προϊέντα, ψυχὴν δὲ παραιτεόμενον.
So he set out from Tarentum, and, trusting no one more than Corinthians, hired a ship of Corinthian men. But out on the open sea they plotted to throw Arion overboard and keep his money. He understood this and begged them, offering them the money but pleading for his life.
Word by word
The setting
Arion charters a ship home. He picks his crew for their nationality.
A note on this passage
The irony is in the first clause. Arion trusts "no one more than Corinthians," the people of the city where his patron rules, and hires a Corinthian crew for the voyage home. Those are the men who decide to kill him. Herodotus lets the fact sit without comment. His readers knew as well as he did that the sea was where men were most alone with one another.
Arion's plea splits into two nouns with men… de, the Greek "on one hand… on the other": chrēmata men, "the money, yes," psychēn de, "but my life." Psychē is the word that later means "soul." Here it is the older sense, the breath that keeps a man alive, and he offers everything he owns for it. The balance of the Greek sentence is the bargain he proposes.
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