ὅσα in Th. 2.96

[pster]

I’m moving the discussion of this passage out of the ὅσα thread for clarity. It may even spawn other threads in the future.

Th. 2.96:

ἀνίστησιν οὖν ἐκ τῶν Ὀδρυσῶν ὁρμώμενος πρῶτον μὲν τοὺς ἐντὸς τοῦ Αἵμου τε ὄρους καὶ τῆς Ῥοδόπης Θρᾷκας, ὅσων ἦρχε μέχρι θαλάσσης [ἐς τὸν Εὔξεινόν τε πόντον καὶ τὸν Ἑλλήσποντον], ἔπειτα τοὺς ὑπερβάντι Αἷμον Γέτας καὶ ὅσα ἄλλα μέρη ἐντὸς τοῦ Ἴστρου ποταμοῦ πρὸς θάλασσαν μᾶλλον τὴν τοῦ Εὐξείνου πόντου κατῴκητο: εἰσὶ δ᾽ οἱ Γέται καὶ οἱ ταύτῃ ὅμοροί τε τοῖς Σκύθαις καὶ ὁμόσκευοι, πάντες ἱπποτοξόται. [2] παρεκάλει δὲ καὶ τῶν ὀρεινῶν Θρᾳκῶν πολλοὺς τῶν αὐτονόμων καὶ μαχαιροφόρων, οἳ Δῖοι καλοῦνται, τὴν Ῥοδόπην οἱ πλεῖστοι οἰκοῦντες: καὶ τοὺς μὲν μισθῷ ἔπειθεν, οἱ δ᾽ ἐθελονταὶ ξυνηκολούθουν. [3] ἀνίστη δὲ καὶ Ἀγριᾶνας καὶ Λαιαίους καὶ ἄλλα ὅσα ἔθνη Παιονικὰ ὧν ἦρχε καὶ ἔσχατοι τῆς ἀρχῆς οὗτοι ἦσαν: μέχρι γὰρ Λαιαίων Παιόνων καὶ τοῦ Στρυμόνος ποταμοῦ, ὃς ἐκ τοῦ Σκόμβρου ὄρους δι᾽ Ἀγριάνων καὶ Λαιαίων ῥεῖ, [οὗ] ὡρίζετο ἡ ἀρχὴ τὰ πρὸς Παίονας αὐτονόμους ἤδη.

Before we get back into discussion of the relative, John’s translation of this passage, and my forthcoming expanded translation and interpretation, I would like to raise a question about the bolded words above. Marchant writes:

μέρη = ἔθνη. κατῴκητο— this use of the mid. of persons is found only in Herod. and Thuc., and is confined to perf. forms. Dion. Hal. finds fault with Thuc. for using the mid. where Attic writers use the active.

But is this right? μέρη roughly means “lands”. ἔθνη roughly means “tribes”. Marchant reads the one as the other and then following Dion. Hal. suggests that Thucydides is incorrect to use the m/p. Marchant is perhaps motivated by [3] where Thucydides introduces the word ἔθνη. But that is later. And perhaps Marchant is motivated by the idea that ἀνίστησιν in the sense of “levy” applies to people.

But what is wrong with just reading ἀνίστησιν as meaning “rose to action” in which case it could apply to either peoples or lands. Then there would be no puzzle about why κατῴκητο is m/p. It’s not being used of persons but rather of lands. Sitalces rose to action the lands inhabited on this side…

This week, I have already claimed that Marchant botches another item and that Smyth is quite possibly confused. I am willing to go for broke and claim that Dion. Hal. doesn’t know what he is talking about either.

And why isn’t Marchant required to give a reference for Dion. Hal.? What kind of scholarship is this?

Anyway, any thoughts on this preliminary matter? Am I missing something basic?

Thanks in advance.

[John_W]

pster - apologies for the late reply, amd for the fact that it’s somewhat perfunctory.

