ἱστορίαι Historiai
Hdt. 4.196 The Histories, Herodotus; served verbatim
Another story is told by the Carthaginians. There is a place in Libya, they say, where men live beyond the Pillars of Heracles; they come here and unload their cargo; then, having laid it in order along the beach, they go aboard their ships and light a smoking fire. The people of the country see the smoke, and, coming to the sea, they lay down gold to pay for the cargo, and withdraw from the wares. Then the Carthaginians disembark and examine the gold; if it seems to them a fair price for their cargo, they take it and go away; but if not, they go back aboard and wait, and the people come back and add more gold until the sailors are satisfied. In this transaction, it is said, neither party defrauds the other: the Carthaginians do not touch the gold until it equals the value of their cargo, nor do the people touch the cargo until the sailors have taken the gold.

The Greek stands ready in the workroom; the English is served. Both faces will read together.

← Hdt. 4.195 contents Hdt. 4.197 →

Filed here — the addresses this episode attests; counted by the house’s first pass

The Histories, Herodotus — translated by A. D. Godley, 1920–25
Perseus Digital Library — Herodotus, The Histories (Godley translation) · A. D. Godley, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press / William Heinemann, 1920–25
license: public-domain (US: pre-1930 publication); Perseus digital edition CC BY-SA 4.0, attribution recorded in ops/corpus-staging/SOURCES.md