D.9.24

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pster
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D.9.24

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ἀλλὰ τοῦτο μὲν ὑμῖν, μᾶλλον δὲ τοῖς τότ᾽ οὖσιν Ἀθηναίοις, ἐπειδή τισιν οὐ μετρίως ἐδόκουν προσφέρεσθαι, πάντες ᾤοντο δεῖν, καὶ οἱ μηδὲν ἐγκαλεῖν ἔχοντες αὐτοῖς, μετὰ τῶν ἠδικημένων πολεμεῖν...

I don't understand what the datives are doing in this sentence. And ἐδόκουν is 3rd person plural, but I don't know what its subject is.

These pages of Demosthenes are swimming in perfects, so I thought maybe dative of agent, but ἐδόκουν is not a perfect. Dative of reference perhaps, but that feels like a stretch. Probably something simple that I have just overlooked.

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Re: D.9.24

Post by NateD26 »

pster wrote:ἀλλὰ τοῦτο μὲν ὑμῖν, μᾶλλον δὲ τοῖς τότ᾽ οὖσιν Ἀθηναίοις, ἐπειδή τισιν οὐ μετρίως ἐδόκουν προσφέρεσθαι, πάντες ᾤοντο δεῖν, καὶ οἱ μηδὲν ἐγκαλεῖν ἔχοντες αὐτοῖς, μετὰ τῶν ἠδικημένων πολεμεῖν...
I think the datives in the μέν...δέ... clauses relate to the main clause πάντες ᾤοντο δεῖν μετὰ τῶν ἠδικημένων πολεμεῖν:

"But, regarding this issue*, everyone thought it was necessary for you, though more so for the Athenians
living at the time...to fight against those who wronged you."

* I have no idea what this means without context, sorry, but it reads best as acc. of respect to me.

To the subject of the main sentence he added καὶ οἱ μηδὲν ἐγκαλεῖν ἔχοντες αὐτοῖς.
According to the LSJ, ἐγκαλεῖν with dat. pers. alone means to accuse someone,
and if I read the participle as having a direct object μηδὲν (I assume the force here is
general truth and so οὐδέν didn't fit here), and taking the dative as referring ahead to
τῶν ἠδικημένων, meaning even people who were not wronged at all joined in in the call to fight:

"But, regarding this issue*, everyone -- even those who had nothing to accuse/bring a charge against
them -- thought it was necessary for you, though more so for the Athenians living at the time...to fight
against those who wronged you."

Now, the causal clause is rather tricky for me. As you said, to whom does he refer in ἐδόκουν, and who
are those τισιν having that observation they seemed to some?

I'll come back later though I'm sure someone more experienced would reply and correct my attempt. :)
Nate.

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Re: D.9.24

Post by NateD26 »

Just to correct my last sentence regarding ἐπειδή τισιν οὐ μετρίως ἐδόκουν προσφέρεσθαι,
τισιν does not go with ἐδόκουν but with οὐ μετρίως προσφέρεσθαι according to LSJ.
I'd take it then as meaning "since they were considered to not deal fairly with some",
with the subject of ἐδόκουν being those people who wronged them.
Nate.

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Re: D.9.24

Post by pster »

I am impressed Nate that you seem not to refer to translations when struggling with a sentence.

Here is the immediate context (9.23), which I perhaps should have included:

καίτοι προστάται μὲν ὑμεῖς ἑβδομήκοντ᾽ ἔτη καὶ τρία τῶν Ἑλλήνων ἐγένεσθε, προστάται δὲ τριάκονθ᾽ ἑνὸς δέοντα Λακεδαιμόνιοι: ἴσχυσαν δέ τι καὶ Θηβαῖοι τουτουσὶ τοὺς τελευταίους χρόνους μετὰ τὴν ἐν Λεύκτροις μάχην. ἀλλ᾽ ὅμως οὔθ᾽ ὑμῖν οὔτε Θηβαίοις οὔτε Λακεδαιμονίοις οὐδεπώποτ᾽, ὦ ἄνδρες Ἀθηναῖοι, συνεχωρήθη τοῦθ᾽ ὑπὸ τῶν Ἑλλήνων, ποιεῖν ὅ τι βούλοισθε, οὐδὲ πολλοῦ δεῖ:

And the Perseus translation:

Yet your hegemony in Greece lasted seventy-five years, that of Sparta twenty-nine, and in these later times Thebes too gained some sort of authority after the battle of Leuctra. But neither to you nor to the Thebans nor to the Lacedaemonians did the Greeks ever yet, men of Athens, concede the right of unrestricted action, or anything like it.

So there are a bunch of datives in the previous sentences flowing from the verb συνεχωρήθη ("was conceded (to)".

Then we get to 9.24.

Davies writes in his notes: "τοῦτο μέν, adverbial as in § 11; here answered by καὶ πάλιν." καὶ πάλιν begins the next sentence. That's a whole 'nother can of worms, so I'll bracket it for now. Here's the whole of the 9.24 passage if you want to look at it: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... ction%3D24

But what of ἐδόκουν? Now as I write this, the light bulb is going on. I think the subject is the Athenians of that time: they seemed to be behaving not within measure. And the datives early in the sentence flow from πολεμεῖν!

So my gloss would be:

ἀλλὰ τοῦτο μὲν ὑμῖν,
but [τοῦτο μὲν] to you
μᾶλλον δὲ τοῖς τότ᾽ οὖσιν Ἀθηναίοις,
and more to the Athenians being/living then,
ἐπειδή τισιν οὐ μετρίως ἐδόκουν προσφέρεσθαι,
when they seemed to be behaving towards some not within measure
πάντες ᾤοντο δεῖν,
all thought it necessary,
καὶ οἱ μηδὲν ἐγκαλεῖν ἔχοντες αὐτοῖς,
even those not accusing them,
μετὰ τῶν ἠδικημένων πολεμεῖν
to fight with those who had been injured


So, to close the circle:

πολεμεῖν τοῖς τότ᾽ οὖσιν Ἀθηναίοις

The same Athenians who ἐδόκουν...
!

As for μηδὲν, I actually think οὐδέν would work just as well since there were actual peoples fighting without accusing, and the whole idea seems concessive. But I guess Demosthenes is emphasizing the uniformity of Greek behavior and so opts for μηδὲν.

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Re: D.9.24

Post by NateD26 »

Serves me right not to post any of my translation attempts without being fully confident
in it. Sorry.
Nate.

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Re: D.9.24

Post by pster »

What are you apologizing for?? I learn a lot seeing how you approach these things!

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