On some of your points:

• when you suggest ‘rose to action’ for ἀνίστησιν, do you mean it’s intransitive? I don’t see how it can be, or how this would work in the run of the sentence. Did you mean ‘rouse to action’?

• Thucydides not infrequently refers to (e.g) places when the rest of the sentence clearly shows he is thinking of the people who inhabit them. You cannot strictly rouse up a place, only its inhabitants, which is why I translated ὅσα ἄλλα μέρη as ‘the peoples of all the other parts’ (though a more literal translation would just be ‘all the other parts’).

• Like Rusten, I take κατῴκητο to be passive, not middle, and I don’t know why Marchant mentions the middle. But you’re right that, since it goes with μέρη, it’s somewhat unreasonable to criticise Thucydides for using it of persons.

• Bear in mind that Marchant was writing for Victorian schoolboys, few of whom would ever have been likely to disturb the pages of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and so I don’t find the omission of a specific reference surprising.

• I also think you’re being rather hard on Smyth. Identifying a couple of points of disagreement (or even errors) doesn’t suddenly turn his Grammar into a bad book - the same sort of thing could doubtless be found in any very long and highly technical work. I used to have Goodwin’s Greek Grammar - while not quite as full as Smyth, it might be worth trying as an alternative.

• I have somewhat more sympathy with your views on Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who tends to judge everything from the perspective of whether it can be recommended as a model for rhetoricians; his Second Letter to Ammaeus does, however, offer some interesting comments on Thucydides’ style.

Best wishes,

John

[pster]

@John W.

pster - apologies for the late reply, amd for the fact that it’s somewhat perfunctory.

On some of your points:

• when you suggest ‘rose to action’ for ἀνίστησιν, do you mean it’s intransitive? I don’t see how it can be, or how this would work in the run of the sentence. Did you mean ‘rouse to action’?

Argh. I should have said “raised to action”.

@John W.

• Thucydides not infrequently refers to (e.g) places when the rest of the sentence clearly shows he is thinking of the people who inhabit them.

Sure. But irrespective of what he is thinking, when it comes to how verbs function, people inhabit places. (See below.)

@John W.

You cannot strictly rouse up a place, only its inhabitants,

I was thinking “raise up”. We could also translate it as “call up”.

@John W.

• Like Rusten, I take κατῴκητο to be passive, not middle, and I don’t know why Marchant mentions the middle. But you’re right that, since it goes with μέρη, it’s somewhat unreasonable to criticise Thucydides for using it of persons.

Well, I am not sure I follow your reasoning here. I thought I did, but I’m not so sure. We are both taking it as passive. People inhabit places actively speaking. Places are inabited by people passively speaking. We take it to be the latter because irrespective of what he is thinking, Thucydides uses the word μέρη which is for places. When you say it is unreasonable to criticize Thucydides since it goes with μέρη, that sounds like a defense for his using it actively: μέρη are really people and people inhabit…

My question is more direct. When Marchant says, “μέρη = ἔθνη”, is that right? The rest of what he says I think follows from that. If μέρη = ἔθνη, then when he gets to κατῴκητο he can’t read it passively since we are talking about tribes and tribes aren’t inhabited, rather they inhabit. And he can’t read it actively since it isn’t an active verb form. So that leaves some kind of middle.

But why say μέρη = ἔθνη in the first place? It is one thing to say Thucydides uses places (place names?!) when thinking of people. It is quite another say μέρη = ἔθνη as though it were a semantic fact.

@John W.

• Bear in mind that Marchant was writing for Victorian schoolboys, few of whom would ever have been likely to disturb the pages of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and so I don’t find the omission of a specific reference surprising.

Point taken. But in defense of those schoolboys, they were probably more likely to disturb said pages than almost any other group of schoolboys.

@John W.

