Why ἐφ᾽ οἷς ἠδικημένῳ μοι συνῄδει

Here you can discuss all things Ancient Greek. Use this board to ask questions about grammar, discuss learning strategies, get help with a difficult passage of Greek, and more.
Post Reply
akalovid
Textkit Neophyte
Posts: 20
Joined: Sun Feb 11, 2018 5:23 pm

Why ἐφ᾽ οἷς ἠδικημένῳ μοι συνῄδει

Post by akalovid »

In the second paragraph of his Meidias Demosthenes says:

ἐφ᾽ οἷς ἠδικημένῳ μοι συνῄδει (~in which they knew me to have been wronged)
Why is it not ἠδικημένoν?
Relevant text here: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... ection%3D2

In the same work Demosthenes later says:
[129] νυνὶ δὲ τοσαῦτ᾽ ἐστὶ τἄλλ᾽ ἃ πολλοὺς ὑμῶν ἠδίκησεν
Full text: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... tion%3D129

Here he uses accusative for the wronged party, as I would expect!
What am I confusing?

User avatar
jeidsath
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 5325
Joined: Mon Dec 30, 2013 2:42 pm
Location: Γαλεήπολις, Οὐισκόνσιν

Re: Why ἐφ᾽ οἷς ἠδικημένῳ μοι συνῄδει

Post by jeidsath »

Welcome. Notice that in the first sentence ηδικημενωι is passive, and simply agrees with μοι.
μοι is dative because it’s the object of συνηιδει.

In the second sentence ηδικησεν is an active verb, taking πολλους as an object.

Sorry, I don’t have a polytonic Greek keyboard just now, so no accents from me.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

Joel Eidsath -- jeidsath@gmail.com

akalovid
Textkit Neophyte
Posts: 20
Joined: Sun Feb 11, 2018 5:23 pm

Re: Why ἐφ᾽ οἷς ἠδικημένῳ μοι συνῄδει

Post by akalovid »

Oh! You are right! Actually upon reflecting for some time, I noticed I confused quite some things! Am I right that the usage of the verb ΑΔΙΚΩ is quite irrelevant? We could form sentences like
ΣΥΝΗΙΔΕΙ ΜΟΙ ΔΙΚΑΙΩΙ
ΣΥΝΗΙΔΕΙ ΜΟΙ ΕΛΛΗΝΙ

Might it be that the reason for the dative is the ΣΥΝ in the ΣΥΝΟΙΔΑ? I seem to remember that it usually goes with dative. Such as ΣΥΝ ΑΘΗΝΑΙ ΚΑΙ ΧΕΙΡΑ ΚΙΝΕΙ, ΣΥΝ ΓΥΝΑΙΞΙ ΚΑΙ ΤΕΚΝΟΙΣ, etc (unfortunately I, too, don’t have any decent keyboard, so I have to type out subscripts in this way).

Am I right that without the ΣΥΝ we would use accusative with OIΔΑ? such as:
ΧΑΡΙΝ ΕΙΔΕΝΑΙ ΤΙΝΙ (to acknowledge a debt/favour) to another, which I found here: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/mor ... 0&prior=oi)=da#lexicon
Or the phrase from the bible:
τότε ἤρξατο καταθεματίζειν καὶ ὀμνύειν ὅτι Οὐκ οἶδα τὸν ἄνθρωπον. καὶ εὐθὺς ἀλέκτωρ ἐφώνησεν·
(~and then he began swearing “I don’t know the man”; and promptly the rooster called)

You really helped me a lot! And your observation is spot on, that the ΗΔΙΚΗΜΕΝΩΙ is passive (the wronged in they knew me to be wronged). How must we classify the ΗΔΙΚΗΜΕΝΩΙ? Is it a ΠΡΟΣΔΙΟΡΙΣΜΟΣ (additional description)?
ΣΥΝΗΙΔΕΙ ΜΟΙ ΗΔΙΚΗΜΕΝΩΙ <=> ΣΥΝΕΙΜΙ ΑΝΔΡΙ ΑΘΗΝΑΙΩΙ (Ι live with an Athenian, or other unintended meanings)

Hylander
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 2504
Joined: Mon Aug 17, 2015 1:16 pm

Re: Why ἐφ᾽ οἷς ἠδικημένῳ μοι συνῄδει

Post by Hylander »

σύνοιδα often takes a dative with a supplementary participle. From LSJ σύνοιδα, it seems that this construction is most common with a reflexive pronoun, but here it occurs with a simple personal pronoun.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... su%2Fnoida

I'm not sure these would work without a supplementary participle:
ΣΥΝΗΙΔΕΙ ΜΟΙ ΔΙΚΑΙΩΙ
ΣΥΝΗΙΔΕΙ ΜΟΙ ΕΛΛΗΝΙ
But if you were to add οντι, I think they would work in proper context, but σύνοιδα is not simply "know" but rather, I think, "be conscious/aware of".

Don't worry about subscripts or diacriticals in your posts. You can post here using adscripts (as the words would probably have been written in the 4th c.) and just leaving out the diacriticals, which the Greeks themselves didn't start using until much later than Demosthenes. Do separate words by a space, however.

Are you using MacDowell's text?
Bill Walderman

akalovid
Textkit Neophyte
Posts: 20
Joined: Sun Feb 11, 2018 5:23 pm

Re: Why ἐφ᾽ οἷς ἠδικημένῳ μοι συνῄδει

Post by akalovid »

Hylander wrote: Are you using MacDowell's text?
I am using the text that I linked, because I only brought some classics from Greece when I left to study (the entire Thucydides, several dialogues from Plato, few works of Aristotle, the presocratics by Diels and Kranz, Homer which has always been too difficult for me and some lyric poetry). The link says it is: Demosthenes. Demosthenis.Orationes. ed. S. H. Butcher and W. Rennie. Oxonii. E Typographeo Clarendoniano. 1907 and 1921.

Is there a way to upvote these kind posts or do we not indulge in such modern vanities? ;)

Hylander
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 2504
Joined: Mon Aug 17, 2015 1:16 pm

Re: Why ἐφ᾽ οἷς ἠδικημένῳ μοι συνῄδει

Post by Hylander »

Homer isn't as difficult as you might think. If you can read Demosthenes, you can read Homer. You should give it a try. While there are many good things in Classical Greek, Homer is the best.

And there are a number of people here who are ready to help you.
Bill Walderman

akalovid
Textkit Neophyte
Posts: 20
Joined: Sun Feb 11, 2018 5:23 pm

Re: Why ἐφ᾽ οἷς ἠδικημένῳ μοι συνῄδει

Post by akalovid »

From other examples in the Liddell Scott it seems it was quite common to only put the pronoun in dative and the “direct object”(?) in accusative, which I find natural:
II. share the knowledge of something with somebody, to be implicated in or privy to it, οὐδὲ ξυνῄδει σοί τις ἔκθεσιν τέκνου; E.Ion956; “δουλοῖ γὰρ ἄνδρα, . . ὅταν ξυνειδῇ μητρὸς ἢ πατρὸς κακά” Id.Hipp.425; ξύνοιδε δ᾽ οὔτις οἰκετῶν νόσον ib. 40; “συνίσασί σοι πάντα ὅσα ἔπραξας”
Also Liddell quotes Isocrates 15;20:
with a mixture of dat. and acc.constr., “συνίσασι γὰρ αὐτῷ . . καθιστάμενον, ἐκ δὲ τούτων . . δυνάμενον” Id.15.120;
So, although my original reasoning was complete bogus, my intuition to use accusative may have been partly right.

Post Reply