Reading Thucydides 2014

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Baker
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Re: Thinking about Thucydides 2012

Post by Baker »

Jason,

It seems that you are missing ἐλπίσας in your rendition, which is important for ironing out the difficulties. With ἐλπίσας plus ἔσεσθαι, we get "hoping/expecting that it would be..."

μέγαν remains as "great" and needn't be otherwise. He is hoping/expecting that the war will be great but I think that he wishes to focus more on its being, "ἀξιολογώτατον τῶν προγεγενημένων," especially since that is where he comes in and he is providing a justification for such a role here in the introduction.

Hence: "expecting that it would be great and the most noteworthy of all that had been before it." Make note of your final participle there and remember it is in the perfect middle and needs to fit with the time of the previous clause.



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Eliot

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Re: Thinking about Thucydides 2012

Post by jaihare »

Actually, I was taking ἐλπίσας to mean "deemed" rather than "expected."
From LSJ:
c. pres. inf., deem, suppose that . ., Emp.11.2; ἐλπίζων εἶναι . . ὀλβιώτατος Hdt. 1.30; ἐλπίζων σιτοδείην τε εἶναι ἰσχυρὴν . . καὶ τὸν λεὼν τετρῦσθαι ib. 22; οἰκότα ἐλπίζων ib.27, cf. A.Th.76, Ch.187; βοῦν ἢ λέοντ' ἤλπιζες ἐντείνειν βρόχοις; E.Andr.720; ἐλπίζει δυνατὸς εἶναι ἄρχειν Pl.R. 573c; ὅστις ἐλπίζει θεοὺς . . χαίρειν ἀπαρχαῖς Trag.Adesp.118.2: sts. of future events, τίς ἂν ἤλπισεν ἁμαρτήσεσθαί τινα τῶν πολιτῶν τοιαύτην ἁμαρτίαν; Lys.31.27; οὐδὲν . . ποιήσειν ἐλπίζων D.4.7.
The 1910 translation on Perseus has:
"and believing that it would be a great war, and more worthy of relation than any that had preceded it."

Benjamin Jowett (1881) on Perseus also has:
"believing that it would be great and memorable above any previous war."

But the other translation from 1843 on Perseus says:
"with expectation it should prove a great one and most worthy the relation of all that had been before it"

I took ἐλπίσας into account, but I didn't take it as "hoping" or "expecting." I figure that he wrote about the war after it had already happened, which means that he wasn't expecting anything of it, but he deemed or considered it to be great and most noteworthy.

:shrug: That's how I took it, anyway.

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Re: Thinking about Thucydides 2012

Post by Baker »

jaihare wrote:Actually, I was taking ἐλπίσας to mean "deemed" rather than "expected."
Ah, my error, I didn't note "deemed". But your section from LSJ says "c. pres. inf.", whereas this is a future infinitive, addressed in section one of the entry: "freq. with a dependent clause in inf., hope to do, or hope or expect that..," followed by examples with the future infinitive.

Although Thucydides was writing about a war that had already occurred, his hoping/expecting is in direct relation to his first statement where he says he wrote the war as they warred against each other and not after it was completed. My question is why does he put ἐπολέμηςαν rather than ἐπολέμουv?

Eliot

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Re: Thinking about Thucydides 2012

Post by jaihare »

Baker wrote:
jaihare wrote:Actually, I was taking ἐλπίσας to mean "deemed" rather than "expected."
Ah, my error, I didn't note "deemed". But your section from LSJ says "c. pres. inf.", whereas this is a future infinitive, addressed in section one of the entry: "freq. with a dependent clause in inf., hope to do, or hope or expect that..," followed by examples with the future infinitive.

Although Thucydides was writing about a war that had already occurred, his hoping/expecting is in direct relation to his first statement where he says he wrote the war as they warred against each other and not after it was completed. My question is why does he put ἐπολέμηςαν rather than ἐπολέμουv?

Eliot
You're right that he placed the "hoping" with the lining up of the armies (καθισταμένου), so it might just be better understood as "hoped," but I don't know. Doesn't really matter, I guess. :)

What is the ὡς clause associated with there, anyway? Is it tied to the previous clause or the following one?

In the 1910 translation above, it seems to be neglected:
"Thucydides, an Athenian, wrote the history of the war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, beginning at the moment that it broke out, and believing that it would be a great war, and more worthy of relation than any that had preceded it."

The other two somehow tie the phrase into the first clause. Should this mean to us that he was writing the book throughout the war, having started his writing itself (and not just his subject) at the breakout of the war? I would also, then, think that the πολεμέω would appear in the imperfect. Or, do you think it's an inceptive aorist - "as they began to fight against each other"?

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Re: Thinking about Thucydides 2012

Post by Baker »

I think the phrase ἀρξάμενος εὐθὺς καθισταμένου refers to his writing and, therefore, it seems he started to write at the outset.

As for the ὡς clause, I take it to refer to the prior statement. The 1910 translation seems odd in many respects. For example, it seems to translate τεκμαιρόμενος as "This belief was not without its grounds." I don't know what to say about that!

Smyth (1944) helps with the aorist/imperfect question, I think. He says, "In subordinate clauses the action expressed by the aorist may be (a) contemporaneous, (b) antecedent, or (c) subsequent to that set forth by the main verb. The context alone decides in which sense the aorist is to be taken." He then gives a nice quote from Thucydides 1.138 which has the same sense as the one we are dealing with. So now my question is, after having used Smyth for a while now, did the man ever sleep?

Eliot

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Re: Thinking about Thucydides 2012

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Baker wrote:I think the phrase ἀρξάμενος εὐθὺς καθισταμένου refers to his writing and, therefore, it seems he started to write at the outset.

As for the ὡς clause, I take it to refer to the prior statement. The 1910 translation seems odd in many respects. For example, it seems to translate τεκμαιρόμενος as "This belief was not without its grounds." I don't know what to say about that!

Smyth (1944) helps with the aorist/imperfect question, I think. He says, "In subordinate clauses the action expressed by the aorist may be (a) contemporaneous, (b) antecedent, or (c) subsequent to that set forth by the main verb. The context alone decides in which sense the aorist is to be taken." He then gives a nice quote from Thucydides 1.138 which has the same sense as the one we are dealing with. So now my question is, after having used Smyth for a while now, did the man ever sleep?

Eliot
LOL @ Smyth sleeping!!! Strangely enough, I sleep with Smyth beside me quite often nowadays. :)

I looked up the ingressive aorist last night and he gave ἐπολέμησα as one of the ingressives, giving it the meaning "began the war." (I'd always called this "inceptive," but he calls it "ingressive" in §1924.) Do you think this ingressive/inceptive aspect is intended here?

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Re: Thinking about Thucydides 2012

Post by Baker »

jaihare wrote:Do you think this ingressive/inceptive aspect is intended here?
I hadn't noted that entry and yes I think it works quite well here, especially in the sense of 1925 b. where he says, "The aorist of these verbs denotes also a simple occurrence of the action as an historical fact." With that in mind, I don't think it needs to be "began the war," but could be as Hobbes translates it: "as they warred..."

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Re: Thinking about Thucydides 2012

Post by C. S. Bartholomew »

1:1:3

... ἐκ δὲ τεκμηρίων ὧν ἐπὶ μακρότατον σκοποῦντί μοι πιστεῦσαι ξυμβαίνει οὐ μεγάλα νομίζω γενέσθαι οὔτε κατὰ τοὺς πολέμους οὔτε ἐς τὰ ἄλλα.

The syntax here is marvelous. G. Cooper (vol. 1, 51.92.2.B) joins (construes) the relative ὧν with the participle σκοποῦντί μοι. ἐπὶ μακρότατο limits σκοποῦντί. πιστεῦσαι ξυμβαίνει where ξυμβαίνει indicates that πιστεῦσαι is a consequence following from τεκμηρίων ὧν ἐπὶ μακρότατον σκοποῦντί μοι. This is a first cut. Open to revision.
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Re: Thinking about Thucydides 2012

Post by Dracodon »

This post may be a little late, but I'd like to join this group.

I started reading the OCT on 8 Jan, and so far I have managed to keep up with one page per day.

My goal is reading and understanding, rather than translation or detailed analysis.

I'm using the following approach:
1. Read through the whole page at my normal speed, while seeking to understand as much as possible in this first reading.
2. Go through the page again, but this time if I don't understand something, I will look up unfamiliar words or grammar as I go along.
3. Read through the page again at my normal speed.

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Re: Thinking about Thucydides 2012

Post by C. S. Bartholomew »

1.2.4
διὰ γὰρ ἀρετὴν γῆς αἵ τε
δυνάμεις τισὶ μείζους ἐγγιγνόμεναι στάσεις ἐνεποίουν ἐξ ὧν
ἐφθείροντο, καὶ ἅμα ὑπὸ ἀλλοφύλων μᾶλλον ἐπεβουλεύοντο.

τισὶ is demoted to a dative, Thucydides seems to have a habit of throwing human participants into oblique cases where one might expect them to be in the foreground. Here the excellence of the land ἀρετὴν γῆς occasions the exaltation of some αἵ τε δυνάμεις τισὶ μείζους ἐγγιγνόμεναι leading to (internal) distention στάσεις ἐνεποίουν which in turn becomes an occasion for other tribes ὑπὸ ἀλλοφύλων to lay plots ἐπεβουλεύοντο against [those who currently hold the more valuable land].

This is all pretty abstract. People are just types of groups who are driven by economic forces to do this or that. Like reading an ancient sociologist.
I have managed to keep up with one page per day.
But how are we going to discuss this for mutual benefit if no one is "on the same page"?
I am willing to skip ahead for discussion, but there hasn't been much in the way of questions so far.
C. Stirling Bartholomew

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Re: Thinking about Thucydides 2012

Post by Baker »

C.S. wrote:But how are we going to discuss this for mutual benefit if no one is "on the same page"?
I am willing to skip ahead for discussion, but there hasn't been much in the way of questions so far.
This is precisely why I suggested we give weekly updates so that those ahead could slow down a bit and chew on the finer points of the previous week's reading. However, it occurs to me now that, as an alternative, we could just put our current position in our signature each time we post so that readjustment of other members can be more immediate. What do you all think? I will put my position just in case this suits others.

I think it is important that we stay together for the sake of discussion, otherwise we will lose the beauty of having this be a group activity.


Cheers,
Eliot
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Re: Thinking about Thucydides 2012

Post by pster »

C. S. Bartholomew wrote:
I have managed to keep up with one page per day.
But how are we going to discuss this for mutual benefit if no one is "on the same page"?
I am willing to skip ahead for discussion, but there hasn't been much in the way of questions so far.
Well, having taught many a university course, I can attest to the fact that the students are never all on the same page. I guarantee you there are students at top universities right this very minute who are way way behind on their Thucydides reading. Certainly much many more than 6 pages, which is the maxium that one can be behind at this moment! People have other commitments. And the text is long. And there are tortises and hares and all that. For my part, I read about three pages, then decided to order Book I with commentary and notes because I don't like sitting in front of the computer to use the commentaries, and for Plato and Demosthenes, rightly or wrongly, I liked the convenience of having a lot of the vocabulary in the same text. I looked up so many words in dictionaries last year, I felt like I was on an assembly line. So I am waiting for that book to arrive--hoped it would be here by now. In the meantime, I have been doing a lot of Greek, just not Th. Also, I expect to go much slower in the beginning, but then to speed up gradually, something I should have thought about at the outset. But I am super commited to this for the long long haul. We'll see who makes it to the end! :D

I like Eliot's idea of putting our location in the text up, but I am happy to talk about a passage from Book 8. As far as grammar goes, I don't see how much it matters where we are. I do think we should all try to keep up with the thread also.

But I think it is great how many people have joined and I think this will be a great great thread. Welcome Dracodon! We have probably reached critical mass. If you have 2 people, you have 1 interaction, 3 people, 3 interactions, 4 people, 6 interactions, 5 people, 10 interactions, 6 people, 15 interactions! We seem to have at least 5, so that's a lot of interactions. (And if you also count three, four and five way interactions, there are 36 possible interactions!) At the current rate, the thread will grow to 700 pages and have 25000 posts.

C S Bartholomew, feel free to organize whatever discussions you want. I have been kicking around ideas for secondary literature. In that case, we can "require" folks to have done the reading by a certain date. Perhaps after we finish Book I, we can read some articles, and we can have presenters give short prepared remarks, then answer questions, say on Thursday nights.

How do folks see the balance between grammar, history, and political theory/philosophy in the thread?

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Re: Thinking about Thucydides 2012

Post by Baker »

pster wrote:...but I am happy to talk about a passage from Book 8. As far as grammar goes, I don't see how much it matters where we are. I do think we should all try to keep up with the thread also.
I agree with all of this and am equally thrilled that more folks have joined in.

I think it might be nice for many of us to use the Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics edition of Book II when we get there. Having used the series in the past (Plato, Herodotus), I can attest that it is a very professionally made series and I, for one, found it outstandingly helpful; it is aimed at helping students to learn to read the particular author and generally excels at doing so. I would be surprised if the Thucydides were any different.

As a side note, what have you taught at university, pster?

Cheers,
Eliot

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Re: Thinking about Thucydides 2012

Post by Baker »

I was just looking at the Hornblower Commentary on Amazon and wondering if we could really find a better companion. If only it weren't $200 to obtain all three volumes. While fretting about the price, I was able to find some humor. Amazon lists the number of pages for the three volume set as 56053! If you purchase each volume separately, you get about 2200 pages total. What a steal! How sublime and fulfilling it would be to read those "extra" 54000 pages. :lol:

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Re: Thinking about Thucydides 2012

Post by Scribo »

The Hornblower commentary is, frankly, amazing and was a great help during my having to study the Pelop. War. but if you're not studying the text for a specific reason it can be avoided, as the price may suggest.

There are some Green and Yellows which are good as is the "grammatical commentary"
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(P)Aristotle, Theophrastus and Peripatetic Greek
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Re: Thinking about Thucydides 2012

Post by pster »

Got my Cameron, Student's Grammatical Commentary. I was miffed though as I thought it contained the text to Bk. I. But it looks pretty good. He has lots and lots of Smyth numbers and thinks Smyth is great for Th. Maybe I'll buy a BCP tonight because I still want one self-contained volume; I guess it is just a dressed up Marchant.

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Re: Thinking about Thucydides 2012

Post by C. S. Bartholomew »

Pster wrote:
I was miffed though as I thought it contained the text to Bk. I. But it looks pretty good. He has lots and lots of Smyth numbers and thinks Smyth is great for Th. Maybe I'll buy a BCP tonight because I still want one self-contained volume;
I hear you. I like the old NT commentaries with the greek at the top of the page and notes in a double column at the bottom. Not having the greek text on the page is a major drawback.

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Re: Thinking about Thucydides 2012

Post by Dracodon »

Cyrus Gordon says that if you take the trouble to understand and memorise the grammar and vocabulary in the first twenty pages of a book in another language, then you will be able to read the rest of the book with scarcely any need of a dictionary.

So I am thinking that towards the end of January I will go back and review the first twenty or so pages - and make sure I have committed to memory all the grammar and words new to me.

Thanks Pster for starting up this reading group. I bought the OCT Thucydides in a second-hand book shop some time ago but kept getting sidetracked by Homer and Aristophanes. This thread provided the little push I needed to get me started on the Histories.

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Re: Thinking about Thucydides 2012

Post by pster »

Dracodon wrote:Cyrus Gordon says that if you take the trouble to understand and memorise the grammar and vocabulary in the first twenty pages of a book in another language, then you will be able to read the rest of the book with scarcely any need of a dictionary.

So I am thinking that towards the end of January I will go back and review the first twenty or so pages - and make sure I have committed to memory all the grammar and words new to me.
It is funny you should mention this, because I was thinking basically the same thing this last week. I was struggling with another text in another language, but finally got some old verb and old pronoun forms straight, and now everything is moving forward at a decent and ever increasing pace.

And I started Thucydides in earnest and I have been studying some of the quintessentially Thucydidean devices, such as the substantive neuter participle and prolepsis, in hope that there will be a good return later on the time invested now. So basically, I am taking the first 20 pages--broadly understood--very slowly to make sure that I understand everything. I'll post some questions and comments soon.

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Re: Thinking about Thucydides 2012

Post by Bob Manske »

In 1.23.3 he says that eclipses happened more frequently during the Peloponnesian War. I don't know about that. Here's a list of all eclipses visible in Greece during the period. Dates are astronomical, so for BCE subtract one more. In other words -0477 = 478 BCE.

Annular eclipses would not have been particularly noticeable unless you were really looking for them or you were in the eclipse path. Even then, the sky gets a little darker and the temperature falls a few degrees but that's it. And it's over fairly quickly. Only the ones in -0487 and -0477 would have been really apparent in Greece and those precede the period we're interested in. Although both might have been connected with the Persian attacks on Greece a few years earlier. Yet they were annular.

The total eclipse which passed through Greece in -0401 would have been spectacular. But after the war.

Here's the list:

Annular -0487 Sep 01 Thessalia, northern Anatolia
Perhaps noticeable in Athens

Annualar -0477 Feb 17 Pelopenessos, Attika, Dardanelles, Crimea,
Noticeable, but not work stopping

Total -0462 Apr 30 Tarantum, Albania, Makedonia, northern Anatolia
Perhaps noticeable, but before the war.

