Indeed. I wasn’t suggesting that it needed to be translated as present tense. But it surely must be parsed and identified as the present. In a context like this, would you take the verb as middle or passive? It doesn’t seem to be the middle (as in καὶ ἐγένετο) but specifically that they were born (in the passive sense). Am I wrong in my understanding?
Thanks,
Jason
I’ve got to say…
The bit of piecing together and composing that I did here in answering the questions above, and the composition that I posted on my own forum for Athenaze… this is the most Greek writing I’ve ever done, and I’m so happy to be able to do what I’ve done here. I’m encouraged and excited to keep pushing ahead!
Ah, now I see what you mean. Sorry about that. You meant -were born- rather than -beget.- I think you are right. To beget would be γενν́αω. I do think this is middle or rather, intransitive though. “Two boys came to be (by birth) Of Darius and Parysatis.”
The text of the Anabasis can also be read online using Tufts University’s Perseus tool (http://old.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0201). For example, the first four lines of the Anabasis look like this:
I. Dareiou kai Parusatidos gignontai paides duo++, presbuteros men Artaxerxês+, neôteros de Kuros++: epei++ de êsthenei++ Dareios+++ kai hupôpteue++ teleutên++ tou biou++, ebouleto+ tô paide++ amphoterô pareinai++. [2] ho men oun presbuteros parôn etunchane: Kuron+ de metapempetai+ apo++ tês archês+ hês auton+++ satrapên+ epoiêse, kai stratêgon++ de auton apedeixe++ pantôn hosoi es Kastôlou pedion hathroizontai. anabainei oun ho Kuros labôn Tissaphernên hôs philon, kai tôn Hellênôn echôn hoplitas anebê triakosious, archonta de autôn Xenian Parrasion. [3] epei de eteleutêse+ Dareios kai katestê+ eis tên basileian Artaxerxês, Tissaphernês diaballei ton Kuron pros ton adelphon hôs epibouleuoi autôi++++. ho de peithetai kai sullambanei Kuron hôs apoktenôn: hê de mêtêr exaitêsamenê auton apopempei palin epi tên archên. [4] ho d’ hôs apêlthe kinduneusas kai atimastheis, bouleuetai hopôs mêpote eti estai epi tôi adelphôi, alla, ên dunêtai, basileusei ant’ ekeinou. Parusatis men dê hê mêtêr hupêrche tôi Kurôi, philousa auton mallon ê ton basileuonta Artaxerxên+.
If you click on a word you want to learn more about, like “gignontai”, a little screen (the “word study tool”) pops up, telling you its definition is “to come into being” and that it’s “pres ind mid/pass 3rd pl pres_redupl” (along with information on the word’s frequency of occurrence and links to entries in other dictionaries). How cool is that?! You can also have Perseus display the Greek text in Greek characters, or show the English translation. I’m just beginning to discover how to use the tools at Perseus. I encourage you to explore, too, and share the cool things you learn how to do.
Here are some additional resources.
Several other old (i.e., public domain) Greek textbooks, besides White’s, contain excerpts or paraphrases from Xenophon’s Anabasis, including books by Bonner, Collis, Crosby, and Frost. Reading passages in these books will give you more practice with the vocabulary and structures we’re studying in White’s FGB and in Xenophon. Here are links to online versions on GoogleBooks:
http://books.google.com/books?id=hxYBAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA5#v=onepage&q=&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=pRABAAAAYAAJ&dq=xenophon&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q=&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=3owCAAAAQAAJ&dq=xenophon&pg=PA7#v=onepage&q=&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=HSUBAAAAYAAJ&dq=xenophon&pg=PA177#v=onepage&q=xenophon&f=false
Readers of German will also appreciate this excellent online Greek tutorial by F. J. Mehr, which analyzes excerpts of Xenophon (I borrowed his idea of using “Perseus” to read the Anabasis (even if you don’t read German, you may find it worthwhile just to try to read the Greek examples.):
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Agora/6594/inhalt.html
See also this portrait and biography of Xenophon as an author (in Greek), together with links to the text, and even a map of the route taken by the 10,000 Greeks. For a total beginner, it’s fun to try find his name and the Anabasis of Cyrus in Greek. At any level, it’s worth trying to use the graphics and other contextual clues to figure out what you can.
http://www.hs-augsburg.de/~harsch/graeca/Chronologia/S_ante04/Xenophon/xen_intr.html
Thank you, Prometheus, for these wonderful links. I’m sure they will be of aid to us all.
Regarding the Perseus site, this is a bit unnatural for me to read a Greek text
spelled phonetically in English like that. Here’s the link to the Anabasis on the updated Perseus site (v4.0):
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0201
The text is written in Greek and you can load the English translation (Carleton L. Brownson, 1922) to the right of the text;
you can also use the References for further study. Each word is linked to the LSJ/Middle-Liddell dictionaries
and to the left you have a detailed index to quickly jump to the desired book, chapter or section. 
