pster wrote:I find myself rather indignant that poor Mr. Arndt could go to the trouble to write on a subject as narrow as reflexive pronouns and have others blithely disagree with him. What gall! I may have to champion his cause just on general principles.
John W. wrote:
I'm aware that, in Thucydides, σφίσι sometimes refers to the main subject of a sentence rather than to the subject of a relative clause within it
pster wrote:Sorry John for making a mess out of your question. I like Hobbes and Fowler. So I guess I'm against Arndt.
UPDATE: But I'm not going to pass final judgement until I have read Arndt. Do we have a link?
pster wrote:Fowler writes:
σφίσι : refers to the subj. of ψηφιεῖσθαι: “they would adopt no other measures than those which they (the Boeotarchs) recommend to them after previous deliberation.” The indir. refl. pron. often refers in Thuc. to the subj. of a dependent verb. Cf. i. 20. 10; 30. 14; 58. 7; iii. 3. 19; iv. 113. 11. Kühn. 555, N. 9. The change to σφεῖς or ἐν σφίσι, which has been proposed, is therefore unnecessary.
Seems right to me. Would have been nice if Hobbes had explicitly inserted the dative in the English.
So I don't think we need the Smyth/Nate special sauce.
But I am sure I have missed something very basic. So what is it?
NateD26 wrote:...so you can agree or disagree with whichever commentary or grammar
you choose, but do so with some degree of respect or reverence rather than
outright disparaging them.
pster wrote:http://mercure.fltr.ucl.ac.be/Hodoi/concordances/thucy_guerre_pelop_01/listvoca.cfm
is a great site that I have mentioned before that gives you a quick way to see all the instances of a word in a given book of Thucydides. Just fiddle with the URL to get other books since navigation isn't straightforward.
Just in book I, there are too many instances for me to look at. But Smyth's rule strikes me as rather odd. Why not just say, "the subject of its own clause"? Are we supposed to imagine that there is some difference?
But leaving that aside, I'm interested in other instances from Thucydides that seem to break what I take to be the general rule of just finding the referent one level up. According to Smyth, there are other places. Do we know of any besides 5.14 so that I can have some more practice explaining away anomalous cases?
NateD26 wrote:Charles F. Smith in his appendix to Book 6 takes the view of an alliance of the Egestaeans
with the Leontines in a lengthy comment with multiple references. I couldn't understand
much of it but it may be of some help to you.
pster wrote:There is a several page discussion of the sentence. Its meaning even hinges on the results of an examination of an inscription with a laser! Looks like fun. I'm up for it, but it may take me a few days to summarize it for you.
pster wrote:Hornblower says he adopts the interpretation that it was an Athenian alliance with Leontinoi, the same interpretation as most translators going back to Hobbes. There are two other interpretations: Egestaian alliance with Leontinoi going back to Vala in 1400's; and Egestaian alliance with Leontinoi held by Steup.
He says the best discussion of the matter is here:
http://www.uni-koeln.de/phil-fak/ifa/zp ... 083038.pdf
Hopefully that will keep you busy for a day or two until I can read some more Hornblower!
Funny I was just looking at vacation ideas in northwest Sicily. I may have to go look at this inscription myself. Where is the stone?
pster wrote:ὥστε τὴν γενομένην ἐπὶ Λάχητος καὶ τοῦ προτέρου πολέμου Λεοντίνων οἱ Ἐγεσταῖοι ξυμμαχίαν ἀναμιμνῄσκοντες τοὺς Ἀθηναίους ἐδέοντο σφίσι ναῦς πέμψαντας ἐπαμῦναι
Does ἐπὶ Λάχητος καὶ τοῦ προτέρου πολέμου just mean "in the time of Laches and the former war"?
pster wrote:John, are you satisfied? Or do you still want to hear more about Hornblower? I've got about a dozen things going on now, so have been limiting the Greek to 60 minutes. Did you read that pdf?
pster wrote:Soon after leaving port, my Thucydidean trireme was struck by a Polybian quinquireme. So despite spending the entirety of last year preparing for voyage, it has had to return to port for repairs. Plans are to resume in about 8 weeks!
pster wrote:Hornblower is silent on the issue. I'll give it some thought Monday morning.
I take your point re an object for σκηπτόμενοι, but does it have to be τί itself? Could it not be an understood relative referring to τί? In other words, the construction would be '... or, using [it] as an excuse ...'. Is this a possibility?
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