There are two sentences here that are puzzling me. Here is my attempt at translation and analysis:
8. “And he (whoever that might be) going before, burned the boats so that Cyrus couldn’t cross the river.” I took διαβαὶη to be the aorist optative of διαβαίνω.
11. “And they suspected also because of this that he was saying that by going on foot they were not doing any harm to the land of the barbarians.” I have no context. I tried to construe the sentence as best I could according to my very imperfect understanding of the grammar and syntax. I took ἐργάζοιντο as present optative in indirect speech because is in a secondary tense. Although, perhaps it is because ὠς μὴ is a final clause “…in order that they not do harm…” I really do not understand the phrase καί τούτου ἕνεκα. Can anyone shed light on these sentences?
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JWW LXXIX 729
- Yes, it is aorist optative. It can be used instead of the subjunctive in final clauses depending on principals in historical tenses.
11 I agree that the verb is present optative, but it is not a final. ὡς = ὅτι is used here to report indirect speech. However, I think that μὴ modifies πεζῇ ἰόντες, not ἐργάζοιντο:
And they suspected that also because of this he was saying that by not going on foot they were doing some harm to the land of the barbarians
καὶ τούτου ἕνεκα (check your accents) “also because of this” is OK
Hi Charlie,
Hope this helps-
For 8, have a look at Smyth 2197a. This is not an answer, but it just happens to be the sentence in your exercise. The person in question is Abrocomas. You’ll notice that in the original the subjunctive is used. In your exercise the optative, as you have correctly identified, is used. I think the difference is that by using the optative, Xenophon himself would be giving the reason for Abrocomas burning his boats. In the subjunctive, he’s describing A’s thought process. Hopefully, others will weigh in on this.
For 11, this comes from Anabasis Book 5, Chapter 6 , Section 11. As Seneca2008 mentioned, it’s always best to work out the meaning on your own, so before you go there look at this part of the sentence:
ὡς μὴ πεζῇ ἰόντες τὴν τῶν βαρβάρων τι χώραν κακὸν ἐργάζοιντο. EDIT: I’m going with a negatived purpose clause (your 2nd choice!)
τούτου ἕνεκα -“on account of this” I think this refers to what follows, namely “ὡς μὴ… τι… κακὸν ἐργάζοιντο”
As you’ll discover from the context, πεζῇ in this instance means “by land”.
The general situation is that they’ve reached Sinope on the southern shore of the Black Sea and they’re about to vote on whether to go by sea or by land. They are suspicious of the present speaker Ἑκατώνυμος.
Hi Bedwere,
It seems we have differing opinions on the meaning of sentence 11! I wonder if it can’t be rendered as a purpose clause, given the context, which is that the soldiers suspect that Hecatonymus is trying to talk them out of going by land because he fears they will make foraging raids to support themselves as they march west. The fact that μὴ precedes ἰόντες would however suggest that the negative would only apply to ἰόντες and not the whole clause. However, if you look at Smyth 2195 you’ll see that purpose clauses (here ὡς μή) can stand in apposition to “τούτου ἕνεκα”.
Yes, you are right Aetos. I see it now.
Thank you both very much. It is clear to me now.