Anabasis 1.2.21

Greek Learning Greek
1

Hello!

I was wondering if anyone could help me with Anabasis 1.2.21, particularly:

“καὶ ὅτι τριήρεις ἤκουε περιπλεούσας ἀπ ̓ Ἰωνίας εἰς Κιλικίαν Ταμὼν ἔχοντα τὰς Λακεδαιμονίων καὶ αὐτοῦ Κύρου.”

I think I figured it out, but it still seems a bit odd; is Ταμὼν a kind of accusative subject? Like, would a good translation for this section be “and he heard that Tamus had triremes, belonging to the Spartans and to Cyrus himself, which sailed from ionia to Cilicia”?

I think the word order is messing me up here, and the fact that it’s just a bit of a weird sentence even in English.

Thanks for any help!

2

I would say he heard some triremes were sailing around etc. and Tamōs had those of the Spartans and of Cyrus himself

3

in the edition by Goodwin which I used, there is no Tamon, it is just omitted and everything then is clear.

4

If just Ταμὼν is omitted nothing is clear. The text would make good sense if Ταμὼν ἔχοντα is omitted.

But taking the text as it stands, ἤκουε takes an accusative & participle construction as expected—not τριήρεις περιπλεούσας ἀπ’ Ἰωνίας εἰς Κιλικίαν, however, as it seems at first sight, but rather Ταμὼν ἔχοντα (τριήρεις etc.), so it ends up as “he was hearing that Tamos had triremes sailing round from Ionia to Cilicia, the Lacedaimonians’ (triremes) and those of Cyrus himself.” But the organization of the sentence is such that we have to revise our initial understanding of the syntax when we get to Ταμὼν ἔχοντα. This does seem odd.

5

The following could be a piece of additional information in accusative absolute: Ταμὼν ἔχοντα τὰς Λακεδαιμονίων καὶ αὐτοῦ Κύρου. He was hearing that triremes were sailing about from Ionia to Cilicia, Tamos having those of the Spartans and Cyrus’s own. [lit. and of Cyrus himself]

I like the Xenophontic semi-editorial flow. The τὰς works better too. And ἤκουε seems like sufficient justification for the absolute. The violation of order of resolution the other way doesn’t seem like a natural expression.

6

I was under the impression that accusative absolutes only occurred with impersonal verbs- δέον, δόξαν, that sort of thing. Is that not the case?

7

Smyth 2076-2078 covers the different cases. This would be specifically 2078a. If it is accusative absolute, it would be more probable, according to 2078 as “ὡς Ταμὼν ἔχοντα…”, but that just doesn’t feel as much like a Xenophontic editorialization to me. But whatever floats a person’s boat/fleet here, I guess.

8

As I said, the text does seem odd, and I gather from Constantinus’ post that Goodwin postulated textual accretion. I don’t know what other scholars have made of it, and I don’t have a critical text. But it’s certainly not an accusative absolute. Accusative absolutes just don’t work like that, not even in Xenophon.
If the given text is to be accepted, I think it has to be understood as I explained. The syntactical readjustment that the reader has to make at Ταμὼν ἔχοντα is perhaps not intolerably jarring after all.

9

Vollbrecht (https://www.google.nl/books/edition/Xenophon_s_Anabasis/FOFEAQAAIAAJ?hl=nl&gbpv=1&dq=vollbrecht+anabasis&printsec=frontcover, page 62-63) translates it as „under the command of“, that would probably fit to Kühner-Gerth Par 489 where ως/ωστε +Acc are explained as adverbial clauses.

10

The Kühner-Gerth part in my post should be deleted.

11

The critical text of Hude (https://archive.org/details/xenophontisexped0000xeno/page/8/mode/2up) has no other readings but Ταμων εχοντα. I hoped for ως ταμων εχοντα, in that case my Kühner-Gerth would have fitted, but alas!

12

Thanks for the reports, Jean. Yes I see Vollbrecht construes the same way I do, which really is the only way possible, and quite comprehensible even if a bit awkward. I don’t think you should be disappointed.

13

Gemoll suggests a genitive absolute Ταμὼ ἔχοντος, giving it the obvious sense. Also, while mwh says, “certainly not an accusative absolute. Accusative absolutes just don’t work like that…”, Smyth’s example (from Xenophon) should be enough to make us stop and think twice:

ηὔχετο πρὸς τοὺς θεοὺς τἀγαθὰ διδόναι, ὡς τοὺς θεοὺς κάλλιστα εἰδότας ὁποῖα ἀγαθά ἐστι

Here we have ὡς of course, but it’s exactly the same sort of Xenophontic add-on statement about an accusative object in the previous phrase, about which Xenophon wants to say something, carried on in the accusative. He doesn’t want to make it a genitive absolute, which would be somewhat awkward, so he does it this way instead.

I want to include J.G. Schneider’s Latin note on 1.2.21. Given the Imgur situation, I won’t post the whole thing, but this section is interesting:

Xenophon memorat classem a Tamo aductam. Praeterea duritiam orationis nescio quam Xenophonti obtrudere ait eos, qui post ἔχοντα demum ponunt incisum, ut accusativus τριήρεις regatur ab ἔχοντα. Ipse igitur post Κιλικίαν posuit; quo facto mollius multo περιπλεούσας jungi cum ἤκουε, et participio ἔχοντα attribui accusativum τὰς Λ. κ. α. K.

