τὰ γενόμενα ἐξ ἀνθρώπων → things done by humans, lit. "things that have arisen from humans" (as opposed to gods)?
Those who read more than one translation of Herodotus' first sentence may be perplexed to find a wide divergence from one to the other, especially with regard to H's all-important purpose clause, ὡς μήτε τὰ γενόμενα ἐξ ἀνθρώπων τῷ χρόνῳ ἐξίτηλα γένηται. Basically, translators separate into two camps: (1) those who, like Godfrey in the authoritative Perseus edition, translate "so that things done by man not be forgotten in time," and those who, like Rawlinson in the popular Loeb edition, render the clause "so the memory of the past may not be blotted out from among men by time." In other words, one camp takes ἐξ ἀνθρώπων with τὰ γενόμενα (lit. "things that have happened from humans), while the other camp takes ἐξ ἀνθρώπων with ἐξίτηλα ("faded away from humans"). For the first camp, Herodotus is writing so that human events may not be rubbed out; for the second, he writes so that the past (τὰ γενόμενα) may not fade from human memory. We pay our money and take our choice. Today, it's the second camp for me; who knows where I'll stand tomorrow? In the final analysis, there may be little or no difference between the two meanings. Or is there? (-:
