Why is Plato using infinitives here? Is it something to do with these being reports of reports of speech? Somebody saying what somebody else said somebody else said. Or is it just a register like using the present for historical events?
More generally, for direct quotation, insofar as it is a thing in Attic, is there a preferred verb for “to say”? It seems either φημί or εἶπον is acceptable unlike in indirect speech where the former usually takes an infinitive and the latter a subordinate clause.
Hi pster, on 1 it’s the former: if you go back to the start of the dialogue (126 to 127), you’ll see that Antiphon is reporting what Pythodorus heard about the conversation between Socrates and Parmenides (and Zeno). ἔφη δὲ δὴ ὁ Ἀντιφῶν λέγειν τὸν Πυθόδωρον at 127a kicks off a lengthy sequence of indirect discourse in various constructions (including acc. + inf. as you mentioned: different types of indirect discourse can follow the same matrix verb). (Incidentally, I recall that Ryle in Plato’s progress said that Plato might have used these indirect report constructions so as to be able to perform most of the roles himself at festival competitions, playing the role of the person providing the indirect report).
On 2, there are different verbs for introducing direct discourse, just like in English or other languages. If you look at e.g. 327c from the Republic, you’ll see e.g. ἔφη, ἦν δ᾽ ἐγώ, and ἦ δ᾽ ὅς. See also e.g. Smyth s 2590 on oratio recta, and 2591 and following for oratio obliqua.
Thanks Chad. I’ll have to study it. I’m confused by how Pythodorus’ speech appears with both finite verbs and infinitive verbs since his speaking would seem to be under the shadow of the φημί of Antiphon that you reference thus requiring the infinitive. I’ll look at the Smyth and get my whiteboard out!