JWW exercises, paragraphs 574, 575, 576

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1

my suggestions for the exercises from Lesson LXI - with thanks

574

  1. he ordered the generals to draw up the Greeks
  2. those who were pursuing quickly stopped
  3. for Cyrus thought that the King would come to fight with his army
  4. send villagers to spy out (lit: spying out) how the rear guard are (lit: have it)
  5. indeed then/there Cyrus feared lest the King might cut down the Greek army
  6. the soldiers did not hear that he led them
  7. they were asking Cyrus what he might wish to use the army for
    (orginal: [size=150]τί βούλει τῇ στρατιᾷ χρῆσθαι;[/size]
  8. and Cyrus said the way would be towards the Great King
    (original: [size=150]ἡ ὁδὸς ἔσται πρὸς βασιλέα μέγαν[/size]
  9. but I will delay lest the messengers fear that we will not make the truce
  10. the snow hid both the men and their weapons
  11. the generals ordered (them) to bury the men
  12. he said that in this way they might inflict some evil on those at home
    (original: [size=150]οὕτως ἂν τοὺς οἴκοι κακόν τι εἰργάσαντο[/size]

575
[size=167]α. ὁ Ὀρόντας, νομίσας τοὺς ἱππεὶς ἑτοίμους εἶναι, ἔγραψεν ἐπιστολὴν παρὰ βασιλέα
β. εἴπον ὅτι ἐλπίδας καλὰς καὶ πολλὰς ἔχομεν νίκης ..ἤ.. ἔχοιμεν νίκης
γ. αὐτοὺς κελεύει σκέπτεσθαι τί ἐστιν τὸ κωλῦον ..ἤ.. τί εἴη τὸ κωλῦον
δ. στράτευμα συνέλεξεν ἀπὸ τῶν χρημάτων τούτων
ε. ὁ σατράπης ἔλεξεν ὅτι Κῦρος βασιλεῖ ἐπιβεβούλευκεν ..ἤ.. ἐπιβεβουλεύκοι[/size]

576
I will teach you into what sort of struggle you are going: for the number of barbarians is numerous, and they attack (come up) with much shouting – if you endure this, in-every-other-way/as-to-all-else, I am ashamed (to say/think) what sort of men my countrymen are. But if you be (truly) men and my affairs work out well, (then) I will make, those of you who wish to return home, an object of envy – but I think many will wish to remain with me.

2

574
3. (JWW is a filou : here δοκέω means « think », thus : ) « Cyrus (nominative) thought that the King (accusative) would come to fight (future participle)

  1. (the optative with ὅτι : here rather an oblique optative denoting an indirect discourse, thus : ) « the soldiers did not hear that he led them… » (cf. Anabasis, I, 3, 21)

  2. βούλῃ : yes, but in Attic Greek, they said only βούλει « you wish » οἴει « you think » and δύνει « you are able to »

575

g. « orders », thus κελεύει …
d. ἀπό with the genitive :slight_smile:

576
ok – Here, JWW’s adaptation of Xenophon’s text was questionable : see I, 7, 4 and feel the difference.

3

I am having difficulty understanding 574.9. To me the sense would be “I shall delay in order that the messengers fear that we might not make the truce.” The translation offered by Rusty Mason does not seem to take account of the ἵνα.

4

I have to agree with you. The idea is that by stalling, Clearchus can cause the messengers to fear that they he won’t make a truce. At this point in the story, Clearchus is organising the retreat of the ten thousand and attempting to obtain provisions for the journey, so he’s using any means at his disposal to apply leverage. The king (Artaxerxes) is not eager to take on 10,000 trained professional Greek soldiers and Clearchus knows this. This is from Book 2 Chapter 3, Section 9 of the Anabasis.

The original expresses your interpretation:
ἀλλὰ διατρίψω ἔστ᾽ ἂν ὀκνήσωσιν οἱ ἄγγελοι μὴ ἀποδόξῃ ἡμῖν τὰς σπονδὰς ποιήσασθαι.
The sentence in the exercises also agrees with the original:
ἀλλὰ διατρίψω ἵνα φοβῶνται οἱ ἄγγελοι μὴ οὐ τὰς σπονδὰς ποιησώμεθα.

5

Thank you very much. I am still unsure of the meaning of ἂν in the sentence. I do not see a conditional clause. Does it mean “if haply”?

6

Hi Charlie,
This is from the LSJ under the entry for ἔστε:
with aor. subj. and ἄν, of future time, after primary tenses, ἐγὼ δὲ τὴν παροῦσαν ἀντλήσω τύχην ἔστʼ ἂν Διὸς φρόνημα λωφήσῃ χόλου A. Pr. 378, cf. 697, Eu. 449; τῇδε μενέομεν ἔστʼ ἂν καὶ τελευτήσωμεν Hdt. 7.141, cf. 158; περιμένετε ἔστʼ ἂν ἐγὼ ἔλθω X. An. 5.1.4;

As you can see, ἔστ’ ἄν is used with the aorist subjunctive to denote future time and has the meaning of “until”, or “up to the time that”. So, Xenophon’s sentence would read “but I will delay until the messengers fear…”. I’m not sure if it’s an idiom, but Xenophon uses this construction fairly frequently and the citations above indicate that it can be found in Aeschylus and Herodotus as well.
EDIT: After checking Smyth (2392-4), I can now put a name to the construction: ἔστ’ ἄν plus the subjunctive is used in an indefinite temporal clause to refer to the indefinite future, either in terms of occurrence, recurrence or duration. So in our sentence, Clearchus doesn’t really know when or if the messengers will fear, hence the subjunctive plus ἄν.

7

Thank you so much. I find that very helpful.