Typo in Greek Ollendorff

[bedwere]

I believe there is a typo in exercise 401-I, p. 342:

Οἱ νεανίαι εἰς τὰ ὄρη ἀνέβησαν ὡς χρυσὸν ζητήσοντας.

It seems pretty obvious to me that it should be ζητήσοντες, but, since I've been known to be wrong (gasp!) in the past, I'd like to have confirmation.

[Qimmik]

You're right.

[bedwere]

Εὐχαριστῶ σοι.

[Markos]

I believe there is a typo in exercise 401-I, p. 342:

Οἱ νεανίαι εἰς τὰ ὄρη ἀνέβησαν ὡς χρυσὸν ζητήσοντας.

It seems pretty obvious to me that it should be ζητήσοντες, but, since I've been known to be wrong (gasp!) in the past, I'd like to have confirmation.

ἀναβαίνω CAN take the accusative as a direct object in the sense that Herodotus uses it here

1:192
ἵπποι δὲ οἱ αὐτοῦ ἦσαν ἰδίῃ, πάρεξ τῶν πολεμιστηρίων, οἱ μὲν ἀναβαίνοντες τὰς θηλέας ὀκτακόσιοι, αἱ δὲ βαινόμεναι ἑξακισχίλιαι καὶ μυρίαι: ἀνέβαινε γὰρ ἕκαστος τῶν ἐρσένων τούτων εἴκοσι ἵππους.

but I doubt that's what the guy had in mind. Freud, though, might call it a parapraxis.

[Qimmik]

ἀναβαίνω CAN take the accusative as a direct object

Then ζητήσοντας is the difficilior lectio. But in that case ὡς should be conjecturally emended to ὣς.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dw%28s

(Bedwere, I'm not serious about this. The sentence in the Ollendorf book is just plain wrong, and there's no way to make sense out of it as it stands.)

[NateD26]

I don't have much to add to the above replies other than, as a rule of thumb, participles
nearly always take the case of their subjects. Some sentences can be so complex that finding
their subjects, be they implicit or explicit, isn't always an easy task.

Here's such an example from Plato. Apology 21e-22a:

μετὰ ταῦτ᾽ οὖν ἤδη ἐφεξῆς ᾖα, αἰσθανόμενος μὲν [καὶ] λυπούμενος καὶ δεδιὼς ὅτι ἀπηχθανόμην,
ὅμως δὲ ἀναγκαῖον ἐδόκει εἶναι τὸ τοῦ θεοῦ περὶ πλείστου ποιεῖσθαι—ἰτέον οὖν, σκοποῦντι τὸν
χρησμὸν τί λέγει, ἐπὶ ἅπαντας τούς τι δοκοῦντας εἰδέναι.

Background:
Socrates is on a journey to find whether he indeed the wisest of them all as revealed by the oracle.

My translation:
After these events, I now made my way from one to another, realizing, grieving, and fearing that
[in doing so] I incur their hatred, nevertheless feeling obligated to do god's work above all --
it was incumbent on me then to go to all those who were reputed to know something and examine the
oracle's prophecy.

The subject of the first three participles is in nominative, agreeing with the subject of ᾖα, ἐγώ =
Socrates. The parenthetical sentence though has a participle in dative, because it agrees
with the implicit subject μοι of the verbal adjective ἰτέον. In literary Hebrew we have a similar
usage, שומה עלי, which roughly translates to "it is incumbent on me."

[Qimmik]

it was incumbent on me then to go to all those who were reputed to know something and examine the
oracle's prophecy.

I would translate thus: "it was necessary for me, as I was trying to find out [inquiring into] what the oracle was saying, to go to all those who were reputed to know something"

ἀναγκαῖον ἐδόκει εἶναι τὸ τοῦ θεοῦ περὶ πλείστου ποιεῖσθαι

περὶ πλείστου ποιεῖσθαι -- this is a very common Greek idiom meaning something like "to value or consider most highly"

From LSJ s.v. ποιέω, item V:

περὶ πολλοῦ π., Lat. magni facere, Lys.1.1, etc.; περὶ πλείονος, περὶ πλείστου π., Id.14.40, Pl.Ap.21e, etc.;

Unfortunately, they translate it into Latin, which borrowed the idiom from Greek.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dpoie%2Fw

"it seemed necessary to place the highest value on the god's matter." (Translating τὸ τοῦ θεοῦ requires you to supply some appropriate noun, but I can't readily come up with a better one here.)

[NateD26]

"it seemed necessary to place the highest value on the god's matter." (Translating τὸ τοῦ θεοῦ requires you to supply some appropriate noun, but I can't readily come up with a better one here.)

Thanks for the correction. I'd go with mission instead of the generic matter, but it's a matter of taste.

[Qimmik]

"Mission" is probably better than "matter" here, except that, if I recall, the god didn't send him on a mission: the god simply said that he was the wisest man of all, and he felt he had to find out what that meant and whether it was accurate.

I like your "it was incumbent upon me," but the idea of obligation doesn't carry over to σκοποῦντι. He had to go to all those who were supposed to be wise because he was trying to find out what the oracle meant.

I think that most of us learned the idiom περὶ πολλοῦ ποιεῖσθαι from this very passage. Another place where it occurs prominently is at the very beginning of the first speech in the corpus of the speeches attributed to Lysias, which is also cited by LSJ, but this speech wasn't considered appropriate reading for youngsters--it's a speech delivered by a man accused of having killed his wife's lover after catching him in flagranti delicto. Too bad, because in addition to a very clear, not too difficult Greek text, it offers an interesting glimpse into Athenian domestic relations--something that is rare because women from upper-class Athenian families were kept in strict seclusion--as well as into the everyday life of average, non-elite Athenian citizens.

[NateD26]

"Mission" is probably better than "matter" here, except that, if I recall, the god didn't send him on a mission: the god simply said that he was the wisest man of all, and he felt he had to find out what that meant and whether it was accurate.

But wouldn't you agree that at least from Socrates perspective, he was on some sort of mission from God
as if the oracle's reply was intentionally cryptic and induced him to go on such a mission?

I like your "it was incumbent upon me," but the idea of obligation doesn't carry over to σκοποῦντι. He had to go to all those who were supposed to be wise because he was trying to find out what the oracle meant.

I stand corrected.

I think that most of us learned the idiom περὶ πολλοῦ ποιεῖσθαι from this very passage. Another place where it occurs prominently is at the very beginning of the first speech in the corpus of the speeches attributed to Lysias, which is also cited by LSJ, but this speech wasn't considered appropriate reading for youngsters...

I'm sure college students have had first-hand experience with sex and infidelity or at least have
read about it.

[Qimmik]

from Socrates perspective, he was on some sort of mission

Fair enough.

[bedwere]

Τὸ τοῦ θεοῦ περὶ πλείστου ποιούμεθα.