D. 9.4

[pster]

OK, should be clear that I'm going to put every sentence of the Third Philippic up one at a time, so if you just want to skip my posts I won't hold it against you. On the other hand, you can look at as a chance for you to read some Demosthenes too. This is considered to be one of his greatest even by those who don't particularly go in for D.

OK, 9.4, we get this sentence.

εἶθ᾽ ὑμῖν συμβέβηκεν ἐκ τούτου ἐν μὲν ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις τρυφᾶν καὶ κολακεύεσθαι πάντα πρὸς ἡδονὴν ἀκούουσιν, ἐν δὲ τοῖς πράγμασι καὶ τοῖς γιγνομένοις περὶ τῶν ἐσχάτων ἤδη κινδυνεύειν.

συμβέβηκεν - finite or infinitive?

τρυφᾶν - participle, finite or infinitive?

I was assuming συμβέβηκεν was finite, but then you get ἀκούουσιν which is clearly finite and so I kinda couldn't get the structure right. And then I found conflicting translations!

I remember being able to read Latin within months. What the heck is going on with this Greek? Am I too old??

[NateD26]

Browsing LSJ & Middle-Liddell, I think this is the impersonal construction of συμβαίνω:
3rd sg. + dat. pers. + inf., so it seems more likely that ἀκούουσιν is a participle modifying ὑμῖν
and τρυφᾶν καὶ κολακεύεσθαι in the μέν clause are infinitives paralleled with κινδυνεύειν in the δέ one.

[pster]

Great. Thanks. That works very well.