Χαίρετε!
I have some questions about Dr. Mastronarde’s Unit 32, Exercise 6 on page 282. I am supposed to translate this sentence into English:
διωκόντων τῶν ἱππέων τοὺς φεύγοντας, ὁ στρατηγὸς τοὺς ὁπλίτας ἔχων
τρόπαιον ἔστησεν ἵνα πᾶσιν ἐπιδείξῃ τὸ ἑαυτοῦ στράτευμα κρεῖττον τοῦ
πολεμίου ὄν.
There are three spots that are bothering me.
Why is διωκόντων τῶν ἱππέων in the genitive? Is it a genitive absolute or is there something else going on?
Should τὸ ἑαυτοῦ στράτευμα be translated the army of himself? I think reflexive when I see the word ἑαυτοῦ but am unsure if something else is going on.
Why is the last word the participle ὄν? In American English, I would think the 3rd person singular would work when saying the “a of X is better than the b of y,” but I know this is Greek, not English. When comparing what two people have, does Greek usually use a participle?
τὸ ἑαυτοῦ στράτευμα means “his own army.” As bedwere says, it’s contrasted with τοῦ πολεμίου (στρατεύματος), “the enemy’s.”
As for ὄν, the participle rather than the infinitive is regular with verbs of knowing and showing. He set up a trophy “to show everyone that his own army was better than the enemy’s.”
If I may ask about one more sentence in the exercises of Part IV:
τῆς πόλεως μὴ καλῶς πραττούσης, μὴ δόξητε ὀργίζεσθαι τοῖς ἀναιτίοις, ἀλλὰ
τοῖς μὴ ὀρθῶς βουλευομένοις.
I am wondering if τῆς πόλεως μὴ καλῶς πραττούσης is also a genitive absolute? I do not believe there is a grammatical connection between this phrase and the rest, but the idea of τῆς πόλεως runs through the whole thing. I am not certain where the line is drawn between an absolute phrase and something else.