Thucydides 1.82.6

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hlawson38
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Thucydides 1.82.6

Post by hlawson38 »

ἐγκλήματα μὲν γὰρ καὶ πόλεων καὶ ἰδιωτῶν οἷόν τε καταλῦσαι: πόλεμον δὲ ξύμπαντας ἀραμένους ἕνεκα τῶν ἰδίων, ὃν οὐχ ὑπάρχει εἰδέναι καθ᾽ ὅτι χωρήσει, οὐ ῥᾴδιον εὐπρεπῶς θέσθαι.
Trial translation: For accusations/complains of states and individuals may be adjusted. But a war of allliance systems for the sake of individual states, of which it is not possible to foresee how it will turn out, is hard to settle in an honorable way.

I don't understand the grammar of the clause that follows the colon. Is it meant to mirror grammatically the first clause? I can't give a grammatical rationale for the accusative "ξύμπαντας ἀραμένους".
πόλεμον δὲ ξύμπαντας ἀραμένους ἕνεκα τῶν ἰδίων, ὃν οὐχ ὑπάρχει εἰδέναι καθ᾽ ὅτι χωρήσει, οὐ ῥᾴδιον εὐπρεπῶς θέσθαι
Does "οἷόν τε" in the clause before the colon also apply here?

It's possible I'm in a muddle here, for I've been working on this sentence for a while. I understand that in the clause before the colon "οἷόν τε" means "it is possible", and that "καταλῦσαι" is the infinitive complement to this meaning.
Hugh Lawson

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Re: Thucydides 1.82.6

Post by mwh »

What follows the colon is quite separate—grammatically independent of everything that comes before it.

ὃν refers to a war (πόλεμον) “which it’s not possible to know (ὃν οὐχ ὑπάρχει εἰδέναι) how (καθ’ὅτι, “in accordance with what”) it will go (χωρήσει).”

The ὃν (direct object of εἰδέναι) is proleptic, in accordance with Greek idiom; the syntax of “to settle a war which it’s not possible to know how it will turn out” is basically the same as “consider the lilies how they grow.”

So lit. “but all (collectively) undertaking a war for the sake of private affairs … is not easy to settle respectably.”
Grammatically speaking, it’s all an acc.&infin. dependent on οὐ ῥᾴδιον (εστι), with πόλεμον the object first of the participle and then of εὐπρεπῶς θέσθαι. The subject of the infinitive is not expressed, but of course it’s plural (ξύμπαντας ἀραμένους, where ξύμπαντας is predicative).

You see how this balances (in typically unbalanced fashion) the prior limb, ἐγκλήματα μὲν … οἷόν τε καταλῦσαι (active not passive).

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Re: Thucydides 1.82.6

Post by hlawson38 »

Many thanks, mwh. I have to study your reply. I may have some questions, but I'm not yet ready to ask any.
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Re: Thucydides 1.82.6

Post by mwh »

Ask away, Hugh, whenever you’re ready. There are a lot of moving parts, and I probably didn’t explain them very well. I could have said more but didn’t want to say too much.
Michael

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Re: Thucydides 1.82.6

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mwh wrote: Thu Feb 23, 2023 2:26 am Ask away, Hugh, whenever you’re ready. There are a lot of moving parts, and I probably didn’t explain them very well. I could have said more but didn’t want to say too much.
Michael
Let me print the quotation for ease of reference:
πόλεμον δὲ ξύμπαντας ἀραμένους ἕνεκα τῶν ἰδίων, ὃν οὐχ ὑπάρχει εἰδέναι καθ᾽ ὅτι χωρήσει, οὐ ῥᾴδιον εὐπρεπῶς θέσθαι.
First, your "οὐ ῥᾴδιον (εστι)" is most helpful. I sensed the want of a verb, but I didn't think of this solution. It seems obvious, now.

But, I'm baffled by the two accusatives: "ξύμπαντας ἀραμένους". Does this translate into something like: "but the alliance system's going to war"? So that "πόλεμον" is the direct object of the participle "ἀραμένους"?

