Plato, Apology, 20ξ; apparent conditional sentence??

Greek Learning Greek
1

Context: Socrates presents a possible objection to his defense by critics.

οὐ γὰρ δήπου σοῦ γε οὐδὲν τῶν ἄλλων περιττότερον πραγματευομένου
ἔπειτα τοσαύτη φήμη τε καὶ λόγος γέγονεν, εἰ μή τι ἔπραττες ἀλλοῖον ἢ
οἱ πολλοί.

This looks like a conditional sentence. Here is my analysis of the
sentence, but notice that I assign no function to one word, ἔπειτα.

The protasis, although logically prior, comes second in the order of
the sentence:

εἰ μή τι ἔπραττες ἀλλοῖον ἢ οἱ πολλοί.

The apodosis:

οὐ γὰρ δήπου σοῦ . . . τοσαύτη φήμη τε καὶ λόγος γέγονεν

And agreeing with σοῦ a participial phrase:

οὐδὲν τῶν ἄλλων περιττότερον πραγματευομένου

And here is my attempt at translation:

“[Look here Socrates, from context] if you were not doing something
different from the majority of men, then this criticism of you would
not have arisen–[implied: although you suggest you were] busy at nothing
more remarkable than anybody else.”

This is the best I can do for now, but the participial phrase doesn’t make
much sense to me, and I haven’t translated ἔπειτα.

2

For certainly this great report and talk has not arisen while you were doing nothing more out of the way than the rest, unless you were doing something other than most people;
this is from perseus and this is correct.

3

You’ve got the sense of it, and a pretty good analysis as far as it goes. As do you, I see the genitive absolute as functioning itself as the equivalent of a conditional clause, “If you had been engaged in no activity different from others…” ἔπειτα, simply “then” drawing an inference. The conditional clause εἰ μή then restates the GA.

4

Hello again Hugh,
επειτα simply marks the sequence of events (Lat. deinde; it’s not inferential). And I don’t see the participial phrase as conditional.

“After all, it’s not that there were you (σοῦ γε), just going about your business like everyone else, and next thing you know (επειτα) all this talk has come into being and you’ve gotten this great reputation.”

Formally speaking, as you recognize, the main clause is ου … γενονεν. There’s nothing conditional about it—it’s not “would not have" but simply “has not”; but the negative at the outset controls the entire clause, not just this verb, so you should get the negative up front if possible.
The eventual if-clause comes as an appendage, a sting in the tail, ”—unless you were doing something out of the ordinary.” It’s phrased as if he had started not with ου γεγονεν but with ουκ αν εγενετο (“wouldn’t have arisen”)—for of course it has arisen, as the first part of the sentence already said.

It’s important (as always!) to read it in the order in which it comes.

5

Many thanks for the replies, and especially for mwh’s reading, which
unlocked the sentence for me. Thanks also to Constantinus and Barry
for their efforts to help.

I knew I had run aground, because I had looked at translations, my
last resort before running up the distress signal here. I had also
read the notes of Geoffrey Steadman and James J. Helm.