Sextus Empiricus' PH i 15

[stoic1]

Hi there! I've been studying Ancient Greek nearly for a year, and I'm somewhat versed in Latin too. I'm from Argentina, so I will apologize in advance for my english.

I would like to share the following passage from Sextus Empiricus' Outlines of Pyrrhonism:

τὸ δὲ μέγιστον, ἐν τῇ προφορᾷ τῶν φωνῶν τούτων τὸ ἑαυτῷ φαινόμενον λέγει καὶ τὸ πάθος ἀπαγγέλλει τὸ ἑαυτοῦ ἀδοξάστως, μηδὲν περὶ τῶν ἔξωθεν ὑποκειμένων διαβεβαιούμενος.

Which Bury translates as:

And, most important of all, in his enunciation of these formulae [he] states what appears to himself and announces his own imporession in an undogmatic way, without making any positive assertion regarding the external realities.

I'm puzzled about what the underlined τὸ means. If I understand correctly, the object of ἀπαγγέλλει is τὸ πάθος ἑαυτοῦ, "the impression of himself" or simply, as Bury puts it, "his own impression". I think the text could just say τὸ πάθος ἀπαγγέλλει ἑαυτοῦ and it would be the same. Maybe the underlined τὸ is just referring to τὸ πάθος? If so, is this a strange usage of the article or a common one?

Thanks in advance!

[cb]

Hi! This is pretty normal.

ἑαυτοῦ goes in the attributive position (see e.g. Cambridge grammar sec. 28.16, Smyth sec. 1163).

This means the article goes with ἑαυτοῦ (Cambridge grammar sec. 28.11, Smyth sec. 1154), and so τὸ πάθος … τὸ ἑαυτοῦ is one typical way of ordering this. Another would be τὸ ἑαυτοῦ πάθος (in between the article and substantive).The latter order is used elsewhere by Sextus Empiricus, e.g. 1.200: ἀλλὰ τὸ ἑαυτοῦ πάθος ἀπαγγέλλοντος.

Where you say then:

I think the text could just say τὸ πάθος ἀπαγγέλλει ἑαυτοῦ and it would be the same.

it may be worth reviewing that in light of the above: an attributive genitive of a substantive could stand in predicative position like that (Cambridge grammar sec. 28.15, Smyth sec. 1161), and then there are words like μου and αὐτοῦ that always go in predicative position when used attributively. But ἑαυτοῦ is different, and goes in any of the attributive positions.

Your English seems perfect by the way! Cheers, Chad

[stoic1]

Excellent! That was very clarifying, and Sextus' reference is really helpful. Thanks a lot for the quick reply .