This from Possel’s Familiar Dialogs
τὸ αὐτὸ ἴσως συμβέβηκεν ἄν, εἰ λεοντῆν ἐνδεδυμένοι ἂν ἦεν.
The second ἂν should not be in the protatis with the imperfect.
And that’s not all. συμβέβηκεν ἄν?! ἐνδεδυμένοι ἦεν?! Not even on textkit have I seen such atrocious Greek.
The Greek equivalent of https://www.exclassics.com/espoke/espk6.htm?
Just to make sure that I understand what’s wrong here:
συμβέβηκεν ἄν: A primary tense indicative with ἄν doesn’t make sense.
ἐνδεδυμένοι ἦεν: Singular/plural disagreement.
On Roberto’s original question, I can’t tell what he’s trying to say exactly. Smyth 2353 talks about a case where you can have ει and αν in the protasis with an optative, but that’s not what’s happening here.
I meant that if you use the imperfect in the protasis to signify an unreal condition in the present time, you should not have ἄν.
Correction:
τὸ αὐτὸ ἴσως συνέβαινεν ἄν, εἰ λεοντῆν ἐνδεδυμένοι ἦεν (ἦσαν).
Maybe Possel did it on purpose, like those Persian carpet weavers who, out of humility, introduce one error into the pattern. Or maybe it’s a touch of realism: Λουκᾶς, the speaker, is so sick that he cannot compose correct conditional sentences.
I will venture this with considerable trepidation and uncertainty:
Isn’t it an unreal condition in the past time? "The same thing would perhaps have happened . . . " You probably want the aorist συνεβη. See Smyth 2305, 2306. Or is it “the same thing would be happening”? But it’s hard for me to read the linked text.
ἦεν is Homeric and not appropriate here.
ἐνδεδυμένοι ἦσαν – pluperfect should be ok, I would think, whether it is a “present unreal” or a “past unreal” condition: “if they were/had been wearing a lion’s skin”. Smyth 2310, Goodwin, GMT 413.
Again, it’s probably not fair to call it a mistake, even if it’s wrong in light of current knowledge of ancient Greek. He was writing at a relatively early stage in the recovery of ancient Greek, before the hard work done in the 19th century.. And notwithstanding some quibbles, he obviously knew Greek quite well.
You are right, Hylander. Looking at the Latin. it is an irreal condition of the past, not of the present.
τὸ αὐτὸ ἴσως συνέβη ἄν, εἰ λεοντῆν ἐνδεδυμένοι ἦσαν.