τί δὴ λέγοντες διέβαλλον οἱ διαβάλλοντες; ὥσπε? οὖν κατηγό?ων τὴν ἀντωμοσίαν δεῖ ἀναγνῶναι α?τῶν:
P.A. 19b
is “κατηγό?ων…α?τῶν” a genitive absolute with “wn” understood?
π?ῶτον μὲν οὖν δίκαιός εἰμι ἀπολογήσασθαι, ὦ ἄνδ?ες Ἀθηναῖοι, π?ὸς τὰ π?ῶτά μου ψευδῆ κατηγο?ημένα καὶ τοὺς π?ώτους κατηγό?ους,
P.A. 18a
is ψευδῆ predicate?
HI Vir,
I am far from an expert on any of this, but as for your first question i don’t think it is an G.A.
I think Socrates is impliedly saying that his accusers are not really accusers in the legal sense, but slanderers, and equally is their accusation not really a legal accusation, i.e. a writ or indictment in english terms, but mere slander.
So he says: “So what do these slandering slanderers say to slander me? For [now that we are in a court of law] as if of accusers [in the legal sense, i.e. plaintiffs] must this complaint of theirs [i.e. oi diaballontes] be understood.”
Anyway, that’s how it seems to me. The apology always strikes me as very hard, because almost every word seems to have a double meaning.
So what usage of the genitive is κατηγό?ων?
Well, what categories do you allow? (seriously, i’d like to know.)
Prima facie i’ll say possessive: the complaint of the accusers/plaintiffs.
Then again I’ve never taken much interest in these terms and don’ t really know what i’m talking about. I’m not exactly a linguist, i just like to read the text…
So it has been placed in the predicate possession to emphasize that the affidavit belongs to the accusers?
Yes i think so. It seems to me that if kathgo/rwn were in the attributive position the whole sentence would hardly make sense. Sokrates is doing his best to despise his accusers them and indicating that they are hardly (or not) worthy of being taken seriously in a court of law. They are not behaving like plaintiffs, but like a bunch of gossipers.
autw~n is place at the end of the sentence for effect, or emphasis if you like. The first genitive is at the start of the sentence, the second at the end, the object in between; I think it works quite well.
Is this type of brachyology typical in comparative clauses, Helma?
I have to object to this last remark. The aut- pronoun, used in isolation as here, in other than the nominative case, is not going to be emphatic. Second, final position in the clause, is not going to be emphatic either. The genitive autwn smooths out the syntax, but is the least informative part of the sentence. Hence, last position.
Unemphatic possessives are typically not in attributive position, e.g. o pathr mou – my father. Vs o emos pathr – My father.