• I also think you’re being rather hard on Smyth. Identifying a couple of points of disagreement (or even errors) doesn’t suddenly turn his Grammar into a bad book - the same sort of thing could doubtless be found in any very long and highly technical work. I used to have Goodwin’s Greek Grammar - while not quite as full as Smyth, it might be worth trying as an alternative.

Haha. I never said Smyth was a bad book. I’m just having a bit of fun trying to get you and Nate and whomever else a bit roused up and a bit raised up to action. I figure after 20 hours and nearly two weeks trying to understand a handful of sections, I have earned the right to shoot a few spitballs.

Smyth seems to have much much more detail, at least on this subject.

@John W.

• I have somewhat more sympathy with your views on Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who tends to judge everything from the perspective of whether it can be recommended as a model for rhetoricians; his Second Letter to Ammaeus does, however, offer some interesting comments on Thucydides’ style.

Haha. I wouldn’t say I have any views on him. The only view I have is that he knew of some great beaches and I have found some great deals on vacations to them!

OK, no more messing around. We can come back to that momentarily. Let’s get down to business: Smyth 2532. He explicitly takes up the other ὅσα example from this page of Thucydides.

1. ὅσα in the Smyth example refers to ἔθνη.

2. Has an antecedent dropped out?

3. Has there been incorporation?

4. If so, why hasn’t the incorporated element been placed further back in the relative clause?

5. If there has been incorporation, why is the adjective still in the main clause?

6. What are the minimal conditions for something to be a case of attraction? This is perhaps such a case.

---

You see the two ὅσα sentences are different. One has a copula and falls under Smyth 2532. The other doesn’t have a copula and so has to be handled by other Smyth sections such as 2522. I am hoping that by understanding the differences we will be able to understand the reversed word order, one of my original questions to John. When thinking about these sentences, there are four kinds of sentences: original Greek; expanded, unattracted, unincorporated, antecedents indicated Greek; translation of expanded Greek; stylish English. I am mostly interested in the second and third of these.

[John_W]

I think Marchant’s equation μέρη = ἔθνη is simplistic. In Greek (as in English) one can say (e.g) ‘he roused the city/country to arms’, when what one really means is that ‘he roused the inhabitants to arms’; to that extent, and in relation to ἀνίστησιν, we can say μέρη = ἔθνη. However, when it comes to κατῴκητο, clearly μέρη must be accorded its literal sense of ‘parts’ (here = ‘places’); thus Marchant’s μέρη = ἔθνη is, at best, only half the story.

With regard to ὅσα, I’m afraid I’ve been hors de combat for some days and have lost the thread of the discussion, though I’ll try to pick it up and get back to you if I have any thoughts. Meanwhile, perhaps Nate or one of our other Thucydidean colleagues may be able to comment.

Best wishes,

John

[pster]

Hey John,
Thanks for the reply. There are several threads. At the moment, the main question on the table is just what is going on in the Thucydides example in Smyth 2532.

[pster]

See also Smyth 1272.

[NateD26]

[edited] Sorry. I confused between some idioms with ἅλλα and καί.

[pster]

John, I’m afraid that we are probably going to have to reverse ourselves with respect to κατοικέω.

Consider: Th. 1.120:

ἡμῶν δὲ ὅσοι μὲν Ἀθηναίοις ἤδη ἐνηλλάγησαν οὐχὶ διδαχῆς δέονται ὥστε φυλάξασθαι αὐτούς: τοὺς δὲ τὴν μεσόγειαν μᾶλλον καὶ μὴ ἐν πόρῳ κατῳκημένους εἰδέναι χρὴ ὅτι, τοῖς κάτω ἢν μὴ ἀμύνωσι, χαλεπωτέραν ἕξουσι τὴν κατακομιδὴν τῶν ὡραίων καὶ πάλιν ἀντίληψιν ὧν ἡ θάλασσα τῇ ἠπείρῳ δίδωσι, καὶ τῶν νῦν λεγομένων μὴ κακοὺς κριτὰς ὡς μὴ προσηκόντων εἶναι, προσδέχεσθαι δέ ποτε, εἰ τὰ κάτω πρόοιντο, κἂν μέχρι σφῶν τὸ δεινὸν προελθεῖν, καὶ περὶ αὑτῶν οὐχ ἧσσον νῦν βουλεύεσθαι.

