Anabasis 1.8.17

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marcofurio
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Anabasis 1.8.17

Post by marcofurio »

I have a question on Xenophon's Anabasis that I am reading in Mather and Hewitt's version published by the University of Oklahoma. I cannot express with words how beautifully done is their book, up to the smallest detail, introduction, historical notes, figures, map, index... Every drawing of soldiers, arms, peoples, myths, clothes, etc... is in its right place with a note absolutely appropriate to the reading, it is a real pleasure to proceed through the story. Grammatical notes are not always as helpful as for example those from Steadman's series but still more than enough counterbalanced by all the other wonderful features that adorn this great book. Any suggestions of a similar reader for books V-VII would be much welcomed although I find it difficult to approach the quality reached by Mather and Hewitt to whom I am sincerely grateful. Anyway, this is my question:

Καὶ οὐκέτι τρία ἢ τέτταρα στάδια διειχέτην τὼ φάλαγγε ἀπ'ἀλλήλων...

I understand the meaning of the sentence, more or less " and not more than three or four stadia separated both phalanxes from one another..." but what is exactly διειχέτην? From διέχω that is to divide, separate, but should not imperfect tense be διεῖχεν?

Thanks in advance for your help!

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Paul Derouda
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Re: Anabasis 1.8.17

Post by Paul Derouda »

διειχέτην is imperfect dual, as the subject τὼ φάλαγγε is dual.

marcofurio
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Re: Anabasis 1.8.17

Post by marcofurio »

That was fast!!

Μεγάλην χάριν ἔχω ὠ τάχιστ'ἀνδρῶν!

Χαίρε!

mwh
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Re: Anabasis 1.8.17

Post by mwh »

Ah, those pesky duals, they'll get you every time.

The thing about διέχω is that it can be used intransitively as well as transitively. You were taking it as transitive, and indeed if the verb were in fact διεῖχεν then you'd be right in your construal, with στάδια as the subject. But here (as I think usually in Xen) it's intransitive, "the phalanxes were apart/distanced/separated from each other."
To say how far apart they were you use an inner accusative: e.g. οὐ πολὺ διειχέτην "they weren't far apart" ("they weren't a long way from each other", "there was only a little distance between them"), τρία ἢ τέτταρα στάδια διειχέτην "they were 3 or 4 stades apart."

Also, "not more than 3" would be οὐ πλείω (πλείονα) ἢ τρία (or οὐ πλείω τριῶν). ουκέτι should mean "no longer were they 3 or 4 stades apart."

Markos
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Re: Anabasis 1.8.17

Post by Markos »

marcofurio wrote:Μεγάλην χάριν ἔχω ὠ τάχιστ'ἀνδρῶν!

Χαίρε!
χαῖρε καὶ σύ, φίλτατε!

ἆρα ἤκουσας ταύτας τὰς ἠχωγραφάς?

https://archive.org/details/Esafx

καλαί εἰσι!

ἴθι πολλὰ χαίρων!
οὐ μανθάνω γράφειν, ἀλλὰ γράφω τοῦ μαθεῖν.

marcofurio
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Re: Anabasis 1.8.17

Post by marcofurio »

As soon as I understood the verbal dual form I got the confusion I had with subject and direct object. I again want to thank you very much Markos for your suggestions! However and with no "animus bellandi" at all I am convinced of the so called historical pronuntiation rather than the erasmian one. Very interesting arguments have been exposed in the web, I include links to a particularly good site (in Spanish).

From my point of view the greatest benefit has been a very easy access to modern Greek and from that back again to Attic with very surprising and useful connections that allowed me to read Attic Greek, New Testament, Dio Cassius... with slowly growing fluency.

http://blogs.ua.es/santiago/2011/05/23/ ... l-moderno/

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