Dr. Mastronarde Unit 34 Part III Exercise 6

Χαίρετε!

I am supposed to translate into Greek, “At daybreak [“at the same time with day”] just about all the cavalrymen started off toward the sea, it being obvious that no one thought it proper to permit the enemy to perceive what preparations the citizens had made.

I wrote: ἅμα τῇ ἠμέρᾳ σχεδὸν πάντες ὁι ἱππῆς τὴν θάλλαταν ὥρμησαν δῆλον ὄν ἠξίωσε τοὺς πολεμίους ἐᾶσαι αἰσθέσθαι ὧντινων οἱ πολῖται παρεσκευάσαντο.

The Answer Book wrote: ἅμα τῇ ἡμέρᾳ σχεδὸν πάντες οἱ ἱππῆς πρὸς τὴν θάλατταν ὥρμησαν (or
ὡρμήσαντο), φανερὸν (or δῆλον) ὂν ὅτι οὐδεὶς ἀξιοῖ (or ἀξιοίη) τοὺς πολεμίους
αἰσθέσθαι ἐᾶν ὅ τι οἱ πολῖται παρεσκευάσαντο (or παρασκευάσαιντο).
or ἅμα τῇ ἡμέρᾳ σχεδὸν πάντες οἱ ἱππῆς πρὸς τὴν θάλατταν ὥρμησαν (or
ὡρμήσαντο), οὐδενὸς φανεροῦ (or δήλου) ὄντος ἀξιοῦντος τοὺς πολεμίους
αἰσθέσθαι ἐᾶν ὅ τι οἱ πολῖται παρεσκευάσαντο (or παρασκευάσαιντο).

One of the obvious differences is that I wrote αἰσθέσθαι ὧντινων. I thought that αἰσθέσθαι (perceive) would take a genitive, so I wrote ὧντινων. Is that incorrect?

αἰσθάνομαι
I think that from examples in the dictionary you have the object in the genitive and a participle agreeing with it. But in your case ὅτι with indicative or optative is the way out.

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That’s a promising effort Lukas, and it’s a challenging exercise. A few points:
You need a preposition (πρὸς) with “towards the sea.”
Your δῆλον ὄν (acc.absolute) is good! —but then you come to grief: your ἠξίωσε is without a construction—or did you mean to write ὅτι οὐδεὶς ἠξίωσε?
Then your continuation almost works. You’re correct that αἰσθέσθαι often takes genitive, but accusative is more straightforward here, providing παρεσκευάσαντο with a regular object.

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This construction in the answer book looks very strange to me: two genitive absolutes with οὐδενὸς…ἀξιοῦντος depending on φανεροῦ (or δήλου) ὄντος.

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Εὐχαριστῶ πολύ!

That was a challenging exercise. I did not realize that ἠξίωσε needed an object. I will remember that. Bedwere: Agreed. I do knot understand why the answer book did that.

It’s not so much that ἠξίωσε needs an object (here M. gives τοὺς πολεμίους αἰσθέσθαι ἐᾶν, where τοὺς πολεμίους is just the object of ἐᾶν, “to permit the enemy to perceive”). Rather, and more importantly, you need something to control your ἠξίωσε, for in your version ἠξίωσε is just hanging in midair not tethered to anything. M. offers offers ὅτι οὐδεὶς ἀξιοῖ (or ἀξιοίη)—you see how that works?

There are other points (and more difficult ones), but I don’t want to overload the post.

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