ὥσπερ γε καὶ περὶ ἀφροδισίων οὐ διελεγόμεθα πρὸς τοὺς ἄγαν νέους,
What kind of impf is it? of truth just recognized?
διαλεγόμεθα would be parallel to the imperfect of ἐδοκει, connected by ὥσπερ, the intervening sentence being parenthetical.
By the way, the manuscripts read διαλεγόμεθα; the imperfect διελεγόμεθα is a conjecture of Gustav Sauppe, according to Marchant’s apparatus. I’m not sure I see the need for the change. The Loeb translation follows the mss.
yes present ind makes more sense to me.
I expect the imperfect is right, matching εδοκει in the previous sentence, as Hylander says. It’s true there’s no compelling reason not to accept the present, but the corruption would be practically inevitable, the change is minimal, and to my way of thinking the passage reads better with the imperfect. But of course it can be argued the other way.
διελεγόμεθα will be an ordinary imperfect, not indicating a moment of sudden recognition. Perhaps CP was thinking of something like Eur.Hipp.359 (Phaedra’s nurse) Κυπρις ουκ αρ ην θεος αλλ ει τι μειζον αλλο γιγνεται θεου. This is quite different from that (NB ἄρα).
With the negative the imperfect is “we would not…”, but just maybe there’s a hint of “we would not customarily…” See Smyth 1896, and 1893.