Annular -0430 08 03 through Romania, central Anatolia, into northern Iraq, may have been visible to interested parties in Greece, but not at all very darkening.

Annular in -0403 Sep 03, northern Romania, Crimea, Casipan Sea, same as above

Total eclipse -0401 Jan 18, Rome, Tarantum, Peloponnesos, Attika, Rhodos, south of Cyprus, Lebanon, Babylon.
Spectacularly visible. And definitely a work stopper. But after the war.

This is not to my mind an outrageous, or possibly even noticeable, increase in eclipse frequency. But of interest may be the two annulars which bracket the war. I don't know.

For reference: Those of you in the U.S. may remember the annular eclipse of +1994 May 10. It went through southern NM, the TX panhandle, up into central Illinois, over Lake Erie, the Adirondaks, and out through Northern New England and Nova Scotia. Or maybe, even if you were old enough, you don't remember it. That's the kind of impression most annulars give. I remember it only because I took my dog and telescope and camera to Champaign Illinois to observe it. It was fun but the dog was unimpressed. Didn't even give a poop. It was not particularly noticeable from Madison, only a couple of hundred miles north.

There's a total eclipse passing through Cairo Illinois on +2017 Aug 21. I'm waiting on that one.

In another thread someone was mentioning an eclipse for +2012 May 20. Not far off. The California/Oregon boundary to Lubbock Texas. It will be - annular. Interestingly, it's in the same Saros cycle as the one in +1994.


Source: Fred Espenak's atlas of solar eclipse paths, NASA.

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Re: Thinking about Thucydides 2012

Post by pster »

If you used the broadest reasonable definition for "partial eclipse," how many more solar eclipses would be on the list? Probably the answer is zero.

But what about lunar eclipses? Couldn't it be that there were more dramatic/total lunar eclipses in Greece during that time? Have you checked those records? And are we sure the Greek means eclipse of the sun? We probably are, but maybe the genitive means something else there. :lol:

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Re: Thinking about Thucydides 2012

Post by Bob Manske »

Well, he says specifically: "eclipses of the Sun". Never mentions the Moon.

As far as any other solar eclipses, the answer is exactly zero. An annular eclipse IS a partial eclipse everywhere except directly on the very narrow eclipse path itself and even then is annular only for the few minutes, if that long, it takes for the annularity to exist. They are partial eclipses the rest of the time. The same is true for total eclipses. So there are only two types of solar eclipses: total and annular. To repeat, only during the few moments on the rather narrow eclipse path itself do these eclipses vary from being "partial". So, yes, the list has been thoroughly checked.

Actually, lunar eclipses are slightly less frequent than solar eclipses but, each one being visible over what amounts to more than a hemisphere of the Earth at any time - which is much, much, much larger than the solar eclipse path, which at best is only a few miles wide, they seem more frequent. But, again, our author only referred to solar eclipses.

So, the real issue here is that when he mentions these eclipses, he's in the middle of telling us how thoroughly he's checked his facts, yet on this one fact at least he seems to have allowed himself to be persuaded by his perceptions rather than by reality. The moral is: we have to keep in mind that our author may not be as objective as he claims. Now, it's possible that he could have heard about one or more of the annular eclipses in the list from different sources and, it being the 5th Century BCE with everyone using their own calendar, he was unable to verify their dates as being congruent. It's also possible that the total eclipse which passed over the area after the war counted in his mind as being - well, plus or minus three years - within tolerance. This attitude would not at all be unusual for someone at that time.

Anyway, one of my goals in reading this is to look for the author's objectivity or impediments to his objectivity. I'm not at all trying to imply he was consciously dishonest. I don't get the impression that he was. But an unverified statement is less reliable than it could be. I think it's important.

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Re: Thinking about Thucydides 2012

Post by Paul Derouda »

I've been secretly trying to keep up with your reading... Because I don't know if I can commit myself to this one year enterprise, but I'll try for some time!

1) What you say about solar eclipses is interesting. According to E.C. Marchant's commentary on that passage, the eclipses occured in 431 B.C. (Thuc. 2.28), the other in 424 B.C. (Thuc. 4.52). As far as I understand those two other passages, Thucidides describes real solar eclipses and not some other phenomena (lunar eclipses, sky covered with volcanic ashes etc.). So if they never happened, that of course casts some doubts on his methods in general.

Are those solar eclipse calculations 100% accurate? I don't know much about the subject, but I remember the movements of the moon being notoriously unpredictable. I remember somebody tried to solve the problem of longitude by observing the moon, but that proved too complicated. Of course, mathematics have taken a leap forward since then... Still, wouldn't it be relieving if old Th. weren't talking nonsense?

2) Language question. Why is ἔστι in the present tense in the middle of this?

τά τε πρότερον ἀκοῇ μὲν λεγόμενα, ἔργῳ δὲ σπανιώτερον βεβαιούμενα οὐκ ἄπιστα κατέστη, σεισμῶν τε πέρι, οἳ ἐπὶ πλεῖστον ἅμα μέρος γῆς καὶ ἰσχυρότατοι οἱ αὐτοὶ ἐπέσχον, ἡλίου τε ἐκλείψεις, αἳ πυκνότεραι παρὰ τὰ ἐκ τοῦ πρὶν χρόνου μνημονευόμενα ξυνέβησαν, αὐχμοί τε ἔστι παρ᾽ οἷς μεγάλοι καὶ ἀπ᾽ αὐτῶν καὶ λιμοὶ καὶ ἡ οὐχ ἥκιστα βλάψασα καὶ μέρος τι φθείρασα ἡ λοιμώδης νόσος

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Re: Thinking about Thucydides 2012

Post by pster »

estin ois is a dative case example of a phrase that means some; the antecedent has been dropped, and when it is used with a preposition the preoposition goes in the middle. See Smyth 2514. Also Th. 5.25.2.