Perseus gives you choices how you want the Greek displayed. Click on "Configure display " and make your choice.
Here’s an excerpt from one of those 19th century textbooks, Frost’s Alpha, in which a sadistic teacher (ΔΙΔΑΣΚΑΛΟΣ) interrogates his unfortunate pupil (ΜΑΘΗΤΗΣ) about Cyrus and Xenophon. Are they the answers you would have given?
ΜΑΘΗΤΗΣ. ῾Ο δὲ Κῦρος τίς ἐστιν;
ΔΙΔΑΣΚΑΛΟΣ. ῾Ο Ξενοφῶν λέγει τὸν Κῦρον εἶναι υἰὸν Δαρείου, ἄνδρα καλὸν καὶ ἀγαθόν.
2.
Μ. Τίς δὲ ἡ μήτηρ τοῦ Κύρου;
Δ. ῾Ο Ξενοφῶν λέγει τὴν τοῦ Κύρου μητέρα Παρυσάτιδα εἴναι, θυγατέρα ᾿Αρταξέρξου.
3.
Μ. ᾿Αρα οὐκ ᾿Αρταξέρξης ἀδελφὸς τοῦ Κύρου;
Δ. Οὐκ ῾ο αὐτὸς ἀνήρ· ῾ο γὰρ Παρυσάτιδος πατὴρ πρεσβύτερος ἧν. ᾿Αρταξέρξης οὖν ὁ νέος ἁδελφός ἑστιν, υἱὸς τοῦ αὐτοῦ πατρὸς καὶ τῆς αὐτῆς μητρός.
4.
Μ. ᾿Αρα ἐφιλει ἡ Παρύσατις τὼ παιδίω;
Δ. Τὸν μὲν Κῦρον ἑφίλει, τὸν δὲ ᾿Αρταξέρξην ἑμίσει.
5.
Μ. Τί δὲ ἕγραψεν ὁ Ξενοφῶν;
Δ. ῾Ο Ξενοφῶν αὐτὸς διὰ φιλίαν ἕγραψε περὶ Κύρου τοῦ Δαρείου υἱοῦ· ἔγραψε δὲ καὶ περὶ Κύρου τοῦ πρεσβυτέρου.
Here’s another passage from William Goodell Frost’s Alpha: A Greek Primer Introductory to Xenophon, 2nd ed., 1891, (pp. 56-57), which summarizes the facts of the Anabasis and the lives of Cyrus and Xenophon in four paragraphs:
http://books.google.com/books?id=uBABAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA56#v=onepage&q=&f=false
(I can’t figure out how to get the text in here to make an exercise out of it, without typing it in by hand. The file is in PDF format and has copy permission, but when I copy pieces, they just show up as graphics, not text. Anyone have any ideas?)
Another beginning Greek text from the same era as White’s, the Beginner’s Greek Book, by Allen Rogers Benner and Herbert Weir Smyth (1906),
contains a 14-page section of somewhat simplified “Selections from the Anabasis”, beginning with a summary in English:
http://books.google.com/books?id=Mo8XAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA263#v=onepage&q=&f=false
The English summary is worth looking at, since the more you know about the background, the better you’ll be able to understand the Anabasis in Greek.
Here’s another sentence gap exercise, this time concentrating on feminine articles.
Review the -A declension, or first declension, of feminine nouns and their accompanying articles and adjectives in Lessons 3,4, and 6, especially noting the singular pattern
η χωρα (Nominative)
της χωρας (Genetitve)
τη χωρα (Dative)
την χωραν (Accusative)
It helps me to compare the genetive with the English possesive “'s”, as in της Λυδιας σατράπης/σατράπης της Λυδιας and “California’s governor”/“the Governor of California”.
(1) Κῦρος, ὁ τοῦ Δαρείου υἱός, Πέρσης ἦν καλὸς καὶ ἀγαθός. σατράπην δὲ αὐτὸν ἐποίησεν ὁ Δαρεῖος ____ Λυδίας καὶ______Φρυγίας καὶ____Καππαδοκίας. (2) χωρία δὲ ἰσχυρὰ εἶχεν ἐν ____ἀρχῇ ὁ Κῦρος καὶ πλοῖα μακρὰ ἐν ______θαλάττῃ, καὶ στρατιῶται δὲ αὐτῷ ἐν ____χώρᾳ ἦσαν ἀγαθοί, ὁπλῖται Ἑλληνικοὶ καὶ πελτασταὶ καὶ τοξόται Περσικοί. (3) Τισσαφέρνης δέ, ὁ ____ Καρίας σατράπης, τῷ Κύρῳ πολέμιος ἦν, τότε δὲ οὔτε ἐστράτευεν ἐπ᾿ αὐτὸν οὔτε διήρπαζε ____ χώραν. (4) Κῦρος γὰρ στρατηγὸς ἐν πολέμῳ δεινὸς ἦν, υἱὸς δὲ τοῦ Δαρείου· ὥστε φόβον εἶχεν ὁ Τισσαφέρνης πρὸς Κῦρον.
