Context: The Athenians in assembly recognize that they have no choice but surrender to the victorious Spartans and their Athenian collaborators, or death.
Proposed translation: Of the good men in the assembly [meeting], perceiving the plot [against them] and the necessity [i.e. surrender or death], some remained keeping quiet, others were absent having departed, being aware at least of this among themselves that they had voted for nothing harmful to the city: but a certain few [i.e. not among the good men] vile and wilfull collaborators voted in favor of what was commanded [ a puppet government obedient to the victorious Spartans].
I can’t give a proper grammatical rationale for “σφίσιν αὐτοῖς”, in the phrase “τοῦτο γοῦν σφίσιν αὐτοῖς συνειδότες”. How to distinguish between the work done by these two words?
“τοῦτο γοῦν σφίσιν αὐτοῖς συνειδότες, ὅτι οὐδὲν κακὸν τῇ πόλει ἐψηφίσαντο”: I want to believe that this clause is meant to praise both the good men who stayed, but remained silent, and and the good men who left the meeting. Some kept silent in the face of the demand, some left; neither group voted for the new regime. Is this reading acceptable?
τῶν δ᾽ ἐν τῇ ἐκκλησία - this refers to both the good and the bad, I think. They are subdivided by τῶν δ᾽ ἐν τῇ ἐκκλησία, ὅσοι ἄνδρες ἀγαθοὶ ἦσαν…ὀλίγοι δέ τινες καὶ πονηροὶ…
Of course, the ἄνδρες ἀγαθοὶ are themselves subdivided into two groups: οἱ μὲν…οἱ δὲ…
τοῦτο γοῦν σφίσιν αὐτοῖς συνειδότες - That συν takes a dative. “Sharing this knowledge at least with each other” or more lit. “knowing this at least among themselves”.
And yes, this refers to all of the good men. That’s what the γοῦν is drawing out. Whether they stayed silent during the vote, or whether they left, at least they all know together that they refused to vote. These guys know who their fellow refusers were and who deserved their “I didn’t vote!” stickers.
You’ve got it pretty well Hugh, but insufficiently exact in places—and Lysias is always very exact.
Your “Of the good men in the assembly” leaves the “Of” dangling, when the subject is ὅσοι ἄνδρες ἀγαθοὶ ἦσαν following the partitive genitive.
Then οἱ μὲν αὐτοῦ μένοντες ἡσυχίαν ἦγον, where your “some remained keeping quiet” ignores αὐτοῦ and deleteriously inverts participle and indicative.
Small points, of course (and there are more), but they add up.
But to your two questions:
τοῦτο γοῦν σφίσιν αὐτοῖς συνειδότες means simply “conscious of this at any rate” (the γοῦν applying to τοῦτο). σφίσιν αὐτοῖς συνειδότες in the singular would be ἑαυτῷ συνειδώς (lit. sharing knowledge with himself). Attic likes to add the reflexive. The συν- doesn’t imply that it’s shared with anyone else. (So I wouldn’t say “with each other,” though of course the situation shows it’s effectively collective.)
Yes the phrase applies primarily to those who upped and left but extends back to cover those who stayed put and kept quiet.
Yes, that’s it, remaining “there” in place as distinct from walking out. But both groups together comprise the ἄνδρες ἀγαθοί, to be contrasted with the spineless ὀλίγοι τινες καὶ πονηροί who voted as they were told to.
Incidentally, in pasting only LSJ II Joel rather obscures the point concerning the use of the reflexive in locutions such as ἑαυτῷ σύνοιδεν. But let it go.