Here the perfect m/p particple has to refer to people. I don’t understand exactly how the place can be in the accusative. Morris says:

τὴν μεσόγειαν…κατῳκημένους : elsewhere κατῳκῆσθαι has only adverbial designations of place. Cf. ii.96.7; 99. 20; iii.34.2; v.83.13. The acc. would properly require an act. form as in viii.108.19. v. H. proposes to insert κατά.

I have no idea how he can cite our 2.96 as an instance where the designation of place is adverbial. Unless he too thinks that μέρη means people.

[pster]

Nate, I thought I might just repeat the core of my thinking about all of this. When you get an instance of osos, it is a relative. As such it has to relate to some other quantity (=its antecedent). Now that antecedent can be explicit. Or it can be implicit. If it is implicit, then it can be implicit in some expression. Or it can be in some demonstrative that has been omitted. Those seem to be the only possibilities. I guess that makes three possibilities although a more refined analysis might subdivide matters a bit.

So whenever you are interpreting an osos sentence, you have to lay your cards on the table and specify what the antecedent is. Question: as many as WHAT? Answer: as many as THAT!

We can’t just fake it and pretend it is an indefinite pronoun. It doesn’t just mean “some”. LSJ have no examples, as far as I can tell, where it just means “some”. English is similar. There is almost always an antecedent. And in both languages the places where we seem to lose sight of an antecedent are in some rare idioms.

Now where we put the antecedent makes a difference. When Sitalces is levying troops, is he rounding up As and Bs? Or is he rounding up As and as many Bs? Huge difference.

But it’s not just about osos. It ends up being about relative clauses in general and different kinds of attraction. I used to dread attraction. Now I’m obsessed with it. I used to fear it. Now it fears me!

And this is a good warm up exercise for oios which I think is going to be a lot harder.

[NateD26]

Before we can continue to οἷος, can you please explain your references of Smyth’s 2352 and
1272, and how you read the sentence in question in light of them?

[pster]

I don’t have a reading yet. I’ve raised a number of questions that need to be answered though in order to have a reading above in the second section @ Thu Jan 24, 2013 1:52 pm .

[NateD26]

@pster

I don’t have a reading yet. I’ve raised a number of questions that need to be answered though in order to have a reading above in the second section @ Thu Jan 24, 2013 1:52 pm .

I’ll try my best to address them.

@pster

OK, no more messing around. We can come back to that momentarily. Let’s get down to business: Smyth 2532. He explicitly takes up the other ὅσα example from this page of Thucydides.

1. ὅσα in the Smyth example refers to ἔθνη.

2. Has an antecedent dropped out?

3. Has there been incorporation?

4. If so, why hasn’t the incorporated element been placed further back in the relative clause?

5. If there has been incorporation, why is the adjective still in the main clause?

6. What are the minimal conditions for something to be a case of attraction? This is perhaps such a case.

I think we both agree on 1.

2 & 3: By incorporation you mean the inclusion of the antecedent inside the relative clause,
and changing its case to that of the relative pronoun, right?

ἀνίστη δὲ καὶ Ἀγριᾶνας καὶ Λαιαίους καὶ ἄλλα ὅσα ἔθνη Παιονικὰ
ὧν ἦρχε καὶ ἔσχατοι τῆς ἀρχῆς οὗτοι ἦσαν·

Smyth also mentions an implied copula and possibly a demonstrative pronoun, both of which
were not included in the post-attraction, post-incorporation sentence.