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Re: Thinking about Thucydides 2012

Post by Bob Manske »

The eclipse you mention in 431 BCE corresponds to -0430, so they are probably the same one. The other one you mention, in 424 BCE (=-0423), cannot be correct. There were two solar eclipses in that year.

1) March 21. The eclipse path ran from England through Denmark, up over Stockholm, through central Finland and then out over the Arctic Ocean just east of Murmansk. This was an annular eclipse.
2) On Sep 14. Curved from just south of South Island New Zealand across the South Pacific into Antarctica. This was a total eclipse.

Neither of these eclipses would have had any visible impact in Greece. Which is why they didn't appear in my earlier list. They're much further away, and so even less apparent from Greece, than any of those that did appear in the list.

As far as accuracy goes, yes, the results are very reasonably accurate. The major issue is the Earth's rotation, which is not constant. But when corrections are applied, they result in errors which amount to at most a few minutes of time or at most a few miles in geography, nothing more. NASA publishes all this data and it's very good and very reliable.

As to the circumstances of the individual eclipses, i.e. are they annular or total, that information is absolutely correct.

The longitude problem you mention is interesting. They tried using the Moon, the Galilean satellites of Jupiter, and maybe one or two other things, and all failed. But the issue isn't in the motions of the Moon or even the mathematics, which is really pretty simple (all you need is the ability to read tables and do some simple addition and subtraction - and have an idea of why you're performing the steps you are taking) but rather that, prior to modern navigational aids such as LORAN and especially GPS, the thing you most needed was an accurate watch that you could rely upon at sea or anywhere else. You would keep the watch set to some standard time (the English used the mean time at their Greenwich observatory - which was later adopted internationally) and that, compared with the local time, obtained by observation, gave you your longitude. By the middle of the 18th century the issue had been pretty well reduced to this time-keeping problem and the British Admiralty offered a huge (at the time) 20,000 pound reward for an accurate time piece which was won, and after much struggle which finally involved none other than King George III himself who said, essentially, "pay the man or I'll find out why", paid off, by a west country commoner named John Harrison.

The description in Book Two does appear to represent the eclipse of August -0430 mentioned in my list. This eclipse was annular over central Anatolia. To an observer in Greece, it would have been always partial. He says that the some of the stars came out and that the Sun took on a crescent shape, which is exactly how it would appear from nearby, that is, in Anatolia or from somewhere up the western Black Sea coast. Now, anybody looking at the event would never look at anything again. Before the time the pain of having their eyes burned out had traveled the short distance from their eyes to their brains, they'd be already blind. For life. You literally cannot, you do not have enough time, to avert your vision. But they could have observed indirectly. Images of the Sun shining on the ground through gaps in tree leaves will produce crescent shapes while the eclipse is going on. We observed this effect in the 1994 eclipse. So this one, I think, is a reliable report. And he's got it at the right time of year.

As a final word let me say that I want to point out that this does NOT necessarily reflect badly on Thoukydides' character. Every empire, kingdom, religious group, little city state, whatever had their own calendars and their own way of counting years and even of defining years. The Egyptians had at least two, and maybe a third, all going at the same time. Centuries after the Peloponnesian War we find Cicero writing to Atticus asking for help in correlating Roman consular lists with Athenian Archon lists, et al. There was no such correspondence in existence at the time. So it would not be difficult for our author to receive information about, say a single annular eclipse event, and, being unable to correlate, unable to apply corrections, not to mention the imprecision inherent in human memory, think he had a number of different eclipses on his hands. In addition, if we can believe all of them, there were about twice as many people at the famous Ice Bowl game between the Packers and the Cowboys than the stadium actually held. I think you get my point. In other words, the so-called eclipse in -0423 (which he does not otherwise specify), could very well be attributed to one or more of the issues above - particularly if he was writing about it some years after the presumed event. At any rate, he doesn't tell us where this particular event was observed.

Or maybe Thoukydides just wasn't as careful as he would like us to believe.

The question to keep in mind is: what irons did he have in the fire? And he had some. Keep your eyes open and your critical abilities sharp. I think you'll enjoy the readings more. I know I will.

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Re: Thinking about Thucydides 2012

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Very basic question. This is one of the reasons I find Attic so hard. 1.23.1:

τῶν δὲ πρότερον ἔργων μέγιστον ἐπράχθη τὸ Μηδικόν, καὶ τοῦτο ὅμως δυοῖν ναυμαχίαιν καὶ πεζομαχίαιν ταχεῖαν τὴν κρίσιν ἔσχεν.

What is the subject of ἐπράχθη? And what is the object? Is there an article missing? Is there a supressed "to be"? What steps do you follow in understanding the structure of this?

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Re: Thinking about Thucydides 2012

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Paul Derouda wrote:I've been secretly trying to keep up with your reading... Because I don't know if I can commit myself to this one year enterprise, but I'll try for some time!

1) What you say about solar eclipses is interesting. According to E.C. Marchant's commentary on that passage, the eclipses occured in 431 B.C. (Thuc. 2.28), the other in 424 B.C. (Thuc. 4.52). As far as I understand those two other passages, Thucidides describes real solar eclipses and not some other phenomena (lunar eclipses, sky covered with volcanic ashes etc.). So if they never happened, that of course casts some doubts on his methods in general.
Marchant says more than that. He goes on to say:

"He records two eclipses of the sun, one in 431 B.C. (2.28), the other in 424 B.C. (4.52), but if the Ten Years' War be meant, three eclipses could have been observed in Greece; or it the Twenty-seven Years' War is alluded to, six. Of course it is not certain that all of the eclipses were actually observed; Thuc., as Mr. Forbes says, only gives the popular opinion."

I'm not sure where Marchant gets the six number from. But I think his last point is a good one in light of the μνημονευόμενα. It is not Thucydides memory that is in play.

Moreover, if one were to develop an eclipse thesis, one would want to look at the seasons when eclipses happened because those occurring during rainy seasons might go unnoticed thereby skewing the frequencies, observed and remembered, in favor of those that happened on sunny days.

