Anabasis 1.9.16 singular becomes plural

Greek Learning Greek
1

εἴς γε μὴν δικαιοσύνην εἴ τις φανερὸς γένοιτο ἐπιδείκνυσθαι βουλόμενος, περὶ παντὸς ἐποιεῖτο τούτους πλουσιωτέρους ποιεῖν τῶν ἐκ τοῦ ἀδίκου φιλοκερδούντων.

τις is singular and I do see that that individual is representative of a number who are desiring to demonstrate justice but for me it seems quite random that Xenophon half way through the sentence switches to plural with τούτους

This is my translation:
As to what concerns justice if someone should become clear(ly) willing to show (justice) he made of great importance to make these richer than those by unjust means desiring to make gain.

Anabasis questions
Translating sentences
2

Not such a big leap–a slight, barely perceptible anacoluthon, maybe, but this sort of construction is quite common in Greek.

εἴ τις could be translated “if someone” or “whoever” or perhaps best “whenever anyone.”

φανερὸς γένοιτο . . . βουλόμενος – “clearly wanted”

περὶ παντὸς ἐποιεῖτο – “considered it of the highest importance”

“Whenever anyone clearly wanted to distinguish himself with respect to justice, he [Cyrus] considered it of the utmost importance to make those men richer than those who sought wealth through injustice.”

3

For what it’s worth, there’s a note about this in Mather & Hewitt. It refers the reader to an earlier one:

Autous: after “tis” we might expect the singular (which is required in translation), but the statement is made more general by the plural; cp. such incorrect English as “Whoever approves of this, let them raise their hands.”

It also refers back to yet another note:

Pantas: owing to the distributive meaning of “hostis”, it is easy for a word referring back to it to slip into the plural.

Goodwin and White simply say of “toutous”: pl. because of the distributive force of “tis” to which it refers.

4

It’s as natural–and perfectly correct–in English as it is in Greek.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they

http://www.pemberley.com/janeinfo/austhlis.html

https://motivatedgrammar.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/singular-they-and-the-many-reasons-why-its-correct/

http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2014/02/pronouns

Xenophon didn’t consult a manual of correct usage as he was writing. There’s really no need to explain the phenomenon.

5

Thanks for all your replies. I think the main reason I went wrong is while I was very vaguely aware that it was an indefinite construction I wasn’t paying attention to that and I certainly don’t know well enough how indefinite constructions behave.

The links on singular they were interesting. It especially stood out that that use tends to go with indefinite constructions which reinforces the point that I need to get more familiar with indefinite constructions. The textbooks I have used treat if as an advance topic and advanced topics tend to be rushed thru. (My suspicion is that they think anyone clever enough to have got that far doesn’t need more than a rushed coverage.)

Reading thru those links I noticed that singular “they” only arose when English switched to natural gender. The implication is that Old English (which like ancient Greek had grammatical gender) would not have been like Ancient Greek. Hence while it is very helpful to have pointed out that Xenophon’s switch is exactly what would happen in modern English it would be rash to rely on that.

6

Another example, this time from Anabasis 1.1.5 ὅστις δ᾽ ἀφικνεῖτο τῶν παρὰ βασιλέως πρὸς αὐτὸν πάντας οὕτω διατιθεὶς ἀπεπέμπετο ὥστε αὐτῷ μᾶλλον φίλους εἶναι ἢ βασιλεῖ.
It occurs to me that in most cases the infinite sentence begins with words like whenever or wherever which don’t have number. I suspect that what is happening is that the indefinite pronoun is always singular and that the change is due to the writer reverting to plural for the rest of the sentence where the writer has in mind a number of individuals - but I shall be on the look out for more examples.

7

In your second example, ὅστις δ᾽ ἀφικνεῖτο τῶν παρὰ βασιλέως πρὸς αὐτὸν, the text reads imperfect indicative ἀφικνεῖτο where I would have expected optative αφικνοιτο. In fact, at least one late 15th c. manuscript does read αφικνοιτο, but Marchant’s OCT rejects this, insisting that this manuscript is full of errors. Presumably Marchant thought that the αφικνοιτο reading is a conjecture by a copyist who expected the optative here, like me.

