I have done a very simple computer game that I intend to put online so as to give people a chance to practice a little Greek especially numbers. The basic scenario is that you are a ruler of a group of peasants. You can assign them to work the fields, weave or build a flood protection wall. The peasants can die from starvation, drowning or from the cold. If you let too many die they rebel. Game over.
I have done the basic back end so now I am doing the input interface. I am keen to make sure that I get at least this bit right. I am going to have to convert any input into something the computer understands so if I have to correct it later it will involve rewriting the code.
The player types in a commands to assign a groups of peasants to something different I thought of using 3rd person imperatives :
ὑφαινόντων γυναικὼν γεωργουσῶν μία τεσσαράκοντα ἑκατόν
That is intended to mean:
Let be weaving of the women farming 141.
that is
take out of the number of women who are currently working in the fields the number of 141 and assign them to weaving clothes.
There will be drop down options so it can be more complicated than that, However if it is too complicated the player may stop reading the whole sentence and just pay attention to the bits that change.
I have already posted to the composition board so apologies to those who have already seen this.
No, that’s worse and ungrammatical too. My complaint about the first version is only that it’s not something anyone would ever utter, just like the English translation. You would want to say something like, Transfer x women currently working in the fields to weaving.
Also, practice with numbers isn’t something that would be particularly useful in reading ancient Greek texts. In my experience, at least, there aren’t a lot of numbers in the texts and usually they’re rounded – the number of troops seems to me to be the most frequent use of large numbers I’ve encountered, and those are usually rounded. I haven’t read any technical texts on mathematics or astronomy, however, although I think those typically use alphabetical symbols rather than spelling out numbers in words.
The third-person imperative is also rarely encountered, and when it does crop up I don’t think it presents much difficulty.
Then I’m at a loss, How would a despot tell his minions that a group of peasants needed to be transferred from one task to another. Even if actual states were not run on such lines there must have been latafundia where the landowner would want to say something like that to his agent.
EDIT
Or a situation where a general might say to his deputy “I want 30 of the slingers who are currently defending the acropolis to be assigned to defending the south wall.”
Transfer x women currently working in the fields to weaving.
μεταστῆθι x τῶν εν τοις αγροις νυν εργαζομενων γυναικων επι το υφαινειν.
Use numerals and you won’t have to worry about case. 100 = ρ΄, 131 = ρλα΄, 242 = σμβ΄, etc.
“I want 30 of the slingers who are currently defending the acropolis to be assigned to defending the south wall.”
κελευω λ΄ των την ακροπολιν νυν φυλασσοντων σφενδονητων προσταχθηναι το προς νοτον τειχος φυλασσειν
or simply προστασσω λ΄ των την ακροπολιν νυν φυλασσοντων σφενδονητων το προς νοτον τειχος φυλασσειν.
Perfect. Now I see the final version I realize I should have been able to at least get close to that with Hylander’s help. Thanks to both of you and my apologies to Hylander for not reading his post more carefully.
Yes, but full numbers are made up of rounded numbers. But not a priority I grant you. You and mwh may be right that letters may in the end be more useful but as I have already written the output for full numbers I’ll stick with them for now.
Because they are so rare they always trip me up when I encounter them but I was clearly making the mistake of using them in a context where they don’t fit.
So I wish you both my full thanks for what is the key bit of help that I needed.
3rd-person imperatives would actually be fine in this context. Cleopatra VII gave a huge tax break to P. Canidius (Crassus) on his land holdings in Egypt (as you’ll know, he was Mark Antony’s right-hand man, commanded his land forces at Actium), and the official document is signed with the single word γινεσθω (spelled γινεσθωι). It’s thought to be in Cleo’s own hand.
But I’m not suggesting you use them.
Incidentally, that text like tens of thousands of others uses the universal “alphabetic” notational system for numbers. It works just like our 1-2-3… only without special numeric characters (and without 0 of course). α = 1, … θ = 9, ι = 10, ια = 11, … κ = 20, … ρ = 100, ρια = 111, etc.—your players could use an abacus if fingers weren’t enough. I’d strongly advise you to use this system for your game. Only in literary texts were numbers written out in full.
Well I’m committed to 2nd person imperatives now. But maybe for a future game.
That sounds like good advice. So far I have really only read literary texts so I have a rather distorted impression as to which of the two was most often used. However, I have pretty much done the number conversion so again maybe for the next game.