We need to find what was the sentence before this attraction has occurred.
ἀνίστη governs the accusatives here καὶ Ἀγριᾶνας καὶ Λαιαίους. The question I have
is this: ἄλλα ὅσα ἔθνη Παιονικὰ can be either nominative or accusative. Did Smyth
read it as nominative pre-attraction? There wouldn’t be much difference in the sentence
other than the implied copula (ἐστίν since this is neut. pl.)
But do we read the implied demonstrative pronoun (if it even existed in the first place)
to be in acc. masc. pl. just as the first two (τούτους) or as acc. neut. pl. (ταῦτα)?
And what of ἄλλα? Was it in neut. or masc. pre-attraction?

I might just as well be obsessed about all this attraction fiasco.

[pster]

@NateD26

I might just as well be obsessed about all this attraction fiasco.

That’s the spirit!

---

I have been assuming that the accusative in the expanded sentence would be neuter since ἔθνη is neuter. But you have already made a great contribution in forcing me to seriously consider the possibility that it is masculine.

That might help with the other sentence.

Just so you know, what I really want, what I am working towards, the big enchilada, is to be able to explain the different order of osa and alla in the two sentences. Marchant tells us to compare the the two different formulations, but doesn’t tell us what the upshot is.

It gets very complicated though. I have even spent four hours on the geography of Thrace in order to get some insight. And as you see, I now think that John and I are mistaken in disagreeing with Marchant and Dionysius of Halicarnassus. That disagreement is important because it relates to the matter of the subject in the relative clause in the other sentence.

[pster]

Yes about incorporation. Smyth takes it up in the 2500’s.

[pster]

Here’s one thing I have been struggling with:

Was ἔθνη Παιονικὰ orginally outside in the main clause, unicorporated? If so, then we wouldn’t need a demonstrative.

Or maybe just ἔθνη was outside?

Or, given that incorporated things go towards the back of relative clauses, maybe Παιονικὰ was outside?

[pster]

@NateD26

But do we read the implied demonstrative pronoun (if it even existed in the first place)
to be in acc. masc. pl. just as the first two (τούτους) or as acc. neut. pl. (ταῦτα)?

This raises a fascinating point. With basic relative pronouns, the gender can’t change because the object referred to by the antecedent and the relative are one and the same. Attraction doesn’t change gender.

But with osos, it seems as though perhaps it can change: For the dance, we need so many women, as many as there are men. Or: For the dance, we need so many women, as many men as will come. Or: As many men as will come, we need so many women. If we put those in Greek, and used a feminine demonstrative for our antecedent, “so many women”, then carried out attraction, we would perhaps have to address the question of the gender of osos! It really looks as though in the last case, the demonstrative and the relative have different genders!!! Who wins the battle of the sexes??

Oh man.

[NateD26]

@pster

Here’s one thing I have been struggling with:

Was ἔθνη Παιονικὰ orginally outside in the main clause, unicorporated? If so, then we wouldn’t need a demonstrative.

Or maybe just ἔθνη was outside?

Or, given that incorporated things go towards the back of relative clauses, maybe Παιονικὰ was outside?

Yet more questions that rise up from reading this sentence.

I think you’re right regarding Παιονικὰ being the antecedent that was incorporated into
the relative clause. In which case I would read it as being masc. pl. in the pre-attraction phase,
as well as ἄλλα being of the same case (“and other Paeonians, all those that were tribes”)

My only problem with this is the quite common reading of ὅσα as if it were πάντα ἅ.
Why do we read this kind of clause as if it were no different than a regular one, albeit with the
inclusion of “all”? I know I defended such a reading elsewhere but I’m starting to think it’s too
convenient.

[pster]

@NateD26

@pster

Here’s one thing I have been struggling with:

Was ἔθνη Παιονικὰ orginally outside in the main clause, unicorporated? If so, then we wouldn’t need a demonstrative.

Or maybe just ἔθνη was outside?

Or, given that incorporated things go towards the back of relative clauses, maybe Παιονικὰ was outside?