He mentions Weiske, who isn’t online, and Demetrius Phalereus 198 περὶ ἐρμηνείας. There we have:

  1. φεύγειν δὲ καὶ τὰς πλαγιότητας. καὶ γὰρ τοῦτο ἀσαφὲς, ὥσπερ ἡ Φιλίστου λέξις. συντομώτερον δὲ παράδειγμα πλαγίας λέξεως καὶ διὰ τοῦτο ἀσαφοῦς τὸ παρὰ Χενοφῶντι, οἷον “καὶ ὅτι τριήρεις ἤκουε περιπλεούσας ἀπὸ Ἰωνίας εἰς Κιλικίαν Τάμων ἔχοντα τὰς Λακεδαιμονίων καὶ αὐτοῦ Κύρου.” τοῦτο γὰρ ἐξ εὐθείας μὲν ὧδέ πως λέγοιτο…[ftn] “τριήρεις προσεδοκοῦντο εἰς Κιλικίαν πολλαὶ μὲν Λάκαιναι, πολλαὶ δὲ Περσίδες, Κύρῳ ναυπηγηθεῖσαι ἐπ᾿ αὐτῷ τούτῳ. ἔπλεον δ᾿ ἀπὸ Ἰωνίας. ναύαρχος δ᾿ αὐταῖς ἐπεστάτει Τάμως Αἰγύπτιος.” μακρότερον μὲν οὕτως ἐγένετο ἴσως, σαφέστερον δέ.

[ftn] Videtur deesse ἄν, ut supra #. 184. post ἐξέλοις. conf. infra #. 297.

Gemoll’s suggestion of genitive absolute from Bemerkungen zu Xenophons Anabasis:
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101064520495&view=1up&seq=42

Demetrius of Phalereus, Rhetoris de elocutione liber:
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=inu.30000128812231&view=1up&seq=78

J.G. Schneider’s note:
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uiuo.ark:/13960/t70w37s5f&view=1up&seq=51

14

I don’t think this gets us any further forward. You elide my pointed “not even in Xenophon,” and the example you cite from Smyth is not comparable, not only because of the ὡς (which makes a great deal of difference) but also because τους θεους there picks up the preceding πρὸς τοὺς θεοὺς, so there’s already an accusative.

15

Maybe mr. Hansen (and other german scholars, that wrote books to aid pupils in the 19th century, Hertlein 1849: https://digitale-sammlungen.de/en/view/bsb10238735?page=30) has a simple solution, based on the structure Verbs of sensing [hearing, seeing, feeling, tasting etc] + Participle : Hansen read the text like this: ηκουε ταμων εχοντα τριηρεις τας λακεδ. και αυτου κυρου περιπλευοντα απ’ ιων.
They suppose, Xenophon at first had a different construction in mind (or mixed two different constructions) and forgot to change περιπλευσας to περιπλευοντα.

https://www.google.nl/books/edition/Xenophons_Anabasis/1ur9qchekHQC?hl=nl&gbpv=1&dq=hansen+xenophon+anabasis&printsec=frontcover

16

One thing that Xenophon does frequently is to talk about a military group and then mention the leader in an absolute construction. This is somewhat characteristic of Xenophon, more than any other author I know if. Here are some examples (easy to search for ἡγουμένου).

ἐνίκησαν δὲ Λακεδαιμόνιοι ἡγουμένου Ἀγησανδρίδου
στρατεύουσι πάλιν εἰς τὴν Κόρινθον, Ἀγησιλάου καὶ τότε ἡγουμένου
ἧκον οἱ τῶν Ἀθηναίων ὁπλῖται, Δημαινέτου αὐτῶν ἡγουμένου
καὶ ναυμαχήσαντες πρὸς τὸν Πόλλιν Χαβρίου ἡγουμένου νικῶσι τῇ ναυμαχίᾳ
…etc… (I could have added more)

Also here’s a nominative absolute version for grins:
ἐκεῖνοι δὲ εἰσελθόντες σὺν τοῖς ὑπηρέταις, ἡγουμένου αὐτῶν Σατύρου…εἶπε μὲν ὁ Κριτίας…

Now following that common pattern, we can easily imagine, as Gemoll evidently does, that Xenophon’s mental idea was something like this:

τριήρεις περιπλοῦσι ἀπὸ Ἰωνίας εἰς Κιλικίαν Τάμω ἔχοντος τὰς Λακεδαιμονίων καὶ αὐτοῦ Κύρου

Xenophon, however, is using it in a ἤκουε statement, so his brain modifies it as he goes:

τριήρεις [now acc.] ἤκουε περιπλεούσας ἀπʼ Ἰωνίας εἰς Κιλικίαν …

Now he gets to the genitive absolute. How does his brain modify it, verbally, as he speaks the words aloud to his slave? Possibly by saying Τάμων ἔχοντα…

And finally, I don’t have an example of an accusative absolute where Xenophon treats the group of men and their commanders like this, but here is another nominative absolute example (a form being historically related, says Smyth, to the accusative absolute):

καὶ ἐν τάξει (οἱ Ἕλληνες) θέμενοι τὰ ὅπλα συνῆλθον οἱ στρατηγοὶ καὶ λοχαγοὶ τῶν Ἑλλήνων παρ᾽ Ἀριαῖον