Unit 27, Part II, Exercise 11

Χαίρετε!

I used a modified form of Seneca2008’s translation method to translate a paragraph. I tried figuring out sentence by sentence the grammar first, but then I put some meaning to the words so I would know what the context is. I have a few questions from the passage:

ἐγὼ δέ, ὦ ἄνδρες Ἀθηναῖοι, οὐ τὴν αὐτὴν γνώμην ἔχω περὶ ἑκατέρων·
τούτους μέν, οἳ ἐλευθερίας καὶ τοῦ δικαίου ἐπιθυμοῦντες καὶ τοὺς νόμους
ἰσχύειν [“to be strong,” “to be valid”] βουλόμενοι καὶ τοὺς ἀδικοῦντας
μισοῦντες [“hating”] τῶν ὑμετέρων κινδύνων [“dangers”] μετέσχον, οὐ
πονηροὺς νομίζω εἶναι πολίτας· ἐκείνων δέ, οἳ κατελθόντες [“returning to
their homeland from exile”] ἐν δημοκρατίᾳ τὸ μὲν ὑμέτερον πλῆθος ἀδικοῦσι,
τοὺς δὲ ἰδίους [“personal,” “own”] οἴκους ἐκ τῶν ὑμετέρων μεγάλους ποιοῦσι,
μάλα ἰσχυρῶς δεῖ κατηγορεῖν, ὥσπερ τῶν τριάκοντα.

  1. In the first line, I used γνώμην for the precedent of ἑκατέρων· Should I be searching for a precedent when I encounter ἑκατέρων [each of two]?

  2. The very first word of the passage is a pronoun. I am thinking “emphasis,” so could I translate it “I, even I”?

So far, my translation is this,

But I, O Athenians, do not have the same opinion about the two [opinions?].
These men, desiring liberty and justice and wanting valid laws and hating those who do injustice and partook of your
dangers, I believe are not bad citizens. But those who are returning to their homeland from exile are being unjust to
your masses in democracy and are making their own household from your own [household] great. One must
exceedingly mightily to speak against [them?], just as the Thirty.

Lukas, It’s very pleasing to see that under seneca’s guidance you are now making real progress. My congratulations to you and to him. Let me offer a few comments on your translation of this passage before seneca goes to work on it..

περὶ ἑκατέρων refers to the two groups of people about to be contrasted: τούτους μέν, ἐκείνων δέ.

You’ve sorted out the complex syntax fairly well. Your main error, small but very serious, is that you’ve mistaken the verb of the relative clause that follows τούτους μέν, introduced by οἳ. The Greek gives a set of three participles (ἐπιθυμοῦντες, βουλόμενοι, μισοῦντες), all linked by καί, and then the necessary finite verb to conclude the relative clause, τῶν ὑμετέρων κινδύνων μετέσχον. The participles describe the circumstances under which “they shared in your dangers,” explaining their motives for doing so. By adding an extra “and” (“and partook of their dangers”), you wreck the sense.

You avoid this mistake in the contrasting relative clause that follows ἐκείνων δέ, which again starts with a participle (κατελθόντες) and continues with a forked pair of contrasted finite verbs (ἀδικοῦσι and ποιοῦσι, with μέν and δέ respectively). Where you go wrong here is in falling to see that the initial ἐκείνων is in fact the object of κατηγορεῖν (which takes the genitive), so the structural skeleton is ἐκείνων δὲ δεῖ κατηγορεῖν. It’s sometimes a good idea to reduce sentences to their skeletal form. Diagramming can help too.

And of course it helps if you know the historical circumstances, even though the Greek is intelligible in itself.

I would have thought that the aorist should not have been dropped in the gloss given. Once returned, they now commit the injustice during a time of democratic rule even.

Would I put the last part like this,

“But one must exceedingly mightily speak of those, who are returning to their homeland from exile, are being unjust to
your masses in democracy and are making their own household from your own [household] great. Just as the Thirty.”

It’s not easy to translate, and as long as you accurately understand it, there’s no need to. But translating is an economical (though inexact) way of communicating your understanding of the Greek, and that’s what you are doing.

Your earlier rendering of κατηγορειν as “speak against” was much better than “speak of.” And “exceedingly mightily” for μαλα ισχυρως is unnecessarily unnatural English, when you could say “very strongly.”

In translation you should try to somehow capture the structure of the Greek. κατελθοντες is subordinate to the contrasted (μεν … δε) pair of finite verbs that’s coming up, and your translation completely effaces all that. You could say e.g. “on their return from exile,” and find some way of expressing the μεν … δε opposition (which makes the point that in the restored democracy the anti-democratically minded ex-exiles are profiting at the expense of the pro-democracy Athenians who stayed in Athens during the oligarchy of the Thirty). As I say, it’s not easy, but it’s good that you are now focussing first and foremost on understanding the Greek as it stands. Everything about the Greek is designed to make that easier, but you are still ignoring too much of the help the Greek provides.

