I. CYNEGETICA 9.12
χρὴ δὲ εἶναι τὰς ποδοστράβας σμίλακος πεπλεγμένας … τὰς δὲ στεφάνας εὐκύκλους ἐχούσας καὶ τοὺς ἥλους ἐναλλὰξ σιδηροῦς τε καὶ ξυλίνους ἐγκαταπεπλεγμένους ἐν τῷ πλοκάνῳ.
The traps should be made out of plaited yew …, with a circular crown and spikes of alternate iron and wood woven into the plaited part (Waterfield).Footnote 1
The same translation of ἐγκαταπεπλεγμένους (‘woven into’) is given by WillcockFootnote 2 and by Doty,Footnote 3 while Marchant has ‘plaited into’,Footnote 4 Brodersen ‘eingeflochten’ (‘woven/plaited into’),Footnote 5 and Delebeque (more loosely) ‘encastrées dans’ (‘fitted into’).Footnote 6 This last translation makes sense (though it does not render the Greek), the others do not.
ἐγκαταπεπλεγμένους must be a mistake for ἐγκαταπεπηγμένους, ‘fixed in’, like the stakes fixed in the ditch in Hom. Il. 9.350 (ἐν δὲ σκόλοπας κατέπηξεν). The corruption of -πεπηγ- to -πεπλεγ- was prompted by the preceding πεπλεγμένας and helped by the following πλοκάνῳ.
II. CYROPAIDEIA 2.2.5
ἀνήλωτο μὲν αὐτῷ ὃ εἰλήφει ὄψον, ὃ δ᾽ ἔτι αὐτῷ λοιπὸν ἦν τοῦ ἐμβάπτεσθαι (v.l. ἐμβάψασθαι), τοῦτό πως … ἀνέτρεψεν.
He lost not only the meat he had taken but also what was still left of his sauce; for this last he upset somehow or other.Footnote 7
The diner has lost, in addition to the meat, the remains of the sauce in which he would have dipped the meat.Footnote 8 But ὃ … λοιπὸν ἦν τοῦ ἐμβάπτεσθαι cannot mean ‘what was left of his sauce’. The active verb ἐμβάπτω takes an accusative of the object dipped in the sauce (Hipponax fr. 26a.3 West, Cratinus fr. 150.4 K.–A., Archestratus fr. 23.6 Olson–Sens)Footnote 9 and the middle ἐμβάπτεσθαι, without an expressed object, means ‘dip food (in sauce)’ (Ar. fr. 158.2 K.–A., Archedicus fr. 2.10Footnote 10). Neither ‘what was left of dipping into’ (with ἐμβάπτεσθαι taken as middle) nor ‘what was left of being dipped into’ (with ἐμβάπτεσθαι taken as passive) makes sense. The noun ἐμβάμματος (Muretus), ‘that which is dipped into’, namely ‘sauce’, a noun used at Cyr. 1.3.4, makes sense. But its corruption to an infinitive is inconceivable.Footnote 11
Delete τοῦ. Then ὃ … λοιπὸν ἦν ἐμβάπτεσθαι means ‘what was left for dipping into’, that is, ‘the remains of the sauce’. The infinitive is now a ‘final-consecutive’ middle infinitive, and the structure is a familiar one. ‘Compounds with ἐν- are regularly used as “final-consecutive” infinitives.’Footnote 12 The construction is the same as, for example, Thuc. 2.20.4 χῶρος ἐπιτήδειος … ἐνστρατοπεδεῦσαι ‘terrain suitable for camping in’, Xen. Mem. 3.8.8 (οἰκία) ἡδίστη … ἐνδιαιτᾶσθαι ‘(a house) most pleasant to live in’. In this construction the (unexpressed) subject of the infinitive is personal, and the (again unexpressed) referent of ἐν- is the noun which has preceded.
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