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Re: Thinking about Thucydides 2012

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Firstly, What is the source of Marchant's information? The quote given is very unspecific. I suspect that Marchant had no reliable information about eclipse paths in antiquity and accepted Thoukydides' remarks at face value. It's quite reasonable - he wasn't able to check them. Therefore, he would start talking about an eclipse in -0423 (=424 BCE), because that's the date that's indicated in the text, without knowing that there wasn't one. I think an innocent man may have been introduced into this discussion.

Secondly, keep in mind that Thoukydides only mentions two eclipses, and says that eclipses were more frequent during the Peloponnesian War. That's what we're talking about. Any others are irrelevant to this discussion.

Thirdly, It has been demonstrated by NASA that there was NO eclipse visible in Greece or environs in 424 BCE. None. Zero. Nada. Zilch. So the report of one is in error. That does not in any way absolve Thoukydides' memory. It doesn't indict it, either. I have indicated several reasons why this error could have occurred. I'm sure that list of reasons isn't exhaustive.

Fourthly, the list of eclipses that came to or near Greece in the time period indicated is exhaustive. It doesn't matter whether they happened in rainy seasons, dry seasons, or whenever. If they didn't exist, they could not actually have been observed under any conditions. But reports of "eclipses", whatever they are in reality, can be misunderstood, poorly collated, poorly dated, whatever. And again, that has absolutely nothing at all to do with the local weather or climate. Anyway, we haven't been talking about any unobserved eclipses. Quite the opposite. In particular, we're talking about one that was reported (in the text) which did not occur.

All we're trying to say here is this:

a) The report in Thoukydides of a solar eclipse visible in Greece or environs in -0423 (=424 BCE) is in error. For whatever reason, it is in error.
b) His report of an eclipse in -0430 (=431 BCE) seems to be valid. Good for him.
c) It does not appear that there was an unusual number of eclipses visible in Greece during the Peloponnesian War. Despite what Thoukydides says. His statement could be attributed to faulty reports, faulty personal impressions, personal druthers whatever. Bias or error, it happens all the time.
d) These are examples that show that what he says isn't necessarily what happened. That's all. It's not an attack on Thoukydides or anyone else. It just recommends that verification be applied whenever possible and to look out for personal biases. That's all. That's all, folks. That's all. I hope that's all.

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Re: Thinking about Thucydides 2012

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pster wrote:Very basic question. This is one of the reasons I find Attic so hard. 1.23.1:

τῶν δὲ πρότερον ἔργων μέγιστον ἐπράχθη τὸ Μηδικόν, καὶ τοῦτο ὅμως δυοῖν ναυμαχίαιν καὶ πεζομαχίαιν ταχεῖαν τὴν κρίσιν ἔσχεν.

What is the subject of ἐπράχθη? And what is the object? Is there an article missing? Is there a supressed "to be"? What steps do you follow in understanding the structure of this?
I think the subject is the two words right after the verb. I translated it as something like: "The Medik (War) was the biggest one fought of all those earlier ones and yet this one got a speedy end in two sea battles and two land battles.

Steps? I don't know that I have a procedure. I guess, when in doubt, look for the verb then try to identify all possible nominatives as candidates, not forgetting that it might be contained in the verb. In this case there's only μέγιστον and τὸ Μηδικόν. Both neuters, so one probably goes with the other. The actual subject is most likely the one with the article. Then run a trial translation, see if it works contextually, and can I find any grammar that would go against my translation? If not, then onward.

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Re: Thinking about Thucydides 2012

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My point about weather is just that if there was a raging thunderstorm during a (partial) eclipse early in the century, arguably nobody will have noticed it, and therefore it will seem as though there were more eclipses later. Too bad we don't have weather reports from NASA for those days. :lol:
Last edited by pster on Tue Jan 24, 2012 10:00 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Thinking about Thucydides 2012

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So I checked out the NASA pages briefly. There was an eclipse in 424. The path was north of Greece.

See the big path over Scandanavia on this map:

http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEatlas/SE ... s-0439.GIF

And if you look at this pdf for more detail, it was visible over Greece:

http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEhistory/ ... Mar21A.pdf

NASA dates it in March. Thucydides says that it happened at the beginning of the summer.

Furthermore, see the paper:

The Eclipses Recorded by Thucydides
F. Richard Stephenson and Louay J. Fatoohi
Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte
Bd. 50, H. 2 (2nd Qtr., 2001), pp. 245-253

http://www.jstor.org/pss/4436614

They present a table:

"Table 1: Solar eclipses visible at Athens around the time of the Peloponnesian War
Date (B.C.) Magnitude Time Altitude
433 Mar 30 0.55 14:15 43
431 Aug 3 0.88 17:30 18
426 Nov 4 0.32 14:05 30
424 Mar 21 0.71 08:30 27
418Junl 1 0.12 11:40 74
411 Jan 27 0.35 10:20 28
409 Jun 1 0.47 12:00 73
405 Mar 20 0.38 17:45 0
404 Sep 3 0.73 08:35 36
402 Jan 1 1.04 09:00 17" (p.247)

And they write:

"The second solar eclipse noted by Thucydides (4.52.1) occurred "at the very beginning of
summer", seven years after the previous eclipse. From Table 1, it is evident that the eclipse of
B.C. 424 Mar 21 must be referred to here.
This event took place at the appropriate time of year and would be quite significant: magnitude 0.71 at Athens and much the same throughout the Aegean (for instance 0.74 at Thrace) at about 8:30 a.m." (p. 248)

It is a fun paper and has lots of nice pictures. Highly recommended.