Yet more questions that rise up from reading this sentence.

I think you’re right regarding Παιονικὰ being the antecedent that was incorporated into
the relative clause.

I actually like that third possiblity the least.

@NateD26

In which case I would read it as being masc. pl. in the pre-attraction phase,
as well as ἄλλα being of the same case (“and other Paeonians, all those that were tribes”)

I don’t think we can change the gender of ἄλλα. The reason I brought up the Smyth section on ἄλλα is because it points out how without the article ἄλλα gets read by apposition. So that I thought gave me a convenient reason to keep it outside. Incorporation takes in Paeonian tribes, but not the ἄλλα in apposition. That was my thinking anyway. I can ramble on quite a bit. I think that I have demonstrated that pretty well in fact! But I am more interested in seeing what you come up with at this point.

@NateD26

My only problem with this is the quite common reading of ὅσα as if it were πάντα ἅ.
Why do we read this kind of clause as if it were no different than a regular one, albeit with the
inclusion of “all”? I know I defended such a reading elsewhere but I’m starting to think it’s too
convenient.

panta tanta a P= all those who P

osos P = as many as P=how many P=the number of those who P=the number of (all those who P)

One refers to a set. The other refers to the number of elements in that same set.

[John_W]

@pster

John, I’m afraid that we are probably going to have to reverse ourselves with respect to κατοικέω.

Consider: Th. 1.120:

ἡμῶν δὲ ὅσοι μὲν Ἀθηναίοις ἤδη ἐνηλλάγησαν οὐχὶ διδαχῆς δέονται ὥστε φυλάξασθαι αὐτούς: τοὺς δὲ τὴν μεσόγειαν μᾶλλον καὶ μὴ ἐν πόρῳ κατῳκημένους εἰδέναι χρὴ ὅτι, τοῖς κάτω ἢν μὴ ἀμύνωσι, χαλεπωτέραν ἕξουσι τὴν κατακομιδὴν τῶν ὡραίων καὶ πάλιν ἀντίληψιν ὧν ἡ θάλασσα τῇ ἠπείρῳ δίδωσι, καὶ τῶν νῦν λεγομένων μὴ κακοὺς κριτὰς ὡς μὴ προσηκόντων εἶναι, προσδέχεσθαι δέ ποτε, εἰ τὰ κάτω πρόοιντο, κἂν μέχρι σφῶν τὸ δεινὸν προελθεῖν, καὶ περὶ αὑτῶν οὐχ ἧσσον νῦν βουλεύεσθαι.

Here the perfect m/p particple has to refer to people. I don’t understand exactly how the place can be in the accusative. Morris says:

τὴν μεσόγειαν…κατῳκημένους : elsewhere κατῳκῆσθαι has only adverbial designations of place. Cf. ii.96.7; 99. 20; iii.34.2; v.83.13. The acc. would properly require an act. form as in viii.108.19. v. H. proposes to insert κατά.

I have no idea how he can cite our 2.96 as an instance where the designation of place is adverbial. Unless he too thinks that μέρη means people.

pster - many thanks for this. I’ve done a bit more digging, and elsewhere, as far as I can see, Thucydides only uses the verb (active and middle) of people, not passively of places being settled; moreover, if you look ahead to 2.99.5, you will see βραχὺ δέ τι αὐτῶν περὶ Φύσκαν κατῴκηται, ‘… but a small part of them settled near Physca’, which also supports your suggestion.

So thanks again for pointing this out . It looks as if the ancient scholiast, who commented on 2.96 that μέρη = γένη (ἐθνῶν), was right after all!


Best wishes,

John

[pster]

John, before we close the question. Do you have any thoughts as to why he uses the pluperfect? It seems doubly odd because here in 2.96.1 the main clause verb is the (historical?) present ἀνίστησιν while it is only later in 2.96.3 that he switches to the imperfect ἀνίστη.