Just so you know, Prometheus… Nathan and I have completed up to section 120 in FGB now. This means that in terms of both grammar and vocabulary we are ready to jump into the reading that you’ve posted, since it comes from the following lesson. I’ll be looking over things again in this thread. I’m really happy with the progress that we’ve made this weekend.
Looking forward to working with you! Why haven’t you posted anything on the other forum, by the way?
Best wishes,
Jason
Just so you know, Prometheus… Nathan and I have completed up to section 120 in FGB now. This means that in terms of both grammar and vocabulary we are ready to jump into the reading that you’ve posted, since it comes from the following lesson. I’ll be looking over things again in this thread. I’m really happy with the progress that we’ve made this weekend.
Looking forward to working with you! Why haven’t you posted anything on the other forum, by the way?
Best wishes,
Jason
That’s great!
(Actually, I did try to post something on the other forum, asking whether a running lesson-by-lesson list of verbs covered and their principal parts would be helpful, and how else I could contribute, but my message seems to have been lost in cyber-space. I’ll try again, though.)
Does anyone feel in need more work on any of the verb tenses covered (Present, Imperfect, Future, Aorist, Perfect, Pluperfect) in White’s lessons up to 13? If so, I’ve got a couple of ideas.
Christopher Marchetti’s Elementary Ancient Greek (http://www.tadorapress.com/EAGlist) gives nice, short summaries, with lots of examples, of the Imperfect (Chapter 9), Future (Chapter 10), Aorist (Chapt. 11), and Perfect and Pluperfect tenses (Chapt. 12). The author says that his aim is “to provide maximum practice with the basic grammatical structures”, without discussing exceptional cases.
If you want more detailed explanations, you might try the relevant sections of Dr. Dora Pozzi’s online course, “Introduction to Ancient and Biblical Greek” (http://www.class.uh.edu/MCL/faculty/pozzi/grnl1/grnl1.syl.htm). The Future is taken up in Lessons 3 and 5, the Imperfect in Lesson 6, and the Aorist in Lesson 9.
As a final (?) exercise on the first four lines of Xenophon, rearrange this scrambled version so that it makes sense. In doing so, you’re of course drawing on your knowledge of Greek (that the conjunctions οὖν ‘so’ and δὲ ‘and’ ‘but’ imply that something came before) and of the world (e.g., that dying kings more commonly summon their children to their side before their death, rather than afterwards).
[1] Παρύσατις μὲν δὴ ἡ μήτηρ ὑπῆρχε τῷ Κύρῳ, φιλοῦσα αὐτὸν μᾶλλον ἢ τὸν βασιλεύοντα Ἀρταξέρξην.
[2] ὁ δ᾽ ὡς ἀπῆλθε κινδυνεύσας καὶ ἀτιμασθείς, βουλεύεται ὅπως μήποτε ἔτι ἔσται ἐπὶ τῷ ἀδελφῷ, ἀλλά, ἢν δύνηται, βασιλεύσει ἀντ᾽ ἐκείνου.
[3] ἡ δὲ μήτηρ ἐξαιτησαμένη αὐτὸν ἀποπέμπει πάλιν ἐπὶ τὴν ἀρχήν.
[4] ὁ δὲ πείθεται καὶ συλλαμβάνει Κῦρον ὡς ἀποκτενῶν·
[5] ἐπεὶ δὲ ἐτελεύτησε Δαρεῖος καὶ κατέστη εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν Ἀρταξέρξης, Τισσαφέρνης διαβάλλει τὸν Κῦρον πρὸς τὸν ἀδελφὸν ὡς ἐπιβουλεύοι αὐτῷ.
[6] ἀναβαίνει οὖν ὁ Κῦρος λαβὼν Τισσαφέρνην ὡς φίλον, καὶ τῶν Ἑλλήνων ἔχων ὁπλίτας ἀνέβη τριακοσίους, ἄρχοντα δὲ αὐτῶν Ξενίαν Παρράσιον.
[7] Κῦρον δὲ μεταπέμπεται ἀπὸ τῆς ἀρχῆς ἧς αὐτὸν σατράπην ἐποίησε, καὶ στρατηγὸν δὲ αὐτὸν ἀπέδειξε πάντων ὅσοι ἐς Καστωλοῦ πεδίον ἁθροίζονται.
