ἐπεὶ δὲ πάντες συνεκαθεζόμεθα, ὁ Πρωταγόρας, νῦν δὴ ἄν, ἔφη, λέγοις, ὦ Σώκρατες, ἐπειδὴ καὶ οἵδε πάρεισιν, περὶ ὧν ὀλίγον πρότερον μνείαν ἐποιοῦ πρὸς ἐμὲ ὑπὲρ τοῦ νεανίσκου. Why is the middle form ἐποιοῦ used here?Would it be possible to use the active ἐποίεις ?
Why is the middle form ἐποιοῦ used here?
Because … it was? And if, skeptical for some reason about Plato’s knowledge of contemporary Greek, I check out LSJ, I immediately find περί τινος μνείαν ποιεῖσθαι in Andocides and μ. τινῶν ποιεῖσθαι ἐπὶ τῶν προσευχῶν in the Epistle to the Romans, which tells me at least that μνείαν ποεῖσθαι was an everyday idiom that endured through the centuries. Which for me, at least, is all I need to know.
But you want to know,
Would it be possible to use the active ἐποίεις?
Let me play Professor. “That is an excellent question, Mr. Philo. Please find all instances in the TLG of μνεῖα with any form of ποιεῖν and report back to the class!”
What do you mean by “possible”?
I once had an international student say to me, “Shall we imbibe drinks tonight?” That’s a possible English sentence. It even communicates successfully what the speaker intended. And it just isn’t right, and it resulted in a good discussion on idiomatic ways to ask if somebody wants to go out for drinks. I suspect the same here. The active would be “possible” and even understandable, but no one who knew the language would say it that way.
but no one who knew the language would say it that way
How on earth would you know that?
But Randy he’s right. This is an absolutely typical use of ποιεῖσθαι. The active would be quite wrong.
(How on earth would I know? By having some slight competence in ancient Greek. No more than that is needed.)
So the answers to Constantinus’ two questions are Because it’s the appropriate form to use, and No.
εἰ δὲ βούλει, Κλεινίαν, τὸν Ἀλκιβιάδου τουτουῒ νεώτερον ἀδελφόν, … there must be an ellipsis here… but what verb is to be added?
My Greek is less than slight, so I have to think hard about this. I assume this falls under LSJ: “5 freq. in Med. with Nouns periphr. for the Verb derived from the Noun, μύθου ποιήσασθαι ἐπισχεσίην submit a plea, Od.21.71;…”
The English is “make mention”, but that’s just idiom. It’s not really a thing produced, or made, or done.
You really must stop thinking in such terms. No verb is to be added, and no particular verb is to be understood.
Imagine this piece of dialogue:
“What shall we do this evening?” “If you like, we could listen to our favorite president.”
Would you think “There must be an ellipsis here” and wonder what verb is to be added?
You’d do well to get away from your grammar books once in a while and learn something of discourse analysis or pragmatics. Here, as should be obvious, εἰ δὲ βούλει means something like “Or to take another example.”
but no one who knew the language would say it that way.
If you know that, Barry, because, like Michael, you have some “slight competence” in ancient Greek, I’ll accept that 
. Though I would substitute “experience” for “competence”.
Notice that I used the word “suspect.” Apart from a living linguaculture, nobody can know anything with certainty, but based on the ordinary usage that we’ve already pointed out, I think it’s quite likely.
However, inspired by your “do your homework” comment above, I could find no use in classical literature (and the NT) of μνεία as the object of ποιέω where ποιέω was not in the middle and the sense was not something like “mention.” In the papyri, however, it seems to be used in the sense of “remember” both in the active and the middle:
ἤδη δʼ ἐστὶν ἔτος
[4]τούτο δεύτερον. καλῶς ἂν οὖν ποιήσαις ἐπισκεψάμενος καὶ ἐμφανίσας Ἀπολλωνί-
[5][ωι -ca. ?- ]……[ -ca. ?- ]ι̣ π̣ερὶ ἡμ̣ῶ̣ν μνείαν ποίησαι, ὅπως μὴ γυμνοὶ ὦμεν.
