τοῖς use as pronoun in dative plural?

Greek Learning Greek
1

I’m unsure about the meaning of τοῖς in the following sentence.

Thucydides, 1.123.1

τὰ μὲν οὖν προγεγενημένα τί δεῖ μακρότερον ἢ ἐς ὅσον τοῖς νῦν ξυμφέρει
αἰτιᾶσθαι;

Translation: Why make more recriminations about past things except the ones concerning which now it is profitable [to make recriminations]?

The phrase “concerning which” is my effort to put τοῖς in English.

2

τοῖς νῦν is masculine. μακρότερον ἢ ἐς ὅσον τοῖς νῦν ξυμφέρει is literally “at greater length than up to as much as is beneficial to people nowadays.”

All OK now, Hugh?

3

Many thanks, Michael.

I’ll have to work through this slowly, word by word.

4

A couple of question about this reading:

μακρότερον and ἐς ὅσον are both understood adverbially?

τοῖς νῦν is understood as masculine “to people/men now”, and not neuter “to affairs now”?

These are issues I did not apprehend while trying to understand the sentence.

5

Yes μακρότερον adverbial, with αἰτιᾶσθαι. (Neut.sing. comparatives double as adj. or adv.)
And yes ἐς ὅσον also adverbial. Lit. “to as much as it’s beneficial.” ξυμφέρει impersonal.
So “Why should we blame past actions at greater length than to the extent that it’s beneficial?” i.e. We should criticize only as much as it’s helpful to do so.

τοις νυν by itself could be dative of τα νυν (“present circumstances” or “current affairs” or the like) or of οἱ νῦν (“people today” or the like). Here evidently the latter (since one benefits people not things).

6

Many thanks Michael. Your replies are always instructive.

7

I don’t why I said τοῖς νῦν is masculine. It’s quite obviously neuter, the present as opposed to τὰ προγεγενημένα, and if I’d only looked at the context the next sentence makes it even clearer. Hugh, you must have seen that I was talking through my hat. You should have said!

8

Thanks, Michael, for looking again at that gender issue.