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Re: Thinking about Thucydides 2012

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I know about that eclipse and referenced it in one of my earlier posts. The descriptions you reference are modern interpretations of what an eclipse looks like. They rely on predictive techniques and instrumentation not available to the ancients. I've seen solar eclipses from even closer than the distance from Scandinavia to Greece and I'll tell you right now at that distance, you have to know that an eclipse was taking place. A 71% diminution in the Sun's light seems like a lot, and it is, but even then Sun is still so very brilliant that it's blinding. You can't look directly at it even when it's even 99% covered. The light shining through what are called "Bailey's Beads" on the edge of the Moon is intense. And that is more than 99% coverage. Believe me.

I observed a partial from Madison just a few years ago. It was near Christmas. It got up to something in the area of 50% coverage. If you didn't know the eclipse was on, you would never have noticed the diminution of light. It made no impression at all on the community.

So I repeat, I don't think this eclipse is a candidate. I would like it to be. But it doesn't seem like it is. You have to be much closer to the center line to notice it casually.

But I'm glad you're looking this stuff up on your own. That's what I'm trying to generate.

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Re: Thinking about Thucydides 2012

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pster wrote:Very basic question. This is one of the reasons I find Attic so hard. 1.23.1:

τῶν δὲ πρότερον ἔργων μέγιστον ἐπράχθη τὸ Μηδικόν, καὶ τοῦτο ὅμως δυοῖν ναυμαχίαιν καὶ πεζομαχίαιν ταχεῖαν τὴν κρίσιν ἔσχεν.

What is the subject of ἐπράχθη? And what is the object? Is there an article missing? Is there a supressed "to be"? What steps do you follow in understanding the structure of this?
I suppose what's misleading you is πρότερον, which is an adverb here (or something), and does not go with the other neuters. τὸ Μηδικόν [ἔργον] is subject and μέγιστον is predicative.

Bob, about the longitude problem: The reason they were trying to chart the movements of the moon or the satellites of Jupiter was precisely that they didn't have any reliable watch set to standard time, as any watch before John Harrison's chronometre was next to useless on the sea for this purpose. They thought they could observe the moon or Jupiter's satellites, compare their observations to pre-made charts and establish standard time like that, and this standard time compared to the local solar time would permit to establish longitude. Just imagine how difficult it would have been, peeking at Jupiter's moons and trying to make out their relative positions on some shaky little ship!

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Re: Thinking about Thucydides 2012

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Paul Derouda wrote: Bob, about the longitude problem: The reason they were trying to chart the movements of the moon or the satellites of Jupiter was precisely that they didn't have any reliable watch set to standard time, as any watch before John Harrison's chronometre was next to useless on the sea for this purpose. They thought they could observe the moon or Jupiter's satellites, compare their observations to pre-made charts and establish standard time like that, and this standard time compared to the local solar time would permit to establish longitude. Just imagine how difficult it would have been, peeking at Jupiter's moons and trying to make out their relative positions on some shaky little ship!
Well, sea-borne observations are very difficult, yes. As for the rest, yes, I think that's what I said, or tried to at any rate. Regardless, the system still required sea-borne observations but now, for the first time, they had a reliable base-line to compare them with. So I am in full agreement with you on this. Absolutely.

Different issue, eclipses, nothing to do with the above: Might as well get this all done in one post:

As for the eclipse of -0423 (=424 BCE): Here's how it works. Astronomy uses a magnitude scale derived from work originally performed by an ancient Greek, Hipparkhos. Hipparkhos started with the brightest stars in the sky, which he called "first magnitude" and then went on down through "second", "third", etc., until he got to "sixth" which was as faint as he could see. OK. So we have a difference of five magnitudes between the bright ones and the faint ones. Well enough.

There is where matters stood until the 19th century when technology allowed astronomers to actually measure, as opposed to estimate, stellar brightnesses. Taking representative first and sixth magnitude stars, they discovered the sixth magnitude stars are actually about 100 time fainter than first magnitude stars. In other words, the human (and presumably this is true for other animals as well) visual system is skewed to prevent the bright objects from swamping the faint ones. Fainter objects appear much brighter to us in relation to brighter objects than they really are. Further investigation revealed that representative stars of any given magnitude were about 2.5 times brighter or fainter than stars of neighboring magnitudes. So the astronomers institutionalized it. They defined a difference of one magnitude as being a difference of the fifth root of 100 times in brightness (= approx. 2.5).

A rough idea of how this works, based on a first magnitude star, is:
first = 1 brightness
second = 1/2.5 brightness
third = 1/6 brightness
fourth = 1/16 brightness
fifth = 1/40 brightness
sixth = 1/100 brightness

For reference, all the stars in the Big Dipper are second magnitude stars except the one where the handle joins the bowl. That guy is a third magnitude star. Polaris is also a second magnitude star.

So, to get the actual difference in brightness between two objects, using the difference in magnitudes between them as an exponent you get 2.5 ^ difference (where "^" means use the following number as an exponent). A difference of five magnitudes is then 2.5 to the fifth power which is: 100.

Once the measured magnitude scale was defined, astronomers could talk about an extended range of magnitudes - and they did. Let's take some everyday examples. On this extended magnitude scale they placed the Sun and the Moon. The Sun is very nearly at -27 magnitude (very, very bright as the negative sign indicates). The Full Moon is about -13 (very, very bright). Those numbers look very close, don't they? 27/13 is just a bit more than 2. So the Sun isn't all that much brighter than the Full Moon, right?

Wrong.

It's 2.5 to the 14th power times brighter than the Full Moon. I'll do the math for you. That's about 400,000 times brighter. I kid you not. It is extremely bright.

Now a 70% obscured Sun, in the eclipse you're talking about, shines about 30% brighter than normal. In other words, it's only about 1/3 as bright as before. How does this compare to a Full Moon? You can do this one in your head. 1/3 of 400,000 is about 130,000. A 70% obscured Sun is about 130,000 times brighter than a Full Moon! Next time you see a Full Moon, imagine something about 130,000 times brighter and you have a Sun as it was visible from Athens during the eclipse of -0423. Now tell me about how noticeable the diminution of sunlight would be to you.

