Tense, Aspect and Modality, and Textual Criticism in Herodotos Historiai 5.48.

In Historiai 5.48 the transmitted imperfect forms ἐβασίλευε and κατέμενε, which appear in an irrealis of the past, have been changed into the aorists ἐβασίλευσε and κατέμεινε by Krüger and Wilson respectively. In this article, I discuss whether these changes are necessary. I first quote the passage and provide an overview of the choices made by the different editors and commentators. I argue that the transmitted imperfect forms can in fact be maintained. I start by summarising scholarship on Greek aspect and aspect in the Greek counterfactual constructions, and then I briefly discuss the so-called “Strunk’s aorist rule” (which states that the aorist is used when a verb is used with an adverbial temporal object). I then apply “Strunk’s aorist rule” to the instances of βασιλεύω (discussing a few examples) and show that the imperfect forms are perfectly defendable in this passage, taking into account that the tense-usage in the counterfactual constructions in Greek was aspectually motivated and not based on temporal reference, and that the imperfect forms referred to a long-lasting reign.