Smyth cites this passage as an exception in 2569a, below. Here is his discussion of what he calls “conditional relative clauses” (i.e., general relative clauses, which are equivalent to general conditions), with some extraneous material omitted and the main “rules” in bold:

2567. Present general conditional relative clauses have ἄν with the subjunctive. The main clause has the present indicative or an equivalent.

νέος δ᾽ ἀπόλλυθ᾽ ὅντιν᾽ (= εἴ τινα) ἂν φιλῇ θεός ‘he dieth young, whome’er a god doth love’ Stob. Flor. 120.13, οὓς (= εἴ τινας) ἂν ὁοᾷ φιλοκινδύ_νως ἔχοντας πρὸς τοὺς πολεμίους, τι_μᾷ whomever he sees zealous of danger in the face of the enemy, these he honours X. H. 6.1.6, ““γαμοῦσί τε ὁπόθεν ἂν βούλωνται, ἐκδιδόωσί τε εἰς οὓς ἂν ἐθέλωσι” they both get a wife from whatever family they please and give their daughters in marriage to whomsoever they choose” P. R. 613d, ““πατρὶς γάρ ἐστι πᾶσ᾽ ἵν᾽ ἂν πράττῃ τις εὖ” for every land is a man’s own country wheresoever he fares well” Ar. Plut. 1151.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0007%3Asmythp%3D2567

2568. Past general conditional relative clauses have the optative. The main clause has the imperfect or an equivalent.

ἀεὶ πρὸς ᾧ (= εἰ πρός τινι) ““εἴη ἔργῳ, τοῦτο ἔπρα_ττεν” whatever work he was engaged in, that he always performed” X. H. 4.8.22, ἔπραττεν ἃ δόξειεν αὐτῷ he always did whatever he pleased D. 18.235, ““πάντας . . . ὅσους λάβοιεν διέφθειρον” they used to destroy as many as they captured” T. 2.67, ““ἐθήρα_ ὅπου περ ἐπιτυγχάνοιεν θηρίοις” he used to hunt wherever they fell in with large game” X. C. 3.3.5, ἀνέκραγον . . . ἱκετεύουσαι πάντας ὅτῳ ἐντυγχάνοιεν μὴ φεύγειν they screamed out, entreating all they met not to flee X. C. 3.3.67.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0007%3Asmythp%3D2568

  1. The present indicative instead of the subjunctive with ἄν occurs in general conditional relative clauses (cp. 2342). This occurs chiefly after ὅστις, which is itself sufficiently general in meaning.

““οἵτινες πρὸς τὰς ξυμφορὰς γνώμῃ ἥκιστα λυποῦνται, ἔργῳ δὲ μάλιστα ἀντέχουσιν” those who in feeling are least depressed at misfortunes, in action resist them most” T. 2.64, ὅστις δ᾽ ἐπὶ μεγίστοις τὸ ἐπίφθονον λαμβάνει, ὀρθῶς βουλεύεται he counsels wisely who incurs envy in a great cause 2. 64, ““ὅστις δὲ πλοῦτον ἢ εὐγένειαν εἰσιδὼν γαμεῖ πονηράν, μῶρός ἐστιν” whoever fixes his gaze on wealth or noble lineage and weds a wicked woman, is a fool” E. El. 1097, ““ὅ τι καλὸν φίλον ἀ_εί” whatsoever is fair is dear forever” E. Bacch. 881.

a. Cases of the imperfect instead of the optative are rare and generally ill supported: ὅπου ᾤετο τὴν πατρίδα τι ὠφελήσειν, οὐ πόνων ὑφί_ετο whenever he thought that he could benefit his country in any respect, he did not shrink from toil X. Ag. 7. 1. Cp. X. A. 1.1.5, 1. 9. 27.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0007%3Asmythp%3D2569

8

Goodwin 1432 gives Antigone 178 as another example of this occurring: http://perseus.uchicago.edu/perseus-cgi/citequery3.pl?query=Soph.+Ant.+178&dbname=GreekFeb2011

He says that it happens “especially with ὅστις” because that already expresses the indefiniteness that you would normally need the subjunctive or optative for.

At first I wondered if the thematic vowel could have dropped out somehow, with αφικνειτο being a (very) rare optative form. However I couldn’t find any example of this (although there is a non-thematic 2 aorist form ικτο).

