On Digestive Organs

[sdi]

Okay, you guys, it's driving me nuts how everyone says "evil livers" and I need to get to the bottom of it. Murray's translation of Sallustios XIX reads,

[...] which is seen about graves, especially the graves of evil livers.

In the original, this is,

ὃ περὶ τοὺς τάφους καὶ μάλιστα τῶν κακῶς ζησάντων ὁρᾶται.

All of these are genitive case, hence "of." τῶν is the definite article. κακῶς is the adjective "bad" or "evil." ζησάντων is the past-tense active participle of ζῶ "to live," therefore... shit.

SALLUSTIOS HIMSELF SAYS "EVIL LIVERS."

Comments

[sdi]

Three (actually serious) footnotes to this.

First, okay, okay, if I'm being totally straight, Taylor's "of such as have lived an abandoned life" is perhaps more precise than the others: I myself would translate this as "of those who have lived wickedly." But Murray and Nock are as close as you can get if you're trying to be word-for-word.

Second, Murray's translation is far more literal than Nock's, here; I haven't read Sallustios in Greek, but so far I'm more inclined to trust Murray's English, though not uncritically (Nock makes some important points in his notes and I'd have to consider these case-by-case, I think).

Third, very astute readers will remember that Stephen MacKenna says "evil-livers," too! I checked Plotinos's Greek, though, and he's absolved of any misdeeds: he actually says "ό κακὸς," which is just "the wicked [person]."

[boccaderlupo]

As bad as an evil stomach, even

Axé!