I came, I saw, I conquered!

Greek Learning Greek
1

Out of curiosity, how do you translate I came, I saw, I conquered (Veni, vidi, vici.) into Greek?

2

you’d probably put it into the aorist in greek (rather than latin’s perfect) i think: it’s more appropriate here.

h)=lqon, ei)=don, e)ni/khsa

or in spionic:

[size=150]ἦλθον, εἶδον, ἐνίκησα[/size]

to make it even more greek you’d put the first 2 verbs in aorist nom. participles instead of in the finite. i.e. “having …, having …, i …” :slight_smile:

3

Thanks, that’s what I was thinking of, I just wasn’t sure what to use for the last word (I conquered).

4

re: chad -

the latin perfect did, of course, cover both the greek perfect and the aorist, so “perfect” forms (named before any distinction was drawn between tense and aspect) in latin do not necessarily demand Perfect tenses in greek.
undoubtedly, however, caesar’s address to the senate with regard to his swift victory over pharnace, where these words were reputedly uttered, would have demanded a strictly past sense, as opposed to any sort of retrospective aspect that the perfect would bring.

~D