Anabasis 1.2.21

Greek Learning Greek
1

τῇ δὲ ὑστεραίᾳ ἧκεν ἄγγελος λέγων ὅτι λελοιπὼς εἴη Συέννεσις τὰ ἄκρα, ἐπεὶ ᾔσθετο ὅτι τό τε Μένωνος στράτευμα ἤδη ἐν Κιλικίᾳ εἴη εἴσω τῶν ὀρέων, καὶ ὅτι τριήρεις ἤκουε περιπλεούσας ἀπ᾿ Ἰωνίας εἰς Κιλικίαν Τάμων ἔχοντα τὰς Λακεδαιμονίων καὶ αὐτοῦ Κύρου.

The Loeb translation and Goodwin take the bolded section as a single unit, and I understand that grammatically, but could αὐτοῦ Κύρου be a third object of ᾔσθετο? Cyrus’ main army was in fact directly at the entrance to the pass at this point, where Syennesis commanded the heights. καὶ αὐτοῦ Κύρου would seem more natural than “καὶ ὅτι τὸ Κύρου στράτευμα παρεἴη [more likely παρῆν].”

2

καὶ ὅτι τριήρεις ἤκουε doesn’t seem to be dependent on ᾔσθετο, since it doesn’t seem likely that the messenger would report that Synnesis left when he perceived that the army of Meno was already in Cilicia . . . and [when he, Synnesis, perceived] that he (Synnesis) heard that Tamos was commanding . . . etc.

So καὶ ὅτι τριήρεις ἤκουε must either be parallel with ὅτι λελοιπὼς εἴη Συέννεσις, or more likely ὅτι . . . ἤκουε means “because” and doesn’t introduce another indirect statement dependent on ᾔσθετο. And καὶ αὐτοῦ Κύρου can’t be an object of ἤκουε: ακουω with genitive means to hear someone or something, not to hear that. But it seems like too big a leap, with another clause intervening, to make καὶ αὐτοῦ Κύρου an indirect statement dependent on ᾔσθετο. Also, I think you’d need a verb with καὶ αὐτοῦ Κύρου if it were an indirect statement: παροντος, and the lack of parallelism with ὅτι τό [τε] Μένωνος στράτευμα . . . εἴη would seem strange, although genitive with participle is the textbook construction with αισθανομαι, not ὅτι. Otherwise καὶ αὐτοῦ Κύρου would seem dangling.

What’s somewhat confusing is τε in τό τε Μένωνος. It’s not in Marchant’s OCT, and there’s no critical note indicating that it’s in any of the mss. he relied on.

3

So καὶ ὅτι τριήρεις ἤκουε must either be parallel with ὅτι λελοιπὼς εἴη Συέννεσις, or more likely ὅτι . . . ἤκουε means “because” and doesn’t introduce another indirect statement dependent on ᾔσθετο.

Ah, of course, that makes sense. I think that it has to be as the Loeb has it.

What’s somewhat confusing is τε in τό τε Μένωνος. It’s not in Marchant’s OCT, and there’s no critical note indicating that it’s in any of the mss. he relied on.

The Loeb (mostly) follows Peter’s 1971 update of Hude’s Teubner. However Dillery claims in his introduction to have diverged from this in a number of places now that new papyri discoveries have shown that there is no longer the a reason to favor a particular manuscript family.

I have noticed that the Loeb text reads more smoothly than Marchant in certain places. I think that Peter/Dillery have tended to favor the clearer readings where there is a doubt.

4

Note that Ταμὼν ἔχοντα must be the object of ἤκουε (otherwise it’s just a dangling accusative, not a proper accusative absolute, I think), and τριήρεις . . . περιπλεούσας … τὰς Λακεδαιμονίων καὶ αὐτοῦ Κύρου is therefore the object of ἔχοντα. This confused me–on first reading I thought the triremes were the object of ἤκουε and couldn’t figure out how Ταμὼν ἔχοντα fit into the sentence.

“. . . he perceived that Tamos was commanding triremes sailing around from Ionia to Cilicia–those of the Lacedaemonians and of Cyrus himself.”

τε . . . καὶ seems to conjoin the two ὅτι clauses as if both were dependent on ᾔσθετο, but as I noted above, that can’t be the case.

Seems like slapdash writing. Reading it quickly, though, you probably don’t notice.

5

Seems like slapdash writing. Reading it quickly, though, you probably don’t notice.

Bringing the ships forward in the phrase makes sense for emphasis, I suppose, but is very bad for clarity. It seems that most of the time in Greek, if there is a hole to be filled (ie., a verb taking an accusative direct object), the first thing to come along that can fill it, does fill it. At least in clear Greek (or maybe Greek that is clear to me?) But I haven’t made any serious study of that statement.