Or something else? This was the most difficult question I faced.
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Re: Thucydides 1.82.6

Post by mwh »

Yes πόλεμον is the direct object of ἀραμένους (lit. “having undertaken a war”). ξύμπαντας, in agreement with ἀραμένους, indicates that it was a collective undertaking; they all undertook it.

Was that really the most difficult question you faced?

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Re: Thucydides 1.82.6

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mwh wrote: Thu Feb 23, 2023 3:26 am Yes πόλεμον is the direct object of ἀραμένους (lit. “having undertaken a war”). ξύμπαντας, in agreement with ἀραμένους, indicates that it was a collective undertaking; they all undertook it.

Was that really the most difficult question you faced?
Yes. I wrote out the sentence in longhand twice parsing each word, checking the endings when necessary. For some reason, I did not perceive the grammatical relationship described above. For a while I considered an accusative absolute, but I could find no support for that in my grammar books. Then I decided to run up the distress flag here.

To me this is a wonderful speech, and the meanings seemed to shine through my difficulties with grammar.

The other problem was the want of a verb in the second clause. I speculated that a silent "οἷόν τε" might work, but that was a "Hail Mary" guess.

I am going through this speech again trying to find points I overlooked the first run. I have many more difficulties, but the lexicon, Cameron's commentary, and Hobbes's translation usually show the way.
Hugh Lawson

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Re: Thucydides 1.82.6

Post by jeidsath »

I took the bones of what it's trying to be when it starts off:

ἐγκλήματα μὲν οἷόν τε καταλῦσαι· πόλεμον δὲ οὐ ῥᾴδιον εὐπρεπῶς θέσθαι.
It's possible take care of complaints, but it's not easy to fairly settle a war.

But then he intrudes a subject for θέσθαι into this, the ξύμπαντας ἀραμένους, upsetting the balance. Fine I guess, but ugh.

ἐγκλήματα μὲν οἷόν τε καταλῦσαι· πόλεμον δὲ ξύμπαντας ἀραμένους οὐ ῥᾴδιον εὐπρεπῶς θέσθαι.
It's possible take care of complaints, but it's not easy for everybody having undertaken a war to fairly settle it.

However, if he did have that first balanced expression in mind as he wrote, you could take ξύμπαντας ἀραμένους as accusative absolute without too much violence, I'd think.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

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Re: Thucydides 1.82.6

Post by mwh »

Hugh, I hesitate to question your methods, but I do wonder if it’s really necessary for you with your experience to write it all out in longhand even once. It seems so laborious a procedure that it could risk blinding you to things that otherwise might be immediately apparent.

But Thucydides’ speeches are always worth going through again! And they don’t always get much easier.

(Incidentally, I think Joel would have done better to keep his “Fine I guess, but ugh” reaction to himself, and I doubt he has much insight into Thucydides’ thought processes or compositional procedures.)

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Re: Thucydides 1.82.6

Post by jeidsath »

Your post, Michael, was all rhetoric and no information, and might, as you say, have been better left unwritten.

Still, it's a fair point that I hardly know a thing about Thucydides, and in fact I haven't read more than a few dozen pages of him. But I do note that Richard Crawley took this as an accusative absolute, exactly as I suggest (as a mere possibility) above:

"Complaints, whether of communities or individuals, it is possible to adjust; but war undertaken by a coalition for sectional interests, whose progress there is no means of foreseeing, does not easily admit of creditable settlement."
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

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Re: Thucydides 1.82.6

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ἐγκλήματα μὲν γὰρ καὶ πόλεων καὶ ἰδιωτῶν οἷόν τε καταλῦσαι: πόλεμον δὲ ξύμπαντας ἀραμένους ἕνεκα τῶν ἰδίων, ὃν οὐχ ὑπάρχει εἰδέναι καθ᾽ ὅτι χωρήσει, οὐ ῥᾴδιον εὐπρεπῶς θέσθαι.
One of my questions: what is the antecedent of ὃν? Is it the noun πόλεμον? or is it the phrase πόλεμον δὲ ξύμπαντας ἀραμένους ἕνεκα τῶν ἰδίων? I am inclined to think the latter. Settling a war between two states is hard. But settling a war between alliance systems, when all the members of the Spartan system will not be in perfect agreement is really hard.