9

The example from Antigone is different from the Anabasis passage in that in the lines from Antigone the verb in the general relative clause is a present tense verb without αν, which is supposedly more common than an imperfect indicative instead of an optative in a past general condition, as in the Anabasis passage.

10

When I looked at that sentence a week ago I think I recall seeing it as an imperfect. Today, looking for an optative, that’s what I saw.

Given that it turns out to be so unusual I wonder if that much maligned manuscript that does indeed have an optative might not be right after all.

11

“Given that it turns out to be so unusual I wonder if that much maligned manuscript that does indeed have an optative might not be right after all.”

A good thought, but it doesn’t seem like a good idea to assess the value of a manuscript based on a single reading which may or may not be correct. There’s a rule of thumb that all other things being equal, “the more difficult reading is to be preferred” (difficilior lectio potior). The idea is that it’s more likely that somewhere in the history of the text someone changed a more difficult reading to a simpler one (or, perhaps as in this case, a reading that is more consistent with usual syntax), than the other way around. This is subject to the proviso that both readings must be possible: if the more difficult reading is plainly nonsense it should obviously be rejected.

But Marchant’s edition is now about 110 years old. Maybe a re-examination of the history of the text of the Anabasis, after more than a century of scholarship, would show that the E ms. (which is in the Eton library) actually preserves some readings that would be considered correct and that are preserved nowhere else in the extant mss. This could occur, for example, if the copyist who produced E took some readings from a now lost manuscript that had access to another strand of the tradition but had no direct descendants. It’s also possible that the imperfect indicative is preserved somewhere else in the extant mss. but escaped Marchant’s notice. I don’t think he collated all of the extant mss., of which there is a large number. It’s also possible that Xenophon originally wrote αφικνοιτο but for some reason this was changed to αφικνειτο in an early copy that was the ancestor of all of the extant mss. (though this would run counter to the “more difficult reading” rule of thumb, which is no more than a rule of thumb). These are the sort of uncertainties that hover over all ancient Greek and Latin texts.

Smyth suggests that the small number of instances of the imperfect indicative in this construction are “doubtful,” meaning that he thinks some or all of them may be incorrect readings. This sort of assertion may well be right but should be taken with a measure of caution.

12

Just a quick notice: the scribes who copied the manuscripts would have pronounced ει and οι the same for well over a thousand years. I don’t suppose it’s surprising if sometimes a false reading permeates the tradition.

13

That’s a good point, Paul. Maybe -οι- was the original reading which was lost and then restored in E by a copyist who knew their Greek grammar. Maybe the few instances where the imperfect indicative appears in this type of general relative clause are all the result of similar errors based on post-classical pronunciation, and maybe therefore the “more difficult reading” rule of thumb fails here. We’ll probably never know.

14

It’s a classic text-critical dilemma: accept an anomaly, or restore the norm? Conservative critics try to accept whatever the manuscript tradition presents (which often means stretching the lectio difficilior principle beyond its proper limits), others try to bring it into line with established usage (which runs the risk of erasing genuine exceptions and excessively smoothing out our texts). To decide this particular case, we’d not only have to determine whether the manuscript with the optative has any independent value, i.e. whether it has any “authority,” (a minor matter, because the choice between the two will remain regardless) but we’d also have to scrutinize all the comparable instances and confront the all-important but difficult utrum in alterum question: was αφικνοιτο more likely to have been corrupted (whether accidentally or deliberately) to αφικνειτο, or vice versa?

An example: at Plato Phaedo 62c the manuscripts all have ἴσως τοίνυν ταύτῃ οὐκ ἄλογον μὴ πρότερον αὑτὸν ἀποκτεινύναι δεῖν, πρὶν ἀνάγκην τινὰ θεὸς ἐπιπέμψῃ, ὥσπερ καὶ τὴν νῦν ἡμῖν παροῦσαν “… that someone should not kill himself until god imposes a compulsion, …”), where we’d expect an ἄν in the πρίν clause, as in a regular indefinite clause. The new OCT (as did the old) accepts the anomalous syntax of the given text. But ΑΝ could very easily have fallen out between ΠΡΙΝ and ΑΝΑΓΚΗΝ (haplography of αναν), and there are unquestionable examples of similar haplographic errors elsewhere in the text. I think the editors made the wrong choice here.