6

Let’s do a quick study. I will put the word that triggers a need for an accusative in bold, and I will underline the word that fills that need. We will choose passages more or less at random.

μῆνιν > ἄειδε > θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος
οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί᾽ Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε᾽ ἔθηκε,

number of intervening words: -1

Δαρείου καὶ Παρυσάτιδος γίγνονται παῖδες δύο, πρεσβύτερος μὲν Ἀρταξέρξης, νεώτερος δὲ Κῦρος: ἐπεὶ δὲ ἠσθένει Δαρεῖος καὶ > ὑπώπτευε > > τελευτὴν > τοῦ βίου, ἐβούλετο τὼ παῖδε ἀμφοτέρω παρεῖναι. >

number of intervening words: 0

ὅτι ἐὰν > ὁμολογήσῃς > ἐν τῷ στόματί σου > κύριον > Ἰησοῦν, καὶ πιστεύσῃς ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ σου ὅτι ὁ θεὸς αὐτὸν ἤγειρεν ἐκ νεκρῶν, σωθήσῃ·

number of intervening words: 4

Average number of words intervening between the trigger word and the fulfilled need word: 1

The conclusion I would derive from this study: we need a bigger sample size. :laughing:

7

Loeb has it right.

καὶ ὅτι τριήρεις ἤκουε περιπλεούσας ἀπ᾿ Ἰωνίας εἰς Κιλικίαν Τάμων ἔχοντα τὰς Λακεδαιμονίων καὶ αὐτοῦ 22Κύρου.

he was getting reports that triremes belonging to the Lacedaemonians29 and to Cyrus himself were sailing around from Ionia to Cilicia under the command of Tamos.

Carleton L Brownson; John Dillery, Harvard 1998

The syntax: ὅτι introduces oratio obliqua with verbs of perception, Smyth §2110, 2145, 2592. Cooper, V2, p1038f, §65.1.0-ff.

Moving a constituent into the slot before the main verb is a standard procedure for marking that constituent.

8

Joel, is this an example of what you are talking about?

http://discourse.textkit.com/t/whats-the-weather-like-today/11578/2541

It’s all (unclear) Greek to me. :laughing:

9

ὅτι introduces oratio obliqua with verbs of perception,

We have a counterexample in ἤκουε in this very passage. Verbs of perception generally take accusative + participle, but can also take ὅτι if they indicate “intellectual perception” (Smyth’s term). Here ᾔσθετο here is followed by ὅτι, but ἤκουε is followed by Τάμων ἔχοντα, participle + accusative.

Loeb has it right.

I think you’re missing the point.

The Loeb translation doesn’t follow the syntax of Xenophon. Ταμὼν ἔχοντα, not τριήρεις … περιπλεούσας, must be the object of ἤκουε. Otherwise Ταμὼν ἔχοντα would have no function in the sentence. τριήρεις … περιπλεούσας has to be the object of ἔχοντα, not of ἤκουε.

“he was hearing that Tamos had command of triremes . . . sailing around from Ionia to Cilicia.”

not

“he was hearing that triremes were sailing . . . under the command of Tamos”.

The Loeb translation is ok, however, even if not literal.

Maybe there is a kind of free-standing accusative of military command without preposition (like the so-called “dative of military accompaniment”) but I’m not aware of it and couldn’t find any such construction in Smyth.

I think Xenophon was writing hastily. The natural tendency of a reader, I think, would be to take τριήρεις as the object of ἤκουε. Perhaps that was how X. started out writing the sentence, but then he had second thoughts, adding Ταμὼν ἔχοντα and changing the syntax of the sentence.

Ταμὼ ἔχοντος (genitive absolute), a conjecture reported by Marchant (attributed to Gemoll–does this mean g minor?–or to an earlier conjecture cited by Gemoll), would make τριήρεις the object of ἤκουε. A plausible (I think) explanation for a change from genitive to accusative: Step 1–the unusual name with its Attic declension led a copyist to think that the genitive was accusative (like Σαπφω), and to change ἔχοντος to ἔχοντα; Step 2–another scribe further downstream, recognizing the Attic declension, changed genitive Ταμὼ to Ταμὼν to agree with ἔχοντα.

This conjecture, I think, would make the text read more smoothly, which of course is an argument against it, particularly since it isn’t impossible to make sense of the accusative reading of the mss. The errors would also have to have occurred at a relatively early point in the history of the text–probably in antiquity–since the accusative is apparently found in all of the mss., as far as I can determine. That’s another strike against the conjecture, but it does show that someone besides me had difficulty with the text as it stands.