P.Cair.Zen.: Zenon Papyri, Catalogue général des antiquités Égyptiennes du Musée du Caire. (n.d.). Perseus Digital Library.
Or in what looks like a somewhat formulaic expression:
[1]Διονυσία Θέωνι τῷ κυρίωι χαίρειν καὶ ἐρρῶσθαι, ἔρρωμαι δὲ καὶ αὐτή, σοῦ τὴν ἀρίστην μνείαν
[2]ἐπὶ παντὸς ἀγαθοῦ ποιουμένη ουʼ διαλείπω.
P.Bad.: Veröffentlichungen aus den badischen Papyrus-Sammlungen. (n.d.). Perseus Digital Library.
So at least in later colloquial Greek, μνείαν ποιῆσαι and μνείαν ποιεῖσθαι both appear to be used in the sense of “remember.”
Disclaimer: I most certainly did not examine every usage of the hundreds of hits that I got, only spot checking in various authors until I had some interesting info. Perhaps someone with more time and access to a bigger database can affirm or correct this.
Well, I certainly trust Michael’s slight experiential competence. As for my own, I simply hope to keep making progress.
π̣ερὶ ἡμ̣ῶ̣ν μνείαν ποίησαι
Michael?
I don’t think that this is just a usage pattern thing. Michael indicates that it has to do with how the active and middle of ποιέω get used in general, and if so, we shouldn’t need to search through papyrus examples to spot what it is. Though they do seem to confirm the pattern.
Sorry, Joel, but I have no idea what you just said.
Michael, I still look forward (genuinely, nor snarkily) to your comment on π̣ερὶ ἡμ̣ῶ̣ν μνείαν ποίησαι, not only because you are slightly competent in ancient Greek in general but because you know a thing or two about papyrological Greek.
Sorry, Joel, but I have no idea what you just said.
As a native speaker of English, I’d say that I dropped something “under a table,” but I would never say that I dropped it “below a table.” Even though “below” and “under” would mean exactly the same thing semantically, I choose the one and never the other. This is a usage difference. There will be no way for future generations find this out from a dictionary of English. They will have to search Google Books for the statistical pattern, etc.
On the other hand, I would say “write a book” to describe composing a novel, and “make a book” to describe stitching one together from leaves. This is a semantic rule, trivially investigated through an English dictionary, and centuries hence, I expect our future scholars of the dead language English to be able to make the distinction from their basic understanding of the verb “make,” no Google Books search necessary.
So, what I was saying, was that you and Barry are investigating μνείαν ποιεῖσθαι like it’s an example of the first sort of rule, but Michael’s comment makes it sound like it’s an example of the second.
Ditto. Joel, if you are saying what I think you are saying, then isn’t looking for examples in the literature precisely what we need to be doing? Our work is descriptive, not prescriptive.
Ditto ditto. What good is slight competence if we can’t avail ourselves of it?
Michael indicates that it has to do with how the active and middle of ποιέω get used in general
It’s only 9:00 am west coast time, and Michael is probably still sleeping off a long night of fireworks and excitement about the president’s speech, so I’ll sneak in one more comment before he awakes to hopefully enlighten us.
So thanks for the clarification, Joel, and I think I see the distinction you are making. If Michael was indicating a semantic ‘rule’ of sorts about active versus middle (a rule that someone with only “slight competence” would know!) - and if he was, I didn’t get that - that’s why I asked Mr. Philo what he meant by “possible”, because I felt he might be asking if such a rule applied here.
So Mr. Philo, wherever you are, please clarify if that’s what you meant by “possible”, and Michael, please wake up!
π̣ερὶ ἡμ̣ῶ̣ν μνείαν ποίησαι. I’m sorry to have to point it out but this is not active but middle. The editor of the papyrus, having some competence in Greek, recognized that and accented accordingly.
Don’t be sorry! Duh.
Ah, so an imperative, good catch.