How about this,

“But one must speak very strongly against those who are returning to their homeland from exile but are being unjust to
your people within democracy and are making their own household from your own [household] great.
Just as the Thirty [did].”

MWH has rightly drawn attention to the fact that you seem to be focusing on first trying to understand the Greek and only then thinking about the translation. This is a major advance and you should feel very pleased with your progress. I dont have much to add but you might find the following helpful.

This passage is adapted from a speech written by Lysias in a prosecution brought against Ergocles, an Athenian general who took part in a naval expedition commanded by Thrasybulus during the Corinthian War (395-387 BC). The expedition was initially successful but had disastrous consequences because it alarmed the Persians and caused them to switch sides from Athens to Sparta. The Persians imposed a Peace on the Athenians and their allies which left Sparta in control. Thrasybulus died during the expedition and later on Ergocles came back to Athens. It seems that Ergocles was accused of embezzlement. "At any rate, Ergocles was convicted and executed, despite his having been one of Thrasybulus’ associates in the democratic counterrevolution of 403. "(Todd p.288 “Lysias (Oratory of Classical Greece)” ).

Lysias" style is usually quite clear but it is rhetoric so he makes a lot of use of antithesis and, as MWH has advised, you have to try to retain that sense of structure in your translation. When faced with a passage like this before translating you might find it helpful to copy or type out the Greek and break down the structure something like this:

ἐγὼ δέ, ὦ ἄνδρες Ἀθηναῖοι, οὐ τὴν αὐτὴν γνώμην ἔχω περὶ ἑκατέρων·

τούτους μέν,

οἳ ἐλευθερίας καὶ τοῦ δικαίου ἐπιθυμοῦντες καὶ τοὺς νόμους
ἰσχύειν [“to be strong,” “to be valid”] βουλόμενοι καὶ τοὺς ἀδικοῦντας
μισοῦντες [“hating”] τῶν ὑμετέρων κινδύνων [“dangers”] μετέσχον, οὐ
πονηροὺς νομίζω εἶναι πολίτας·

ἐκείνων δέ,

οἳ κατελθόντες [“returning to
their homeland from exile”] ἐν δημοκρατίᾳ

τὸ μὲν ὑμέτερον πλῆθος ἀδικοῦσι,

τοὺς δὲ ἰδίους [“personal,” “own”] οἴκους ἐκ τῶν ὑμετέρων μεγάλους ποιοῦσι,
μάλα ἰσχυρῶς δεῖ κατηγορεῖν, ὥσπερ τῶν τριάκοντα.

Use the μέν..δέ pairings to understand how the passage works. You might find it helpful to underline the finite verbs and italicise the supplementary participles.

I think you haven’t quite grasped where "ἐν δημοκρατίᾳ " fits in here. The exiles have returned “under [a] democracy”. As MWH mentions the Spartans supported an oligarchy (the “thirty”) in Athens at the end of the Peloponnesian war and many Athenians went into exile (including Lysias who only just escaped with his life). The complication for the whole speech is that Thrasybulus (and presumably Ergocles) were part of the restoration of democracy and the expulsion of the oligarchy.

As Joel has pointed out “κατελθόντες” is aorist (the gloss only gives the sense not the translation). So its better to write something like “having returned home from exile”.

It is difficult to translate Greek rhetoric into clear English without sacrificing something. Generally speaking rhetoric has a poor press these days. But President Obama has a highly rhetorical turn of phrase and of course Martin Luther King Jr. was a highly effective proponent. It is interesting that for rhetoric in English one turns more to American examples. (Perhaps in the UK the disconnect between the promises of post war Churchillian rhetoric and the lack of delivery on those promises devalued it somewhat. I know that some here disapprove of the intrusion of politics into classical studies but rhetoric is an avowedly political category. Lysias’ prosecution speeches can seem thin to us if you dont take account of the political background or the cultural expectations of the audience.)

I once went to a conference and heard a panel of relatively young speakers giving papers on rhetoric. A very distinguished Senecan scholar lent over to me and said with a wry expression " why is it that the people who study rhetoric are so bad at expressing their ideas?" :smiley: He was more interested in his own joke I think rather than the truth of his rhetorical assertion, although the papers were not that exciting.

I would think that ἐν δημοκρατίᾳ goes with ἀδικοῦσι rather than κατελθόντες.

The Lysias rhetoric here suffered has suffered so much in the dumbing down that it’s hardly fair to comment. Comparing Obama’s (generally mediocre) speechwriters to MLK’s personal (the plagiarism is overblown) rhetorical performances is only possible through the rose-colored glasses of politics. We can have that discussion, of course, but in the Academy.