10

attributed to Gemoll–does this mean g minor?

yes. :smiley:

11

Hylander had it right all along. See his first post. (Stirling seems to have misunderstood the syntax.)
Leaving aside the τε:

  1. At first glance it may look as if καὶ ὅτι τριήρεις ἤκουε etc is in parallel with οτι το (τε) Μενωνος στρατευμα … εἴη etc, but clearly it’s not: ᾔσθετο …. ὅτι τριήρεις ἤκουε would not make good sense, quite apart from the mood shift.
  2. It would be grammatically possible to take καὶ ὅτι τριήρεις ἤκουε as parallel to ὅτι λελοιπὼς εἴη Συέννεσις τὰ ἄκρα. Then the messenger’s report is twofold, (a) that Syen. had left the heights (i.e. abandoned his intention of defending Cilicia) and (b) that he (the messenger) was getting news about the triremes on their way.
  3. Better, obviously, is to take καὶ ὅτι τριήρεις ἤκουε as parallel to ἐπεὶ ᾔσθετο. Then the messenger’s report is that Syen. had left the heights (a) when/since he realized that Meno’s army was already in Cilicia and (b) because he was getting news about the triremes on their way.

As to the word order of ὅτι τριήρεις ἤκουε περιπλεούσας ἀπ᾿ Ἰωνίας εἰς Κιλικίαν Τάμων ἔχοντα τὰς Λακεδαιμονίων καὶ αὐτοῦ Κύρου: at the outset it reads as if it were saying “… and because he was hearing that triremes were sailing …” (τριηρεις fronted, marked) but when we reach Ταμων εχοντα we have to reconfigure our understanding of the syntax as it emerges that τριηρεις is object not of ηκουε but of εχοντα. (Again I paraphrase Hylander.) It’s still the triremes that are marked, and Ταμων εχοντα is slipped into a slot where it has least salience, leaving the important τὰς Λακεδαιμονίων καὶ αὐτοῦ Κύρου still to come. The conjectured Ταμὼ ἔχοντος would perhaps read more smoothly but I don’t find it at all convincing and though I haven’t read the Anabasis for donkey’s years I reckon the text is probably sound as it is.

The only remaining problem is that τε. Here I have one slight quibble with Hylander: he said
“τε . . . καὶ seems to conjoin the two ὅτι clauses as if both were dependent on ᾔσθετο, but as I noted above, that can’t be the case.”
But with ὅτι τό τε Μένωνος στράτευμα, the position of τε, after τό, leads the reader to expect something coupled with τὸ Μένωνος στράτευμα etc., still within this ὅτι clause. That something can only be the approach of the triremes, but then the construction is changed, and we end up with a clause further up the syntactical hierarchy, with οτι … ηκουε paired with επει ησθετο, giving Syen’s other reason for not resisting.
If the manuscripts have τε (I don’t know if they do or not) it should certainly be retained, but a more fastidious writer would have avoided the imbalance.

12

with ὅτι τό τε Μένωνος στράτευμα, the position of τε, after τό, leads the reader to expect something coupled with τὸ Μένωνος στράτευμα etc., still within the ὅτι clause.

That was my first reaction, but then when the new ὅτι clause started, that couldn’t be the case. So I thought it joined the two clauses, despite its position after τό. But as you note, logically it joins στράτευμα and τριήρεις, though the syntax is somewhat out of joint.

I wouldn’t be inclined to accept the conjecture, either, but it was comforting to me because, as I mentioned, it shows that someone else stumbled over the syntax just as I did when I read the sentence for the first time.

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I think any reader would momentarily misunderstand the syntax.

Incidentally, it may be a strike against a conjecture that it’s not in the mss., but that’s what makes it a conjecture, after all. Conjectures are all too often dismissed on the ground that the manuscripts have something different. Which is absurd.

14

I wonder whether Xenophon was dictating this (to a slave, of course). The slightly disjointed syntax has the feel of someone thinking out loud.

15

The travel sections of Anabasis (any place that includes the word “parasang”) are highly divergent from the rest. The language is simpler – though not always as smooth – and the authorial interests are different. Most of the time Xenophon is interested in people and motivations. In the parasang sections he is interested in geography and tall tales.

I assume that Xenophon took over someone else’s material for these sections. Some sort of geographical gazetteer. In fact, if you look at Hellenica 3.1.2, the specific sections of Anabasis that he mentions as being written by Themistogenes of Syracuse match up fairly well with these “parasang” sections.

Taking over someone else’s material might also explain the wild nature of the Cyrus/Artaxerxes battle description, massively contradicting the calvary numbers in Anabasis 1.2.4, and different from all other battle descriptions in Anabasis. But that would be much harder to show than the above.