τῶν καθ᾽ ἡμᾶς

[pster]

...ὁρῶν ποίαν ἄν τις ὀξυτέραν ἢ μείζονα λάβοι μεταβολὴν τῶν καθ᾽ ἡμᾶς τῆς γε Ῥωμαίοις συμβάσης...

Am I correct in reading the bolded phrase as the adverbial "during these times of ours"? If so, then what I find a little weird is the use of both a genitive τῶν and an accusative ἡμᾶς together in a time expression. Or have I somehow misread the whole comparison?

Thoughts?

Thanks in advance.

[NateD26]

...ὁρῶν ποίαν ἄν τις ὀξυτέραν ἢ μείζονα λάβοι μεταβολὴν τῶν καθ᾽ ἡμᾶς τῆς γε Ῥωμαίοις συμβάσης...

Am I correct in reading the bolded phrase as the adverbial "during these times of ours"? If so, then what I find a little weird is the use of both a genitive τῶν and an accusative ἡμᾶς together in a time expression. Or have I somehow misread the whole comparison?

Thoughts?

Thanks in advance.

I'm throwing a wild guess here. Could it function as genitive partitive to the genitive of comparison
τῆς γε Ῥωμαίοις συμβάσης? "...than at least the Roman treaty of those during our time"

I wish I had a proper translation of this book. I can't find the equivalent of this line on the Perseus
translation. It's frustrating to say the least.

[pster]

Line 7 here:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... 99.01.0233

The English can be found here:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... hapter%3D1

...and therefore being unable to find in our day a more rapid or more signal change than that which has happened to Rome, I reserved my disquistion on its constitution for this place. . . .

[NateD26]

Line 7 here:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... 99.01.0233

The English can be found here:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... hapter%3D1

...and therefore being unable to find in our day a more rapid or more signal change than that which has happened to Rome, I reserved my disquistion on its constitution for this place. . . .

Thanks. This would explain καθ᾽ ἡμᾶς but not τῶν which is still partitive of μεταβολὴν.

[pster]

I have noticed that you are fond of partitives! But I don't really see a partitive here. The French translation reads: ...que celui qui est arrivé de notre temps aux Romains. So no partitive there. Can you explain what the part is and what the whole is?

Actually, you may not want to bother. I just looked at the Greek in my French text and the τῶν was struck and the τῆς moved to that position.

[NateD26]

I have noticed that you are fond of partitives! But I don't really see a partitive here. The French translation reads: ...que celui qui est arrivé de notre temps aux Romains. So no partitive there. Can you explain what the part is and what the whole is?

The change is the part and amongst those changes which occurred in their time they can't find any...

Actually, you may not want to bother. I just looked at the Greek in my French text and the τῶν was struck and the τῆς moved to that position.

I don't understand the sense of the sentence with this emendation.

[pster]

I don't see how one could find more pronounced and greater upheaval at any rate than what happened to the Romans in our time.

You have two comparatives and then you have τῆς συμβάσης for your genitive of comparison. What more do you need? Neither Perseus nor the French has a partitive. I translated the gh as "at any rate". Perhaps there is something better.

[NateD26]

I don't see how one could find more pronounced and greater upheaval at any rate than what happened to the Romans in our time.

You have two comparatives and then you have τῆς συμβάσης for your genitive of comparison. What more do you need? Neither Perseus nor the French has a partitive. I translated the gh as "at any rate". Perhaps there is something better.

I need an explanation for the τῶν which I'm still not convinced forms a genitive of time
with καθ' ἡμᾶς, as the latter already forms a temporal sense of "in our time/during our times".

and therefore being unable to find in our day a more rapid or more signal change than that which has happened to Rome, I reserved my disquistion on its constitution for this place.

You don't see here a partitive because of the translator's style, phrasing and word order.

The Greek word order would suggest μεταβολὴν is taken with τῶν καθ᾽ ἡμᾶς to mean
"amongst those changes in our time, he can't find a more rapid or more signal change than that which has happened to Rome".

He's canvassing the extant historical documents of known events, and hey, he could only find
one amongst them which is suited for his upcoming treatise.

Maybe I'm being overly protective of the partitive genitive, but that's just how I understand
this line.

[pster]

I need an explanation for the τῶν which I'm still not convinced forms a genitive of time
with καθ' ἡμᾶς, as the latter already forms a temporal sense of "in our time/during our times".

I'm happy to strike τῶν.

[pster]

So, can we strike τῶν?

[NateD26]

So, can we strike τῶν?

You can if you so choose, but I'm not fond of striking words to suit the desired meaning.

[pster]

I just looked at the Greek in my French text and the τῶν was struck and the τῆς moved to that position.

I'm not doing the striking on my own. I may be a bit brash when it comes to matters Greek, but I would never consider striking a word by myself! There comes a point where even I defer to the professionals! In fact, there are three different readings that are mentioned in the Weil French edition: ths kaθ'hmas; twn kaθ'hmas; ths kata Kannas. (I have no idea what "Kannas" means.) And I would assume that the difficulty of interpretation that we are having is part of the reason twn was struck by Weil.

[Qimmik]

συμβάσης is the aor. act. feminine participle of sumbaino. "Treaty" is sumbasis.

what sharper or greater change, among [of] those [that happened] in our time [καθ᾽ ἡμᾶς], could anyone find than that which happened [συμβάσης] to the Romans

τῆς γε Ῥωμαίοις συμβάσης genitive of comparison with understood noun μεταβολὴς

The variant reading Kannas probably refers to the battle of Cannae, where the Romans were defeated by Hannibal: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cannae but the context makes it clear that the Roman conquest of the Mediterranean world is referred to, not a Roman defeat.

[Qimmik]

Take a look at Smyth sec. 1096. καθ᾽ ἡμᾶς is an adverbial expression used with the article. This is not uncommon in Greek. "of those turn-arounds in our time"

[pster]

Take a look at Smyth sec. 1096. καθ᾽ ἡμᾶς is an adverbial expression used with the article. This is not uncommon in Greek. "of those turn-arounds in our time"

It is not uncommon in Polybius. Indeed, there are several on every page. In the Weil reading that I like, it is adverbial:

...ὁρῶν ποίαν ἄν τις ὀξυτέραν ἢ μείζονα λάβοι μεταβολὴν τῆς καθ᾽ ἡμᾶς γε Ῥωμαίοις συμβάσης...

Note carefully the word order. I apologize for any confusion. Indeed, if I had been using the Weil for reading rather than Perseus, I never would have put up this post.

[pster]

The variant reading Kannas probably refers to the battle of Cannae, where the Romans were defeated by Hannibal: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cannae but the context makes it clear that the Roman conquest of the Mediterranean world is referred to, not a Roman defeat.

Actually, the moment in time where everything is suspended, as he detours first through the events of Greek history in Books IV and V, and then detours through the Roman consitution in Book VI, is the moment just after the Battle of Cannae.