Passage in Apology Plato

Greek Learning Greek
1

I have a question about passage 23d9 in Plato’s apology, I am wondering why the “ἅτε οὖν οἶμαι” is followed by a nominative instead of an accusative. My understanding is that it translates literally as “Therefore seeing that I consider”. I would expect the “φιλότιμοι ὄντες καὶ σφοδροὶ…” and what follows to be the direct object of “ἅτε οὖν οἶμαι”. Is there a peculiarity about this “οἶμαι” verb that I do not know about?

ἅτε οὖν οἶμαι φιλότιμοι ὄντες καὶ σφοδροὶ καὶ πολλοί, καὶ συντεταμένως καὶ πιθανῶς λέγοντες περὶ ἐμοῦ, ἐμπεπλήκασιν ὑμῶν τὰ ὦτα καὶ πάλαι καὶ σφοδρῶς διαβάλλοντες.

2

οἶμαι is parenthetical. The nominative participles agree with the understood subject of ἐμπεπλήκασιν.

“Inasmuch as, I think, they are ambitious and vehement and numerous, and they speak earnestly and persuasively, they have struck your ears, vehemently slandering [me] for a long time.”

3

I think ἅτε οὖν οἶμαι means something like “as far as I can see”. What follows is not a direct object, but ἅτε οὖν οἶμαι is a disconnected parenthesis that expresses a certain degree of uncertainty, a bit like English “I guess”, “I suppose”.

“They being, as far as I can see, jealous of their honor, excessive in their behavior, and numerous,…”

I didn’t look this in context so the translation is maybe not very exact.

EDIT: Qimmik got there first. I’m still submitting this…

4

Paul’s interpretation is also possible and maybe even better.

5

No, surely parenthetical, as so often. ατε w/ pple.

6

You must mean only οἶμαι is parenthetical. Is the interpretation I gave impossible or just unlikely in the context?

7

ατε w/ pple – that was my first reaction, but then I wondered if Paul could be right. οἶμαι is often parenthetical. I think the natural way to read it is ατε w/ pple and οἶμαι as parenthetical. And in context it makes more sense, I think.

8

I am glad you cleared that up I was having a hard time discovering exactly what you were in disagreement about.

9

The difference in translation:

οἶμαι parenthetical:

Inasmuch as/because, I think, they are ambitious and aggressive and numerous, and they speak earnestly and persuasively, they have struck your ears, . . .

οἶμαι dependent on ἅτε might be:

Insofar as I think/in my view, being ambitious and aggressive and numerous, and speaking earnestly and persuasively, they have struck your ears . . .

I can’t say for sure that this is absolutely impossible, though it seems unusual.

But ἅτε with participle is a common idiom.

Smyth 2085

  1. With participles of cause (2064): ἅτε (ἅτε δη), οἷα or οἷον (οἷον δή) inasmuch as, state the cause as a fact on the authority of the speaker or writer. Thus, ὁ Κῦρος, ἅτε παῖς ὤν, . . . ἥδετο τῇ στολῇ Cyrus, inasmuch as he was a child, was pleased with the robe X. C. 1.3.3, ἥκομεν ἑσπέρα_ς ἀπὸ τοῦ στρατοπέδου, οἷον δὲ διὰ χρόνου ἀφι_γμένος ᾖ ἐπὶ τὰ_ς συνήθεις διατριβά_ς I returned in the evening from the camp, and, as I arrived after a long absence, I proceeded to my accustomed haunts P. Charm. 153a, ““οἷα δὴ ἀπιόντων πρὸς δεῖπνον . . . τῶν πελταστῶν, . . . ἐπελαύνουσι” inasmuch as the peltasts were going off to supper, they rode against them” X. H. 5.4.39. ὥστε has the same force in Hdt.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Smyth+grammar+2085&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0007

And οἶμαι is frequently parenthetical.

