ἐποιήσαντο εἰρήνην

Greek Learning Greek
1

I’m still trying to get a sense of the middle voice. Why is the middle aorist ἐποιήσαντο used here instead of the active aorist?

ἐποιήσαντο εἰρήνην ἐϕ᾿ ᾧ τὰ μακρὰ τείχη καθελόντες τοῖς Λακεδαιμονίοις ἕπεσθαι (or ἕψονται).
They made peace on condition that after taking down the long walls they would follow the Spartans.

Does it have anything to do with this Wiktionary definition? (which I admittedly don’t understand):

ποιέω [,]
to cause
Used in the middle with a noun periphrastically for the verb derived from said noun.

Or is the middle used to convey they “made peace to their own benefit”?

Or does it have the sense of “reciprocally” (made peace with one another)?

.Betts, Gavin; Henry, Alan. Complete Ancient Greek: A Comprehensive Guide to Reading and Understanding Ancient Greek, with Original Texts (Complete Language Courses) (p. 266). John Murray Press. Kindle Edition.

2

I’d say it means something like “made peace to their own benefit”?

I think ἐϕ᾿ ᾧ here means something like ”to the effect that”, ”according to which”, not ”on condition that”.

3

Thanks Paul!

5

Hi again,

I just found this explanation, according to which the middle voice implies involvement in the action:
ποιούμενοι making the middle of ποιέω is used with nouns to indicate the involvement of the subject, cf. πόλεμον ποιεῖσθαι to wage war; εἰρήνην ποιεῖσθαι to keep peace but πόλεμον ποιεῖν to cause a war (but not necessarily be involved in it); εἰρήνην ποιεῖν to impose peace (on belligerents);

Betts, Gavin; Henry, Alan. Complete Ancient Greek: A Comprehensive Guide to Reading and Understanding Ancient Greek, with Original Texts (Complete Language Courses) (p. 296). John Murray Press. Kindle Edition.