For a tentative satisfactory meaning, I could take it either way. But as I studied the speech I became so impressed with the thinking of the Spartan spokesman that I wanted to resolve the matter.

My conclusion: I am definitely not cut out to be a statesman. ;-)
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Re: Thucydides 1.82.6

Post by mwh »

@Joel: You’re wrong to say my post had no information. But that aside, what makes you think Crawley took this as an accusative absolute?

@Hugh: The antecedent is πόλεμον. It can’t be the phrase; that would not be referred to by a masculine singular relative. ὃν οὐχ ὑπάρχει εἰδέναι καθ᾽ ὅτι χωρήσει specifies the kind of war in question (i.e. one that’s impossible to know how it will go). ξύμπαντας ἀραμένους ἕνεκα τῶν ἰδίων (syntactically dependent on what follows the relative clause) gives further information about its circumstances.

I'm clearly not cut out to be a statesman either.

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Re: Thucydides 1.82.6

Post by jeidsath »

Yes, let's lay that aside. What makes me say that Crawley is translating θέσθαι impersonally? If "coalition" were the subject, he would have phrased it differently. But that "admit of" is what really makes it clear. Crawley, like other translators of his time, used "admit of" for impersonal expressions or whenever there was no subject to express. You'll see it all the time in the LSJ. First, here are Crawley's two other examples in Thucydides:

1.138
sudden crises which admit of little or of no deliberation
τῶν ... παραχρῆμα δι᾽ ἐλαχίστης βουλῆς
[unexpressed subject: deliberation by whom?]

1.142 (also in the LSJ)
will not admit of being taken up occasionally as an occupation for times of leisure
οὐκ ἐνδέχεται, ὅταν τύχῃ, ἐκ παρέργου μελετᾶσθαι
[unexpressed subject: taken up by whom?]

General examples from the LSJ:

Th.4.8
οὐκ ἔχει ἀπόβασιν
does not admit of landing, or has no landing-place
[unexpressed subject (in first possibility): landing by whom?]

Plot.3.8.9
ἐκφεύξεται τὰ δύο
will not admit of duality
[unexpressed subject (though we could quibble): duality of what?]

Hdt.2.23
οὐκ ἔχει ἔλεγχον
does not admit of disproof
[unexpressed subject: disproof by whom?]

Hp.Aph.5.7.
μετάστασιν ἴσχειν
admit of removal
[unexpressed subject: removal by whom?]

D.H.Comp.12.
εἰς καθολικὴν καὶ ἔντεχνον περίληψιν πεσεῖν
admit of general and technical comprehension
[unexpressed subject: comprehension by whom?]

Arist.GA783a12
οὐ δέχεται πλοκήν
do not admit of being made into a web
[unexpressed subject: made into a web by what?]
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

Joel Eidsath -- jeidsath@gmail.com

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Re: Thucydides 1.82.6

Post by hlawson38 »

mwh wrote: Fri Feb 24, 2023 2:02 am

@Hugh: The antecedent is πόλεμον. It can’t be the phrase; that would not be referred to by a masculine singular relative. ὃν οὐχ ὑπάρχει εἰδέναι καθ᾽ ὅτι χωρήσει specifies the kind of war in question (i.e. one that’s impossible to know how it will go). ξύμπαντας ἀραμένους ἕνεκα τῶν ἰδίων (syntactically dependent on what follows the relative clause) gives further information about its circumstances.

I'm clearly not cut out to be a statesman either.
Those pesky gender issues mess up my speculation! I glad my question is settled grammatically.
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Re: Thucydides 1.82.6

Post by mwh »

Good, I’m glad that’s settled. If you have further questions I’ll do my best to answer them.

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