LSJ οἶμαι:

IV. [select] parenthetically, mostly in first person, ἐν πρώτοισιν, ὀΐω, κείσεται among the first, I ween, will he be lying, Il.8.536 ; “ἔπειτά γ᾽, ὀΐω, γνώσεαι” Od.16.309, cf. Il.13.153, Od.2.255, etc. : in Hom. only in act. form ὀΐω, exc. “ὀΐομαι” Od.22.140, and perh. 14.363, cf. A.Ch. 758 ; in Att. this parenthetic use is prob. confined to the shorter form οἶμαι, impf. ᾤμην ; rarely in other persons than the first, as οὐκ οἴει ἀναγκασθήσεται; Pl.R.486c, cf. Tht.147b ; πόσης οἴεσθε γέμει σωφροσύνης; Id.Smp.216d.

  1. [select] expressive of modesty or courtesy, to avoid over-great bluntness of assertion, Id.Grg.483c, X.Cyr.1.3.11, etc. : even between a Prep. and its case, “ἐξ οἶμαι τῆς ἀκροτάτης ἐλευθερίας” Pl.R.564a ; “ἐν οἶμαι πολλοῖς” D.20.3 ; or between Art. and Subst., “οἱ γὰρ οἶμαι βέλτιστοι” Id.54.38.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=oi)%2Fomai&la=greek&can=oi)%2Fomai0&prior=oi)=mai&d=Perseus:text:1999.04.0057:entry=oi)=mai&i=1#lexicon

10

Sorry to have been too cryptic. Qimmik’s first post was right. Only oimai is parethetcal. ate oimai impossible.

11

Yes the translations are different. But both Paul and Q found a parenthesis with different boundaries.

For whatever reason LCL 1914 translates first οἴομαι and ignores the second.

τὰ γὰρ ἀληθῆ, οἴομαι, οὐκ ἂν ἐθέλοιεν λέγειν, ὅτι κατάδηλοι γίγνονται προσποιούμενοι μὲν εἰδέναι, εἰδότες δὲ οὐδέν. Eἅτε οὖν, οἶμαι, φιλότιμοι ὄντες καὶ σφοδροὶ καὶ πολλοί, καὶ ξυντεταγμένως2 καὶ πιθανῶς λέγοντες περὶ ἐμοῦ, ἐμπεπλήκασιν ὑμῶν τὰ ὦτα καὶ πάλαι καὶ σφοδρῶς διαβάλλοντες.

For they would not, I fancy, care to say the truth, that it is being made very clear that they pretend to know, but know nothing. Since, then, they are jealous of their honour and energetic and numerous and speak concertedly and persuasively about me, they have filled your ears both long ago and now with vehement slanders.

12

I have no reason not believe mwh that I was wrong. It’s good to learn something new! ἅτε goes together with ὄντες and λέγοντες (but not, οἶμαι, with διαβάλλοντες, which goes with ἐμπεπλήκασιν), and only οἶμαι is parenthetical.

13

Yes Paul that’s it. ατε οιμαι is simply not Greek. The ατε qualifies the participles, as it must.

To clarify (or obfuscate?) further, for anyone looking at the thread:
Nothing can be dependent on ατε, any more than anything can be dependent on e.g. καιπερ. Such words (technically adverbs, but of a special kind) dance attendance on participles, narrowing their otherwise unlimited semantic range; their function is to lend a certain force to the participial phrases they head. Syntactically they’re dispensable (they come at the end of a hierarchy tree, they have no effect on the construction). As such they’re fundamentally different from words such as επει or ει, which introduce subordinate clauses (finite verbs). In translation this all-important grammatical distinction is effaced, English being a clumsier language.

And yes, there’s nothing to dissociate any of the participles up to the main verb from the opening ατε, but once we hit the main verb it ceases to be active.

14

Sorry, I meant to go back and fix “dependent on” but neglected to do so. Couldn’t think of the right word when I originally wrote the post, even though I knew that “dependent on” was not correct. Maybe “introduced by” would be better. οἶμαι is not “introduced by” ἅτε. I apologize for adding another level of confusion to the confusion caused by my equivocation.

15

Thanks for the explanation. I would have figured it out if the text had commas.