That's also an example of how skewed the human visual system really is. And it's an evolutionary plus, an advantage to the user. That's why things in nature happen that way.

The annular eclipse of 1994 that passed over central Illinois was, in Madison, more than a .9 magnitude eclipse (here's where I don't like the way astronomers use the term - it means something different here, it means diminution from full brightness). More than .9, not .7 as the eclipse of -0323 was in Athens. More than .9. And it didn't even stop traffic in Wisconsin, except for those who actually knew there was an eclipse taking place.

Madison is a lot closer to the center line of the 1994 eclipse than Athens was to the center line of the -0323 eclipse. A lot closer. Moral, you have to be very close to the center line. Not hundreds of miles away. In 1954 a total eclipse passed just north of Denmark (about the same as the -0323 eclipse) and then passed over Lithuania. This eclipse was observed in Austria - only by those who knew it was taking place. I know. I was there. Austria was a lot closer to the center line of this eclipse than Athens was to the eclipse of -0323. We had a .79 (not a .72, a .79) eclipse. Spectacular to people who write papers, yet nothing out of the ordinary was visible to the casual observer. Most of the people on Textkit have probably been in that position relative to a solar eclipse, yet wouldn't have noticed (even if they did) without being told about it. I would dearly love for that eclipse of -0323 to be the one Thoukydides was talking about, but I just can't vouch for it.

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Re: Thinking about Thucydides 2012

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Bob, if a .71 eclipse happened at a baseball game with 20,000 people in the stands, how many people would notice?

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Re: Thinking about Thucydides 2012

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Paul Derouda wrote:
I suppose what's misleading you is πρότερον, which is an adverb here (or something), and does not go with the other neuters. τὸ Μηδικόν [ἔργον] is subject and μέγιστον is predicative.
OK, that's what I figured, but I don't know what the verb would be. Can you give me a good translation of the verb as used here? And, and a translation of the correlated active version? I'm probably just being dense, but I couldn't come up with a suitable English translation that makes any sense and works both passively and actively. Seems like the translators have difficulty with it also and thus typically opt for the copula.

Thanks in advance.

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Re: Thinking about Thucydides 2012

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pster wrote:Very basic question. This is one of the reasons I find Attic so hard. 1.23.1:

τῶν δὲ πρότερον ἔργων μέγιστον ἐπράχθη τὸ Μηδικόν, καὶ τοῦτο ὅμως δυοῖν ναυμαχίαιν καὶ πεζομαχίαιν ταχεῖαν τὴν κρίσιν ἔσχεν.

What is the subject of ἐπράχθη? And what is the object? Is there an article missing? Is there a supressed "to be"? What steps do you follow in understanding the structure of this?
I see this has been answered at least twice. I am not certain that πρότερον is adverbial. It could be an adjective used with μέγιστον. There seem to be two clauses here, the passive verb ἐπράχθη PRASSW where the subject is the substantive μέγιστον limited by [πρότερον?] τῶν ἔργων. Either the substantive μέγιστον or the whole ἐπράχθη clause stands against τὸ Μηδικόν where the verb "to be" is not really suppressed, but unnecessary.

The procedure I follow is to isolate the main verb ἐπράχθη and then look for verb "arguments" μέγιστον, τῶν ἔργων, πρότερον. Assign each argument a semantic and a grammatical role, e.g., agent, patient, goal, instrument, subject, object, qualifier.

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Re: Thinking about Thucydides 2012

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Thanks CSB, but can you translate the passive PRASSW here and the corresponding active PRASSW.

The Persian war was done greatest of previous (wars).

Is that how you translate it most literally?

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Re: Thinking about Thucydides 2012

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C. S. Bartholomew wrote: I see this has been answered at least twice. I am not certain that πρότερον is adverbial. It could be an adjective used with μέγιστον. There seem to be two clauses here, the passive verb ἐπράχθη PRASSW where the subject is the substantive μέγιστον limited by [πρότερον?] τῶν ἔργων. Either the substantive μέγιστον or the whole ἐπράχθη clause stands against τὸ Μηδικόν where the verb "to be" is not really suppressed, but unnecessary.

The procedure I follow is to isolate the main verb ἐπράχθη and then look for verb "arguments" μέγιστον, τῶν ἔργων, πρότερον. Assign each argument a semantic and a grammatical role, e.g., agent, patient, goal, instrument, subject, object, qualifier.

C. Stirling Bartholomew
I don't know if adverbial was the right word for πρότερον. But don't think it's used with μέγιστον. Rather I think it its defines τῶν ἔργων, and I think it could be replaced by προτέρων without much changing the meaning. LSJ, section A. IV is what I have in mind. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/mor ... ek#lexicon

I translate: Of earlier wars the biggest [to happen] was the Medic.

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Re: Thinking about Thucydides 2012

Post by C. S. Bartholomew »

Paul Derouda wrote:
C. S. Bartholomew wrote: I see this has been answered at least twice. I am not certain that πρότερον is adverbial. It could be an adjective used with μέγιστον. There seem to be two clauses here, the passive verb ἐπράχθη PRASSW where the subject is the substantive μέγιστον limited by [πρότερον?] τῶν ἔργων. Either the substantive μέγιστον or the whole ἐπράχθη clause stands against τὸ Μηδικόν where the verb "to be" is not really suppressed, but unnecessary.

The procedure I follow is to isolate the main verb ἐπράχθη and then look for verb "arguments" μέγιστον, τῶν ἔργων, πρότερον. Assign each argument a semantic and a grammatical role, e.g., agent, patient, goal, instrument, subject, object, qualifier.

C. Stirling Bartholomew
I don't know if adverbial was the right word for πρότερον. But don't think it's used with μέγιστον.
I suspect you are right. It could limit the verb ἐπράχθη or the whole clause in either case it would function as an adverb. What I find intriguing about the syntax is the absence of a relative pronoun. The clause with ἐπράχθη is subordinate. Does anyone favor reading τῶν as a relative?

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