I have some questions and, since I probably will in the future, I’ll confine them to this thread when they come up. Mastronarde is stingy with examples and exercises so for many things I have only an abstract understanding.
Anabasis 1.2.1 – Cyrus is bringing his troops together to make war against his brother.
Thither [i.e. to Sardis] [Cyrus] gave (gives) word both to Clearchus, taking all the army he had, to come, and to Aristippus, reconciled with the people at home, to send to him (himself) the army he had.
“Κλεάρχῷ λαβόντι ἥκειν ὅσοι ἦν αὑτῷ στράτευμα” – am I parsing this right? To Clearchus/taking/to come/how much/there was/to him/army.
If this is correct, why the nominative “ὅσοι”? It’s the object of “λαβόντι”, I believe, which would make no sense without it (ed. I mean as part of the whole phrase), but it doesn’t agree either with that or with “στράτευμα”
Without seeing the context, I think ἐνταῦθα here means “then”, “next”.
Note λαβόντι (aor.) ἥκειν (pres.), “to take all the army he had and then come”, “come after having taken the all the army he had”. You don’t have it wrong, but it’s good to note that aorist clearly denotes anteriority here, which simple English -ing participle doesn’t quite convey.
I suppose στράτευμα is thought to consist of many people, and for that reason the plural is used. Like English “the police say that…”. As for why nominative and not accusative, I think λαβόντι ἥκειν ὅσους would also be correct, I think this is a case of some sort of “attraction”; there’s probably a section about this in Smyth, like there is about everything. Someone might well correct me about this. Personnally, I look up less and less and just try go on reading to develop a natural feeling for what Greek is like. And if something really bothers me, I post here, because it might lead to an interesting debate (off-topic one are best!).
I looked again and my book definitely says ὅσοι. ὅσον makes more sense so it may be a misprint or it may be what Paul Derouda (thanks for mentioning the present vs. aorist) suggests – lectio difficilior potior.
By the way, when I read the Anabasis, the Illustrated Dictionary to Xenophon’s Anabasis, available in the Textkit Library was very, very useful - so much nicer than trying to find something in LSJ or Middle Liddell. I had a library copy printed a century ago that had Sidgwick’s First Four Books of Xenophon’s Anabasis (also in Textkit Library, and recommended!) and that dictionary in the same volume. There are probably used copies to be found in Abebooks or the like. I’ve no experience of the book you are reading.
τῷ τε Κλεάρχῷ λαβόντι ἥκειν – this is a little confusing because λαβόντι agrees with Κλεάρχῷ even though it is part of the order, not the main clause: “he ordered Clearchus having taken as many men as he had, to come”, i.e., “to take as many men as he had and come”–not "Clearchus, who had taken . . . ". This is a typically idiomatic Greek way of saying this. The same with τῷ Ἀπιστίππῳ συναλλαγέντι . . . ἀποπέμψαι.
I also think ὅσοι would be idiomatic if not strictly logical.
The commentary I have connects ἐνταῦθα with ἥκειν that is to say he is telling Kleachos to join him in Sardis. One of the translations agrees with that while the other goes for “at this point”.
I a have copy of the Mather and Hewitt book (includes a commentary and a vocabulary at the end). It was based on Marchant’s text along with Gemoll’s, with some slight regularization. It does not actually read ὄσοι – it just looks like it.
Notice the sharp corner on the iota. It is actually a cut-off nu. There was an error in the 1962 reproduction. The original 1910 edition shows the nu perfectly.
This particular ms. has a reading that Marchant didn’t consider worth recording: after το ελληνικον, it reads απαν στρατευμα instead of ενταυθα. This seems like a correct decision (assuming M. was aware of this reading). απαν στρατευμα doesn’t quite fit well into the text and looks more like a gloss that has crept into the text; ενταυθα does fit.
There are apparently a lot of mss. of the Anabasis, including a large family that Marchant (and other editors) considered “deteriores”, which he only records eclectically. The OCT is an old edition, and maybe a contemporary editor reexamining the history of the text would adopt different editorial principles.
I looked for the Sidgwick Anabasis on both Abebooks and Amazon but couldn’t find any trace of it. Are you sure the name is correct?
Hylander:
So “having been reconciled” has the force of an order? How would I say simply “Aristippus reconciliatus” – the perfect medio-passive participle? The Latin perfect passive participle is what I had in mind with the aorist passive participle (as a past passive part.) but the aorist force is of course different, which I see now.
OK. I’ve ordered a reprint from Abebooks – I found the original on Amazon but the only copies at a decent price were unacceptably brittle, especially if I’m to flip back and forth to the commentary. The publisher promises sewn binding, which is nice; one of the reprint companies selling its edition on Amazon warned of possible “imperfections” to include illegible print and missing pages (!!!).
I’ve been writing in the section numbers in the margins of the Hewitt & Mather book (which uses line numbers) from the Loeb copy I have; it should be good to be able to insert them from an all-Greek copy without risking seeing the translation.
Assuming you mean in the protasis of a conditional, there doesn’t seem to be any difference. Smyth 2283 says they’re each used interchangeably in Xenophon, though I haven’t read enough of the Anabasis to tell you otherwise.
As Manuel notes, there’s no difference at all in meaning or syntax. Why all three forms are used in Xenophon I really can’t say, though I’m sure explanations have been offered. ἤν is older, ἄν is later, ἐάν is the standard classical Attic form.
With the ἄν form (long alpha) you have to be careful not to confuse it with the ἄν (short alpha) that’s used as a modal particle with verbs.
ἄν = ἐάν “if” (w/ subjunctive) will come at the beginning of its clause.
ἄν the modal particle (w/ any mood) won’t.
(In koine texts—not in Xenophon, thankfully—you often find ἐάν as an variant form of ἄν the modal particle, so it can get pretty confusing if you don’t watch out!)
And if something really bothers me, I post here, because it might lead to an interesting debate (off-topic one are best!).