[8] ὁ μὲν οὖν πρεσβύτερος παρὼν ἐτύγχανε·
[9] ἐπεὶ δὲ ἠσθένει Δαρεῖος καὶ ὑπώπτευε τελευτὴν τοῦ βίου, ἐβούλετο τὼ παῖδε ἀμφοτέρω παρεῖναι.
[10] Δαρείου καὶ Παρυσάτιδος γίγνονται παῖδες δύο, πρεσβύτερος μὲν Ἀρταξέρξης, νεώτερος δὲ Κῦρος·
These exercises are nice, Prometheus. Thanks for this!
I’m glad to hear that you find them helpful. Your suggestions, corrections, and exercises or sentences that you (or others) come up with, are also very welcome.
I haven’t tried to use Hot Potatoes yet, but I suppose that should be straightforward. One advantage of that is that more clues can be supplied for some of the English-to-Greek translation exercises in the book, in the form of drop-down boxes. Maybe some of the sentences in the translation exercises can even be glued together, so that they make up meaningful passages?
Lee
Here’s another excerpt from Frost’s Alpha primer, talking about Cyrus:
Κῦρος, ὁ Δαρείου, ἀδελφὸς ἦν Αρταξέρξου τῆς Μηδίας βασιλέως· καἳ ὁ πατὴρ ἐποίησεν αὐτὸν στρατηγὸν τῶν τῆς Φρυγίας στρατιωτῶν. ἐπεὶ δὲ ἐτελεύτησεν ὁ πατήρ, ὁ Κῦρος σὺν μυρίοις 'Ελλησι καὶ δυνάμει βαρβάρων ἐστρατεύσατο ἐπὶ τὸν βασιλέα, εἰς τὴν Βαβυλωνίαν.
Nice thread, guys. You really have this together!
Thanks, Rindu!
We may be getting a bit ahead of White on this, but I think verbal particles come up so often in this text (both the original Xenophon and White’s condensed Xenophon), that this exercise may be helpful.
List (copy and paste) the present participles ending in -ON (in masculine nominative singular) with meanings like “being”, “having”, “taking”, “ruling”, etc.:
[1.1.1] Δαρείου καὶ Παρυσάτιδος γίγνονται παῖδες δύο, πρεσβύτερος μὲν Ἀρταξέρξης, νεώτερος δὲ Κῦρος· ἐπεὶ δὲ ἠσθένει Δαρεῖος καὶ ὑπώπτευε τελευτὴν τοῦ βίου, ἐβούλετο τὼ παῖδε ἀμφοτέρω παρεῖναι. [1.1.2] ὁ μὲν οὖν πρεσβύτερος παρὼν ἐτύγχανε· Κῦρον δὲ μεταπέμπεται ἀπὸ τῆς ἀρχῆς ἧς αὐτὸν σατράπην ἐποίησε, καὶ στρατηγὸν δὲ αὐτὸν ἀπέδειξε πάντων ὅσοι ἐς Καστωλοῦ πεδίον ἁθροίζονται. ἀναβαίνει οὖν ὁ Κῦρος λαβὼν Τισσαφέρνην ὡς φίλον, καὶ τῶν Ἑλλήνων ἔχων ὁπλίτας ἀνέβη τριακοσίους, ἄρχοντα δὲ αὐτῶν Ξενίαν Παρράσιον. [1.1.3] ἐπεὶ δὲ ἐτελεύτησε Δαρεῖος καὶ κατέστη εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν Ἀρταξέρξης, Τισσαφέρνης διαβάλλει τὸν Κῦρον πρὸς τὸν ἀδελφὸν ὡς ἐπιβουλεύοι αὐτῷ. ὁ δὲ πείθεται καὶ συλλαμβάνει Κῦρον ὡς ἀποκτενῶν· ἡ δὲ μήτηρ ἐξαιτησαμένη αὐτὸν ἀποπέμπει πάλιν ἐπὶ τὴν ἀρχήν. [1.1.4] ὁ δ᾽ ὡς ἀπῆλθε κινδυνεύσας καὶ ἀτιμασθείς, βουλεύεται ὅπως μήποτε ἔτι ἔσται ἐπὶ τῷ ἀδελφῷ, ἀλλά, ἢν δύνηται, βασιλεύσει ἀντ᾽ ἐκείνου. Παρύσατις μὲν δὴ ἡ μήτηρ ὑπῆρχε τῷ Κύρῳ, φιλοῦσα αὐτὸν μᾶλλον ἢ τὸν βασιλεύοντα Ἀρταξέρξην.
Present Participles:
being present ________________
taking ______________________
having ______________________
ruling _______________________
killing _______________________
reigning _____________________