In the Xenophon however I don’t see any objection in principle to the indicative (it’s analogous to the indicative in the present), and if the other cited examples hold up, I’d say the editor was probably right to accept it.

The Antigone example added by Joel is useful because there can’t be any doubt about it. It’s a control, something rarely available in prose. But I don’t see it as terribly anomalous, or at all really. There are good parallels to the construction (Smyth 2569 quoted by Hylander), and it seems to me that semantic differentiation may be made. The indicative lessens the indefiniteness, so to speak—it’s kind of halfway between general and particular. I wonder if the same applies in the Xenophon instances of impf. indic. rather than optative.

But it’s all very tricky, and definitive answers (unlike bad arguments) can be hard to find. That’s what keeps textual critics in business. (A senior colleague once told me he was glad our texts are full of corruption, because it gave classicists something to do. I thought that a deplorable attitude, and told him I’d be much happier if our texts had no corruptions at all. He merely huffed at that.)

15

Thanks to mwh for putting this in broader context.

I recently posted a thread about a book on Latin textual criticism that goes into the issues mwh addresses, and might even be of interest to those who are interested in Greek texts, too:

http://discourse.textkit.com/t/richard-tarrants-new-book-on-textual-criticism/14252/6

“A senior colleague once told me he was glad our texts are full of corruption, because it gave classicists something to do. I thought that a deplorable attitude, and told him I’d be much happier if our texts had no corruptions at all. He merely huffed at that.”

I certainly agree with mwh, but the sad fact is that our texts are full of corruption, and it pays to be aware of this when reading any Latin or Greek text. Sometimes it’s not a big deal (as in the case of αφικνοιτο/αφικνειτο, where the meaning is absolutely clear whichever reading you like, but sometimes it can make a big difference in understanding a historical or literary text.

16

I certainly agree with mwh, but the sad fact is that our texts > are > full of corruption, and it pays to be aware of this when reading any Latin or Greek text.

I trust no one would argue with that! I really must stop making final throwaway asides. My point was simply that textual corruption is a curse, not a blessing.

I’ve seen your thread on the Tarrant book, and was going to ask how it compared with West’s but then you said. Since I haven’t yet seen it I haven’t commented. I can only hope he doesn’t say anything at variance with my post above.

17

“I can only hope he doesn’t say anything at variance with my post above.”

No, he doesn’t. In fact, I think he confirms in considerable depth the wrenching choices that you describe and that editors have to confront.

“I really must stop making final throwaway asides.”

Please don’t stop. They’re always entertaining as well as illuminating.

As mwh notes, the example from the Anabasis illustrates a big problem of circularity. Received ideas about Greek grammar are based on the evidence of the texts, but the texts are unreliable in themselves and may have been edited (maybe even in antiquity) to conform to received ideas about Greek grammar.

18

ἀπόλλυται

19

Thanks for all the background on how texts get changed. Correct me if I am wrong but didn’t the optative die out quite early at time when the imperfect was still recognizably the same. For a copyist whose grasp of Attic was only so so might the imperfect be a more obvious reading?

Whether to prefer a variant reading does depend on why you are reading. If I were preparing a translation for publication then I would follow Marchant to the letter. As I am a learner looking for sentences to serve as models then a reading that is more expected is preferable unless the anomalous reading is certain.

However, the suggestion that the imperfect represents a slightly less indefinite form is interesting. In 1.9.16 Xenophon is referring to Kuros’ entire political life as a whole. In 1.1.5 however Xenophon is much more narrowly focused on Kuros’ preparation for rebellion. Hence the change of tense could be justified by the sense.

20

I came across ἐγένετο imperfect rather than optative in Euthyphro 5c2:

“καὶ πολὺ ἂν ἡμῖν πρότερον περὶ ἐκείνου λόγος ἐγένετο ἐν τῷ δικαστηρίῳ ἢ περὶ ἐμοῦ.”

No ὅστις or anything similar in evidence here. According to the OCT, manuscript family 1 has ἐγένετο, while manuscript families 2 and 3 have γένοιτο. It’s easy to see the correction to γένοιτο being made, but harder to imagine it going the other way.