Apology 38c

Greek Learning Greek
1

I am struggling with what seems to be a strange Semantic Shift for the word “ἕνεκα” in this passage in the Apology.

οὐ πολλοῦ γ᾽ ἕνεκα χρόνου, ὦ ἄνδρες Ἀθηναῖοι, ὄνομα ἕξετε καὶ αἰτίαν ὑπὸ τῶν βουλομένων τὴν πόλιν λοιδορεῖν ὡς Σωκράτη ἀπεκτόνατε, ἄνδρα σοφόν

The phrase “οὐ πολλοῦ γ᾽ ἕνεκα χρόνου” seems to mean “in not too long of a time”. But I’ve never seen ἕνεκα used like this. Usually ἕνεκα means “for the sake of” or to indicate the purpose of something. But I can’t seem to plug that definition into this phrase and have it make sense…“for the sake of not much time”. Thus it seems in this usage to be closer to “δία”, indicating extent of time rather than purpose.

So my question would be, is this a new definition of the word that I haven’t encountered yet or is there a way to plug the typical “for the sake of” definition into this odd phrase?

Thanks

2

It turns out to be exactly what it looks like: “It’s not for the sake of a lot of time that you…” You’ll see if you read to the end of the sentence.

3

its something like with regards to not a long time…

4

Ohh ok I see… Socrates is basically saying “its not because of the length of time [that you took] to put Socrates to death that you will receive a reputation and accusation by those wishing to slander the state”. This is in contrast to what would have happened if they would have drawn out the case while he rotted in jail to the point of death.

I imagine the jurors deliberating and then when they come out after a rather short period of time, that Socrates is basically saying sarcastically “you have decided so quickly!Surely this is not what will bring disrepute to yourselves”.

The path I was going down before was to construe the sentence as saying that Socrates was indicating how soon they would receive there disrepute and infamy.

Thanks!

5

That’s not what I see. The full section:

οὐ πολλοῦ γ᾽ ἕνεκα χρόνου, ὦ ἄνδρες Ἀθηναῖοι, ὄνομα ἕξετε καὶ αἰτίαν ὑπὸ τῶν βουλομένων τὴν πόλιν λοιδορεῖν ὡς Σωκράτη ἀπεκτόνατε, ἄνδρα σοφόν—φήσουσι γὰρ δὴ σοφὸν εἶναι, εἰ καὶ μή εἰμι, οἱ βουλόμενοι ὑμῖν ὀνειδίζειν— εἰ γοῦν περιεμείνατε ὀλίγον χρόνον, ἀπὸ τοῦ αὐτομάτου ἂν ὑμῖν τοῦτο ἐγένετο: ὁρᾶτε γὰρ δὴ τὴν ἡλικίαν ὅτι πόρρω ἤδη ἐστὶ τοῦ βίου θανάτου δὲ ἐγγύς

Paraphrasing (wildly):

You haven’t gained the reputation of Socrates-killers for the sake of very much extra time free of me. If you had waited just a little bit, I would have died all on my own. Look how old I am.

6

Ahh yeah I get it now. That’s a way more simpler way of understanding it. I was over analyzing it.

I also went back and looked at a few more translations.