Thanks for the responses MWH, Seneca2008, Barry, and Jeidsath. I barely know how to spell Rhetoric, let alone use it. I have heard about Demosthenes and overcoming some oratory trouble(s) by placing pebbles in his mouth. I was not familiar with Lysias until the past few months.

I’ve seen the pebbles story before, but I can’t remember where. Plutarch’s Lives? The ΛΙΒΑΝΙΟΥ ΥΠΟΘΕΣΕΙΣ at the beginning of the Demosthenes OCT has a short section including some of his training techniques, though not that one.

καὶ γὰρ δειλὸς ἦν τὸ πρῶτον πρὸς τοὺς τοῦ δήμου θορύβους καὶ εὐκατάπληκτος, ὥστ᾽ εὐθὺς ἐξίστασθαι. διὰ δὲ τοῦτό φασιν αὐτὸν ἄνεμον ῥαγδαῖον τηροῦντα καὶ κινουμένην σφοδρῶς τὴν θάλατταν παρὰ τοὺς αἰγιαλοὺς βαδίζοντα λέγειν, καὶ τῷ τῆς θαλάττης ἤχῳ συνεθίζεσθαι φέρειν τὰς τοῦ δήμου καταβοάς.

μνημονεύονται δ᾽ αὐτοῦ καὶ οἰκήσεις κατάγειοι καὶ ξυρήσεις ἀπρεπεῖς, ἵνα δι᾽ αἰσχύνην μὴ προΐοι τοῦ τῆς οἰκίας δωματίου, καὶ ὡς οὐδὲ τὰς νύκτας ἐκάθευδεν, ἀλλὰ διεπονεῖτο πρὸς φῶς περὶ λόγους.

καὶ μὴν ὅτι γ᾽ ὕδωρ ἐπετήδευε πίνειν, ἵν᾽ ἐγρηγορυῖαν μᾶλλον παρέχηται τὴν διάνοιαν, ἅπασιν ὡμολόγηται.

παρειλήφαμεν δὲ κἀκεῖνο, ὡς καὶ ξίφος ποτ᾽ ἐκ τῆς ὀροφῆς ἀπήρτησε καὶ ἱστάμενος ὑπὸ τοῦτ᾽ ἔλεγεν. ἐποίει δὲ τοῦτο δἰ αἰτίαν τοιαύτην. ἐν τῷ λέγειν ἀπρεπῶς τὸν ὦμον εἰώθει κινεῖν· ὑπερεκρέμασεν οὖν τοῦ ὤμου τὸ ξίφος ἐν χρῷ, καὶ οὕτω τῷ δέει τῆς πληγῆς ἠδυνήθη κατασχεῖν ἑαυτὸν ἐπὶ τοῦ πρέποντος σχήματος.

It also has assorted anecdotes about his witty comebacks (similar to the hagiographic ones about Churchill/Lincoln).

Yes. Do a find “pebbles” in this passage, and you will see it: http://classics.mit.edu/Plutarch/demosthe.html

Yes, Plutarch’s Demosthenes 11.1

[1] τοῖς δὲ σωματικοῖς ἐλαττώμασι τοιαύτην ἐπῆγεν ἄσκησιν, ὡς ὁ Φαληρεύς Δημήτριος ἱστορεῖ, λέγων αὐτοῦ Δημοσθένους ἀκούειν πρεσβύτου γεγονότος, τὴν μὲν ἀσάφειαν καὶ τραυλότητα τῆς γλώττης ἐκβιάζεσθαι καὶ διαρθροῦν εἰς τὸ στόμα ψήφους λαμβάνοντα καὶ ῥήσεις ἅμα λέγοντα…

I had said

κατελθοντες is subordinate to the contrasted (μεν … δε) pair of finite verbs that’s coming up, and your translation completely effaces all that.

In response Lukas wrote

How about this,

“But one must speak very strongly against those who are returning to their homeland from exile but are being unjust to
your people within democracy and are making their own household from your own [household] great.
Just as the Thirty [did].”

Clearly I failed to make myself understood. I’m out.

Well, here’s by best attempt at an example instead of an explanation:

καταφαγὼν ἐκείνους ὁ Κύκλωψ μεγαλοπρεπῶς τοὺς μὲν ναύτας ἐπῄνει τὸ γεῦμα, τοὺς δὲ σατύρους ἐκάκιζε διὰ τὰ κέρατα.

It was me who failed to understand what you said.

Thanks for writing privately to me to point out that “ἐν δημοκρατίᾳ” "has to go with both of the μεν … δε clauses, not just with the first, as the position of μεν shows. "

I often feel after these exchanges like a child who has disappointed a favourite teacher. Ah the long arm of one’s schooldays! :smiley:

Yes, it goes with both. Sorry for the misleading lack of clarity, I didn’t mean to suggest otherwise. The point was that it didn’t go with the preceding participle.

(Children/schoolmasters, really?)