I came upon this phrase in Rutherford’s Syntax which he translates as “dangers peculiar to those in command.” I take ἐφεστηκότων to be the perfect active participle of ἐφίστημι. I cannot get the sense of “command” from the LSJ. Nor can I find the phrase in the corpus of Greek literature. Am I looking in the wrong place? I assume that all of Rutherford’s examples are taken from actual texts.
Hi Charlie,
Take a closer look at the LSJ entry- if you go down to section B II, you’ll see that the active participle is being used absolutely, yielding “ὁ ἐφεστηκώς” (person in charge, officer in command). I believe τῶν ἐφεστηκότων is the object of ἴδιοι
I found the usage here since I’ve been playing with BrillDAG (what’s their official abbreviation?):
ⓒ to be over, usu. fig. to be placed in front, be (put) at the head 
τινι for or of sthg. or s.o. AESCHL. Sept. 538 SOPH. Ai. 945 etc. = ἐπί τινι or τινος PLAT. Rp. 460b XEN. Hier. 9.5 DEMOSTH. 19.298 = rar. τινος HDT. 7.117.1 EUR. Andr. 1098 | abs. subst. ptc. ὁ ἐφεστηκώς person in office, head, commander, magistrate XEN. Oec. 21.9 = pl. οἱ ἐφεστῶτες (Ion. ἐπεστεῶτες) HDT. 2.148.5 XEN. Mem. 3.5.19 etc.
Montanari, F. (2015). M. Goh & C. Schroeder (Eds.), The Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek. Leiden; Boston: Brill.
It’s in the LSJ article too, at B.II. The problem (as is often the case in LSJ articles) is that that just because B starts out with “intr. in Med. and Pass.”, doesn’t mean that every usage referred to is going to be Med. and Pass.
I’m surprised that I can’t find it in the Cambridge Greek Lexicon. Maybe I didn’t look hard enough, but I don’t see it. I was interested in seeing how they would handle this.
EDIT: They put it in the -ἐφίσταμαι entry with the note “also ACT.” for the forms. See 7. “STATV.PF. and PLPF.ACT. be in charge”
Hello again Charlie,
The phrase is from Demosthenes’ 2nd Olynthiac, 28. Note the local context: τίνος γὰρ εἵνεκ᾽, ὦ ἄνδρες Ἀθηναῖοι, νομίζετε τοῦτον μὲν φεύγειν τὸν πόλεμον πάντας ὅσους ἂν ἐκπέμψητε στρατηγούς, ἰδίους δ᾽ εὑρίσκειν πολέμους, εἰ δεῖ τι τῶν ὄντων καὶ περὶ τῶν στρατηγῶν εἰπεῖν; ὅτι ἐνταῦθα μέν ἐστι τἆθλ᾽ ὑπὲρ ὧν ἐστιν ὁ πόλεμος ὑμέτερα (Ἀμφίπολίς γ᾽ ἂν ληφθῇ, παραχρῆμ᾽ ὑμεῖς κομιεῖσθε), οἱ δὲ κίνδυνοι τῶν ἐφεστηκότων ἴδιοι, μισθὸς δ᾽ οὐκ ἔστιν: ἐκεῖ δὲ κίνδυνοι μὲν ἐλάττους, τὰ δὲ λήμματα τῶν ἐφεστηκότων καὶ τῶν στρατιωτῶν, Λάμψακος, Σίγειον, τὰ πλοῖ᾽ ἃ συλῶσιν.
As I think most Textkit users know, you can find passages via the Perseus Tufts site, which has a very useful searchable collection of ancient Greek literary texts.
ἐφέστηκα, like καθέστηκα etc., is intransitive, and “stative.” These -μι verbs are the devil, and the semantics of the various tense and voice forms of (-)ἵστημι are the worst. Not even (-)ἵημι is as confusing. But they’re in frequent use, so you should get used to them soon enough.
οἱ κίνδυνοι τῶν ἐφεστηκότων ἴδιοι “the dangers of those placed in charge” (i,e the risks that they face) "are their own.”
I’ve heard it called MGS, though only once. That at least is a handling consistent with LSJ and BDAG.
Thx
D
Thank you all. Now I see it. I did not consider section B in the LSJ because it says middle and passive. I did not realize that the section also included active forms.